I Capture the Castle (7 page)

“It’s a devil, not an angel, I tell you,” said Rose. She sat swinging her legs a minute, then looked round at us all.

“Does anyone dare me?”

“No!” we all shouted, which must have been very irritating. She said: “Then I dare myself. Haul me up.”

Thomas and Stephen hauled. When she was about ten feet from the floor, I asked them to stop a minute.

“How does it feel, Rose?” I said.

“Peculiar, but a nice change. Go on, boys.”

They pulled again. The carved head must be over twenty feet up and as she rose higher and higher I had an awful feeling in my stomach—I don’t think I had realized until then how very dangerous it was. When she was within a few feet of the head, Stephen called up: “That’s as high as the rack’ll go.”

She reached up but couldn’t touch the head. Then she called down: “There’s a foothold here—it looks as if there were steps once.”

The next second she had leaned forward, grasped a projecting stone and stepped on to the wall. The lamp on the table didn’t throw much light up there, but it looked terribly dangerous to me.

“Hurry up and get it over,” I called. The backs of my legs as well as my stomach were most uncomfortable.

She only had to take one step up the wall to reach the head.

“He’s no beauty at close quarters,” she said.

“What shall I say to him, Cassandra?”

“Pat him on the head,” I suggested.

“It must be hundreds of years since anyone showed him any affection.”

Rose patted him. I got the lamp and held it high, but it was still shadowy up there. She looked extraordinary, almost as if she were flying up the wall or had been painted on it. I called out:

Heavenly devil or devilish saint, Grant our vish, hear our plaint.

Godsend Castle a godsend craves-and then I got stuck.

“If he’s a devil, it can only be a devil send said Thomas. Just then a car on the Godsend road hooted loudly and he added:

“There’s Old Nick come for you.”

I saw Rose start.

“Get me down!” she cried in a queer voice and flopped on to the rack. For one awful second I feared the boys might not be expecting the strain, but they were ready and lowered her carefully. As soon as her feet were near the ground she jumped off and sat down on the floor.

“The car horn startled me,” she said rather shakily, “and I looked down and went giddy.”

I asked her to describe her exact feelings up there, but she said she hadn’t had any until she turned giddy. That is one great difference between us: I would have had any number of feelings and have wanted to remember them all; she would just be thinking of wishing on the stone head.

“You never did wish, did you?” I asked. She laughed.

“Oh, I said a few private things all right.”

Topaz came downstairs just then, in her black oilskins, sou’wester hat and rubber boots, looking as if she were going to man the life boat. She said her dyed tea-gown had shrunk so much that she couldn’t breathe in it and Rose could have it. Then she strode out, leaving the door wide open.

“Don’t swallow the night, will you?” Thomas called after her.

“Your luck’s started already,” I told Rose, as she dashed upstairs to try the tea-gown on. Thomas went to do his homework in his room, so I thought I might as well start my bath and asked Stephen if he minded me having it in the kitchen; I generally do have it there but, as it means he has to keep out of the way for a good long time, I always feel apologetic. He tactfully said he had a job to do in the barn and that he would help me get the bath ready.

“But it’s still full of dye,” I remembered. We emptied it and Stephen swilled it out.

“But I’m afraid the dye may still come off on you, Miss Cassandra,” he said.

“Hadn’t you better use the bathroom?”

The bathroom bath is so enormous that there is never enough hot water for more than a few inches, and a draught blows down the tower. I decided I would rather risk the dye. We carried the bath to the fire and Stephen baled hot water from the copper and helped me to make a screen of clothes-horses with the green sheets on-as a rule, I use dust-sheets for this. As our clothes-horses are fully five feet high, I always have a most respectable and private bath, but I do feel more comfortable if I have the whole kitchen to myself.

“What will you have to read tonight, Miss Cassandra?”

asked Stephen. I told him Vol. H To I of our old Encyclopedia, Man and Superman (which I have just re-borrowed from the Vicar-I feel I may have missed some of the finer points when I first read it five years ago) and last week’s Home Chat, kindly lent by Miss Marcy. I like plenty of choice in my bath. Stephen set them all out for me while I collected my washing things. And then, after he had lit his lantern to go to the barn, he suddenly presented me with a whole twopenny bar of nut-milk chocolate.

