I Capture the Castle

Dodie Smith

I CAPTURE THE CASTLE

I: THE SIXPENNY BOOK

I am sitting in the kitchen sink. That is, my feet are in it; the rest of me is on the draining-board, which I have padded with our dog's

blanket and the tea-cozy. I can't say that I am really comfortable,

and there is a depressing smell of carbolic soap, but this is the only part of the kitchen where there is any daylight left. And I have found that sitting in a place where you have never sat before can be

inspiring--I wrote my very best poem while sitting on the hen-house.

Though even that isn't a very good poem. I have decided my poetry is

so bad that I mustn't write any more of it.

Drips from the roof are plopping into the water-butt by the back door.

The view through the windows above the sink is excessively dreary.

Beyond the dank garden in the courtyard are the ruined walls on the

edge of the moat. Beyond the moat, the boggy ploughed fields stretch

to the leaden sky. I tell myself that all the rain we have had lately is good for nature, and that at any moment spring will surge on us. I try to see leaves on the trees and the courtyard filled with sunlight.

Unfortunately, the more my mind's eye sees green and gold, the more

drained of all color does the twilight seem.

It is comforting to look away from the windows and towards the kitchen fire, near which my sister Rose is ironing, though she obviously can't see properly, and it will be a pity if she scorches her only nightgown.

(I have two, but one is minus its behind.) Rose looks particularly

fetching by firelight because she is a pinkish person; her skin has a pink glow and her hair is pinkish gold, very light and feathery.

Although I am rather used to her I know she is a beauty. She is nearly twenty-one and very bitter with life. I am seventeen, look younger,

feel older. I am no beauty but have a nea tish face.

I have just remarked to Rose that our situation is really rather

romantic--two girls in this strange and lonely house. She replied that she saw nothing romantic about being shut up in a crumbling ruin

surrounded by a sea of mud. I must admit that our home is an

unreasonable place to live in. Yet I love it. The house itself was

built in the time of Charles II, but it was grafted on to a

fourteenth-century castle that had been damaged by Cromwell. The whole of our east wall was part of the castle; there are two round towers in it. The gatehouse is intact and a stretch of the old walls at their

full height joins it to the house. And Belmotte Tower, all that

remains of an even older castle, still stands on its mound close by.

But I won't attempt to describe our peculiar home fully until I can see more time ahead of me than I do now.

I am writing this journal partly to practice my newly acquired

speed-writing and partly to teach myself how to write a novel-I intend to capture all our characters and put in conversations. It ought to be good for my style to dash along without much thought, as up to now my stories have been very stiff and self-conscious. The only time Father obliged me by reading one of them, he said I combined stateliness with a desperate effort to be funny. He told me to relax and let the words flow out of me.

I wish I knew of a way to make words flow out of Father. Years and

years ago, he wrote a very unusual book called Jacob Wrestling, a

mixture of fiction, philosophy and poetry. It had a great success,

particularly in America, where he made a lot of money by lecturing on it, and he seemed likely to become a very important writer indeed. But he stopped writing. Mother believed this was due to something that

happened when I was about five.

We were living in a small house by the sea at the time. Father had

just joined us after his second American lecture tour. One afternoon

when we were having tea in the garden, he had the misfortune to lose

his temper with Mother very noisily just as he was about to cut a piece of cake. He brandished the cake-knife at her so menacingly that an

officious neighbor jumped the garden fence to intervene and got himself knocked down.

Father explained in court that killing a woman with our silver

cake-knife would be a long, weary business entailing sawing her to

death, and he was completely exonerated of any intention of slaying

Mother. The whole case seems to have been quite ludicrous, with

everyone but the neighbor being very funny. But Father made the

mistake of being funnier than the judge and, as there was no doubt

whatever that he had seriously damaged the neighbor, he was sent to

prison for three months.

When he came out he was as nice a man as ever-nicer, because his temper was so much better. Apart from that, he didn't seem to me to be

changed at all. But Rose remembers that he had already begun to get

unsociable--it was then that he took a forty years' lease of the

castle, which is an admirable place to be unsociable in. Once we were settled here he was supposed to begin a new book. But time went on

without anything happening and at last we realized that he had given up even trying to write--for years now, he has refused to discuss the

possibility. Most of his life is spent in the gatehouse room, which is icy cold in winter as there is no fireplace; he just huddles over an

oil-stove. As far as we know, he does nothing but read detective

novels from the village library. Miss Marcy, the librarian and

schoolmistress, brings them to him. She admires him greatly and says

"the iron has entered into his soul."

Personally, I can't see how the iron could get very far into a man's

soul during only three months in jail--anyway, not if the man had as

much vitality as Father had; and he seemed to have plenty of it left

when they let him out. But it has gone now; and his un sociability has grown almost into a disease-- I often think he would prefer not even to meet his own household. All his natural gaiety has vanished. At times he puts on a false cheerfulness that embarrasses me, but usually he is either morose or irritable- I think I should prefer it if he lost his temper as he used to. Oh, poor Father, he really is very pathetic. But he might at least do a little work in the garden. I am aware that this isn't a fair portrait of him. I must capture him later.

Mother died eight years ago, from perfectly natural causes. I think

she must have been a shadowy person, because I have only the vaguest

memory of her and I have an excellent memory for most things. (i can

remember the cake-knife incident perfectly- I hit the fallen neighbor with my little wooden spade. Father always said this got him an extra month.) Three years ago (or is it four his I know Father's one spasm of sociability was in 1931) a stepmother was presented to us. We were

surprised.

She is a famous artists' model who claims to have been christened

Topaz--even if this is true there is no law to make a woman stick to a name like that.

She is very beautiful, with masses of hair so fair that it is almost

white, and a quite extraordinary pallor. She uses no make-up, not even powder.

There are two paintings of her in the Tate Gallery: one by Macmorris, called "Topaz in Jade", in which she wears a magnificent jade necklace;

and one by H. J. Allardy which shows her nude on an old

horsehair-covered sofa that she says was very prickly. This is called

"Composition"; but as Allardy has painted her even paler than she is,

"Decomposition" would suit it better.

Actually, there is nothing unhealthy about Topaz's pallor; it simply

makes her look as if she belonged to some new race. She has a very

deep voice--that is, she puts one on; it is part of an arty pose, which includes painting and lute-playing.

But her kindness is perfectly genuine and so is her cooking. I am

very, very fond of her- it is nice to have written that just as she

appears on the kitchen stairs. She is wearing her ancient orange

tea-gown. Her pale, straight hair is flowing down her back to her

waist. She paused on the top step and said "Ah, girls .. " with three velvety inflections on each word.

Now she is sitting on the steel trivet, raking the fire. The pink

light makes her look more ordinary, but very pretty. She is

twenty-nine and had two husbands before Father (she will never tell us very much about them), but she still looks extraordinarily young.

Perhaps that is because her expression is so blank.

The kitchen looks very beautiful now. The firelight glows steadily

through the bars and through the round hole in the top of the range

where the lid has been left off.

It turns the whitewashed walls rosy; even the dark beams in the roof

are a dusky gold. The highest beam is over thirty feet from the

ground.

Rose and Topaz are two tiny figures in a great glowing cave.

Now Rose is sitting on the fender, waiting for her iron to heat. She

is staring at Topaz with a discontented expression. I can often tell

what Rose is thinking and I would take a bet that she is envying the

orange tea-gown and hating her own skimpy old blouse and skirt. Poor

Rose hates most things she has and envies most things she hasn't. I

really am just as discontented, but I don't seem to notice it so much.

I feel quite unreasonably happy this minute, watching them both;

knowing I can go and join them in the warmth, yet staying here in the cold.

Oh, dear, there has just been a slight scene!

Rose asked Topaz to go to London and earn some money. Topaz replied

that she didn't think it was worth while, because it costs so much to live there. It is true that she can never save more than will buy us a few presents-she is very generous.

"And two of the men I sit for are abroad," she went on, "and I don't like working for Macmorris."

"Why not?" asked Rose.

"He pays better than the others, doesn't he?"

"So he ought, considering how rich he is," said Topaz.

"But I dislike sitting for him because he only paints my head. Your Father says that the men who paint me nude paint my body and think of their job, but that Macmorris paints my head and thinks of my body. And it's perfectly true. I've had more trouble with him than I should

care to let your Father know."

Rose said: "I should have thought it was worth while to have a little trouble in order to earn some real money."

"Then you have the trouble, dear," said Topaz.

This must have been very annoying to Rose, considering that she never has the slightest chance of that sort of trouble.

She suddenly flung back her head dramatically and said:

"I'm perfectly willing to. It may interest you both to know that for some time now, I've been considering selling myself. If necessary, I

shall go on the streets."

I told her she couldn't go on the streets in the depths of Suffolk.

"But if Topaz will kindly lend me the fare to London and give me a few hints."

Topaz said she had never been on the streets and rather regretted it,

"because one must sink to the depths in order to rise to the heights,"

which is the kind of Topazism it requires much affection to tolerate.

"And anyway," she told Rose, "you're the last girl to lead a hard working, immoral life. If you're really taken with the idea of selling yourself, you'd better choose a wealthy man and marry him

respectably."

This idea has, of course, occurred to Rose, but she has always hoped

that the man would be handsome, romantic and lovable into the bargain.

I suppose it was her sheer despair of ever meeting any marriageable men at all, even hideous, poverty-stricken ones, that made her suddenly

burst into tears. As she only cries about once a year I really ought

to have gone over and comforted her, but I wanted to set it all down

here. I begin to see that writers are liable to become callous.

Anyway, Topaz did the comforting far better than I could have done, as I am never disposed to clasp people to my bosom. She was most

maternal, letting Rose weep all over the orange velvet tea-gown, which has suffered many things in its time.

Rose will be furious with herself later on, because she has an unkind tendency to despise Topaz; but for the moment they are most amicable.

Rose is now putting away her ironing, gulping a little, and Topaz is

laying the table for tea while outlining impracticable plans for making money --such as giving a lute concert in the village or buying a pig in installments.

I joined in while resting my hand, but said nothing of supreme

importance.

It is raining again. Stephen is coming across the courtyard. He has

lived with us ever since he was a little boy; his Mother used to be our maid, in the days when we could still afford one, and when she died he had nowhere to go. He grows vegetables for us and looks after the hens and does a thousand odd jobs--I can't think how we should get on

without him. He is eighteen now, very fair and noble-looking but his

expression is just a fraction daft. He has always been rather devoted to me; Father calls him my swam.

He is rather how I imagine Silvius in As You Like It but I am nothing like Phoebe.

Stephen has come in now. The first thing he did was to light a candle and stick it on the window-ledge beside me, saying: "You're spoiling your eyes, Miss Cassandra."

Then he dropped a tightly folded bit of paper on this journal. My

heart sank, because I knew it would contain a poem; I suppose he has

been working on it in the barn. It is written in his careful, rather

beautiful script. The heading is, ""To Miss Cassandra" by Stephen Colly."

It is a charming poem--by Robert Herrick.

What am I to do about Stephen? Father says the desire for

self-expression is pathetic, but I really think Stephen's main desire is just to please me; he knows I set store by poetry.

I ought to tell him that I know he merely copies the poems out--he has been doing it all winter, every week or so--but I can't find the heart to hurt him.

Perhaps when the spring comes I can take him for a walk and break it to him in some encouraging way. This time I have got out of saying my

usual hypocritical words of praise by smiling approval at him across

the kitchen. Now he is pumping water up into the cistern, looking very happy.

The well is below the kitchen floor and has been there since the

earliest days of the castle; it has been supplying water for six

hundred years and is said never to have run dry. Of course, there must have been many pumps. The present one arrived when the Victorian

hot-water system (alleged) was put in.

Interruptions keep occurring. Topaz has just filled the kettle,

splashing my legs, and my brother Thomas has returned from school in

our nearest town, King's Crypt. He is a cumbersome lad of fifteen with hair that grows in tufts, so that parting it is difficult. It is the

same mousy color as mine; but mine is meek.

When Thomas came in, I suddenly remembered myself coming back from

school, day after day, up to a few months ago. In one flash I re-lived the ten-mile crawl in the jerky little train and then the five miles on a bicycle from Scoatney station --how I used to hate that in the

winter! Yet in some ways I should like to be back at school; for one

thing, the daughter of the manager at the cinema went there, and she

got me in to the pictures free now and then. I miss that greatly. And I rather miss school itself--it was a surprisingly good one for such a quiet little country town. I had a scholarship, just as Thomas has at his school; we are tolerably bright.

The rain is driving hard against the window now. My candle makes it

seem quite dark outside. And the far side of the kitchen is dimmer now that the kettle is on the round hole in the top of the range. The

girls are sitting on the floor making toast through the bars.

There is a bright edge to each head, where the firelight shines through their hair.

Stephen has finished pumping and is stoking the copper --it is a great, old-fashioned brick one which helps to keep the kitchen warm and gives us extra hot-water. With the copper lit as well as the range, the

kitchen is much the warmest place in the house; that is why we sit in it so much. But even in summer we have our meals here, because the

dining-room furniture was sold over a year ago.

Goodness, Topaz is actually putting on eggs to boil. No one told me

the hens had yielded to prayer. Oh, excellent hens! I was only

expecting bread and margarine for tea, and I don't get as used to

margarine as I could wish. I thank heaven there is no cheaper form of bread than bread.

How odd it is to remember that "tea" once meant afternoon tea to us with little cakes and thin bread-and-butter in the drawing-room. Now

it is as solid a meal as we can scrape together, as it has to last us until breakfast. We have it after Thomas gets back from school.

Stephen is lighting the lamp. In a second now, the rosy glow will have gone from the kitchen. But lamplight is beautiful, too.

The lamp is lit. And as Stephen carried it to the table, my Father

came out on the staircase. His old plaid traveling-rug was wrapped

round his shoulders --he had come from the gatehouse along the top of the castle walls. He murmured: "Tea, tea- has Miss Marcy come with the library books yet?" (she hasn't.) Then he said his hands were quite numb; not complainingly, more in a tone of faint surprise--though I find it hard to believe that anyone living at the castle in winter

can be surprised at any part of themselves being numb. And as he came downstairs shaking the rain off his hair, I suddenly felt so fond of

him. I fear I don't feel that very often.

He is still a splendid-looking man, though his fine features are

getting a bit lost in fat and his coloring is fading. It used to be as bright as Rose's.

