I Capture the Castle

I decided I must pull myself together--I remembered hearing things

about Regent Street late at night. But I think I must have mixed it up with some other street, for nothing was in the least as I expected. I had imagined a stream of brightly dressed, painted women going along

winking--and the only women I saw seemed most respectable, very smartly dressed in black and merely taking a last stroll; some of them had

brought their little dogs out, which interested Heloise. But I did

notice that most of the ladies were in couples, which made me realize that I oughtn't to be out on my own so late at night, Just after I had thought that, a man came up to me and said:

"Excuse me, but haven't I met your dog before ?"

I took no notice, of course- but, unfortunately, Heloise started

wagging her tail I dragged her on but he came with us, saying idiotic things like, "Of course she knows me -old friends, we are-met her at the Hammersmith Palais de Dance."

Heloise got more and more friendly. Her tail was doing an almost

circular wag and I was very much afraid that at any moment she would

climb up the man and kiss him. So I said sharply: "Hcl, who's

that?"--which is what we say if a suspicious-looking tramp comes prowling round the castle. She let of such a volley of barks that the man jumped backwards into two ladies. He didn't try to follow us any

more, but I couldn't stop Heloise barking--she kept it up right through Piccadilly Circus, making us terribly conspicuous.

I was thankful to see an entrance to the Underground at last-but not

for long, because I found they don't let dogs on the trains.

You can take them on the tops of 'buses, but there seemed to be very

few still running; by then it was long after midnight.

I was beginning to think I had better take a taxi when I remembered

that there is a Corner House restaurant close to Piccadilly and that

Topaz had once told me it keeps open all night. I had a great longing for tea, and I felt Heloise could do with a drink-she had stopped

barking at last and was looking rather exhausted.

So along we went.

It was such a grand place that I was afraid they might not let Heloise in, but we chose a moment when the man on the door was interested in

something else. And I got a table against the wall so that she could

be fairly unnoticeable under it- the waitress did spot her but only

said: "Well, if you got her past the door. But she'll have to keep quiet"--which, by a miracle, she did.

After I had unobtrusively slipped her three saucers-full of water she went solidly to sleep on my feet;

which was very hot for them, but I didn't dare risk waking her by

moving.

The tea was a comfort--and by that time I more than needed comfort.

Most of me ached with tiredness and my eyes felt as if they had been

open for years; but worse than that--worse even than my misery over

Simon, which I was more or less used to was the gradual realization

that I had been utterly in the wrong with Rose. I saw that the main

reason for my outburst hadn't been noble anxiety about Simon's

happiness but sheer, blazing jealousy. And what could be more unjust

than to help her to get engaged and then turn on her for it his How

right she had been in accusing me of failing her! The least I could

have done would have been to talk things over quietly. What made me

feel worst of all was that I knew in my heart that she was fonder of me than of anyone in the world; just as I was of her, until I fell in love with Simon.

But she shouldn't have said that about calf-love.

"How dare she!"

I thought.

"Who's she to decide that what I feel is calf-love, which is

funny--instead of first love, which is beautiful?

Why, she's never been in love at all, herself" I went over and over it all, while I drank cup after cup of tea-the last one was so weak that I could see the lump of sugar sitting at the bottom of it. Then the

waitress came and asked if I wanted anything more. I didn't feel like leaving so I studied the menu carefully and ordered a lamb cutlet-they take a nice long time to cook and only cost seven pence each.

While I waited, I tried to ease my misery about Rose by thinking of my misery about Simon, but I found myself thinking of both miseries

together.

"It's hopeless," I thought.

"All three of us are going to be unhappy for the rest of our lives."

Then the lamb cutlet arrived surrounded by a sea of white plate and

looking smaller than I had believed any cutlet could. I ate it as

slowly as possible;

I even ate the sprig of parsley they throw in for the seven pence Then the waitress put the bill down on the table and cleared away my plate in a very final way, so after a long drink of free water I felt I had better go. I opened my bag to get out a tip for the waitress and

then-All my life I shall remember it. My purse wasn't in my bag.

I hunted frantically, but without any hope. Because I knew that purse was still in the evening bag Rose had lent me.

All I found through my search was a gritty farthing in the comb

pocket.

I felt icy cold and sick. The lights seemed to be much more glaring,

the people all around seemed suddenly noisier and yet quite unreal. A voice in my head said: "Keep calm, keep calm now- you can explain to the manager. Give him your name and address and offer to leave

something of value." But I didn't have anything of value; no watch or jewelry, my bag was almost worn out, I hadn't even a coat or hat--for a wild minute I wondered if I could leave my shoes.

"But he'll see you're a respectable person--he'll trust you." I tried to reassure myself--and then I began to wonder if I looked a

respectable person. My hair was untidy, my green dress was bright and cheap compared with London clothes, and Heloise needing its belt didn't improve matters.

"But they can't send for the police just for a pot of tea and one cutlet," I told myself. And then it dawned on me that it wasn't only for my bill that I needed money--how was I to get to the station

without a taxi his I couldn't walk Heloise all those miles, even if I could manage them myself.

And my railway ticket-That was in the purse, too.

"I've got to get help," I thought, desperately.

But how his There were call-boxes in the front part of the restaurant, but apart from feeling I would rather die than telephone the flat, I

knew it would involve Rose in impossible explanations. Then I suddenly remembered Stephen's message that he was always at my service--but

could I bring myself to wake the Fox-Cottons up at nearly two in the

morning? I was still arguing with myself when waitress came back and

looked at me very pointedly, so I felt I had to do something.

I got up, leaving my bill lying on the table.

"I'm waiting for someone who's late--I'll have to telephone," I said.

"Will you keep this place for me ?"

Heloise hated being wakened, but I didn't dare leave her at the table; mercifully, she was too sleepy to do any barking. I explained at the

pay-desk that I was going to telephone--I noticed the girl watching to see that I did go into a call-box. It was awfully hot inside,

particularly with Heloise slumped against me like a fur-covered

furnace. I opened the book to find the Fox-Cottons" number -And then I remembered. You need pennies to telephone from a public call-box.

"You'll laugh at this one day," I told myself, "you'll laugh like anything." And then I leaned against the call-box wall and began to cry--but I soon stopped when I remembered that my handkerchief was in Rose's evening bag. I stared at the box you put the pennies in and

thought how willingly I would rob it, if I knew how.

"Oh, please, God--do something!" I said in my heart.

Then a person who didn't seem to be me put my hand up very quickly and pressed Button B. When the pennies came out, my inner voice said: "I knew they would."

And then, in memory, I heard the Vicar talking of prayer, faith and the slot machine.

Can faith work backwards his Could the fact that I was going to pray

have made someone forget to take their pennies back? And if it was

really prayer that did it, couldn't Button B have saved me from

troubling Stephen by giving me a pound?

