I Capture the Castle (6 page)

There is a bubbling noise in the cistern which means that Stephen is pumping. Oh, joyous thought, tonight is my bath night! And if Stephen is in, it must be teatime. I shall go down and be very kind to everyone.

Noble deeds and hot baths are the best cures for depression.

Little did I think what the evening was to bring-something has actually happened to us! My imagination longs to dash ahead and plan developments; but I have noticed that when things happen in one’s imaginings, they never happen in one’s life, so I am curbing myself. Instead of indulging in riotous hopes I shall describe the evening from the beginning, quietly gloating-for now every moment seems exciting because of what came later.

I have sought refuge in our barn. As a result of what happened last night, Rose and Topaz are spring-cleaning the drawing-room. They are being wonderfully blithe—when I dwindled away from them Rose was singing “The Isle of Capri” very high and Topaz was singing “Blow the Man Down” very low. The morning is blithe too, warmer, with the sun shining, though the countryside is still half-drowned. The barn—we rent it to Mr. Stebbins but we owe him so much for milk and butter that he no longer pays—is piled high with loose chaff and I have climbed up on it and opened the square door near the roof so that I can see out. I look across stubble and ploughed fields and drenched winter wheat to the village, where the smoke from the chimneys is going straight up in the still air. Everything is pale gold and washed clean, and hopeful.

When I came down from the attic yesterday, I found that Rose and Topaz had dyed everything they could lay hands on, including the dishcloth and the roller towel.

Once I had dipped my handkerchief into the big tin bath of green dye, I got fascinated too-it really makes one feel rather Godlike to turn things a different color. I did both my nightgowns and then we all did Topaz’s sheets which was such an undertaking that it exhausted our lust. Father came down for tea and was not too pleased that Topaz had dyed his yellow cardigan—it is now the color of very old moss. And he thought our arms being green up to the elbows was revolting.

We had real butter for tea because Mr. Stebbins gave Stephen some when he went over to fix about working (he started at the farm this morning); and Mrs.

Stebbins had sent a comb of honey. Stephen put them down in my place so I felt like a hostess. I shouldn’t think even millionaires could eat anything nicer than new bread and real butter and honey for tea.

I have rarely heard such rain as there was during the meal. I am never happy when the elements go to extremes; I don’t think I am frightened, but I imagine the poor countryside being battered until I end by feeling battered myself. Rose is just the opposite—it is as if she is egging the weather on, wanting louder claps of thunder and positively encouraging forked lightning. She went to the door while it was raining and reported that the garden was completely flooded.

“The lane’ll be like a river,” she remarked with satisfaction, not being a girl to remember that Thomas would have to ride his bicycle down it within an hour—he was staying late at school for a lecture.

Father said:

“Let me add to your simple pleasure in Nature’s violence by reminding you that there will shortly be at least six glorious new leaks in our roof.”

There was one in the kitchen already; Stephen put a bucket under it. I told him the two attic leaks had started before I came down but there were buckets under them. He went to see if they were overflowing and returned to say that there were four more leaks. We had run out of buckets so he collected three saucepans and the soup-tureen. “Maybe I’d best stay up there and empty them as they fill,” he said. He took a book and some candle-ends and I thought how gloomy it would be for him reading poetry in the middle of six drips.

We washed the tea-things; then Rose and Topaz went to the wash-house to shake out the dyed sheets. Father stayed by the fire, waiting for the rain to stop before going back to the gatehouse. He sat very still, just staring in front of him. It struck me how completely out of touch with him I am. I went over and sat on the fender and talked about the weather; and then realized that I was making conversation as if to a stranger. It depressed me so much that I couldn’t think of anything more to say. After a few minutes’ silence, he said:

“So Stephen got work at Four Stones.”

I just nodded and he looked at me rather queerly and asked if I liked Stephen. I said that of course I did, though the poems were embarrassing.

“You should tell him you know he copies them,” said Father.

“You’ll know how to do it-encourage him to write something of his own, however bad it is. And be very matter of fact with him, my child—even a bit on the brisk side.”

“But I don’t think he’d like that,” I said.