Now he is chatting to Topaz. I regret to note that he is in his

falsely cheerful mood--though I think poor Topaz is grateful for even false cheerfulness from him these days. She adores him, and he seems

to take so little interest in her.

I shall have to get off the draining-board--Topaz wants the tea-cozy

and our dog, Heloise, has come in and discovered I have borrowed her

blanket.

She is a bull-terrier, snowy white except where her fondant-pink skin shows through her short hair.

All right, Heloise darling, you shall have your blanket. She gazes at me with love, reproach, confidence and humor- how can she express so

much just with two rather small slanting eyes his I finish this entry sitting on the stairs. I think it worthy of note that I never felt

happier in my life- despite sorrow for Father, pity for Rose,

embarrassment about Stephen's poetry and no justification for hope as regards our family's general outlook. Perhaps it is because I have

satisfied my creative urge; or it may be due to the thought of eggs for tea.

II LA-AR. Written in bed.

I am reasonably comfortable as I am wearing my school coat and have a hot brick for my feet, but I wish it wasn't my week for the little iron bedstead --Rose and I take it in turns to sleep in the four-poster. She is sitting up in it reading a library book. When Miss Marcy brought it she said it was "a pretty story." Rose says it is awful, but she would rather read it than think about herself.

Poor Rose! She is wearing her old blue flannel dressing-gown with the skirt part doubled up round her waist for warmth. She has had that

dressing-gown so long that I don't think she sees it any more; if she were to put it away for a month and then look at it, she would get a

shock.

But who am I to talk--who have not had a dressing gown at all for two years his The remains of my last one are wrapped round my hot brick.

Our room is spacious and remarkably empty.

With the exception of the four-poster, which is in very bad condition, all the good furniture has gradually been sold and replaced by minimum requirements bought in junk-shops. Thus we have a wardrobe without a

door and a bamboo dressing-table which I take to be a rare piece. I

keep my bedside candlestick on a battered tin trunk that cost one

shilling; Rose has hers on a chest of drawers painted to imitate

marble, but looking more like bacon.

The enamel jug and basin on a metal tripod is my own personal property, the landlady of "The Keys" having given it to me after I found it doing no good in a stable. It saves congestion in the bathroom. One rather

nice thing is the carved wooden window-seat- I am thankful there is no way of selling that. It is built into the thickness of the castle

wall, with a big mullioned window above it. There are windows on the

garden side of the room, too; little diamond-paned ones.

One thing I have never grown out of being fascinated by is the round

tower which opens into a corner.

There is a circular stone staircase inside it by which you can go up to the battlemented top, or down to the drawing-room; though some of the steps have crumbled badly.

Perhaps I ought to have counted Miss Blossom as a piece of furniture.

She is a dressmaker's dummy of most opulent figure with a wire skirt

round her one leg. We are a bit silly about Miss Blossom-we pretend

she is real.

We imagine her to be a woman of the world, perhaps a barmaid in her

youth. She says things like "Well, dearie, that's what men are like,"

and "You hold out for your marriage lines."

The Victorian vandals who did so many unnecessary things to this house didn't have the sense to put in passages, so we are always having to go through each other's rooms. Topaz has just wandered through

ours-wearing a nightgown made of plain white calico with holes for her neck and arms; she thinks modern underclothes are vulgar. She looked

rather like a victim going to an Auto da Fe, but her destination was

merely the bathroom.

Topaz and Father sleep in the big room that opens on to the kitchen

staircase. There is a little room between them and us which we call

"Buffer State";

Topaz uses it as a studio. Thomas has the room across the landing,

next to the bathroom.

I wonder if Topaz has gone to ask Father to come to bed--she is

perfectly capable of stalking along the top of the castle walls in her nightgown. I hope she hasn't, because Father does so snub her when she bursts into the gatehouse. We were trained as children never to go

near him unless invited and he thinks she ought to behave in the same way.

No--she didn't go. She came back a few minutes ago and showed signs of staying here, but we didn't encourage her. Now she is in bed and is

playing her lute. I like the idea of a lute, but not the noise it

makes; it is seldom in tune and appears to be an instrument that never gets a run at anything.

I feel rather guilty at being so unsociable to Topaz, but we did have such a sociable evening.

Round about eight o'clock, Miss Marcy came with the books. She is

about forty, small and rather faded yet somehow very young. She blinks her eyes a lot and is apt to giggle and say: "Well, reely!" She is a Londoner but has been in the village over five years now. I believe

she teaches very nicely; her specialties are folk song and wild flowers and country lore. She didn't like it here when first she came (she

always says she "missed the bright lights"); but she soon made herself take an interest in country things, and now she tries to make the

country people interested in them too.

As librarian, she cheats a bit to give us the newest books; she'd had a delivery today and had brought Father a detective novel that only came out the year before last--and it was by one of his favorite authors.

Topaz said:

"Oh, I must take this to Mortmain at once."

She calls Father "Mortmain" partly because she fancies our odd surname, and partly to keep up the fiction that he is still a famous writer. He came back with her to thank Miss Marcy and for once he seemed quite

genuinely cheerful.

"I'll read any detective novel, good, bad or indifferent," he told her,

"but a vintage one's among the rarest pleasures of life."

Then he found out he was getting this one ahead of the Vicar and was so pleased that he blew Miss Marcy a kiss. She said "Oh, thank you, Mr.

Mortmain! That is, I mean--well, reely!" and blushed and blinked.

Father then flung his rug round him like a toga and went back to the

gatehouse looking quite abnormally goodhumored.

As soon as he was out of earshot, Miss Marcy said "How is he ?" in a hushed sort of voice that implied he was at death's door or off his

head.

Rose said he was perfectly well and perfectly useless, as always. Miss Marcy looked shocked.

"Rose is depressed about our finances," I explained.

"We mustn't bore Miss Marcy with our worries," said Topaz, quickly. She hates anything which casts a reflection on Father.

Miss Marcy said that nothing to do with our household could possibly

bore her-- I know she thinks our life at the castle is wildly romantic.

Then she asked, very diffidently, if she could help us with any

advice-- "Sometimes an outside mind .. "

I suddenly felt that I should rather like to consult her; she is such a sensible little woman- it was she who thought of getting me the book on speed-writing. Mother trained us never to talk about our affairs in

the village, and I do respect Topaz's loyalty to Father, but I was sure Miss Marcy must know perfectly well that we are broke.

"If you could suggest some ways of earning money," I

"Or of making it go further--I'm sure you're all much too artistic to be really practical.

Let's hold a board meeting!"

She said it as if she were enticing children to a game. She was so

eager that it would have seemed quite rude to refuse;

and I think Rose and Topaz felt desperate enough to try anything.

"Now, paper and pencils," said Miss Marcy, clapping her hands. Writing paper is scarce in this house, and I had no intention of tearing sheets out of this exercise book, which is a superb sixpenny one the Vicar

gave me. In the end, Miss Marcy took the middle pages out of her

library record, which gave us a pleasant feeling that we were stealing from the government, and then we sat round the table and elected her

chairman. She said she must be secretary, too, so that she could keep the minutes, and wrote down:

INQUIRY INTO THE FINANCES OF THE

MORTMAIN FAMILY

Present:

Miss Marcy (chairman) Mrs. James Mortmain Miss Rose Mortmain Miss

Cassandra Mortmain Thomas Mortmain Stephen Colly We began by discussing expenditure.

"First, rent," said Miss Marcy.

The rent is forty pounds a year, which seems little for a commodious

castle, but we have only a few acres of land, the country folk think

the ruins are a drawback, and there are said to be ghosts-which there are not. (there are some queer things up on the mound, but they never come into the house.) Anyway, we haven't paid any rent for three years.

Our landlord, a rich old gentleman who lived at Scoatney Hall, five

miles away, always sent us a ham at Christmas whether we paid the rent or not. He died last November and we have sadly missed the ham.

"They say the Hall's going to be re-opened," said Miss Marcy when we had told her the position about the rent.

"Two boys from the village have been taken on as extra gardeners. Well, we will just put the rent down and mark it "optional". Now what about food? Can you do it on fifteen shillings a week per head? Say a pound per head, including candles, lamp-oil and cleaning materials."

The idea of our family ever coming by six pounds a week made us all

hoot with laughter.

"If Miss Marcy is really going to advise us," said Topaz, "she'd better be told we have no visible income at all this year."

Miss Marcy flushed and said: "I did know things were difficult. But, dear Mrs. Mortmain, there must be some money, surely?"

We gave her the facts. Not one penny has come in during January or

February. Last year Father got forty pounds from America, where Jacob Wrestling still sells. Topaz posed in London for three months, saved

eight pounds for us and borrowed fifty; and we sold a tallboy to a

King's Crypt dealer for twenty pounds. We have been living on the

tallboy since Christmas.

"Last year's income one hundred and eighteen pounds," said Miss Marcy and wrote it down. But we hastened to tell her that it bore no

relation to this year's income, for we have no more good furniture to sell, Topaz has run out of rich borrowees, and we think it unlikely

that Father's royalties will be so large, as they have dwindled every year.

"Should I leave school?" said Thomas. But of course we told him that would be absurd as his schooling costs us nothing owing to his

scholarship, and the Vicar has just given him a year's ticket for the train.

Miss Marcy fiddled with her pencil a bit and then said:

"If I'm to be a help, I must be frank.

Couldn't you make a saving on Stephen's wages?"

I felt myself go red. Of course we have never paid Stephen

anything--never even thought of it. And I suddenly realized that we

ought to have done so. (not that we've had any money to pay him with

since he's been old enough to earn.) "I don't want wages," said Stephen, quietly.

"I wouldn't take them. Everything I've ever had has been given to me here."

"You see, Stephen's like a son of the house," I said. Miss Marcy looked as if she wasn't sure that was a very good thing to be, but

Stephen's face quite lit up for a second. Then he got embarrassed and said he must see if the hens were all in. After he had gone, Miss

Marcy said:

"No- no wages at all? Just his keep?"

"We don't pay ourselves any wages," said Rose --which is true enough; but then we don't work so hard as Stephen or sleep in a dark little

room off the kitchen.

"And I think it's humiliating discussing our poverty in front of Miss Marcy," Rose went on, angrily.

"I thought we were just going to ask her advice about earning."

After that, a lot of time was wasted soothing Rose's pride and Miss

Marcy's feelings. Then we got down to our earning capacities.

Topaz said she couldn't earn more than four pounds a week in London and possibly not that, and she would need three pounds to live on, and some clothes, and the fare to come down here at least every other weekend.

"And I don't want to go to London," she added, rather pathetically.

"I'm tired of being a model. And I miss Mortmain dreadfully. And he needs me here--I'm the only one who can cook."

"That's hardly very important when we've nothing to cook," said Rose.

"Could I earn money as a model?"

"I'm afraid not," said Topaz.

"Your figure's too pretty-there isn't enough drawing in your bones. And you'd never have the patience to sit still.

I suppose if nothing turns up I'll have to go to London. I could send about ten shillings a week home."

"Well, that's splendid," said Miss Marcy and wrote down: "Mrs. James Mortmain: a potential ten shillings weekly."

"Not all the year round," said Topaz, firmly.

"I couldn't stand it and it would leave me no time for my own painting.

I might sell some of that, of course."

Miss Marcy said "Of course you might," very politely; then turned to me. I said my speed-writing was getting quite fast, but of course it

wasn't quite like real shorthand (or quite like real speed-writing, for that matter); and I couldn't type and the chance of getting anywhere

near a typewriter was remote.

"Then I'm afraid, just until you get going with your literary work, we'll have to count you as nil," said Miss Marcy.

"Thomas, of course, is bound to be nil for a few years yet. Rose, dear?"

Now if anyone in this family is nil as an earner, it is Rose; for

though she plays the piano a bit and sings rather sweetly and is, of

course, a lovely person, she has no real talents at all.

"Perhaps I could look after little children," she suggested.

"Oh, no," said Miss Marcy, hurriedly, "I mean, dear--well, I don't think it would suit you at all."

"I'll go to Scoatney Hall as a maid," said Rose, looking as if she were already ascending the scaffold.

"Well, they do have to be trained, dear," said Miss Marcy, "and I can't feel your Father would like it.

Couldn't you do some pretty sewing?"

"What on?" said Rose.

"Sacking?"

Anyway, Rose is hopeless at sewing.

Miss Marcy was looking at her list rather depressedly.

"I fear we must call dear Rose nil just for the moment," she said.

"That only leaves Mr. Mortmain."

Rose said: "If I rank as nil, Father ought to be double nil" Miss Marcy leaned forward and said in a hushed voice: "My dears, you know I'm trying to help you all. What's the real trouble with Mr. Mortmain?

Is it- is it drink?"

We laughed so much that Stephen came in to see what the joke was.

"Poor, poor Mortmain," gasped Topaz, "as if he ever laid his hands on enough to buy a bottle of beer. Drink costs money, Miss Marcy."

Miss Marcy said it couldn't be drugs either --and it certainly

couldn't; he doesn't even smoke, once his Christmas cigars from the

Vicar are gone.

"It's just sheer laziness," said Rose, "laziness and softness. And I don't believe he was ever very good, really. I expect Jacob Wrestling was overestimated."

Topaz looked so angry that I thought for a second she was going to hit Rose. Stephen came to the table and stood between them.

"Oh, no, Miss Rose," he said quietly, "it's a great book- everyone knows that. But things have happened to him so that he can't write any more. You can't write just for the wanting."

I expected Rose to snub him, but before she could say a word he turned to me and went on quickly:

"I've been thinking, Miss Cassandra, that I should get work--they'd have me at Four Stones Farm."

"But the garden, Stephen!" I almost wailed--for we just about live on our vegetables.

He said the days would soon draw out and that he'd work for us in the evenings.

"And I'm useful in the garden, aren't I, Stephen ?" said Topaz.

"Yes, ma'am, very useful. I couldn't get a job if you went to London, of course -there'd be too much work for Miss Cassandra."

Rose isn't good at things like gardening and housework.

"So you could put me down for twenty-five shillings a week, Miss Marcy," Stephen went on, "because Mr. Stebbins said he'd start me at that. And I'd get my dinner at Four Stones." I was glad to think that would mean he'd get one square meal a day.

Miss Marcy said it was a splendid idea, though it was a pity it meant striking out Topaz's ten shillings.

"Though, of course, it was only potential." While she was putting Stephen's twenty-five shillings on her list, Rose suddenly said:

"Thank you, Stephen."