"Though, of course, it would have had to be in pennies," I thought.

I prayed again, then pressed the button, wondering how I could cope

with a shower of two hundred and forty pennies--but I needn't have

worried. So I got on with telephoning the Fox-Cottons.

Leda answered--sooner than I had expected.

She sounded furious. I told her I was dreadfully sorry to disturb her but that I simply couldn't help it. Then I asked her to get Stephen.

She said: "Certainly not. You can't talk to him now."

"But I've got to," I told her.

"And I know he won't mind if you wake him- he'd want you to, if he knew I was in difficulties."

"You can stay in difficulties until tomorrow morning," she said.

"I won't let you bother Stephen now.

It's disgusting the way "

She broke off, and for an awful second I thought she had hung up the

receiver. Then I heard voices, though I couldn't distinguish any

words- until she suddenly yelled out:

"Don't you dare do that!"

Then she gave a shrill little squawk- and the next second, Stephen was speaking to me.

"What's happened, what's wrong?" he cried.

I told him as quickly as I could--leaving out the quarrel with Rose, of course. I said I had meant to go home by a late train.

"But there isn't any late train his "Yes, there is," I said quickly,

"there's one you didn't know about.

Oh, I'll explain it all later. All that matters now is that I'm

stranded here and if you don't come along quickly I shall get

arrested."

"I'll start at once was he sounded terribly upset.

"Don't be frightened. Go back to your table and order something else

--that will stop them suspecting you. And don't let any men talk to

you-or any women either, especially hospital nurses."

"All right--but do be as quick as you can."

Afterwards, I wished I hadn't said that about being arrested, because I knew he would believe it- as I never quite had done myself.

But being stranded like that in a London restaurant can be very

panic-striking, particularly in the middle of the night, and I did want to make sure he would come. I was wringing wet when I hung the

receiver up. I had to roll Heloise off my feet and simply drag her

back to my table. Her eyes were just two pink slits. She was

practically sleepwalking.

I told the waitress my friend would arrive very soon, and ordered a

chocolate ice-cream soda. Then I sat back and just wallowed in

relief--it was so great that I forgot how unhappy I was and began to

take an interest in my surroundings. There were some people at a

near-by table who were connected with a new play--one of them was the author--and they were waiting for the morning papers with the notices of it to come out. It was funny how nice and interesting almost

everyone looked once my panic was over--before, there had been just a sea of noisy faces. While I was having my ice-cream soda (it was

glorious), a hospital nurse came in and sat at the very next table. I almost choked through my straw--because knew what poor Stephen had been driving at.

Miss Marcy had a story that fake nurses rush about drugging girls and shipping them to the Argentine to be what she calls, "Well-daughters of joy, dear." But as I picture the Argentine, it has plenty of its own joyful daughters.

Stephen didn't arrive until after three o'clock-he said he'd had to

walk nearly a mile before finding a taxi. He had an odd, strained

look, which I put down to his having been so frightened about me.

I made him have a long, cold lemonade.

"Did you snatch the telephone from Leda?" I asked.

"It sounded like that. What luck for me that you overheard her

talking! Is their telephone on the upstairs landing or something?"

"There's one in the studio--we were in there," he said.

"Do you mean she was still photographing you?"

He said no, it was the other studio--"The one where the big photographs are. We were just sitting talking."

"What, till two in the morning?" Then I saw that he was avoiding my eyes, and went on quickly: "Well, tell me about your interview with the film people."

He told me, but hardly a word of it sank in-I was too busy picturing

him in the studio with Leda. I was sure she had been making love to

him. I imagined them sitting on the divan with only one dim light

burning, and the great naked Negro looking down.

The thought was horrible, yet fascinating.

I came back to earth as Stephen was saying:

"I'll take you home and pack up my clothes--though Leda says I shall have to buy some better ones. And I'll see Mr.

Stebbins. He said he wouldn't stand in the way of my career."

"Career" sounded a funny word for Stephen.

"What will Ivy say ?" I asked.

"Oh, Ivy-was he seemed to be remembering her from a long way back.

"She's a good girl, is Ivy."

Somebody brought the morning papers to the people who were waiting for them. All the notices seemed to be very bad. The poor little author

kept saying again and again, "It isn't that I mind for myself, of course... was And his friends were all very indignant with the critics and said notices didn't mean a thing, never had and never would.

"I suppose you'll be getting notices soon," I said to Stephen.

"Well, not notices exactly, but my name's going to be in print.

There's to be a piece about me under the photograph Leda's getting into the papers--saying how I'm a young actor of great promise.

After this one picture where I keep coming on with goats, I'm to go on a contract and be taught to act. But not too much, they say, because

they don't want to spoil me."

There was actually a note of conceit in his voice.

It was so unlike him that I stared in astonishment--and he must have

guessed why I did, because he flushed and added: "Well, that's what they said;

And you wanted me to do it. Oh, let's get out of this place."

I was glad to go. My relief at being rescued had worn off; and there

seemed to me a stale, weary, unnatural feeling about the

restaurant--the thought that it never closed made me feel exhausted

for it. Most of the people now seemed tired and worried the poor

little author was just leaving looking utterly downcast.

The hospital nurse looked pretty cheerful, though; she was having her second go of poached eggs.

We sat on a bench in Leicester Square for a while, with Heloise lying across both our laps. Her elbows dug into me most painfully;

and I didn't like the feel of the Square at all -it isn't a bit like

most London squares--so I said: "Let's go and have a look at the Thames, now that it's getting light."

We asked a policeman the way. He said: "You don't want to use it for jumping in, do you, miss?" which made me laugh.

It was quite a walk- and Heloise loathed it; but she perked up after we bought her a sausage roll from a coffee stall. We got to Westminster

Bridge just as the sky was red with dawn.

I thought of Wordsworth's sonnet but it didn't fit--the city certainly wasn't "All bright and glittering in the smokeless air"; there was a lurid haze over everything. And I couldn't get the feeling of "Dear God!

the very houses seem asleep" because half my mind was still in the Corner House, which never gets a sleep at all.

We stood leaning against the bridge, looking along the river.

It was beautiful, even though I didn't get any feeling of peace. A

gentle little breeze blew against my face--it was like someone pitying me. Tears rolled out of my eyes.

Stephen said: "What is it, Cassandra? Is it--something to do with me?"

For a second I thought he was harking back to his having kissed me in the larch wood. Then I saw the ashamed expression in his eyes. I

said: "No, of course not."

"I might have known that," he said bitterly.

"I

might have guessed that nothing I've done tonight could matter to

you.

Who are you in love with, Cassandra? Is it Neil?"

I ought to have told him he was talking nonsense, that I wasn't in love with anyone, but I was too tired and wretched to pretend.

I just said: "No. It isn't Neil."

"Then it's Simon. That's bad, that is--because Rose will never let him go."