“How did you come by that?” I gasped.

He explained that he had got it on credit, on the strength of having a job.

“I know you like to eat in the bath, Miss Cassandra.

What with books and chocolate, there’s not much else you could have in it, is there his Except, perhaps, a wireless.”

“Well, don’t go getting a wireless on credit,” I laughed; and then thanked him for the chocolate and offered him some.

But he wouldn’t take any and went off to the barn.

I was just getting into the bath when Heloise whined at the back door and had to be let in. Of course she wanted to come to the fire, which was a slight bore as she is no asset to a bath -her loving paws are apt to scrape one painfully. However, she seemed sleepy and we settled down amicably.

It was wonderfully cozy inside my tall, draught-proof screen; and the rosy glow from the fire turned the green sheets to a fascinating color. I had the brain wave of sitting on our largest dinner-dish to avoid the dye; the gravy runnels were a bit uncomfortable, though.

I believe it is customary to get one’s washing over first in baths and bask afterwards; personally, I bask first. I have discovered that the first few minutes are the best and not to be wasted-my brain always seethes with ideas and life suddenly looks much better than it did. Father says hot water can be as stimulating as an alcoholic drink and though I never come by one—unless the medicine-bottle of port that the Vicar gives me for my Midsummer rites counts-I can well believe it. So I bask first, wash second and then read as long as the hot water holds out. The last stage of a bath, when the water is cooling and there is nothing to look forward to, can be pretty disillusioning. I expect alcohol works much the same way.

This time I spent my basking in thinking about the family and it is a tribute to hot water that I could think about them and still bask. For surely we are a sorry lot: Father moldering in the gatehouse, Rose raging at life, Thomas-well, he is a cheerful boy but one cannot but know that he is perpetually underfed. Topaz is certainly the happiest for she still thinks it’s romantic to be married to Father and live in a castle; and her painting, her lute and her wild communing with nature are a great comfort to her. I would have taken a bet that she had nothing whatever on under her oilskins and that she intended to stride up the mound and then fling them off.

After being an artists’ model for so many years, she has no particular interest in Nudism for its own sake, but she has a passion for getting into closest contact with the elements. This once caused quite a little embarrassment with Four Stones Farm so she undertook only to go nude by night. Of course, winter is closed season for nudity, but she is wonderfully impervious to cold and I felt sure the hint of spring in the air would have fetched her. Though it was warmer, it was still far from warm, and the thought of her up on Belmotte made my bath more comfortable than ever.

I ate half my chocolate and meant to offer the rest to Rose, but Heloise was lashing her tail so hopefully that I shared with her instead and her gratitude was so intense that I feared she might get in the bath with me. I calmed her, discouraged her from licking the soap and had just started serious washing when there was a thump on the door.

I still can’t imagine what made me call out: “Come in.” I suppose I said it automatically. I had just covered my face with soap, which always makes one feel rather helpless, and when I rashly opened my eyes, the soap got into them; I was blindly groping for the towel when I heard the door open. Heloise let forth a volley of barks and hurtled towards it—it was a miracle she didn’t knock the clothes horses over. The next few seconds were pandemonium with Hcl barking her hardest and two men trying to soothe her. I didn’t call her off because I know she never bites anyone and I hated the idea of explaining I was in the bath—particularly as I hadn’t even a towel to wrap around me; I had blinked my eyes open by then and realized I must have left it somewhere in the kitchen.

Mercifully, Heloise quietened down after a minute or so.

“Didn’t you hear someone say “Come in”?” said one of the men, and I realized that he was an American. It was a pleasant voice, like the nice people in American films, not the gangsters.

He called out:

“Anyone home?” but the other man told him to be quiet, adding:

“I want to look at this place first. It’s magnificent.”

This voice puzzled me. It didn’t sound English but it didn’t sound American either, yet it certainly had no foreign accent. It was a most unusual voice, very quiet and very interesting.