And because she doesn't bother with him much as a rule, it somehow

sounded important. And she smiled so very sweetly. Poor Rose has been so miserable lately that a smile from her is like late afternoon

sunshine after a long, wet day. I don't see how anyone could see Rose smile without feeling fond of her. I thought Stephen would be

tremendously pleased, but he only nodded and swallowed several

times.

Just then, Father came out on the staircase and looked down on us

all.

"What, a round game?" he said--and I suppose it must have looked like one, with us grouped round the table in the lamplight. Then he came

downstairs saying:

"This book's first-rate. I'm having a little break, trying to guess the murderer. I should like a biscuit, please."

Whenever Father is hungry between meals--and he eats very little at

them, less than any of us--he asks for a biscuit. I believe he thinks it is the smallest and cheapest thing he can ask for. Of course, we

haven't had any real shop biscuits for ages but Topaz makes oatcake,

which is very filling.

She put some margarine on a piece for him. I saw a fraction of

distaste in his eyes and he asked her if she could sprinkle it with a little sugar.

"It makes a change," he said, apologetically.

"Can't we offer Miss Marcy something his Some tea or cocoa, Miss Marcy

?"

She thanked him but said she mustn't spoil her appetite for supper.

"Well, don't let me interrupt the game," said Father.

"What is it ?"

And before I could think of any way of distracting him, he had leaned over her shoulder to look at the list in front of her. As it then

stood, it read:

Earning Capacity for Present Year Mrs. Mortmain nil.

Cassandra Mortmain nil.

Thomas Mortmain nil.

Rose Mortmain nil.

Mr. Mortmain nil.

Stephen Colly 25/- a week.

Father's expression didn't change as he read, he went on smiling; but I could feel something happening to him. Rose says I am always crediting people with emotions I should experience myself in their situation, but I am sure I had a real flash of intuition then.

And I suddenly saw his face very clearly, not just in the way one

usually sees the faces of people one is very used to. I saw how he had changed since I was little and I thought of Ralph Hodgson's line about

"tamed and shabby tigers." How long it takes to write the thoughts of a minute! I thought of many more things, complicated, pathetic and

very puzzling, just while Father read the list.

When he had finished, he said quite lightly: "And is Stephen giving us his wages?"

"I ought to pay for my board and lodging, Mr.

Mortmain, sir," said Stephen, "and for--for past favors; all the books you've lent me-was "I'm sure you'll make a very good head of the family," said Father. He took the oatcake with sugar on it from Topaz and moved towards the stairs.

She called after him: "Stay by the fire for a little while, Mortmain."

But he said he wanted to get back to his book. Then he thanked Miss

Marcy again for bringing him such a good one, and said good night to

her very courteously. We could hear him humming as he went through the bedrooms on his way to the gatehouse.

Miss Marcy made no remark about the incident, which shows what a

tactful person she is; but she looked embarrassed and said she must be getting along.

Stephen lit a lantern and said he would go as far as the road with

her--she had left her bicycle there because of the awful mud in our

lane. I went out to see her off. As we crossed the courtyard, she

glanced up at the gatehouse window and asked if I thought Father would be offended if she brought him a little tin of biscuits to keep there.

I said I didn't think any food could give offence in our house and she said:

"Oh, dear!" Then she looked around at the ruins and said how beautiful they were but she supposed I was used to them. I wanted to get back to the fire so I just said yes; but it wasn't true. I am never used to

the beauty of the castle. And after she and Stephen had gone I

realized it was looking particularly lovely. It was a queer sort of

night. The full moon was hidden by clouds but had turned them silver

so that the sky was quite light. Belmotte Tower, high on its mound,

seemed even taller than usual. Once I really looked at the sky, I

wanted to go on looking; it seemed to draw me towards it and make me

listen hard, though there was nothing to listen to, not so much as a

twig was stirring. When Stephen came back I was still gazing

upwards.

"It's too cold for you to be out without a coat, Miss Cassandra," he said. But I had forgotten about feeling cold, so of course I wasn't

cold any more.

As we walked back to the house he asked if I thought La Belle Dame sans Merci would have lived in a tower like Belmotte. I said it seemed very likely; though I never really thought of her having a home life.

After that, we all decided to go to bed to save making up the fire, so we got our hot bricks out of the oven and wended our ways. But going

to bed early is hard on candles. I reckoned I had two hours of light

in mine, but a bit of wick fell in and now it is a melted mass. (I

wonder how King Alfred got on with his clock-candles when that

happened.) I have called Thomas to see if I can have his, but he is

still doing his homework. I shall have to go to the kitchen-- I have a secret cache of ends there. And I will be noble and have a

companionable chat with Topaz, on the way down. I am back. Something

rather surprising happened. When I got to the kitchen, Heloise woke

and barked and Stephen came to his door to see what was the matter. I called out that it was only me and he dived back into his room. I

found my candle-end and had just knelt down by Heloise's basket to have a few words with her (she had a particularly nice warm-clean-dog smell after being asleep) when out he came again, wearing his coat over his nightshirt.

"It's all right," I called, "I've got what I wanted."

Just then, the door on the kitchen stairs swung to, so that we were in darkness except for the pale square at the window. I groped my way

across the kitchen and humped into the table. Then Stephen took my arm and guided me to the foot of the stairs.

"I can manage now," I said- we were closer to the window and there was quite a lot of the queer, shrouded moonlight coming in.

He still kept hold of my arm.

"I want to ask you something, Miss Cassandra," he said.

"I want to know if you're ever hungry- I mean when there's nothing for you to eat."

I would probably have answered "I certainly am," but I noticed how strained and anxious his voice was. So I said:

"Well, there generally is something or other, isn't there his Of course, it would be nicer to have lots of exciting food, but I do get enough. Why did you suddenly want to know ?"

He said he had been lying awake thinking about it and that he couldn't bear me to be hungry.

"If ever you are, you tell me," he said, "and I'll manage something."

I thanked him very much and reminded him he was going to help us all

with his wages.

"Yes, that'll be something," he said.

"But you tell me if you don't get enough. Good night, Miss

Cassandra."

As I went upstairs I was glad I hadn't admitted that I was ever

uncomfortably hungry, because as he steals Herrick for me, I should

think he might steal food. It was rather a dreadful thought but

somehow comforting.

Father was just arriving from the gatehouse. He didn't show any signs of having had his feelings hurt.

He remarked that he'd kept four chapters of his book to read in bed.

"And great strength of mind it required," he added.

Topaz looked rather depressed.

I found Rose lying in the dark because Thomas had borrowed her candle to finish his homework by. She said she didn't mind as her book had

turned out too pretty to be bearable.

I lit my candle-end and stuck it on the melted mass in the candlestick.

I had to crouch low in bed to get enough light to write by. I was just ready to start again, when I saw Rose look round to make sure that I

had closed the door of Buffer. Then she said:

"Did you think of anything when Miss Marcy said Scoatney Hall was being re-opened? I thought of the beginning of Pride and Prejudice where

Mrs.

Bennet says "Netherfield Park is let at last." And then Mr. Bennet goes over to call on the rich new owner."

"Mr. Bennet didn't owe him any rent," I said.

"Father wouldn't go anyway. How I wish I lived in a Jane Austen

novel!"

I said I'd rather be in a Charlotte Bronte.

"Which would be nicest- Jane with a touch of Charlotte, or Charlotte with a touch of Jane ?"

This is the kind of discussion I like very much but I wanted to get on with my journal, so I just said:

"Fifty per cent each way would be perfect," and started to write determinedly. Now it is nearly midnight. I feel rather like a Bronte

myself, writing by the light of a guttering candle with my fingers so numb I can hardly hold the pencil. I wish Stephen hadn't made me think of food, because I have been hungry ever since; which is ridiculous as I had a good egg tea not six hours ago. Oh, dear --I have just thought that if Stephen was worrying about me being hungry, he was probably

hungry himself. We are a household!

I wonder if I can get a few more minutes' light by making wicks of

match sticks stuck into the liquid wax. Sometimes that will work.

It was no good- like trying to write by the light of a glowworm. But

the moon has fought its way through the clouds at last and I can see

by that. It is rather exciting to write by moonlight.

Rose is asleep--on her back, with her mouth wide open. Even like that she looks nice. I hope she is having a beautiful dream about a rich

young man proposing to her.

I don't feel in the least sleepy. I shall hold a little mental chat

with Miss Blossom. Her noble bust looks larger than ever against the

silvery window.

I have just asked her if she thinks Rose and I will ever have anything exciting happen to us, and I distinctly heard her say: "Well, I don't know, ducks, but I do know that sister of yours would be a daisy if she ever got the chance!"

I don't think I should ever be a daisy.."

I could easily go on writing all night but I can't really see and it's extravagant on paper, so I shall merely think. Contemplation seems to be about the only luxury that costs nothing.

III

I have just read this journal from the beginning. I find I can read

the speed-writing quite easily, even the bit I did by moonlight last

night. I am surprised to see how much I have written; with stories

even a page can take me hours, but the truth seems to flow out as fast as I can get it down. But words are very inadequate- anyway, my words are. Could any one reading them picture our kitchen by firelight, or

Belmotte Tower rising towards the moon-silvered clouds, or Stephen

managing to look both noble and humble? (it was most unfair of me to

say he looks a fraction daft.) When I read a book, I put in all the

imagination I can, so that it is almost like writing the book as well as reading it- or rather, it is like living it. It makes reading so

much more exciting, but I don't suppose many people try to do it.

I am writing in the attic this afternoon because Topaz and Rose are so very conversational in the kitchen; they have unearthed a packet of

green dye- it dates from when I was an elf in the school play--and are going to dip some old dresses. I don't intend to let myself become the kind of author who can only work in seclusion- after all, Jane Austen wrote in the sitting-room and merely covered up her work when a visitor called (though I bet she thought a thing or two) --but I am not quite Jane Austen yet and there are limits to what I can stand. And I want

to tackle the description of the castle in peace. It is extremely

cold up here, but I am wearing my coat and my wool gloves, which have gradually become mittens all but one thumb; and About, our beautiful

pale ginger cat, is keeping my stomach warm--I am leaning over him to write on the top of the cistern. His real name is Abelard, to go with Heloise (I need hardly say that Topaz christened them), but he seldom gets called by it.

He has a reasonably pleasant nature but not a gushing one; this is a

rare favor I am receiving from him this afternoon.

Today I shall start with:

How WE While Father was in jail, we lived in a London boardinghouse,

Mother not having fancied settling down again next to the fence-leaping neighbor. When they let Father out, he decided to buy a house in the

country.

I think we must have been rather well-off in those days as Jacob

Wrestling had sold wonderfully well for such an unusual book and

Father's lecturing had earned much more than the sales. And Mother had an income of her own.

Father chose Suffolk as a suitable county so we stayed at the King's

Crypt hotel and drove out house-hunting every day- we had a car then; Father and Mother at the front, Rose, Thomas and I at the back. It was all great fun because Father was in a splendid mood goodness knows he didn't seem to have any iron in his soul then. But he certainly had a prejudice against all neighbors; we saw lots of nice houses in

villages, but he wouldn't even consider them.

It was late autumn, very gentle and golden. I loved the quiet-colored fields of stubble and the hazy water meadows. Rose doesn't like the

flat country but I always did- flat country seems to give the sky such a chance. One evening when there was a lovely sunset, we got lost.

Mother had the map and kept saying the country was upside down- and

when she got it the right way up, the names on the map were upside

down. Rose and I laughed a lot about it; we liked being lost. And

Father was perfectly patient with Mother about the map.

All of a sudden we saw a high, round tower in the distance, on a little hill. Father instantly decided that we must explore it, though Mother wasn't enthusiastic. It was difficult to find because the little roads twisted and woods and villages kept hiding it from us, but every few

minutes we caught a glimpse of it and Father and Rose and I got very

excited. Mother kept saying that Thomas would be up too late; he was

asleep, wobbling about between Rose and me.

At last we came to a neglected signpost with To B.rMOT'RG ND a'nz ct, sa orr, on it, pointing down a narrow, overgrown lane. Father turned

in at once and we crawled along with the brambles clawing at the car as if trying to hold it back- I remember thinking of the Prince fighting his way through the wood to the Sleeping Beauty. The hedges were so

high and the lane turned so often that we could only see a few yards

ahead of us; Mother kept saying we ought to back out before we got

stuck and that the castle was probably miles away. Then suddenly we

drove out into the open and there it was- but not the lonely tower on a hill we had been searching for; what we saw was quite a large castle, built on level ground. Father gave a shout and the next minute we were out of the car and staring in amazement.

How strange and beautiful it looked in the late afternoon light! I can still recapture that first glimpse --see the sheer gray stone walls and towers against the pale yellow sky, the reflected castle stretching

towards us on the brimming moat, the floating patches of emerald-green water-weed. No breath of wind ruffled the looking-glass water, no

sound of any kind came to us. Our excited voices only made the castle seem more silent.

Father pointed out the gatehouse- it had two round towers joined

half-way up by a room with stone-mullioned windows. To the right of

the gatehouse nothing remained but crumbling ruins, but on the left a stretch of high, battlemented walls joined it to a round corner tower.

A bridge crossed the moat to the great nail-studded oak doors under the windows of the gatehouse room, and a little door cut in one of the big doors stood slightly ajar- the minute Father noticed this, he was off towards it. Mother said vague things about trespassing and tried to

stop us following him, but in the end she let us go, while she stayed behind with Thomas who woke and wept a little.

How well I remember that run through the stillness, the smell of wet

stone and wet weeds as we crossed the bridge, the moment of excitement before we stepped in at the little door! Once through, we were in the cool dimness of the gatehouse passage. That was where I first felt the castle--it is the place where one is most conscious of the great weight of stone above and around one.

I was too young to know much of history and the past, for me the

castle was one in a fairy tale; and the queer heavy coldness was so

spell-like that I clutched Rose hard. Together we ran through to the

daylight; then stopped dead.

On our left, instead of the gray walls and towers we had been

expecting, was a long house of whitewashed plaster and herring-boned

brick, veined by weather-bleached wood. It had all sorts of odd little lattice windows, bright gold from the sunset, and the attic gable

looked as if it might fall forward at any minute. This belonged to a

different kind of fairy tale--it was just my idea of a "Hansel and Gretel" house and for a second I feared a witch inside had stolen Father. Then I saw him trying to get in at the kitchen door. He came

running back through the overgrown courtyard garden, calling that there was a small window open near the front door that he could put Rose

through to let us in. I was glad he said Rose and not meI would have

been terrified to be alone in the house for a second. Rose was never

frightened of anything; she was trying to scramble up to the window

even before Father got there to lift her. Through she went and we

heard her struggling with heavy bolts.