"But she doesn't love him, Stephen. She admitted it was I found myself telling him about our dreadful quarrel in her bedroom, describing how I had crept out of the flat.

"You and your late trains!" he put in.

"I

knew right well there wasn't one."

I went on pouring it all out. When I told him I had realized how

wrongly I had behaved to Rose, he said:

"Don't you worry about that. Rose is bad."

"Not really bad," I said, and began to make excuses for her, telling him she had wanted to help the family as well as herself. He cut me

short by saying:

"But she's bad, really. Lots of women are."

I said: "Sometimes we're bad without meaning to be."

And then I asked him if he could ever forgive me for letting him kiss me, when I knew I was in love with someone else.

"Oh, Stephen, that was bad! And I let you go on thinking I might get to love you."

"I only did for a day or two--I soon saw I was making a fool of myself.

But I couldn't make it out--why you ever let me, I mean. I understand now. Things like that happen when you're in love with the wrong

person. Worse things. Things you never forgive yourself for."

He was staring straight ahead of him, looking utterly wretched.

I said:

"Are you miserable because you made love to Leda Fox-Cotton his It was her fault, wasn't it his You don't need to blame yourself."

"I'll blame myself as long as I live," he said, then suddenly turned to me.

"It's you I love and always will. Oh, Cassandra, are you sure you couldn't ever get to care for me his You liked it when I kissed

you--well, you seemed to. If we could get married his The glow from

the sunrise was on his face, the breeze was blowing his thick fair

hair. He looked desperate and magnificent, more wonderful even than in any of Leda's photographs of him. The vague expression was gone from

his eyes--I had a feeling it had gone for ever.

"I'd work for you, Cassandra. If I'm any good at acting perhaps we could live in London, a long way from--the others. Couldn't I help you through, somehow--when Simon's married to Rose?"

When he said Simon's name, I saw Simon's face. I saw it as it had

looked in the corridor off the ballroom, tired and rather pale.

I saw the black hair growing in a peak on his forehead, the eyebrows

going up at the corners, the little lines at the sides of his mouth.

When first he shaved his beard I thought he was quite handsome, but

that was only because he looked so much younger and so much less odd; I know now that he isn't handsome-compared with Stephen's, his looks

aren't anything at all.

And yet as my eyes turned to Stephen facing the sunrise, Simon in the darkness of my mind, it was as if Simon's had the living face and

Stephen's the one I was imagining --or a photograph, a painting,

something beautiful but not really alive for me.

My whole heart was so full of Simon that even my pity for Stephen

wasn't quite real--it was only something I felt I ought to feel;

more from my head than my heart. And I knew I ought to pity him all

the more because I could pity him so little. I cried out: "Oh, please, please stop! I'm so fond of you--and so deeply grateful. But I could

never marry you.

Oh, Stephen, dear I'm so very sorry."

"That's all right," he said, staring in front of him again.

"Well, at least we're companions in misfortune," I said.

Then Heloise stood up and put her front paws on the parapet, between

us, and my tears dropped down and made gray spots on her gleaming white head.

XVI am writing this at Father's desk in the gatehouse. If it were the King's desk in Buckingham Palace I could not be more surprised.

It is now half-past nine in the evening. (this time last week I was

talking to Simon in that corridor off the ballroom--it feels like years and years ago.) I mean to work at this journal until I wake Thomas at two o'clock. Last night he kept this watch and I took the second one.

And very dreadful I felt during most of it. I am less upset tonight,

but still get nervous sinkings in my stomach every now and then. Oh,

have we accomplished a miracle-or done something so terrible that I daren face thinking about it his I never finished my last entry--the

memory of my tears falling on Heloise so flooded me with self-pity that I couldn't go on. But there wasn't much more to say about the trip to London.

We came back on the first train. I slept most of the way, and slept

again when we got home.

It was the middle of the afternoon when I woke up--to find myself alone in the castle; Stephen had gone over to Four Stones, Father was at

Scoatney and Thomas was spending the weekend with his friend Harry.

Stephen came home around nine o'clock and went to bed without

disturbing me--I was up in the attic writing this journal. As I heard him crossing the courtyard I wondered if I ought to go down and talk to him, but I felt there was nothing helpful I could say. Later on, I

thought I would at least make him some cocoa and chat about his film

job, but by the time I got to the kitchen the light in his room was

out.

He went back to London early on Monday morning, with his will you ?"

"I won't be coming back," he said, quietly, "even if I'm no good as an actor. No, I won't come back."

I said of course he would, but he shook his head.

Then he gave one last look round the room. The photographs of me and

his Mother were gone. The bed was stripped and the one blanket neatly folded.

"I've swept the room out so that you won't have anything extra to do,"

he said.

"You can shut this place up and forget it. I gave Mr. Mortmain his books back before he went off to Scoatney. I'll miss having books."

"But you can buy them for yourself now," I told him.

He said he hadn't thought of that--"I don't seem able to take in the money part, somehow."

"Mind you save--just in case," I warned him.

He nodded and said he'd probably soon be feeding pigs again.

Then we heard Mr. Stebbins hooting his horn.

I said: "I'll see you off but let's say a private good-bye here." I held out my hand, but added: "Please kiss me if you'd like to--I'd like it if you would."

For a second I thought he was going to; then he shook his head and

barely clasped my hand. I tried to help him carry the little sea-chest but he hoisted it up on his shoulder. We went out to the car. Heloise was there, investigating the wheels, and after Stephen had strapped the chest on to the luggage-carrier he stooped and kissed her on the head.

He never looked back once as they drove along the lane.

While I was washing up the breakfast things, I realized that I had no idea where he would be staying. Would he go back to the Fox-Cottons? I suppose Rose will know.

(i wrote to her that morning, saying I had been in the wrong and asking her to forgive me. I must say she took her time about answering; but

this after noon I had a telegram from her which said she would write

when she could, and would I please try to understand. She didn't put

in anything about forgiving me, but as it was signed "your ever loving Rose" I suppose she has.) I worked on my journal most of Monday, finishing in floods of tears too late to get my face right before

Thomas came home. He said: "You've been howling, haven't you? I

suppose the castle's depressing after being in London"--which made things nice and easy for me. I said yes, that was it, and that it had been sad seeing Stephen go and wondering what would happen to him.

"I wouldn't worry about Stephen," said Thomas.

"He's sure to be a riot on the pictures. All the girls in the village are in love with him--they used to hang about on the Godsend road

trying to waylay him. One of these days you're going to find out what you've missed."

I started to get tea; Thomas had brought a haddock.

"Father'll get tea at Scoatney, so we needn't wait," I said.

"The servants must be tired of feeding him," said Thomas.

"What does he do there, day after day? Does he just read for the fun of it, or is he up to something ?"

"Ah, if we only knew that," I said.