“Do you realize that wall’s part of an old castle?” it said.

This was not a happy moment as I thought he would come to look at the fireplace wall, but just then Thomas came out on the staircase.

The men explained that they had turned down our lane by accident and their car was stuck in the mud. They wanted help to get it out.

“Or, if we have to leave it there all night, we felt we’d better warn you,” said the American voice, “because it’s blocking the lane.”

Thomas said he would come and have a look and I heard him getting his boots from the wash-house.

“Wonderful old place you have here,” said the unusual voice, and I feared they might ask to look round. But the other man began talking about how stuck the car was and asking if we had horses to pull it out, and in a minute or so Thomas went off with them. I heard the door slam and heaved a sigh of relief.

But I did feel a little flat; it was dull to think I had never even seen the men and never would. I tried to imagine faces to go with the voices—then suddenly realized that the water was cooling and I had barely begun washing. I got to work at last, but scrub as I might, I couldn’t make any impression on my green-dyed arms. I am a thorough washer and by the time I had finished, my mind was completely off the men. I hopped out and got another can hot water from the copper, which is close to the fire, and was just settling down to read when I heard the door open again.

Someone came into the kitchen and I was sure it wasn’t any of the family—they would have called out to me or at least made a lot more noise. I could feel someone just standing and staring. After a moment I couldn’t bear it any longer so I yelled out:

“Whoever you are, I warn you I’m in the bath here.”

“Good heavens, I do beg your pardon,” said the man with the quiet voice.

“Were you there when we came in a few minutes ago?”

I told him I had been, and asked if the car was still stuck.

“They’ve gone for horses to pull it out,” he said, “so I sneaked back to have a look round here. I’ve never seen anything like this place.”

“Just let me get dried and in my right mind and I’ll show you round,” I said. I had mopped my face and neck on the drying sheets and still hadn’t taken the cold walk to find the towel.

I asked him if he could see it anywhere but he didn’t seem able to, so I knelt in the bath, parted the green sheets and put my head through.

He turned towards me. Seldom have I felt more astonished.

He had a black beard.

I have never known anyone with a beard except an old man in the Scoatney almshouses who looks like Santa Claus. This beard wasn’t like that; it was trim and pointed—rather Elizabethan. But it was very surprising because his voice had sounded quite young.

“How do you do?” he said, smiling-and I could tell by his tone that he had taken me for a child. He found my towel and started to bring it over; then stopped and said: “There’s no need to look so scared. I’ll put it down where you can reach it, and go right back to the yard.”

“I’m not scared,” I said, “but you don’t look the way you sound.”

He laughed, but it struck me that it had been rather a rude thing to say, so I added hastily: “There’s no need to go, of course. Won’t you sit down his I’m sure I’ve no desire to appear inhospitable”—and that struck me as the most pompous speech of my life.

I began to put one arm through the sheets for the towel.

“There’ll be a catastrophe if you do it that way,” he said.

“I’ll put it round the corner.”

As I drew my head in I saw his hand coming round.

I grabbed the towel from it and was just going to ask him to bring my clothes, too, when the door opened again.

“I’ve been looking for you everywhere, Simon,” said the American voice.

“This is the darnedest placeI’ve just seen a Spook” “Nonsense,” said the bearded man.

“Honest, I have—while I was in the lane. I shone my flashlight up at that tower on the hill and a white figure flitted behind it.”

“Probably a horse.”

“Horse, nothing—it was walking upright. But gosh, maybe I am going crazy-it didn’t seem to have any legs.”

I guessed Topaz must have kept her black rubber boots on.

“Stop talking about it, anyway,” the bearded man whispered.

“There’s a child in a bath behind those sheets.”

I called out for someone to bring my clothes, and put an arm round for them.

“My God—it’s a green child!” said the American.

“What is this place-the House of Usher?”

“I’m not green all over,” I explained.

“It’s just that we’ve all been dyeing.”

“Then maybe it was one of your ghosts I saw,” said the American.

The bearded man came over with my clothes.