Then she flung the door open triumphantly.

The square hall was dark and cold and had a horrid moldy smell. Every bit of woodwork was a drab ginger color, painted to imitate the

graining of wood.

"Would you believe anyone could do that to fine old paneling?" exploded Father. We followed him into a room on the left, which had a dark red wallpaper and a large black-leaded fireplace. There was a nice little window looking on to the garden, but I thought it was a hideous room.

"False ceiling," said Father, stretching up to tap it.

"Oh, lord, I suppose the Victorians did their worst to the whole place." We went back to the hall and then into the large room which is now our drawing-room; it stretches the whole depth of the house. Rose and I ran across and knelt on the wide window seat, and Father opened the heavy mullioned windows so that we could look down and see

ourselves in the moat. Then he pointed out how thick the wall was and explained about the Stuart house having been built on to the ruins of the castle.

"It must have been beautiful once- and could be again," he said, staring across to the field of stubble.

"Think of this view in summer, with a wheat field reaching right up to the edge of the moat."

Then he turned and exclaimed in horror at the wallpaper-he said it

looked like giant squashed frogs. It certainly did, and there was a

monstrosity of a fireplace surrounded by tobacco-colored tiles. But

the diamond-paned windows overlooking the garden and full of the sunset were beautiful, and I was already in love with the moat.

While Rose and I were waving to our reflections, Father went off

through the short passage to the kitchen we suddenly heard him shouting

"The swine, the swine!" Just for an instant I thought he had found pigs, but it turned out to be his continued opinion of the people who had spoilt the house. The kitchen was really dreadful. It had been

partitioned to make several rooms- hens had been kept in one of them; there was a great sagging false ceiling, the staircase and the

cupboards were grained ginger like the hall. What upset me most was a bundle of rags and straw where tramps must have slept. I kept as far

away from it as possible and was glad when Father led the way

upstairs.

The bedrooms were as spoilt as the downstairs rooms -false ceilings,

horrid fireplaces, awful wallpapers. But I was very much fetched when I saw the round tower opening into the room which is now Rose's and

mine. Father tried to get the door to it open, but it was nailed up so he strode on across the landing.

"That corner tower we saw from outside must be somewhere about here,"

he said. We followed him into Thomas's little room, hunting for it,

and then into the bathroom. It had a huge bath with a wide mahogany

surround, and two mahogany-seated lavatories, side by side, with one

lid to cover them both. The pottery parts showed views of Windsor

Castle and when you pulled the plug the bottom of Windsor Castle fell out. Just above them was a text left by the previous tenants,

saying:

"Hold thou me up, and I shall be safe." Father sat down on the side of the bath and roared with laughter.

He would never have anything in the bathroom changed so even the text is still there.

The corner tower was between the bath and the lavatories.

There was no door to it and we started to climb up the circular stone stair case inside, but the steps had crumbled so much that we had to

turn back. But we did get high enough to find a way out on to the top of the walls; there was quite a wide walk with a battlemented parapet on each side. From there we could see Mother in the car, nursing

Thomas.

"Don't attract her attention," said Father, "or she'll think we're going to break our necks."

The wall led us to one of the gatehouse towers; and inside it, opening on to the staircase, was the door to the gatehouse room.

"Thank the lord this isn't spoilt," said Father as we went in.

"How I could work in this room!"

There were stone-mullioned windows looking in to the courtyard, as well as the ones at the front overlooking the lane. Father said they were

Tudor;

later in period than the gatehouse itself, but much earlier than the

house.

We went back into the tower and found the steps of the circular stone staircase good enough for us to go up higher -once we were crawling

into the darkness I wished they hadn't been; Father struck matches but there was a dreadful black moment each time one burnt out. And the

cold, rough stone felt so strange to my hands and bare knees. But when at last we came out on the battlemented top of the tower it was worth it all--I had never felt so high in my life. And I was so triumphant

at having been brave enough to come up. Not that I had had any choice; Rose had kept butting me from behind.

We stood looking down on the lane and over the fields stretching far on either side; we were so high that we could see how the hedges cut them up into a patchwork pattern. There were a few little woods and, a mile or so to the left, a tiny village. We moved round the tower to look

across the courtyard garden -and then we all shouted: "There it is!" at the same moment. Beyond the ruined walls on the west side of the

courtyard was a small hill and on the top of it was the high tower we had driven so long in search of. It puzzles me now why we hadn't seen it when we first came through the gatehouse passage. Perhaps the

overgrown garden obstructed the view; or perhaps we were too much

astonished at seeing the house to look in the opposite direction.

Father dived for the staircase. I cried "Wait, wait!" and he turned and picked me up, letting Rose go ahead striking the matches. He

guessed the bottom of the staircase must come out in the gatehouse

passage, but Rose used the last match as we reached the archway on to the walls; so we went back along them to the bathroom and down the nice little front staircase of the house into the hall. Mother was just

coming through the front door to look for us, dragging a cross, sleepy Thomas--he never liked to be left alone in the car. Father showed her the tower on the hill--we could see it easily once we knew where to

look--and told her to come along; then dashed across the courtyard

garden. She said she couldn't manage it with Thomas. I remember

feeling I ought to stay with her, but I didn't. I raced after Father

and Rose.

We climbed over the ruined walls which bounded the garden and crossed the moat by the shaky bridge at the south-west corner; that brought us to the foot of the hill-but Father told us it was ancient earthworks

and not a natural hill (ever since then we have called it the mound).

The turf was short and smooth and there were no more ruins. At the top we had to scramble over some ridges which Father said must have been

the outer de fences This brought us to a broad, grassy plateau. At the far end was a smaller mound, round in shape and very smooth, and rising from this was the tower, sixty feet tall, black against the last flush of sunset. The entrance was about fifteen feet up, at the top of an

outside flight of stone steps. Father did his best to force the door

but had no luck; so we didn't see inside the tower that night.

We walked all round the little mound and Father told us that it was

called a motte and that the wide grassy plateau was a bailey; he said all this part was much older than the moated castle below. The sunset faded and a wind got up and everything began to look frightening, but Father went on talking most happily and excitedly. Suddenly Rose

said:

"It's like the tower in The Lancashire Witches where Mother Demdike lived." She had read bits of that book aloud to me until I got so frightened that Mother stopped her.

Just then we heard Mother calling from below; her voice sounded high

and strange, almost despairing. I grabbed Rose's hand and said: "Come on, Mother's frightened." And I told myself I was running to help Mother; but I was really terrified of being near the tower any

longer.

Father said we had all better go. We climbed the ridges and then Rose and I took hands and ran down the smooth slope--faster and faster, so that I thought we should fall. All the time we were running I felt

extremely frightened, but I enjoyed it. The whole evening was like

that.

When we got back to the house, Mother was sitting on the front

door-step nursing Thomas, who had fallen asleep again.

"Isn't it wonderful ?" cried Father.

"I'll have it if it takes my last penny."

Mother said: "If it's to be my cross, I suppose God will give me the strength to bear it."

Father laughed at that and I felt rather shocked. I don't in the least know if she meant to be funny-but then, I realize more and more how

vague she has become for me. Even when I remember things she said, I

can't recall the sound of her voice. And though I can still see the

shape of her that day huddled on the steps, her back view when we were in the car, her brown tweed suit and squashy felt hat, I can't

visualize her face at all. When I try to, I just see the photograph I have of her.

Rose and I went back to the car with her, but Father wandered round

until it was dark. I remember seeing him come out on the castle walls near the gatehouse -and marveling that I had been up there myself. Even in the dusk I could see his gold hair and splendid profile. He was

spare in those days, but broad-always a large person.

He was so excited that he started to drive back to King's Crypt at a

terrific pace -Rose, Thomas and I simply bounced about at the back of the car. Mother said it wasn't safe with the roads so narrow and he

slowed down to a snail's pace which made Rose and me laugh a lot.

Mother said: "There's reason in everything and Thomas ought to be in bed." Thomas suddenly sat up and said: "Dear me, yes, I ought," which made even Mother laugh.

The next day, after making enquiries, Father went over to Scoatney

Hall. When he got back he told us that Mr. Cotton wouldn't sell the

castle, but had let him have a forty years" lease on it.

"And I can do anything I like to the house," he added, "because the old gentleman agrees I couldn't possibly make it any worse."

Of course, he made it very much better--whitewashing it, unearthing the drawing-room paneling from beneath eight coats of wallpaper, pulling

out the worst fireplaces, the false ceilings, the partitions in the

kitchen. There were many more things he meant to do, particularly as

regards comfort--I know Mother wanted some central heating and a

machine to make electric light; but he spent so much on antique

furniture even before work at the castle began that she persuaded him to cut things down to a minimum. There was always a vague idea that

the useful things were to come later; probably when he wrote his next book.

It was spring when we moved in. I particularly remember the afternoon we first got the drawing-room straight. Everything was so fresh- the

flowered chintz curtains, the beautiful shining old furniture, the

white paneling--it had had to be painted because it was in such a poor condition. I was fascinated by a great jar of young green beech

leaves; I sat on the floor staring at them while Rose played her piece

"To a Water Lily" on Mother's old grand piano. Suddenly Father came in, in a very exulting mood, to tell us that there was a surprise for us outside the window. He flung the mullioned windows open wide and

there on the moat were two swans, sailing sedately. We leaned out to

feed them with bread and all the time the spring air blew in and

stirred the beech leaves. Then I went into the garden, where the lawns had been cut and the flower-beds tidied; there were a lot of early

wallflowers which smelt very sweet. Father was arranging his books up in the gatehouse room. He called down:

"Isn't this a lovely home for you ?"

I agreed that it was; and I still think so. But anyone who could enjoy the winter here would find the North Pole stuffy.

How strange memory is! When I close my eyes, I see three different

castles--one in the sunset light of that first evening, one all fresh and clean as in our early days here, one as it is now.

The last picture is very sad because all our good furniture has

gone-the dining-room hasn't so much as a carpet; not that we have

missed that room much--it was the first one we saw that night we

explored the house and was always too far from the kitchen. The

drawing-room has a few chairs still and, thank goodness, no one will

ever buy the piano because it is so big and old. But the pretty chintz curtains are faded and everything has a neglected look. When the

spring comes we must really try to freshen up our home a little-at

least we can still have beech leaves.

We have been poor for five years now; after Mother died, I fear we

lived on the capital of the money she left. Not that I ever worried

about such things at the time because I always felt sure Father would make money again sooner or later. Mother brought us up to believe that he was a genius and that geniuses mustn't he hurried.

What is the matter with him his And what does he do all the time his I wrote yesterday that he does nothing but read detective novels, hut

that was just a silly generalization, because Miss Marcy can seldom let him have more than two a week (although he will read the same ones

again and again after a certain lapse of time, which seems to me

amazing). Of course he reads other books, too. All our valuable ones

have been sold (and how I have missed them!) but there are a good many of the others left, including an old, incomplete Encyclopedia

Britannica;

I know he reads that and he plays some kind of a game following up

cross-references in it. And I am sure he thinks very hard. Several

times when he hasn't answered my knock on the gatehouse room door I

have gone in and found him staring into space. In the good weather he walks a lot, but he hasn't now for months. He has dropped all his

London friends.

The only friend he has ever made down here is the Vicar, who is the

nicest man imaginable; a bachelor with an elderly housekeeper. Now I

come to think of it, Father has dodged seeing even him this winter.

Father's un sociability has made it hard for any of us to get to know people here--and there aren't many to know. The village is tiny: just the church, the vicarage, the little school, the inn, one shop (which is also the post office) and a huddle of cottages; though the Vicar

gets quite a congregation from the surrounding hamlets and farms. It

is a very pretty village and has the unlikely name of Godsend, a

corruption of Godys End, after the Norman knight, Etienne de Godys, who built Belmotte Castle. Our castle--I mean the moated one, on to which our house is built- is called Godsend, too; it was built by a later de Godys.

No one really knows the origin of the name "Belmotte"-the whole mound, as well as the tower on it, is called that. At a guess one would say

the "Bel" is from the French, but the Vicar believes in a theory that it is from Bel the sun god whose worship was introduced by the

Phoenicians, and that the mound was raised so that Midsummer Eve votive fires could be lit there; he thinks the Normans simply made use of it.

Father doesn't believe in the god Bel theory and says the Phoenicians worshipped the stars, not the sun. Anyway, the mound is a very good

place to worship both sun and stars from.

I do a little worshipping there myself when I get time.

I meant to copy an essay on castles I wrote for the school History

Society into this journal, but I find it is very long and horridly

overwritten (how the school must have suffered), so I shall paraphrase it briefly:

CASTLES

In early Norman times, there seem to have been mounds with ditches and wooden stockades as de fences Inside the de fences were wooden

buildings, and sometimes there was a high earthen motte to serve as a lookout place. The later Normans began building great square stone

towers (called keeps), but it was found possible to mine the corners of these- mining was just digging then, of course, not the use of

explosives --so they took to building round towers, of which Belmotte is one. Later, the tower-keeps were surrounded with high walls, called curtain walls.

These were often built in quadrangle form with jutting towers at the

gatehouse, the corners and in the middle of each side so that the

defenders could see any besiegers who were trying to mine or scale the walls, and fight them off. But the besiegers had plenty of other good tricks, notably a weapon called a trebuchet which could sling great

rocks- or a dead horse--over your curtain walls, causing much

embarrassment.

Eventually, someone thought of putting moats round curtain walls. Of

course, the moated castles had to be on level ground; Belmotte

tower-keep, up on its mound, must have been very much of a back number when Godsend Castle was built. And then all castles gradually became

back numbers and Cromwell's Roundheads battered two-and-a-half sides of our curtain walls down.

Long before that, the de Godys name had died out and the two castles

had passed to the Cottons of Scoatney, through a daughter. The house

built on the ruins was their dower house for a time, then it became

just a farm-house. And now it isn't even that; merely the home of the ruined Mortmains.