"Harry says he ought to be psychoanalyzed."

I turned in astonishment.

"Does Harry know about psychoanalysis?"

"His Father talks about it sometimes--he's a doctor, you know."

"Does he believe in it?"

"No, he's always very sneery. But Harry rather fancies it."

I had to concentrate on cooking the haddock then; but while we were

eating it I brought up the subject of psycho-analysis again, and told Thomas of the conversation Simon and I had about it that first time we talked on the mound-though I couldn't remember it very clearly.

"I wish I'd got Simon to tell me more," I said.

"Would Harry's Father have any helpful books, do you think ?"

Thomas said he would find out, though that now Rose was going to marry Simon, it didn't matter so much whether Father wrote or not.

"Oh, Thomas, it does!" I cried.

"It matters most terribly to Father.

And to us, too- because if all the eccentric things he's been doing, on and off for months now, aren't leading somewhere, well, then he is

going crazy. And a crazy Father's not a good idea, quite apart from

our tender feelings towards him."

"Have you tender feelings towards him his I don't know that I have

--not that I dislike him."

Just then, Father came in. He barely said "Hello" in answer to mine and started up the kitchen stairs to his bedroom.

Half-way up, he stopped and looked down at us; then came back

quickly.

"Can you spare me this?" he asked, picking up the backbone of the haddock between his forefinger and thumb.

I thought he was being sarcastic- that he meant we had left him no

fish. I explained that we hadn't expected him, and offered to cook

some eggs at once.

He said: "Oh, I've had tea," and then carried the haddock-bone, dripping milk, out through the back door and across to the gatehouse.

About followed him hopefully. By the time he got back- a very

disappointed cat- Thomas and I were lurching about, laughing in a way that hurts.

"Oh, poor About!" I gasped, as I gave him some scraps from my plate.

"Stop laughing, Thomas. We shall be ashamed of our callousness if Father really is going off his head."

"He isn't -he's putting it on or something," said Thomas. Then a scared look came into his eyes and he added:

"Try to keep knives away from him. I'm going to talk to Harry's father tomorrow."

But Harry's Father wasn't in the least helpful.

"He says he's not a psycho-analyst or a psychiatrist or a

psycho-anything, thank God," Thomas told me, when he got back in the evening.

"And he couldn't think why we wanted to make Father write again, because he once had a look at Jacob Wrestling and didn't understand a word of it. Harry was quite embarrassed."

"Does Harry understand it, then?"

"Yes, of course he does--it's the first I've heard about its being hard to understand. Anyway, what's double-Dutch to one generation's just

"The cat sat on the mat" to the next."

"Even the ladder chapter ?"

"Oh, that!" Thomas smiled tolerantly.

"That's just Father's fun.

And who says you always have to understand things his You can like them without understanding them--like "em better sometimes. I ought to have known Harry's Father would be no help to us-he's the kind of man who

says he enjoys a good yarn."

I certainly have been underestimating Thomas--only a few weeks ago I

should have expected him to enjoy a good yarn himself.

And now I find he has read quite a lot of difficult modern poetry (some master at his school lent it to him) and taken it in his stride.

I wish he had let me read it--though I know very well I can't like

things without understanding them. I am astonished to discover how

high-brow his tastes are--far more so than mine; and it is most

peculiar how he can be so appreciative of all forms of art, but so

matter-of-fact and unemotional about it. But then, he is like that

over most things he has been so calm and assured this last week that I often felt he was older than I was. Yet he can get the giggles and

plunge back into being the most ordinary schoolboy.

Really, the puzzling ness of people!

After we talked about Harry's Father, Thomas settled down to his

homework and I wandered out into the lane. There was a vast red sunset full of strangely shaped, prophetic-looking clouds, and a hot due-south wind was blowing--an exciting sort of wind, I always think; we don't

often get it. But I was too depressed to take much interest in the

evening. All day long I had been hopeful about psycho-analysis; I had expected Thomas to bring home some books we could get our teeth into.

And I hadn't only been thinking of Father's welfare. Early that

morning it had struck me that if he started writing again, Rose might believe there would be enough money coming in to make life bearable,

and still might break her engagement off. I wasn't banking on winning Simon even if she gave him up. But I knew, and shall always know, that he ought not to marry a girl who feels towards him as Rose does.

I went to the end of the lane and turned on to the Godsend road, trying all the time to think of some way of helping both Father and myself.

When I came to the high part of the road I looked back and saw his lamp alight in the gatehouse. I thought how often I had seen it shining

across the fields on my summer evening walks, and how it always

conjured up an image of him-remote, withdrawn, unapproachable. I said to myself, "Surely one ought to know a little more of one's father than we do ?" And as I began walking back to the castle I wondered if the fault could be ours, as well as his. Had I myself really tried to make friends with him his I was sure I had in the past--but had I lately?

No. I excused myself by thinking: "Oh, it's hopeless to make friends with people who never talk about themselves." And then it came to me that one of the few things I do know about psycho-analysis is that

people have to be made to talk about themselves. Had I tried hard

enough with Father--hadn't I always been rebuffed too easily his "Are you frightened of him ?" I asked myself. I knew in my heart that I was. But why his "Has he ever in his life struck any of you ?" Never.

His only weapon has been silence--and sometimes a little sarcasm.

"Then what is this insurmountable barrier round him? What's it made of?

Where did it come from ?"

It had become as if someone outside myself were asking the questions, attacking me with them. I tried to find answers. I wondered if

Mother's training that we must never worry or disturb him had gone on operating-and Topaz had perpetuated it by her habit of protecting him.

I wondered if I had some undetected fear left from the day when I saw him brandishing the cake-knife --if I believed, without ever having

admitted, it, that he really did mean to stab Mother.

"Heavens," I thought, "I'm psycho-analyzing myself, now! If only I could do this to Father!"

I had come round the last bend of the lane and could see him through

the lamp-lit window of the gatehouse. What was he doing? The fact

that he was at his desk didn't necessarily mean he was writing--he

always sits there when reading the Encyclopedia, because it is so heavy to hold. Was he reading now his His head was bent, but I couldn't see what over. Just then he raised his hand to push his hair back. He was holding a pencil And that instant, the voice that had been attacking me as I walked home said: "Suppose he's really working all the time?

Supposing he's writing some wonderful, money-earning book- but you

don't find out until it's too late to help you and Rose?"

I began walking towards the castle again. I don't remember planning

anything, even making a definite decision- it was as if my mind could not go ahead of my steps. I went into the dimness of the gatehouse

passage, then into the blackness of the tower staircase. I groped my

way up to Father's door. I knocked on it.

"Go away," came the instant reply.

The key was in the outside keyhole so I knew he hadn't locked himself in. I opened the door.

As I went in, he swung round from his desk looking furious.

But almost before I had time to notice his expression it was as if a

curtain came down over it, and the fury was hidden.