“I

think he’d take briskness for snubbing. And you know how fond of me he’s always been.”

“Hence the need for a little briskness,” said Father.

“Unless …. Of course, he’s a godlike youth. I’m rather glad he’s not devoted to Rose,” I must have been looking very much puzzled. He smiled and went on: “Oh, don’t bother your head about it.

You’ve so much common sense you’ll probably do the right thing instinctively. It’s no use telling Topaz to advise you because she’d think it all very splendid and natural—and for all I know, it might be. God knows what’s to become of you girls.”

I suddenly knew what he was talking about.

“I understand,” I said, “and I’ll be brisk-within reason.”

But I wonder if I shall ever manage it. And I wonder if it is really necessary—surely Stephen’s devotion isn’t anything serious or grownup? But now that the idea has been put into my head, I keep remembering how queer his voice sounded when he asked me about being hungry. It is worrying—but rather exciting… I shall stop thinking about it; such things are not in my line at all. They are very much in Rose’s line and I know just what Father meant when he said he was glad Stephen wasn’t devoted to her. Topaz came from the wash-house and set irons to heat, so Father changed the subject by asking me if I’d dyed all my clothes green. I said I had few to dye.

“Any long dresses at all?” he asked.

“Nary a one,” I replied; and, indeed, I cannot see the slightest chance of ever acquiring grownup clothes.

“But my school gym-dress has a lot of life in it yet and it’s very comfortable.”

“I must alter something of mine for her,” said Topaz as she went back to the wash-house. I felt my lack of clothes was a reflection on Father and, in an effort to talk of something else, said the most tactless thing possible.

“How’s the work?” I asked.

A closed-up look came over his face and he said shortly: “You’re too old to believe in fairy tales.”

I knew I had put my foot in it and thought I might as well go a bit further.

“Honestly, Father-aren’t you trying to write at all?”

“My dear Cassandra,” he said in a cutting voice he very seldom uses, “it’s time this legend that I’m a writer ceased. You won’t get any coming-out dresses from my earnings.”

He got up without another word and went upstairs. I could have kicked myself for wrecking the first talk we’d had for months.

Thomas came in just then, wet through. I warned him not to use Father’s bedroom as a passage, as we usually do, and he went up the front way. I took him some dry underclothes—fortunately the week’s ironing was done—and then went up to see how Stephen was getting on.

He had stuck the candle-ends on the floor, close to his open book, and was reading lying on his stomach.

His face was dazzlingly bright in the great dark attic — I stood a moment watching his lips moving before he heard me. The saucepans were on the point of overflowing. As I helped him to empty them out of the window I saw that the lamp was lit in the gatehouse, so Father must have gone back there through the rain. It was slackening off at last. The air smelt very fresh. I leaned out over the garden and found it was much warmer than indoors—it always takes our house a while to realize a change in the weather.

“It’ll be spring for you soon, Miss Cassandra,” said Stephen. We stood sniffing the air.

“There’s quite a bit of softness in it, isn’t there?” I said.

“I shall think of this as spring rain -or am I cheating his You know I always try to begin the spring too soon.”

He leaned out and took a deep sniff.

“It’s beginning all right, Miss Cassandra,” he said.

“Maybe we’ll get some setbacks but it’s beginning.” He suddenly smiled, not at me but looking straight in front of him, and added:

“Well, beginnings are good times.” Then he closed the window and we put the saucepans back under the drips, which played a little ringing tune now that the saucepans were empty. The candle-ends on the floor cast the strangest shadows and made him seem enormously tall. I remembered what Father had said about his being a godlike youth; and then I remembered that I had not remembered to be brisk.

We went back to the kitchen and I got Thomas some food.

Topaz was ironing her silk tea-gown, which looked wonderful-it had been a faded blue, but had dyed a queer sea-green color.

I think the sight of it made Rose extra gloomy. She was starting to iron a cotton frock that hadn’t dyed any too well.

“Oh, what’s the use of messing about with summer clothes, anyway,” she said.

“I can’t imagine it ever being warm again.”

“There’s quite a bit of spring in the air tonight,” I told her.

“You go out and smell it.”