Oh, what are we to do for money his Surely there is enough intelligence among us to earn some, or marry some-Rose, that is; for I would

approach matrimony as cheerfully as I would the tomb and I cannot feel that I should give satisfaction. But how is Rose to meet anyone his We used to go to London every year to stay with Father's aunt, who has a house in Chelsea with a lily-pool and collects artists. Father met

Topaz there--Aunt Millicent never forgave him marrying her, so now we don't get asked any more;

this is bitter because it means we meet no men at all, not even

artists. Oh, me! I am feeling low in spirits. While I have been

writing I have lived in the past, the light of it has been all around me-first the golden light of autumn, then the silver light of spring

and then the strange light, gray but exciting, in which I see the

historic past. But now I have come back to earth and rain is beating

on the attic window, an icy draught is blowing up the staircase and

About has gone downstairs and left my stomach cold.

Heavens, how it is coming down! The rain is like a diagonal veil

across Belmotte. Rain or shine, Belmotte always looks lovely. I wish

it were Midsummer Eve and I were lighting my votive fire on the

mound.

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 tea-time. I shall go down and be very kind to

everyone.

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

IV

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

grown-up? 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.

"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.

"Don't worry about the ghost," he said.

"Of course he didn't see one."

I said: "Well, he easily might, up on the mound, but it was more likely my stepmother communing with nature." I was out of the bath by then, with the towel draped around me respectably, so I put my head round to speak to him. It came out much higher than when I had been kneeling in the bath and he looked most astonished.

"You're a larger child than I realized," he said.

As I took the clothes, I caught sight of the other man. He had just

the sort of face to go with his voice, a nice, fresh face. The odd

thing was that I felt I knew it. I have since decided this was because there are often young men like him in American pictures--not the hero, but the heroine's brother or men on petrol stations.

He caught my eye and said:

"Hello! Tell me some more about your legless stepmother-and the rest of your family. Have you a sister who plays the harp on horseback, or anything?"

Just then Topaz began to play her lute upstairs -she must have slipped in at the front door. The young man began to laugh.

"There she is," he said delightedly.

"That's not a harp, it's a lute," said the bearded man.

"Now that really is amazing. A castle, a lute- his And then Rose came out on to the staircase. She was wearing the dyed-green tea-gown,

which is mediaeval in shape with long flowing sleeves. She obviously

didn't know that there were strangers in the house for she called

out:

"Look, Cassandra'" Both men turned towards her and she stopped dead at the top of the stairs. For once Topaz had her lute in tune. And she

was, most appropriately, playing "Green Sleeves."

VLaiR. Up on the chaff in the barn again.

I had to leave Rose stranded at the top of the stairs because Topaz was ringing the lunch bell. She had been too busy to cook, so we had cold Brussels sprouts and cold boiled rice -hardly my favorite food but

splendidly filling. We ate in the drawing-room, which has been cleaned within an inch of its life. In spite of a log fire, it was icy in

there; I have noticed that rooms which are extra clean feel extra

cold.

Rose and Topaz are now out searching the hedges for something to put in the big Devon pitchers. Topaz says that if they don't find anything

she will get bare branches and tie something amusing to them- if so, I bet it doesn't amuse me;

one would think that a girl who appreciates nudity as Topaz does would let a bare branch stay bare.

None of us is admitting that we expect the Cottons to call very soon, but we are all hoping it like mad. For that is who the two men were,

of course: the Cottons of Scoatney, on their way there for the first

time. I can't think why I didn't guess it at once, for I did know that the estate had passed to an American.

Old Mr. Cotton's youngest son went to the States back in the early

nineteen hundreds- after some big family row, I believe- and later

became an American citizen. Of course, there didn't seem any

likelihood of his inheriting Scoatney then, but two elder brothers were killed in the war and the other, with his only son, died about twelve years ago, in a car smash. After that, the American son tried to make it up with his Father, but the old man wouldn't see him unless he

undertook to become English again, which he wouldn't. He died about a year ago; these two young men are his sons.

Simon--he is the one with the beard--said last night that he had just persuaded his grandfather to receive him when poor lonely old Mr.

Cotton died, which seems very sad indeed.

The younger son's name is Neil, and the reason he sounds so different from his brother is that he was brought up in California where his

Father had a ranch, while Simon lived in Boston and New York with the Mother. (i gather the parents were divorced.

Mrs. Cotton is in London now and is coming down to Scoatney soon.)

Father says Simon's accent is American and that there are as many

different accents in America as there are in England-more, in fact. He says that Simon speaks particularly good English, but of an earlier

kind than is now fashionable here.

Certainly he has a fascinating voice--though I think I like the younger brother best.

It is a pity that Simon is the heir, because Rose thinks the beard is disgusting; but perhaps we can get it off. Am I really admitting that my sister is determined to marry a man she has only seen once and

doesn't much like the look of? It is half real and half pretence -and I have an idea that it is a game most girls play when they meet any

eligible young men. They just .. . wonder. And if any family ever had need of wondering, it is ours. But only as regards Rose. I have asked myself if I am doing any personal wondering and in my deepest heart I am not. I would rather die than marry either of those quite nice

men.

Nonsense! I'd rather marry both of them than die.

But it has come to me, sitting here in the barn feeling very full of

cold rice, that there is something revolting about the way girls' minds so often jump to marriage long before they jump to love. And most of

those minds are shut to what marriage really means. Now I come to

think of it, I am judging from books mostly, for I don't know any girls except Rose and Topaz. But some characters in books are very real

--Jane Austen's are; and I know those five Bennets at the opening of

Pride and Prejudice, simply waiting to raven the young men at

Netherfield Park, are not giving one thought to the real facts of

marriage. I wonder if Rose is?

I must certainly try to make her before she gets involved in anything.

Fortunately, I am not ignorant in such matters- no stepchild of Topaz's could be. I know all about the facts of life. And I don't think much

of them.

It was a wonderful moment when Rose stood there at the top of the

stairs. It made me think of Beatrix in Esmond--but Beatrix didn't trip over her dress three stairs from the bottom and have to clutch at the banisters with a green-dyed hand. But it all turned out for the best

because Rose had gone self-conscious when she saw the Cottons--I could tell that by the way she was sailing down, graceful but affected. When she tripped, Neil Cotton dashed forward to help her and then everyone laughed and started talking at once, so she forgot her

self-consciousness.

While I was hurrying into my clothes, behind the sheets, the Cottons

explained who they were. They have only been in England a few days. I wondered how it would feel to be Simon- to be arriving by night for the first time, at a great house like Scoatney, knowing it belonged to you.

For a second, I seemed to see with his eyes and knew how strange our

castle must have looked, suddenly rising from the water-logged English countryside. I imagined him peering in through the window over the

sink--as I bet he did before he came back without his brother. I think I got this picture straight from his mind, because just as it came to me, he said:

"I couldn't believe this kitchen was real--it was like looking at a woodcut in some old book of fairy tales."

I hope he thought Rose looked like a fairy tale princess--she certainly did. And she was so charming, so easy; she kept laughing her pretty

laugh. I thought of how different she had been in her black mood not

half an hour before, and that made me remember her wishing on the

devil-angel. Just then, a queer thing happened. Simon Cotton had

seemed about equally fascinated by Rose and the kitchen--he kept

turning from one to the other. He had taken out his torch- only he

called it a flashlight- to examine the fireplace wall (i was dressed by then) and after he had shone it up at the stone head, he went to the

narrow window that looks on to the moat, in the darkest corner of the kitchen. The torch went out and he turned it to see if the bulb had

gone. And that second, it came on again. For an instant, the shadow

of his head was thrown on the wall and, owing to the pointed heard, it was exactly like the Devil.

Rose saw it just as I did and gave a gasp.

He turned to her quickly, but just then Heloise walked through the

green sheets and upset a clothes-horse, which created a diversion.

I helped it on by calling, "Hcl, Hcl," and explaining Heloise was sometimes called that for short--which went well, though a worn-out

joke to the Mortmain family. But I couldn't forget the shadow. It is

nonsense, of course--I never saw anyone with kinder eyes.

But Rose is very superstitious. I wonder if the younger brother has

any money. He was as nice to Rose as Simon Cotton was. And quite a

bit nice to There was one dramatic moment when Simon asked me if we

owned the castle and I answered: "No--you do!"

I hastily added that we had nearly thirty years of our lease to run.

I wonder if leases count if you don't pay the rent. I did not, of

course, mention the rent. I felt it might be damping.

After we had all been talking for twenty minutes or so, Topaz came down wearing her old tweed coat and skirt.

She rarely wears tweeds even in the daytime and never, never in the

evening-they make her look dreary, just washed-out instead of

excitingly white so I was most astonished; particularly as the door of her room was slightly open and she must have known who had arrived.

I have refrained from asking her why she made the worst of herself.

Perhaps she thought the tweeds would give our family a county air.

We introduced the Cottons and she talked a little but seemed very

subdued--what was the matter with her last night? After a few minutes she began to make cocoa--there was no other drink to offer except

water; I had even used the last of the tea for Thomas and very dusty it was.

We never rise to cocoa in the evening unless it is a special occasion

-like someone being ill, or to make up a family row-and I hated to

think that Thomas and Stephen seemed likely to miss it; they were still away getting horses from Four Stones to pull the car out.

I felt, too, that Father ought to be in on any form of nourishment that was loose in the house, but I knew it was useless to ask him to come

and meet strangers--I was afraid that even if he came down for a

biscuit, he would hear voices when he got as far as his bedroom and

turn back. Suddenly, the back door burst open and in he came--it had

started to rain heavily again and it is quicker to rush across the

courtyard than go carefully along the top of the walls. He was freely damning the weather and the fact that his oil-stove had begun to smoke, and as he had his rug over his head, he didn't see the Cottons until he was right in the midst of things.

Topaz stopped mixing cocoa and said very distinctly and proudly: "This is my husband, James Mortmain."

And then a wonderful thing happened. Simon Cotton said:

"But--oh, this is a miracle! You must be the author of Jacob

Wrestling."

Father stared at him with a look in his eyes that I can only describe as desperate. At first I thought it was because he had been cornered

by strangers. Then he said: "Why, yes . " in a curious, tentative way and I suddenly realized that he was terribly pleased, but not quite

believing. I can imagine a shipwrecked man, catching sight of a ship, looking like Father did then. Simon Cotton came up and shook hands and introduced his brother, saying:

"Neil, you remember Jacob Wrestling?"

Neil said: "Yes, of course, he was splendid" -by which I knew that he thought Jacob Wrestling was the name of a character in the book,

instead of meaning Jacob wrestling with the angel, as it really does.

Simon began to talk of the book as if he had only just put it down,

though I gathered gradually that he'd studied it in college, years ago.

At first Father was nervous and awkward, standing there with his rug

clutched round him, but he got easier and easier until he was doing

most of the talking, with Simon just getting in word occasionally. And at last Father flung the rug off as it it were hampering him and

strode over to the table saying:

"Cocoa, cocoa!"--it might have been the most magnificent drink in the world; which, personally, I think it is.

While we drank it conversation became more general.

Father chaffed us about our green hands and Neil Cotton discovered the dinner dish in the bath and thought it very funny that I had been

sitting on it. All the time, Rose got nicer and nicer, smiling and

gentle. She sat by the fire, nursing About, who is nearly the same

color as her hair, and the Cottons kept wandering over to stroke him. I could see they were fascinated by everything-when Heloise jumped up to sleep on the warm top of the copper, Neil said it was the cutest thing he'd ever seen in his life. I didn't say very much myself pounds

Father and the Cottons did most of the talking--but the Cottons seemed to think everything I did say was amusing.

And then, just when everything was going so swimmingly, Simon Cotton

asked the one question I had been praying he wouldn't ask.

He turned to Father and said:

"And when may we expect the successor to Jacob Wrestling?"

I knew I ought to create a diversion by upsetting my cocoa, but I did so want it. And while I was struggling with my greed, Father

answered:

"Never."

He didn't say it angrily or bitterly. He just breathed it. And I

don't suppose anyone but me saw that he somehow deflated; the carriage of his head changed and his shoulders sagged.

But almost before I had taken this in, Simon Cotton said:

"There couldn't be, of course, when one comes to think of it."

Father shot a look at him and he went on quickly:

"Certain unique books seem to be without forerunners or successors as far as their authors are concerned. Even though they may profoundly

influence the work of other writers, for their creator they're

complete, not leading anywhere."

Topaz was watching Father as anxiously as I was.

"Oh, but surely--" she began protestingly. Father interrupted her.

"Do you mean that the writers of such books are often one-book men ?"

he asked, very quietly.

"Heaven forbid," said Simon Cotton.

"I

only mean that I was wrong to use the word "successor." The originators among writers are perhaps, in a sense, the only true

creators who dip deep and bring up one perfect work; complete, not a

link in a chain. Later, they dip again for something as unique. God

may have created other worlds, but he obviously didn't go on adding to this one."

He said it in a rather stately, literary way but quite sincerely and

yet I didn't feel it was sincere. And I didn't feel it meant very

much. I think it was really a kind and clever way of sliding over a

difficult moment; though, if so, he must have been very quick to

realize how difficult the moment was. The odd thing was that Father

seemed so impressed. He jerked his head as if some idea had just

struck him, but he didn't answer it was as if he wanted to think for a minute. Then Simon Cotton asked him a question about the third dream

in Jacob Wrestling and he came to life again I haven't seen him so

alive since the year he married Topaz. And he didn't talk only about

himself; after he had answered the question he drew us all in,

particularly Rose he kept saying things which made the Cottons turn to her, which they seemed very glad to do.

Neil Cotton didn't talk as much as his brother. Most of the time he

sat on the copper with Heloise. He winked at me once in a friendly

way.

At last Thomas came in to say the horses were waiting. (there was

enough cocoa left for him but none for Stephen, who had stayed with the horses. Luckily I had saved half mine and put it by the fire to keep

warm.) Father and I sloshed down the lane with the Cottons to see the car hauled out--Rose couldn't come because of her tea-gown and Topaz

didn't seem to want to. There was much pleasant confusion, with the

Cottons flashing torches and everyone laughing and making the noises

horses expect, and then the car was safely on the road again. After

that, the good-byes were rather hurried, but both the Cottons said that they would see us again soon and I am sure that they meant it.

Stephen and Thomas took the horses back and Father and I trudged home in the rain. The boys took the lantern so it was very dark--I need

hardly say that our family hasn't possessed a working torch for years.

Father held my arm firmly and seemed wonderfully cheerful. I asked him what he thought of the Cottons and he said: "Well, I shouldn't think they'd dun us for the rent." Then he said he had forgotten how

stimulating Americans could be, and told me interesting bits about his American lecture tours. And he said Simon Cotton was the Henry James

type of American, who falls in love with England--" He'll make an admirable owner for Scoatney." The only Henry James novel I ever tried to read was What Maisie Knew, when I was about nine-- I expected it to be a book for children. We had a beautiful plum-colored edition of

James's works then, but of course it got sold with the other valuable books.