"Something important ?" he asked, in a perfectly controlled voice.

"Yes. Very," I said, and shut the door behind me.

He got up, looking at me closely.

"What's the matter, Cassandra?

You're unusually pale. Are you ill his You'd better sit down."

But I didn't sit. I stood there staring at the room. Something had

happened to it. Facing me, instead of the long rows of bookshelves

stretching between the north and south windows, was an expanse of

brightly colored paper.

"Heavens, what have you been doing in here ?" I gasped.

He save what I was staring at. ""Oh, those are just American comic strips--commonly called 'the funnies."

Now what is it, Cassandra ?"

I went closer and saw that what I had taken for wallpaper was sheets

and sheets from newspapers, the top edges of which were tacked to the edges of the bookshelves. In the dim light from the lamp I couldn't

see the pictures clearly, but they seemed to be small colored

illustrations joined together.

"Where did they come from ?" I asked.

"I brought them back from Scoatney yesterday.

They're from the American Sunday papers--I gather Neil can't live

without them.

Good heavens, don't start reading them."

"Are they to do with your work ?"

He opened his mouth to reply, and then a nervous, secretive look came into his eyes.

"What have you come here for?" he said sharply.

"Never you mind about my work."

I said: "But it's that I've come about. Father, you've got to let me know what you're doing."

For a second he stared at me in silence. Then he said icily: "And is this the sole reason for this visitation-to cross-examine me?"

"No, no," I began, and then pulled myself up.

"Yes, it is--it's exactly that. And I'm not giving up until I get an answer."

"Out you go," said Father.

He took me by the arm and marched me to the door--I was so astonished that I put up hardly any resistance.

But at the last second, I jerked away from him and dashed across to his desk. I had a wild hope that I might see some of his work there.

He was after me instantly, but I just had time to catch a glimpse of

pages and pages with long lists on them in his writing. Then he

grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me round- never have I seen such

fury as was in his eyes. He flung me away from the desk with such

force that I went right across the room and crashed into the door. It hurt so badly that I let out a yell and burst into tears.

"Oh, God, is it your elbow?" said Father.

"That can be agony."

He came over and tried to feel if there were any broken bones-even

through the pain I noticed how astonishingly his anger had vanished. I went on choking with tears--it really was agony, right down to my wrist and hand. After a minute or so, Father began to walk me up and down,

with his arm round me.

"It's going off," I told him as soon as I could.

"Let me sit down for a bit."

We sat on the sofa together and he lent me his handkerchief to mop up on. Soon I was able to say:

"It's almost better now--look!" I moved my hand and arm to show him.

"It was nothing serious."

"It might have been," he said in a queer, strained voice.

"I

haven't lost my temper like that since was He stopped dead, then got up and went back to his desk.

I said: "Not since you went for Mother with the cake-knife ?" and was astounded to hear the words coming out of my mouth. I added hastily,

"Of course I know you didn't really go for her, it was all a mistake, but- well, you were very angry with her. Oh, Father--do you think

that's what has been the matter with you that you stopped getting

violent? Has repressing your temper somehow repressed your talent?"

He gave a sarcastic snort and didn't even bother to look round.

"Who put that brilliant idea into your head his Was it Topaz ?"

"No, I thought of it myself--just this minute."

"Very ingenious of you. But it happens to be nonsense."

"Well, it's no sillier than believing you dried up because you went to prison," I said- astonishing myself again.

"Some people do think that, you know."

"Idiots!" said Father.

"Good God, how could a few months in prison do me any harm? I've often thought I'd like to be back there; at least the warders never sat round holding postmortems on me. Oh, for the peace of that little cell!"

His tone was very sarcastic but nothing like so angry as I had

expected, so I plucked up my courage to go on.

"Have you any idea yourself what stopped you working?"--I kept my voice calm and conversational.

"Simon thinks, of course .. his He swung round instantly, interrupting me.

"Simon his were you and he discussing me ?"

"Well, we were being interested in you-was "And what theories did Simon put forward?"

I had meant to say that Simon had suggested psycho-analysis, but Father looked so angry again that I funked it and racked my brains for

something more tactful. At last I brought out:

"Well, he once thought you might have been held back because you were such an original writer that you couldn't just develop like ordinary

writers --that you'd have to find some quite new way-was I was

floundering, so I finished up quickly.

"He said something like it that first evening they ever came

here--don't you remember?"

"Yes, perfectly," said Father, relaxing.

"I was very much impressed.

I've since come to the conclusion that it was merely a bit of supremely tactful nonsense on Simon's part, God bless him; but at the time it

certainly fooled me. I'm not at all sure that wasn't what started me

on ." He broke off.

"Well, well, run along to bed, my child."

I cried out, "Oh, Father--do you mean you have found a new way to work?

Do all these crazy things the crosswords and little Folks and The

Homing Pigeon and what not--do they really mean something?"

"Great heavens, what do you take me for his Of course they mean

something."

"Even the willow-pattern plate--and trying to read gramophone records?

How exciting! Though I simply can't imagine. his "You don't have to,"

said Father, firmly.

"You just have to mind your own business."

"But couldn't I help you his I'm reasonably intelligent, you know.

Don't you ever feel you want to talk to anyone ?"

"I do not," said Father.

"Talk, talk- you're as bad as Topaz. As if either of you would have the remotest idea what I was driving at!

And if I'd talked to her, she'd have told every painter in London and you'd tell Simon and he'd write a well-turned article about it.

Good lord, how long does an innovation remain one if it's talked about his And, anyway, with me secrecy's the very essence of creation.

Now go away!"

I said: "I will if you'll answer me just one question.

How long will it be before the book's finished ?"

"Finished? It isn't even begun! I'm still collecting material though that'll go on indefinitely, of course." He began to walk about,

talking more to himself than to me.

"I believe I could make a start now if I could get a scaffolding that really satisfied me. I need a backbone--" "Was that why you took the haddock's ?" I said involuntarily.

He turned on me at once.

"Don't be facetious!" Then I think he saw from my face that I hadn't meant to be, because he gave a snort of laughter and went on: "No, the haddock may be said to have turned into a red herring across the

trail-lots of things do. I don't know, though the ladder like pattern was interesting. I must study the fishes of the world--and whales and the forerunners of whales was He was talking to himself again, moving about the room. I kept dead quiet. He went on, "Primeval,

antediluvian -the ark his No, not the Bible again. Prehistoric --from the smallest bone of the mammoth his Is there a way there ?" He

hurried to his desk and made a note; then sat there, still talking to himself. I could only make out broken phrases and disjointed

words-things like:

"Design, deduction, reconstruction--symbol-pattern and problem search for ever unfolding--enigma eternal..." His voice got quieter and quieter until at last he was silent.