Rose never gets emotional about the seasons so she took no notice, but Topaz went to the door at once and flung it open. Then she threw her head back, opened her arms wide and took a giant breath.

“It’s only a whiff of spring, not whole lungs full,” I said, but she was too rapt to listen. I quite expected her to plunge into the night, but after some more deep breathing she went upstairs to try on her tea-gown.

“It beats me,” said Rose.

“After all this time, I still don’t know if she goes on that way because she really feels like it, if she’s acting to impress us, or just acting to impress herself.”

“All three,” I said.

“And as it helps her to enjoy life, I don’t blame her.”

Rose went to close the door and stood there a minute, but the night air didn’t cheer her up at all. She slammed the door and said: “If I knew anything desperate to do, I’d do it.”

“What’s specially the matter with you, Rose?”

asked Thomas.

“You’ve been beating your breast for days and it’s very boring. We can at least get a laugh out of Topaz, but you’re just monotonously grim.”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” said Rose.

“I feel grim. I haven’t any clothes, I haven’t any prospects. I live in a moldering ruin and I’ve nothing to look forward to but old age.”

“Well, that’s been the outlook for years,” said Thomas.

“Why has it suddenly got you down?”

“It’s the long, cold winter,” I suggested.

“It’s the long, cold winter of my life,” said Rose, at which Thomas laughed so much that he choked.

Rose had the sense to laugh a little herself. She came and sat on the table, looking a bit less glowering.

“Stephen,” she said, “you go to church. Do they still believe in the Devil there?”

“Some do,” said Stephen, “though I wouldn’t say the Vicar did.”

“The Devil’s out of fashion,” I said.

“Then he might be flattered if I believed in him, and work extra hard for me. I’ll sell him my soul like Faust did.”

“Faust sold his soul to get his youth back,” said Thomas.

“Then I’ll sell mine to live my youth while I’ve still got it,” said Rose. “Will he hear me if I shout, or do I have to find a Devil’s Dyke or Devil’s Well or something?”

“You could try wishing on our gargoyle,” I suggested. Although she was so desperate, she was—well, more playful than I had seen her for a long time and I wanted to encourage her.

“Get me the ladder, Stephen,” she said.

What we call our gargoyle is really just a carved stone head high above the kitchen fireplace. Father thinks the castle chapel was up there, because there are some bits of fluted stonework and a niche that might have been for holy water. The old wall has been white washed so often that the outlines are blurred now.

“The ladder wouldn’t reach, Miss Rose,” said Stephen, “and the Vicar says that’s the head of an angel.”

“Well, it’s got a devilish expression now,” said Rose, “and the Devil was a fallen angel.”

We all stared up at the head and it did look a bit devilish;

its curls had been broken and the bits that were left were horns.

“Perhaps it would be extra potent if you wished on an angel and thought of the Devil,” I suggested, “like witches saying mass backwards.”

“We could haul you up on the drying-rack, Rose,” said Thomas.

The rack was pulled up high with the dyed sheets on it. Rose told Stephen to let it down, but he looked at me to see if I wanted him to.

She frowned and went to the pulley herself. I said:

“If you must fool about with it, let me get the sheets off first.”

So she lowered them and Stephen helped me to drape them over two clothes-horses. Thomas held the rope while she sat on the middle of the rack and tested its strength.

“The rack’ll bear you,” said Stephen.

“I helped make it and it’s very strong. I don’t know about the rope and pulleys.” I went and sat beside her, feeling that if the weight of both of us didn’t break anything it would be safe for her alone. I knew from the look in her eye and her deep flush that it wasn’t any use trying to dissuade her. We bounced about a bit and then she said:

“Good enough. Pull me up.”

Stephen went to help Thomas.

“But not you, Miss Cassandra,” he said, “it’s dangerous.”

“I suppose you don’t mind me breaking my neck,” said Rose.

“Well, I’d rather you didn’t,” said Stephen, “but I know you wouldn’t stop for the asking. Anyway, it’s you who want to wish on the angel, not Miss Cassandra.”

I’d have been glad to wish on anything, but I wouldn’t have gone up there for a pension.