As soon as we got back to the castle Father went up to the gatehouse

room and I rushed to join the girls. They were talking excitedly Topaz had got over her quiet mood. She was sure Rose had made a hit, and

started to plan how to alter a dress for her, a real London dress that Rose has always admired. And they decided about cleaning the

drawing-room in case the Cottons called very soon. I said wasn't it

wonderful that Father actually seemed to like them. Through the back

windows of the gatehouse, we could see him sitting at his desk. Topaz said:

"It's happened--the miracle! He's going to start work again!"

Stephen and Thomas came back and I made Stephen drink the cocoa I'd

saved for him- I had to hold it ready to pour down the sink before he would take it. Then we went to bed.

Rose got all her clothes out and draped them over Miss Blossom, to see if any of them were better than she remembered. They were worse.

But even that didn't depress her.

We talked and talked. Suddenly I sat up in bed and said:

"Rose, we're working it up too much. We mustn't. Of course it'll be wonderful if we're asked to parties and things but--Rose, you couldn't marry that man with a beard ?"

"I could marry the Devil himself if he had some money," said Rose.

I am pretty sure she was remembering Simon Cotton's shadow; but as she didn't mention it, I didn't. There is no point in working up a thing

like that about a wealthy man.

After we had blown the candles out I made Miss Blossom talk I can never think of the sort of things she says unless I pretend she is really

saying them. When I asked her what she thought about it all, she

answered:

"Well, it's a start, girlies, there's no denying that. Now you just make the best of yourselves. Of course all these old clothes you've

draped over me won't help you much, but wash your hair and keep your

hands nice- that green stuff on them's funny for once but the joke's

over. And now you'd better think of your complexions and get some

beauty sleep."

Rose certainly took the hint about the dye; this morning she scrubbed and scrubbed her hands until she got it all off. She used our last

grains of scouring powder, so my dye will just have to wear off--it has now reached a gray stage which looks like dirt. Oh, I have just had an idea--after tea I shall attack myself with sand paper.

How quickly life can change! This time yesterday it was a wintery

blank--and now not only have we met the Cottons, but there is a real

hint of spring. From up here in the barn I can see blackthorn buds on the hedges ...... I have just discovered that by moving my head I can make the square opening, near the roof, frame different parts of the

lane--it is rather a fascinating game.

Oh! Oh, my goodness! They're here--the Cottons --they've just come

round the last bend of the lane! Oh, what am I to do his ....... They have gone past. There was no way I could warn Rose and Topaz- I

couldn't have got out of the barn without being seen. At least I know they are back from their walk because I heard Rose playing the piano

some time ago. But how will they be dressed his And, heavens, Rose was thinking of washing her hair! Never did we dare to hope the Cottons

would come this very day!

I watched them pass, through the hinge of the barn door; then

scrambled up on the chaff again and watched until they disappeared into the gatehouse passage. Ought I to go in his I want to, of course --but there is a huge hole in my stocking and my gym-dress is all dusty from the chaff ...... It must be half an hour since I wrote that last line.

I didn't go in.

I have been lying here on the chaff thinking of them in the

drawing-room with the log fire burning. It won't really matter if Rose did wash her hair, because it looks very beautiful when it is drying. I feel sure I did right to stay here--for one thing, I talk too much

sometimes. I must be desperately careful never to distract attention

from Rose. I keep telling myself it is real, it really has happened

--we know two men. And they like us- they must, or they wouldn't have come back so soon.

I don't really want to write any more, I just want to lie here and

think. But there is something I want to capture. It has to do with

the feeling I had when I watched the Cottons coming down the lane, the queer separate feeling. I like seeing people when they can't see me. I have often looked at our family through lighted windows and they seem quite different, a bit the way rooms seen in looking-glasses do. I

can't get the feeling into words-it slipped away when I tried to

capture it.

Simon Cotton's black beard looks queerer than ever by daylight,

especially now I have realized he isn't at all old--I should guess him to be under thirty. He has nice teeth and rather a nice mouth with a

lot of shape to it. It has a peculiar naked look in the midst of all

that hair. How can a young man like to wear a beard his I wonder if

he has a scar his His eyebrows go up at the corners.

Neil Cotton has such a charming face though no particular feature is

striking. Very nice hair, fairish, curly.

He looks very healthy;

Simon is a bit pale. They're both tall;

Simon a bit the taller, Neil a bit the broader. They don't look like

brothers, any more than they sound it.

Simon is wearing tweeds, very English-looking.

Neil is wearing a coat such as I never saw in my life before: checked back and front, but plain sleeves. Perhaps it was made out of two old coats -though I hope not, as that would show him to be poor and his

brother mean. And it looked rather a noisily new coat. I expect it's

just American.

They're coming out of the castle! Shall I run to meet them and just

shake hands? No, not with these gray hands--.

Something awful has happened- so awful that I can hardly bear to write it. Oh, how could they, how could they his As they came towards the

barn, I heard them talking. Neil said:

"Gosh, Simon, you're lucky to get away with your life."

"Extraordinary, wasn't it ?" said Simon.

"She didn't give that impression at all last night." Then he turned to look back at the castle and said: "What a wonderful place! But hellish uncomfortable. And they obviously haven't a cent. I suppose one can't blame the poor girl."

"One can blame her for being so darned obvious," said Neil.

"And that ridiculous dress--at this time of the day!

Funny, I rather liked her in it last night."

"The stepmother seems quite pleasant. She looked about as

uncomfortable as I felt. My God, how that girl embarrassed me!"

"We shall have to drop them, Simon. If we don't, she may put you in a very awkward position."

Simon said he supposed so. They were talking quietly, but it was so

still that every word came to me clearly. As they passed the barn,

Neil said:

"Pity we didn't see the child again. She was a cute kid."

"A bit consciously naive, don't you think?" said Simon.

"I shall feel worst about dropping the old man- I'd rather hoped I could help him. But I don't suppose there's much one can do if he's a hopeless drunk."

Oh, I could kill them! When Father doesn't even get enough to eat, let alone any strong drink! They must have heard some lying gossip. How

dare people say he drinks And he isn't an old man he not yet fifty.

I didn't hear any more. I wish now that I had rushed out and hit them.

That would have showed them if I am consciously naive!

What on earth did Rose do his I must go in.

Eight o'clock. In the drawing-room.

I have come in here to get away from Rose. She is drying her hair in

the kitchen and manicuring her nails with a sharpened match.

And she is talking, talking. I don't know how Topaz can stand it,

knowing what she does know--for I couldn't keep it to myself, I

couldn't bear to. I might have done if I hadn't found her alone when I got in; but I did and she saw that I was upset. I began to tell her in a whisper--ours is a dreadful house for being overheard in-but she

said: "Wait," and pulled me out into the garden.

We could hear Rose singing upstairs, so we didn't talk until we had

crossed the bridge and gone a little way up the mound.

Topaz wasn't as furious as I had expected-but, of course, I didn't tell her the bit about Father. She wasn't even surprised. She said Rose

had seen the Cottons coming from her bedroom window and nothing would stop her changing into the tea-gown. (as if anyone ever wore a

tea-gown for tea!) And she had behaved insanely, making a dead set at Simon Cotton.

"Do you mean she was too nice to him ?"

"Not exactly--that mightn't have mattered so much.

She was terribly affected, she kept challenging him if she'd had a fan she'd have tapped him with it and said "Fie, He!" And she fluttered her eyelids. It'd all have been very fetching a hundred years ago."

Oh, I could see it! Rose got it out of old books. We've never known

any modern women except Topaz, and Rose would never dream of copying

her. Oh, poor, poor Rose-she never even saw modern girls on the

pictures, as I did.

"They won't come back," said Topaz.

"I'd have known that, even if you hadn't overheard what they said."

I said we didn't want them, that they must be hateful people to talk

like that. But Topaz said that was nonsense-"Rose asked for it. Men don't really mind your showing you like them when you do, but they run a mile from obvious fascination- that's what it was, of course, all the challenging and head-tossing, and all directed at Simon in the crudest way. If Mortmain had been in he might have chaffed her out of

it--anyway, he'd have talked to them himself.

Oh, blast!"

Father had gone for a walk- the first he has taken for months.

Topaz said Simon Cotton had brought him a book by a famous American

critic because one of the essays in it dealt with Jacob Wrestling.

"I suppose Simon just might come back to talk to Mortmain," she said.

But I knew better.

It was beginning to get dark. There was a light down in the kitchen.

We saw Rose pass the window.

"Shall we tell her ?" I said.

Topaz thought not--unless we ever get asked to Scoatney-"If we do, we might try to kick some sense into her."

We won't get asked.

Topaz put her arm round me and we trudged down the mound --very

awkwardly because she takes longer strides than I can. When we got to the bottom she looked back at Belmotte Tower, dark against the twilight sky.

"Beautiful, isn't it ?" she said in her most velvety tones.

Now could she really be interested in beauty at such a moment his

Incidentally, when she painted the tower she made it look like a black rolling-pin on an overturned green pudding-basin.

My candle is burning out and the drawing-room is getting colder and

colder--the fire has been out for hours; but I can't write this in the same room with Rose. When I look at her I feel I am watching a rat in a trap that hopes it will get out when I know it won't.

Not that I ever watched a rat in a trap, nor does Rose think she is in one; but this is no moment to be finicky about metaphors.

Heloise has just pushed the door open and come in and licked me, which is kind but so chilly as I dry. And I can now hear what is going on in the kitchen far more fully than I could wish. Father is there now and is talking excitedly- he says the American critic has discovered things in Jacob Wrestling that he certainly never put there and that the

arrogance of critics is beyond belief.

He is obviously enjoying the thought of discussing it all with Simon

Cotton.

Rose's exuberance has risen higher and higher. I regret to say that

she is now whistling.

Stephen has been in and put his coat round me. It smells of horses.

Am I consciously naive? Perhaps I am, perhaps this journal is. In

future I will write it in stark prose. But I won't really write it at all any more, because I have come to the end of this exercise book-I

have already used both inside covers and am now crossing my writing,

and crossed speed-writing will probably never come uncrossed.

It must be just twenty-four hours since those Cottons walked in on me in my bath.

Topaz has just yelled that she is making cocoa.

Oh, comfortable cocoa! Not so good--Topaz has now yelled that it will have to be made with water because the Cottons drank the milk;

there was no tea to offer them. Still, any kind of cocoa is good.

But it will be agony to know that Rose will think we are having it to celebrate, while Topaz and I know that it is funeral baked meats.

THE END

SLAM THE BOOK SHUT

VI

I have a new exercise book, the finest I ever saw. It cost a whole

shilling! Stephen got Miss Marcy to buy it in London last week; she

went up on a cheap day-ticket. When he gave it to me, I thought I

would write something like Wuthering Heights in it- I never dreamt that I should want to go on with this journal.

And now life has begun all over again.

I am up on Belmotte. Spring has come with such a bound that catkins

are still dangling on the hazels while daisies are rushing out on the mound- I particularly love them in the short, brilliant grass of the

motte, where they look like spring in a child's picture-book as well

as the real spring. There are daffodils down in the courtyard garden

but I can't see them from here because the washing is flapping;

Topaz keeps coming out with more and more things to peg up, and they

are all part of the exciting happenings. I have been leaning back

against the tower quietly gloating, watching the dazzling white clouds move past--there is quite a breeze but a soft, almost summery one.

It is six weeks today since Topaz and I stood on Belmotte in the dusk with life at its lowest ebb--though it ebbed a great deal lower

afterwards. At first only Topaz and I were miserable;

it was a terrible strain not to show it- we used to slip off for long walks together and let our faces fall. Rose's exuberance lasted about ten days; then she began to feel something else ought to happen. I

staved her off for another week by suggesting Mrs.

Cotton's arrival must have kept her sons busy. Then the blow fell:

Miss Marcy told us that the Vicar had gone over to call and been asked to lunch, and that various Scoatney people had been invited there.

there is no one else in Godsend they would ever ask, except us.

"Your turn next, dears," said Miss Marcy.

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.

All the clothes did. I said:

"Rose, I don't think I can touch them."

"We've got to," she said, and started to rummage through them.

Perhaps if we had ever been fond of poor Aunt Millicent we might have felt a kindness for her clothes. Perhaps if they had been pretty and

feminine it wouldn't have been so horrible. But they were mostly

heavy, dark coats and skirts and thick woollen underwear. And rows and rows of flat-heeled shoes on wooden trees, which upset me most of all--

I kept thinking of them as dead feet.

"There are dozens of linen handkerchiefs, that's something," said Rose.

But I hated the handkerchiefs -and the gloves and the stockings; and a dreadful pair of broken-looking corsets.

"People's clothes ought to be buried with them," I said.

"They oughtn't to be left behind to be despised."

"I'm not despising them," said Rose.

"Some of these suits are made of wonderful cloth."

But she was bundling them into the trunks in a somehow insulting way. I made myself take them out and fold them carefully, and had a mental

picture of Aunt Millicent looking relieved.

"She always liked her suits to be well-pressed and brushed," I said.

"As if it mattered to her now!" said Rose.

And then we heard someone coming upstairs.

I went icy cold from my heart up to my shoulders.

Then the fear got into my throat so that I couldn't speak. I just

stared at Rose, in agony.

"It isn't, it isn't!" she gasped.

"Oh, Cassandra--it isn't."

But I knew that she thought it was. And I knew, in the way I so often know things about Rose, that she had been frightened ever since we

entered the house, that the casual way she handled the clothes had been all bluff. But I didn't know then that she was doubly frightened, that she thought if it wasn't Aunt Millicent coming up the stairs it was a tramp who had been hiding in the basement --that he would kill us both and put our bodies in the trunks.

Oh, wonderful Rose! With both these fears in her mind, she flung open the door and said: "Who's there?"

The lawyers" clerk stood outside.

"How dare you, how dare you ?" she cried, furiously.

"Sneaking into the house, terrifying my little sister--" "Don't, Rose!"

I said in a weak voice.

The poor clerk apologized profusely.

"And I only came to do you a good turn," he finished. Then he handed her a letter.

Rose read it.

"But we can't pay this!"

I snatched it from her. It was a reminder that money was owing for the cold-storage of some furs.