I sat there staring at the back of his head framed in the heavy stone mullions of the window beyond it. The lamp on his desk made the

twilight seem a deep, deep blue. The tick of the little traveling

clock that used to be Mother's sounded unbelievably loud in the

quietness. I wondered if the idea he was searching for was coming to

him. I prayed it might- for his own happiness;

by then I had hope it could be in time to help Rose and me.

After a few minutes I began to think I had better creep out, but I was afraid that opening the door would make a noise.

"And if an idea has come," I thought, "disturbing him now might wreck everything." Then it struck me that if he once got used to having me in the room, I might be a real help- it came back to me that he had

liked Mother to sit with him while he wrote, provided she kept quite

still; he wouldn't even let her sew. I remembered her telling me how

hard she had found it in the beginning, how she had told herself she

would manage just five more minutes, then another five--until the

minutes grew into hours. I said to myself: "In ten minutes her little clock will chime nine. I'll sit still until then."

But after a couple of minutes, bits of me began to tickle maddeningly.

I stared at the lamplit face of the clock almost praying to it to

hurry-its ticking seemed to get louder and louder, until it was right inside my ears. I had just got to a stage when I felt I couldn't bear it a second longer when the wind burst one of the south windows open, the American newspapers tacked to the bookshelves blew up with a great flap, and Father swung round.

His eyes seemed to have sunk deeper into his head;

he blinked. I could see he was coming back from very far away. I

expected him to be angry at my still being there, but he just said

"Hello" with a sort of dazed pleasantness.

"Was the idea any good ?" I ventured.

For a second, he didn't seem to know what I was talking about. Then he said, "No, no--another marsh light. were you holding your fingers crossed for me, poor mouselike child? Your Mother used to sit like

that."

"I know. I was thinking of her a minute ago."

"Were you his So was I. Probably telepathy."

The newspapers flapped again and he went to close the window; then

stood looking down into the courtyard. I thought he was going to

forget me again, so I said, quickly:

"Mother helped you quite a lot, didn't she?"

"Yes, in an odd, oblique way." He sat down on the window-seat apparently quite prepared for a little chat.

"God knows she never had an idea in her head, dear woman, but she'd the most extraordinary habit of saying useful things by accident--like

mentioning the name "Jacob" when I was searching for a central idea for Jacob Wrestling. Actually, she was talking about the milkman. And having her in the room seemed to give me confidence--the atmosphere

used to become quite thick with her prayers. Well, good night, my

child . "He got up and came towards me.

"Is the elbow better ?" I said, "Quite, thank you."

"Good. Next time you come I'll try to give you a better welcome-put the red carpet down. But you must wait until you're invited. I must

say I'm curious to know what keyed you up to this attack tonight.

Mrs. Cotton wasn't doing a little prodding by proxy, was she?"

"Gracious, no!" Of course had no intention of telling him my real reason for coming; it would have worried him quite uselessly, besides being unfair to Rose.

"It was only that I was anxious."

"Good lord, do you mean about my state of mind ?" He chuckled, then looked concerned.

"You poor girl, did you really think my brain was going? Well, I daresay I seemed pretty eccentric, and plenty of people will think

that's an understatement when this book gets out. If it ever does. Why can't I take the plunge? It's just the initial idea that eludes me.

I've lost confidence you know-it isn't laziness, I swear"--there was a humble, almost pleading note in his voice--"it never has been--I hope you believe that, my dear. It-well, it just hasn't been possible."

I said, "Of course I believe it. And I believe you're going to start very soon now."

"I hope so." He laughed a little, in an odd, nervous kind of way.

"Because if I don't get going soon, the whole impetus may die- and if that happens, well, I really shall consider a long, restful plunge into insanity. Sometimes the abyss yawns very attractively. There,

there--don't take me seriously."

"Of course not," I said briskly.

"Now, look, Father. Why not let me sit here as Mother used to?

I'll pray, as she did; I'm really quite good at it. And you go to your desk and start this very night."

"No, no, I couldn't yet"--he looked positively frightened.

"I know you mean well, my dear, but you're making me nervous. Now run along to bed. I'm going, myself."

He lifted up the American papers and dived under to the shelf holding his old detective novels, grabbing one quite at random. Then he put

the lamp out. Just as we went out of the room, Mother's little clock

began to strike nine. Even after Father had locked the door and we

were groping our way down the pitch-black stairs, I could hear the

tiny, tinkling chimes.

"I must remember to carry matches," he said, "now there's no Stephen to leave a lamp outside my door."

I said I would see to it in future. There was no lantern in the

gatehouse passage, either--another of Stephen's jobs; all the time I

find out more and more things he did without my ever realizing it.

"Let me make you some cocoa, Father," I suggested as we went into the kitchen, but he said he didn't need anything-- "Except a biscuit, perhaps--and find me a candle with at least three hours' reading in

it." I gave him a whole plate of biscuits and a new candle.

"The richness of our life these days never ceases to astonish me," he said as he went up to bed.

Thomas was deep in his homework, at the kitchen table. I waited until I heard Father go through to Windsor Castle, then said quietly: "Come on out, I've got to talk to you. Bring a lantern so that we can go

into the lane- I don't want Father to hear our voices through some open window."

We went as far as the stile, and sat on it with the lantern balanced

between us. Then I told him everything except my true reason for

bearding Father; I said it was due to a sudden impulse.

"Well, how does it sound to you ?" I finished up.

"Perfectly awful," said Thomas.

"I'm afraid he really is going crazy."

I was taken aback.

"Then I've made him sound worse than he seemed--through telling it too quickly.

It was only at the very end that his manner was odd--and a bit,

perhaps, when he was talking to himself, about whales and mammoths."

"But all those changes of manner--being furious with you one minute and then really pleasant. And when you add up all the silly things he's

been interested in lately- oh, lord, when I think of him taking that

haddock-bone" He began to laugh.

I said, "Don't, Thomas--it's like people in the eighteenth century laughing at the lunatics in Bedlam."

"Well, I bet I'd have laughed at them myself-things can be funny even when they're awful, you know. But, I wonder"--he was suddenly

serious" are we like Harry's Father jeering at Jacob Wrestling?

Perhaps he really has something up his sleeve. Though I don't like the sound of all those lists he's making it's like taking too many notes at school; you feel you've achieved something when you haven't."

"You mean he may never get going on the book itself." I was quiet for a minute, staring into the lantern, though what I saw all the time was Father's face when he was looking humble and nervous.

"Oh, Thomas, if he doesn't, I think he will go out of his mind. He said he wasn't serious about plunging into insanity, but I believe I

felt he was. He may be a borderline case--madness and genius are very dose to each other, aren't they his If only we could push him the right way!"

"Well, you haven't made much of a start tonight," said Thomas, "you've just driven him to bed with a detective novel. Anyway, I'm going in.

Whether Father's sane or off his rocker, I've still got to do my

algebra."

"You can make him it, the unknown quantity," I said.

"I think I shall stay here for a while. Can you manage without the lantern ?"

He said he could--there was quite a bit of starlight.

"Though it won't do you any good to sit here brooding," he added.

But I didn't plan to brood. I had decided to look up the record of my talk with Simon about psycho-analysis, on the off chance of finding

something helpful; and I had no intention of letting Thomas know where my journal was hidden. I waited until I felt sure he would be back in the castle, then cut across the meadow and climbed the mound. A little cloud of white moths came all the way with me, hovering round the

lantern.

It felt strange going from the warm, blowy night into the cool

stillness of Belmotte Tower. As I climbed down the ladder inside I

thought of being there with Simon on Midsummer Eve--as I do every time I go into the tower. Then I pulled myself together.

"This may be your last hope of keeping your Father out of a padded cell," I told myself severely. And by then a faint flicker of hope on my own account had re-awakened. I felt that if I once got him even

started on an important book, Rose just might be persuaded to postpone her marriage--and then anything might happen.

I crawled up the crumbling staircase and brought down my bread-tin--I have used that for some time now, because ants kept getting into the

attache case. I spread my three journals out on the old iron bedstead and sat there looking through them; I could read quite well by the

light from the lantern. It didn't take me long to find the entry for

May Day, with the bit about psychoanalysis.

First came the speech in which Simon said he didn't believe Father

stopped writing just because he had been in prison--that the trouble

probably lay much further back. But prison might have brought it to

the surface. Anyway, a psycho-analyst would certainly ask Father

questions about the time he spent there--in a way, try to put him

mentally back in prison. And then there was the bit about it being

possible that another period of physical imprisonment might resolve the trouble. But Simon said that was unworkable as a treatment, because it couldn't be done without Father's consent-and if he gave it, of course he wouldn't feel imprisoned.

There didn't seem to be anything I could do along those lines.

I glanced through another page in case I had missed something, and came to the description of Simon's face as he lay on the grass with his eyes closed. It gave me a stab in which happiness and misery were somehow a part of each other. I closed the journal and sat staring up into the

dark shaft of the tower. And then I Suddenly the whole plan was

complete in my mind almost to the last detail. But surely I meant it

as a joke then?

I remember thinking how it would make Thomas laugh. It was still a

joke while I put my journals away and began to climb out of the tower-I had to mount the ladder very slowly because I needed one hand for the lantern. I was half-way up when the extraordinary thing happened.

Godsend church clock had begun to strike ten and suddenly, as well as the far-off booming bell, I heard in memory the tinkling chime of

Mother's little traveling clock.

And then my mind's eye saw her face--not the photograph of it, which is what I always see when I think of her, but her face as it was. I saw

her light brown hair and freckled skin--I had forgotten until then that she had freckles. And that same instant, I heard her voice in my

head--after all these years of not being able to hear it.

A quiet, clipped little voice it was, completely matter-of-fact. It

said: "Do you know, dear, I believe that scheme of yours might work quite well ?"

I heard my own voice answer: "But Mother-surely we couldn't his It's fantastic--"

"Well, your Father's quite a fantastic man," said Mother's voice.

That second, a gust of wind slammed the tower door just above me,

startling me so that I nearly lost my footing on the ladder. I

steadied myself, then listened again for Mother's voice, asked her

questions. All I heard was the last stroke of the church clock. But

my mind was made up.

I hurried back to the castle and got Thomas to come out again.

To my surprise, he didn't think my plan was as wild as I did myself- he was dead keen from the beginning, and most businesslike.

"You give me the housekeeping money and tomorrow I'll buy everything we need," he said.

"And then we'll do it the very next day. We've got to act quickly, because Topaz may be home next week."

I didn't mention my strange experience of being advised by Mother; I

might have if he had put up any opposition to the scheme, but he never did. Do I really believe I was in touch with Mother-or was it

something deep in myself choosing that way to advise me his I don't

know. I only know that it happened.

Father went to Scoatney the next morning, so there was no danger of his seeing what I was up to.

By the time Thomas came home I had everything in readiness except for the few things that were too heavy for me to carry alone. He helped me with those and then we made our final plans.

"And we must do it the first thing after breakfast," said Thomas, "or he may go off to Scoatney again."

The minute I woke up on Thursday morning I thought: "I can't go through with it. It's dangerous-something dreadful might happen." And then I remembered Father saying that if he didn't start work soon the impetus might die. All the time I was dressing I kept thinking, "Oh, if only I could be sure it's the right thing to do!" I tried to get more advice from Mother. Nothing happened.

I tried praying to God. Nothing happened. I prayed to "Any one who is listening, please"--to the morning sun--to Nature, via the wheat field

.. . At last I decided to toss for it.

And just then Thomas came rushing in to say that Father wasn't waiting until after breakfast, would be off to Scoatney at any minute- and

instantly I knew that I did want to carry through our scheme, that I

couldn't bear not to.

The squeak of bicycle tires being pumped up came in through the open

window.

"It's too late. We're sunk for today," said Thomas.

"Not yet," I said.

"Get out of the house without letting him see you --go along the walls and down the gatehouse stairs.

Then dash up the mound and hide behind the tower. Be ready to help. Go on-quick!"

He bolted off and I hurried down to the courtyard, pretending to be

very worried that Father was leaving without his breakfast.

"Oh, they'll give me some at Scoatney," he said airily. Then I talked about his bicycle, offering to clean it for him, telling him it needed new tyres.

"Let me pump that back one a bit harder for you," I said, and kept at it until I felt Thomas would have had enough time.

Then, just as I was handing the bicycle over, I remarked casually, "Oh, can you spare a minute to come up to Belmotte Tower his I think you may want to let someone at Scoatney know what's been happening in there."

"Oh, lord, did that last heavy rain do a lot of damage ?" said Father.

"Well, I think you'll see quite a few changes," I said, with the utmost truthfulness.

We crossed the bridge and started to climb the mound.

"One doesn't often see an English sky as blue as this," he said.

"I

wonder if Simon's agent has authority to do repairs to the tower ?"

He went on chatting most pleasantly and normally. All my misgivings

were rushing back; but I felt the die was cast.

"Really, I ought to spend more time in here," he said as he followed me up the steps outside the tower. I opened the heavy oak door and stood back for him to pass me. He climbed down the ladder inside and stood

blinking his eyes.

"Can't see much yet, after the sunlight," he called up, peering around.

"Hello, have you been camping-out down here ?"

"One of us is going to," I said--then added quickly:

"Go up the staircase a little way, will you?"

"The crumbling's worse, is it?" He went through the archway and began to make his way up the stairs.

Thomas had already crept from behind the tower. I beckoned and he was beside me in a flash. Together, we dragged the ladder up and flung it down outside.