"You don't have to pay anything, I fixed that by telephone," said the clerk.

"We're your aunts' executors so we get her bills, see his That was actually on my desk when you came in this morning but I hadn't got

round to reading it. Those are your furs now."

"But Aunt Millicent never had any furs," I said.

"She thought they were cruel to animals." And I always thought she was right.

"Well, those belonged to her," said the clerk, "and cruel or not, you'd better pop along and get them. Furs are worth money."

I looked at the letter again. It didn't say what the furs were.

"They must be good ones if she paid out all that to store them," said the clerk.

"Tell you what, you shove all this stuff in the trunks and I'll take them down to the station--leave them in the Left Luggage Office for

you, see his And you cut along for the furs."

We bundled the clothes in hurriedly--I am ashamed to say I forgot about Aunt Millicent's dead feelings. The clerk and his taxi-driver dragged the trunks downstairs; then he got another taxi for us.

"Wish I could come with you and see the fun," he said, "but I'm due in the Courts at three." His hair was oily and his complexion spotty, but his heart was kind. Rose evidently thought so, too, be cause she

leaned out of the taxi and said she was sorry she had been so cross.

"Don't mention it," he said.

"I'm sure I'd have given myself a fright if I'd been you." Then the taxi started and he shouted after us: "Here's hoping they're sables."

We hoped so, too.

"They must be fairly new as she didn't have them when we knew her,"

said Rose.

"I expect her principles dwindled as she got older and colder."

"They'll probably be rabbit," I said, feeling I ought to damp our imaginings; but I didn't really believe Aunt Millicent would have worn anything cheap.

The taxi drew up at a wonderful shop- the sort of shop I would never

dare to walk through without a reason. We went in by way of the glove and stocking department, but there were things from other departments just dotted about; bottles of scent and a little glass tree with

cherries on it and a piece of white branched coral on a sea-green

chiffon scarf. Oh, it was an artful place--it must make people who

have money want to spend it madly!

The pale gray carpets were as springy as moss and the air was scented; it smelt a bit like bluebells but richer, deeper.

"What does it smell of, exactly?"

I said. And Rose said:

"Heaven."

There was a different scent in the fur department, heavier, and the

furs themselves had an exciting smell. There were lots of them lying

about on the gray satin sofas; deep brown, golden brown, silvery.

And there was a young, fair mannequin walking about in an ermine cape over a pink gauze dress, with a little muff. A woman with blue-white

hair came and asked if she could help us and took away our storage

bill; and after a while, two men in white coats came in with Aunt

Millicent's furs and dumped them on a We shook them out and examined

them. There were two very long coats, one of them black and shaggy and the other smoothish and brown; a short, black tight-fitting jacket with leg o' mutton sleeves; and a large hairy rug with a green felt

border.

"But what ever animals were they ?" I gasped.

The white-haired woman inspected them gingerly.

She said the brown coat was beaver and the short jacket, which had a

rusty look under its black, was sealskin. She couldn't identify the

rug at all--it looked like collie dog to me. Rose tried the long

shaggy black coat on. It reached to the ground.

"You look like a bear," I said.

"It is bear," said the white-haired woman.

"Dear me, I think it must have been a coachman's coat."

"There's something in the pocket," said Rose.

She drew out a piece of paper. On it was scrawled: Meet madam's train 1:20. Miss Milly to dancing class at 3. The young ladies to the Grange at 6.

I worked it out: Aunt Millicent was Father's father's youngest sister.

These furs must have been her Mother's.

That made them-"Heavens!" I cried.

"These belonged to our great-grandmother."

A sort of manager person came and talked to us.

We asked him if there was anything valuable.

"You couldn't get the beaver today for love or money," he said, "but I don't know if you can sell it for much. We treat furs so differently

now. It weighs a ton."

The shop didn't buy second-hand furs and he couldn't advise us where to take them. We felt that London was the most likely place to sell them in and wanted to leave them until we could get advice from Topaz; but he said that if they stayed any longer they would run into another

quarter's storage charges and Aunt Millicent's lawyers probably

wouldn't pay any more. So we said we would take them over our arms--it seemed the only way. We signed things and then loaded up. On the way

out, we looked through the archway into the department we had come in by. There was a woman buying pale blue suede gloves. She wore the

plainest little black suit, but Rose thought she looked wonderful.

"That's how we ought to dress," she said.

We stood there staring at the scent and stockings and things-we saw one woman buy a dozen pairs of silk stockings--until I said:

"We're like About when he sees birds fly past the window. At any moment we'll let out wistful cat noises."

Rose said she felt just like that.

"Well, let's walk round the whole shop while we're in it," I suggested.

But she said she couldn't bear to, loaded up with furs; so I put my

head through the archway and took one big sniff of the bluebell scent, and then we went out of the main door, which was close at hand.

Rose wanted to take the furs straight back to the City by taxi, but

there wasn't one to be seen and I was so ravenous that I persuaded her we ought to have something to eat first. We tottered to Oxford

Street--those furs certainly did weigh tons--and found a place with

nice white tablecloths and great round cruets.

It was a bit of a business getting ourselves settled; we tried folding the furs and sitting on them, but then found we could reach neither the floor nor our plates. In the end we had to dump everything down beside us, which was rather unpopular with the waitress. But I did like the

restaurant; most of the people eating there were unusually ugly, but

the food was splendid. We had roast chicken (wing portion, two

shillings), double portions of bread sauce (each), two vegetables,

treacle pudding and wonderful milky coffee. We were gloriously bloat.

By the time we finished it was getting on for four o'clock.

"We've seen hardly anything of London," I said, as we drove back to the lawyers. Rose said she wouldn't have wanted to even if we hadn't been burdened with the furs, because it was no fun being in London in the

wrong clothes.

After that, she was quiet so long that I asked her what she was

thinking about.

"I was willing God to give me a little black suit," she said.

Our friend the clerk laughed his head off at the furs, but he said it was a damned shame. He thought the beaver must have been a man's

travelling coat--it was too big for him, even- and that the beaver was the lining and the Scotch plaid was the right side. He gave us cups of tea and two squashed-fly biscuits each, but we were too full to eat

them; so we put them in an envelope for the journey.

When we got the old leather trunks from the Left-Luggage Office, the

man there asked if there were any bodies in them.

It was then Rose told me how she had feared that there might have

been--ours.

We had a compartment to ourselves on the train and, as it turned cold after sunset, I put on the beaver coat, fur side inwards. It felt

wonderfully friendly. It was extraordinary, I had the most

affectionate feelings for all those furs -no horror of them at all, as I had of Aunt Millicent's clothes, though I knew they must all have

been worn by dead people. I thought about it a lot, getting warmer and warmer in the beaver, and I decided that it was like the difference

between the beautiful old Godsend graves and the new ones open to

receive coffins (which I never can bear to look at) be that time takes the ugliness and horror out of death and turns it into beauty.

A year ago, I would have made a poem out of that idea. I tried to,

yesterday, but it wasn't any use. Oh, I could think of lines that

rhymed and scanned but that is all they were. I know now that is all

my poems ever were, yet I used to feel I could leap over the moon when I had made one up. I miss that rather.

I leaned back and closed my eyes--and instantly the whole day danced

before me. I wasn't merely remembering, it seemed to be trapped inside my eyelids; the City, the traffic, the shops were all there,

shimmering, merging. Then my brain began to pick out the bits it

wanted to think about and I realized how the day made a pattern of

clothes--first our white dresses in the early morning, then the

consciousness of what people were wearing in London, then Aunt

Millicent's poor dead clothes, then all the exquisite things in the

shop, then our furs. And I thought how important clothes were to women and always had been. I thought of Norman ladies in Belmotte

tower-keep, and Plantagenet ladies living in Godsend Castle, and Stuart ladies when our house was built on the ruins--and hoops and Jane Austen dresses and crinolines and bustles, and Rose longing for a little

black suit. I had the most profound, philosophic thoughts about it

all, but perhaps I dreamt them for they all seem to have floated away.

When Rose woke me I was dreaming of the white branched coral on the

sea-green chiffon scarf.

It was time to change trains. I felt frozen when I took the beaver

coat off-- I thought I had better because it not only looked peculiar, but trailed on the ground. I was thankful when we were in our little

branch-line train and I could put it on again.

Rose put on the coachman's coat and we each leaned out of a window to smell the sweet country smell- you don't notice it unless you have been away.

We still had our squashed-fly biscuits so we ate them leaning out into the night; only I saved one of mine for Stephen who was to meet us with Mr. Stebbins's cart to take the trunks.

And then it happened. As we stopped at Little Lymping, I looked

towards the guard's van to make sure our trunks didn't get pulled out by mistake--the stationmaster is a bit daft. And there, looking out of the train, not six yards away from me, was Simon Cotton.

His hair and beard looked very black, the sickly light from the

platform lamps made him seem very pale, and even in that quick glance I noticed the naked look of his mouth.

I dodged back and yelled to Rose.

I reckoned we had ten minutes to think in- we were five miles from

Scoatney and the little train crawls. But, oh, I needed more time! I

couldn't make up my mind if I ought to tell Rose what the Cottons had said about her- I was so frightened that if I didn't she might be silly again.

"Let's be distant with them," I said, while I tidied my hair in the glass between photographs of Norwich Cathedral and Yarmouth Beach.

"Distant his Do you think I intend to speak to them his After they've ignored us ?"

"But we'll have to say "Good evening," won't we his We can say it coldly and sweep on with dignity."

She said we couldn't do anything with dignity, dressed as we were and laden with furs like hearth rugs She wanted us to jump out of the train as it stopped and dash away before the Cottons saw us.

"But we can't dash away without our trunks," I said. Then I had an idea--"We'll get out on the wrong side of the train and walk along the line to the guard's van. By the time we get there, the Cottons will be out of the station."

She thought it would work. We decided to keep the fur coats on, so

that we should be invisible in the darkness at the end of the platform if the Cottons looked back while we were getting the trunks.

Rose turned up the huge bearskin collar to hide her bright hair.

"Let's hope no train comes on the other line while we're walking along," I said. But I knew it was unlikely at that time of night, and they come very slowly.

"Anyway, we could push these little trains back with one hand," said Rose.

I hoisted the collie dog rug over my shoulder, Rose took the sealskin jacket. The instant the train stopped we jumped down on to the line.

We hadn't realized how difficult walking would be --the coats were so awkward to hold up and we kept tripping over things. The paraffin

lamps on the platform gave a very weak light and there were no lamps at all so far along as the guard's van. We couldn't reach the doors on

our side, so we went round the back of the train and climbed up on to the platform. The doors of the van were open that side, but there

appeared to be no guard to put the trunks off.

The stationmaster usually helps with luggage but he is the ticket

collector, too, and I was sure he would be busy seeing the Cottons

off.

"We must manage by ourselves," I said.

The van was so dimly lit that at first we couldn't see the trunks;

then Rose spotted them at the far end, behind a lot of tall milk

cans.

As we went over, we passed a big crate. The feeble little gas mantle

was just above it and I saw on the label Cotton, Scoatney, Suffolk.

Rose saw it, too, and gave a gasp. The next second we heard voices and steps coming along the platform.

We rushed to the doorway; then realized it was too late to get out.

"Quick--get behind the trunks," said Rose.

If I'd had time to think, I might have reasoned with her--told her we should look such fools if we were discovered. But she bolted to the

trunks and I bolted too.

"They'll never see us," she said as we crouched down.

I didn't think they would, either- the trunks were high and the light was so weak and so far away from us.

"But crouch lower," I whispered, "your trunk's not as high as mine."

"Oh, we'll manage it between us, sir," said a man's voice--it wasn't the stationmaster's so I guessed it was the guard come back.

I'll help," said Neil Cotton, jumping into the van. Then he shouted:

"My God!" and jumped out again. The next instant the doors crashed together with such violence that the gas mantle broke, leaving us in

blackness.

"What is it, what's the matter ?" shouted Simon Cotton.

I couldn't hear what Neil answered, but I heard the guard give a roar of laughter and say: "Well, that's a good "un, that is."

"Oh, Rose, he saw us!" I whispered.

"Rubbish- why would he slam the doors on us ?"

she whispered back.

"No, it's something else. Shut up!

Listen!"

I raised my head cautiously. I could just see the outline of the

window, a little open at the top. I heard Simon Cotton say:

"Neil, you're crazy."

"I tell you I'm certain."

"Oh, come, sir- I've been sitting in that van," said the guard.

"But you left the doors open."

I saw a faint blur moving in the darkness- it was Rose's face coming up from behind her trunk.

"What is it ?" she whispered desperately.

"Ssh,."" I said, straining my ears. I think I shall remember that minute as long as I live- the stars in the square of window, the bead of light above the broken mantle, the smell of stale milk and fish. I heard Simon Cotton say he would get a flashlight from the car.

"And tell Mother to stay inside with the door shut," Neil called after him.

Rose began to crawl towards the window. There was a hollow clang; she had collided with a milk can.

The guard gave a low whistle.

"Sounds like you're right, sir."

"Of course I'm right," said Neil.

"Haven't I fed them in Yellow stone Park ?"

And then it dawned on me.

"Rose," I said, "you've been mistaken for a bear."

I heard her gasp.

"The idiot, the idiot!"

Then she clanged into another milk can.

"Well, seven eighths of you is a bear. And the Circus is at King's Crypt--the tents were close to the railway line, the Cottons couldn't have missed seeing them." I began to laugh, but stopped when I heard her struggling with the doors on the far side of the van. She got them open and I saw her black against the stars.

"Come on, quick," she said as she jumped down on to the line.

I got across to the doorway- and every milk can clanged into the one

next to it. Above the din I could hear Neil Cotton and the guard

running along the platform and shouting to the engine driver.

"Oh, Rose, don't be a fool," I cried, "we'll have to explain."

She grabbed my hands and pulled until I had to jump.

"If you don't come with me, I'll never forgive you," she whispered fiercely.

"I'd die rather than explain."

"Then you quite probably will die- because lots of people in the country have guns handy .. was But it was no use, she had vanished into the darkness at the back of the train. Passengers were shouting and

banging doors--there couldn't have been many of them, but they were

making a devil of a noise; fortunately they were concentrating on the platform side of the train. It suddenly came to me that if I could

make Rose take her coat off, we could join in the pursuit as if we had no connection with the bear; so I struggled out of my own coat, flung it up into the van and started after her. But before I had gone a

couple of yards, the beam of a torch shone out. I saw Rose clearly.

She had got beyond the end of the platform and was scrambling up the

little embankment, and as she was on all fours she really did look

exactly like a bear. There was a wild shout from the people on the

platform. Rose topped the embankment and disappeared over into the

fields.

"Foxearth Farm's over there," shouted a woman.

"They've got three little children."

I heard someone running along the platform. The woman yelled:

"Quick, quick--over to Foxearth."

There was a thump as someone jumped down on to the line, then Stephen crossed the beam of the torch. The light gleamed on metal and I

realized that he was carrying a pitchfork -it must have been in Mr.

Stebbins's cart.

"Stop, Stephen, stop!" I screamed.

He turned and shouted: "I won't hurt it unless I have to, Miss

Cassandra- I'll head it into a barn."

Neil Cotton went past me.

"Here, give me that," he said, grabbing Stephen's pitchfork. Simon came running along, shooting his torch ahead of him.

The guard and some of the passengers came pounding after him and some body crashed into me and knocked me over. The torch began to flicker

on and off; Simon thumped it and then it went out altogether.

"Get the station lanterns," shouted the guard, scrambling back on to the platform. The passengers waited for him, but Simon and Stephen

went on after Neil into the darkness.

Perhaps I ought to have explained at once--but what with the noise and being knocked down I was a bit dazed.

And I knew how ghastly it would be for Rose--not only the Cottons

knowing, but all the local people on the train. And I did think she

had a good chance to get away.

"Anyway, Neil will see she's not a bear if he gets close to her," I told myself. Then they all came thudding past with the lanterns, and

the stationmaster had his great black dog on a chain and a stone in his hand. I knew it wasn't safe to keep quiet any longer.

I started to tell them, but the dog was barking so loudly that nobody heard me. And then, high above everything, I heard the most piercing

shriek.

I lost my head completely.

"It's my sister," I screamed, "he's killing her!" And I dashed off along the line. They all came after me, shouting, and someone fell

over the dog's chain and cursed extensively. We climbed over the

embankment into the field and the men held the lanterns high, but we

couldn't see Rose or the Cottons or Stephen. Everyone was talking at

once, making suggestions. There was a fat woman who wanted the

stationmaster to let his dog off its chain, but he was afraid it might bite the Cottons instead of the bear.

"But it'll hug them to death," moaned the fat woman, "they won't have a chance."

I opened my mouth to make them understand that there wasn't any

bear--and then I saw something white in the distance.

The men with the lanterns saw it too, and ran towards it. And suddenly Neil Cotton walked into the light, carrying Rose, in her suit.

"Rose, Rose!" I cried, running to her.

"She's all right," said Simon Cotton, quickly, "but we want to get her to our car." He grabbed one of the lanterns, lit the way for Neil, and they walked stolidly on.

"But the bear, sir" said the guard.

"Dead," said Simon Cotton.

"My brother killed it."

"Are you sure, sir?" said the stationmaster.

"We'd better have a look," said the fat woman.

"The dog'll soon "No, it won't," said Neil Cotton, over his shoulder.

"It fell in the river and was carried away by the current."

"Poor thing, poor thing, it didn't have a chance," wailed the fat woman.

"Killed first and drowned afterwards, and I daresay it was valuable."

"You go with your sister," Simon Cotton told me, and I was only too glad to. He handed the lantern to Stephen and stayed behind urging

the people back to the train.

"Well, it's a rum go," said the stationmaster.

It was certainly a rum go as far as I was concerned.

"What happened, Stephen?" I asked, under my breath.

Rose suddenly raised her head and whispered fiercely:

"Shut up. Get the trunks off the train." Then, as Neil was carrying her carefully down the little embankment, I heard her tell him they

could get out through the field at the back of the station.

He crossed the line with her and went straight into it--they never went back to the station at all. Stephen lit them with the lantern for a

minute or two, then joined me in the guard's van. Before I could get a word out, he said: "Please, please, don't ask me any questions yet, Miss Cassandra. I was throwing the beaver coat and the rug and the

jacket out on to the platform.

"Well, at least you can tell me where the bear coat is," I began, but just then the guard came back. Poor man, he couldn't make out how the bear had got out of the van. I told him Rose had been in there when

Neil Cotton slammed the doors and had opened the far-side doors when

she heard the bear growling.

"It was after her like a streak," I said.

That seemed to clear things up nicely.

The stationmaster helped us to get the trunks on to Mr. Stebbins's

cart. The Cottons" car was only a few yards away and there was Rose inside it, talking to Mrs. Cotton.

Simon Cotton came out of the station and said to me:

"We're driving your sister home- will you come, too ?"

But I said I would stay with Stephen; it was partly embarrassment and partly that I was afraid I should say the wrong thing, not having the faintest idea what had really happened.

And I couldn't get anything out of Stephen on the way home. All he

would say was:

"Oh, it was dreadful, dreadful. Miss Rose had better tell you

herself.

I'm saying nothing."

I had to wait until she and I were in bed last night for anything like the whole story--oh, she gave us all a brief outline as soon as she got home, but I guessed she was holding things back. All she told us then was that Neil Cotton came rushing at her with the pitchfork; she

screamed, and then suddenly he got the hang of things and told Simon

and Stephen to pretend there really had been a bear.

"Neil and Simon even pretended it to their Mother," she said.

"Oh, they were marvelous."

I never heard Father laugh so much- he said the story would be built up and embroidered on until Rose had been pursued by a herd of stampeding elephants. And he was greatly impressed by the Cottons'

quick-mindedness.

They hadn't come in--just left Rose in the courtyard.

"Neil said they'd leave me to tell my story in my own way," she said.

"And now I've told it. And you'll all have to pretend there was really a bear, for ever and ever."

She was ablaze with excitement, not in the least upset at having been so conspicuous. It was I who was upset; I don't know why perhaps I was just overtired. I suddenly began to shiver and wanted to cry. Topaz

hurried us to bed and brought us cocoa, and hot bricks for our feet,

and I soon felt better.

She kissed us in a motherly way that Rose doesn't appreciate, and told us not to talk too long I think she wanted to stay and talk herself but Father yelled for her to come along to bed.

"Let's finish our cocoa in the dark," I said, and blew out the candle.

Rose is always more confidential in the dark.

The first thing she said was:

"How much did Stephen tell you on the way home ?"

I told her how he had said it was too dreadful to tell.

"I wondered if he'd seen," she said. Then she began to giggle-the first time for months. The giggles became muffled and I guessed she

was stifling them in her pillow. At last she came up for air and

said:

"I slapped Neil Cotton's face."

"Rose!" I gasped.

"Why?"

She said she had looked round and seen him coming, seen the pitchfork against the sky, and let out the scream we heard.

"Then I tried to get out of the coat but I couldn't find the buttons, so I went on running. He yelled "Stop, stop" -he must have seen by then that I wasn't really a bear--then he caught up with me and grabbed me by the arm. I said "Let go, damn you" and Stephen heard my voice and called out "It's Miss Rose."

Neil Cotton shouted "But why are you running away?" and I said

"Because I don't want to meet you--or your brother either. You can both go to hell!"

And I hit him across the face."

"Oh, Rose I" I felt all knotted up by the awfulness of it.

"What did he say?"

"He said "Good God!" and then Simon and Stephen came up, and Stephen said all the people on the train were out after me.

"That's your fault," I said to Neil Cotton, "you've made me the laughing.

stock of the neighborhood." And he said "Waitbe quiet"--and then he told them to pretend there really had been a bear, as I told you."

"Don't you think it was wonderfully kind of him ?"

I asked.

She said: "Yes, in a way," then stopped, and I knew she was trying to work out something in her mind. At last she went on: "But it's all part of his not taking us seriously- not just us, but England

generally. He wouldn't have dared to pretend anything so silly in

America, I bet. He thinks England's a joke, a funny sort of toy-toy

trains, toy countryside. I could tell that by the way he talked coming home in the car."

I knew what she meant--I had felt it a bit that night they first came to the castle; not with Simon, though. And I am sure Neil doesn't mean it unkindly.

I asked what the Mother was like.

"Beautiful, and never stops talking. Father'll want to brain her with a brick."

"If he ever meets her."

"He'll meet her all right. We shall be seeing quite a lot of the Cottons now."

Her tone was so confident--almost arrogant--that I was frightened for her.

"Oh, Rose, don't be silly with them this time!"-I had said it before I could stop myself.

She simply pounced on it.

"What do you mean' silly his Did Topaz say I was ?"

I said I was merely guessing, but she wouldn't leave it at that. She

battered at me with questions. What with wanting to defend Topaz and

being very tired, I wasn't as strong-minded as I ought to have been-

and Topaz had said it might be best to tell if we got another chance

with the Cottons. But I felt perfectly dreadful when I had told- mean, both to the Cottons and Rose.

Still, if it does her any good .. . And I was careful to stress about my being consciously naive. I left out the bit about Father.

She wanted to know which brother had said the worst things.

I sorted the remarks out as best I could.

"Well, at least Simon was sorry for me," she said.

"It was Neil who suggested dropping us. Oh, how I'll pay them out!"

"Don't count it against them," I begged.

"Look how very kind they were tonight. And if you're sure they want to be friends now" "I'm sure all right."

"Did they say anything about seeing us again ?"

"Never mind what they said." And then, to my surprise, she started to giggle again--she wouldn't tell me why. When she stopped, she said she was sleepy.

I tried to keep her talking by being Miss Blossom: "Here, Rosie, have you got something up your sleeve, you naughty girl ?"

But she wasn't having any.

"If I have, it's staying there," she said.

"You and Miss Blossom go to sleep."

But I lay awake for ages, going over it all.

Heavens, Godsend church clock has just struck four- I have been writing up here on the mound for six hours!

Topaz never rang the lunch bell for me; instead, she brought me out

some milk and two big cheese sandwiches, and a message from Father that I was to write as long as I liked. It seems selfish when the others

are working hard on Aunt Millicent's clothes, but while we were

unpacking them this morning I began to shake again, and when Topaz

found out what I felt about them she said I had better write it out of my system. I think I have, because I can now look down on them

flapping on the line without any horror-though I don't feel fond of

them yet, as I do of the furs.

Stephen cycled to Scoatney station before he went to work and brought back the bear coat; it was hidden in a ditch.

Father can re member hearing about this coat when he was little. He

says most coachmen were lucky if they got a short goatskin cape to

wear in the winter; but great-grandmother said that if her husband, who rode inside the carriage, had a beaver-lined coat, the coachman out in the cold ought to be at least as warmly dressed. He was grateful for

the bear coat but embarrassed, as little boys used to jeer and ask him to dance. The sealskin jacket was Aunt Millicent's, in the "nineties, before she turned against furs. Father thinks she kept all these out

of family sentiment and perhaps because she was only happy as a child.

How queer to think that the old lady in the black military cloak was

the Miss Milly who went to the dancing class! It makes me wonder what I shall be like when I am old.

My hand is very tired but I want to go on writing.

I keep resting and thinking. All day I have been two people--the me

imprisoned in yesterday and the me out here on the mound; and now there is a third me trying to get in--the me in what is going to happen next.

Will the Cottons ask us to Scoatney his Topaz thinks they will.

She says the oddness of the bear incident will fascinate them, just as they were fascinated by the oddness of the first night they came to the castle--and that Rose running away will have undone the damage she did by being too forthcoming. If only she doesn't forth-come again! Topaz approves of my telling her last night; she had a talk with her herself about it this morning and Rose listened with surprising civility.

"Just be rather quiet and do a lot of listening until you feel at ease," Topaz advised her.

"And for pity's sake don't be challenging. Your looks will do the challenging if you give them the chance."

I do love Topaz when she is in a down-to-earth mood.

Is it awful to join in this planning? Is it trying to sell one's

sister?

But surely Rose can manage to fall in love with them--I mean, with

whichever one will fall in love with her. I hope it will be Neil,

because I really do think Simon is a little frightening-only it is Neil who thinks England is a joke ...... I have been resting, just staring down at the castle. I wish I could find words--serious, beautiful

words- to describe it in the afternoon sunlight; the more I strive for them, the more they utterly elude me. How can one capture the pod of

light in the courtyard, the golden windows, the strange long-ago look, the look that one sees in old paintings his I can only think of "the light of other days," and I didn't make that up ...... Oh-- I I have just seen the Cottons" car on the Godsend road --near the high

cross-roads, where one gets the first glimpse of the castle. They are coming here! Do I watch and wait again? No fear!

I am going down.

VII

WE are asked to Scoatney, to dinner, a week from today!

And there is something else I want to write about, something belonging to me. Oh, I don't know where to begin!

I got down from Belmotte in time to warn the others Rose and Topaz were ironing and Rose put on a clean blouse hot from the iron. Topaz just

tidied herself and then set the tea tray. I washed and then reckoned I had only enough time either to warn Father or to brush my hair; but I managed to do both by taking the comb and brush to the gatehouse with me. Father jumped up so quickly that I feared he was going to rush out to avoid the Cottons, but he merely grabbed my hairbrush and brushed

his coat with it-neither of us felt it was a moment for fussiness.

In the end, we had a few minutes to spare because they left the car at the end of the lane-the mud is dry now but the ruts are still deep.

"Mrs. Cotton's with them!" I cried, as they came round the last bend of the lane. Father said he would meet them at the gatehouse

arch--"It's not going to be my fault if anything goes wrong this time; I've promised Topaz." Then he looked a bit grim and added:

"I'm glad you're still on the young side to be marketed."

I bolted back to Rose and Topaz. They had lit a wood fire in the

drawing-room and arranged some daffodils. The fire made the room feel more spring like than ever. We opened the windows and the swans sailed by, looking mildly interested. Suddenly I remembered that first spring afternoon in the drawing-room, with Rose playing her piece. I saw

Mother leaning out over the moat--I saw her gray dress so clearly,

though I still couldn't see her face. Something inside me said "Oh, Mother, make the right thing happen for Rose!"--and I had a vision of poor Mother scurrying from Heaven to do the best she could. The way

one's mind can dash about just while one opens a window!

Then Father came in with the Cottons.

Rose thought Mrs. Cotton beautiful but that isn't how I would describe her. Topaz is beautiful- largely because of the strangeness of her

face: that look she has of belonging to a whiter-than-white race. Rose, with her lovely coloring and her eyes that can light up her whole

expression, is beautiful. Mrs.

Cotton is handsome--no, that makes her sound too big. She is just

wonderfully good-looking, wonderfully right-looking. She has exactly