Father shouted: "Come and show me what you mean, Cassandra."

"Don't say anything until he comes back," whispered Thomas.

Father called again and I still didn't answer. After a few seconds he returned through the archway.

"Couldn't you hear me calling ?" he said, looking up at us.

"Hello, Thomas, why haven't you gone to school?"

We stared down at him. Now that the ladder had gone he seemed much

further away from us; the circle of stone walls rose round him dungeon like He was so foreshortened that he seemed only to have a face,

shoulders and feet.

"What's the matter his Why don't you answer ?"

he shouted.

I racked my brains to think of the most tactful way of telling lim what had happened to him. At last I managed:

"Will you please look round you, Father his It's a sort of surprise."

We had put the mattress from the four-poster on the old iron bedstead, with blankets and pillows. The most inviting new stationery was

spread on the rustic table, with stones to use as paperweights.

We had given him the kitchen armchair.

"There are washing arrangements and drinking water in the garderobe," I called down- my enamel jug and basin had come in handily again.

"We think you'll have enough light to work by, now we've cleared the ivy from all the lowest arrow-slits --we'll give you a lantern at

night, of course. Very good meals will be coming down in a basket--we bought a "Thermos" .. " I couldn't go on --the expression on his face was too much for me.

He had just taken in that the ladder wasn't there any more.

"Great God in heaven!" he began--and then sat down on the bed and let out a roar of laughter. He laughed and laughed until I began to fear

he would suffocate.

"Oh, Thomas!" I whispered.

"Have we pushed him over to the wrong side of the border-line ?"

Father mopped his eyes.

"My dear, dear children!" he said at last.

"Cassandra, are you- what is it, seventeen, eighteen? Or are you eight? Bring that ladder back at once."

"You say something, Thomas," I whispered.

He cleared his throat and said very slowly and loudly:

"We think you ought to start work, Father--for your own sake far more than for ours. And we think being shut up here may help you to

concentrate and be good for you in other ways. I assure you we've

given the matter a lot of thought and are in line with psycho-analysis his "Bring back that ladder!" roared Father. I could see that Thomas's weighty manner had infuriated him.

"There's no point in arguing," said Thomas, calmly.

"We'll leave you to get settled. You can tell us at lunch time if there are any books or papers you need for your work."

"Don't you dare go away!" Father's voice cracked so pitifully that I said quickly:

"Please don't exhaust yourself by shouting for help, because there's no one but us within miles. Oh, Father, it's an experiment- give it a

chance."

"But you little lunatic ... was Father began, furiously.

Thomas whispered to me: "I warn you, this will only develop into a brawl. Let me get the door shut."

It was a brawl already on Father's side. I stood back and Thomas

closed the door.

"Luncheon at one, Father," I called encouragingly.

We locked and bolted the door. There wasn't the faintest chance that

Father could climb up to it, but we felt the psychological effect would be good. As we went down the mound, Father's yelling sounded

surprisingly weak; by the time we reached the bridge we couldn't hear it at all.

I said: "Do you think he's fainted?"

Thomas went a little way up the mound.

"No, I can still hear him.

It's just that the tower's a sound-trap."

I stared back at it.

"Oh, Thomas, have we done something insane?"

"Not a bit," said Thomas, cheerfully.

"You know, even the change of atmosphere may be enough to help him."

"But to lock him in--and it used to be a dungeon!

To imprison one's Father!"

"Well, that's the whole idea, isn't it his Not that I set quite as much store on the psycho stuff as you do. Personally, I think knowing he

won't be let out until he's done some work is almost more important."

"That's nonsense," I said.

"If it doesn't come right psychologically from the depths of Father- it won't come right at all.

You can't trammel the creative mind."

"Why not?" said Thomas.

"His creative mind's been untrammelled for years without doing a hand's-turn. Let's see what trammelling does for it."

We went indoors and had breakfast- it seemed awful that Father was

starting his adventure on an empty stomach, but I knew we should be

making that up to him soon. Then I wrote to Thomas's school to say he would be indisposed for a few days, and went up to make the beds.

Thomas kindly undertook the dusting.

"Hello!" he said suddenly.

"Look at this!"

The key to the gatehouse room was lying on Father's dressing-table.

"Let's go in and have a look at those lists you told me about," said Thomas.

As we climbed the gatehouse stairs I said:

"Oh, Thomas, is it like spying?"

"Yes, of course it is," said Thomas, unlocking the door.

I suddenly felt frightened as well as guilty- it was as if part of

Father's mind was still in the room and furious with us for

intruding.

Sunlight was streaming through the south window, the "comic strips"

were still tacked to the bookshelves, Mother's little clock was ticking away on the desk. But the lists weren't there any longer and the desk was locked.

I was glad we couldn't find anything. I felt worse about snooping

round his room than about locking him up in the tower.

Thomas stayed to read the comic strips while I began preparations for Father's lunch. At one o'clock we took it out in a basket- soup in a

"Thermos," chicken salad, strawberries and cream, and a cigar (nine pence).

"I wonder if we're right to pamper him with this rich food," said Thomas as we started up the mound.

"Bread and water would create the prison atmosphere better."

Everything was quiet when we got up to the tower. We unlocked the

door and looked down. Father was lying on the bed, staring upwards.

"Hello," he said, in a perfectly pleasant voice.

I was astounded--and still more so when he smiled at us.

Of course I smiled back, and I said I hoped he had a good appetite.

Thomas began to lower the basket on a length of clothesline.

"It's only a light luncheon, so that it won't make you sleepy," I explained.

"There'll be a bigger meal tonight- with wine." I noticed he had already got himself a drink of water, which looked as if he were

settling down a bit.

He thanked Thomas most politely for the basket and spread the contents out on the table; then smiled up at us.

"This is superb," he said, in his most genial voice.

"Now, listen, you comics: I've had a long, quiet morning to think in-it's really been most pleasant, lying here watching the sky. I'm

perfectly sincere when I say that I'm touched at your doing this to try to help me. And I'm not at all sure you haven't succeeded. It's been

stimulating;

I've had one or two splendid ideas. It's been a success do you

understand? But the novelty has worn off now--if you keep me here any longer, you'll undo your good work. Now I'm going to eat this

delightful luncheon, and then you're going to bring back the

ladder--aren't you?" His voice quavered on the "aren't you?"

"And I swear there'll be no reprisals," he finished.

I looked at Thomas to see what he made of this.

He just said, woodenly: "Any books or papers you want, Father ?"

"No, there aren't!" shouted Father, his bonhomie suddenly departing.

"All I want is to get out."

Thomas slammed the door.

"Dinner at seven," I called- but I doubt if Father heard me as he was yelling louder than when we first locked him in.

I hoped it wouldn't ruin his appetite.

I spent the early part of the afternoon reading the comic strips you

start by thinking they are silly, but they grow on you.

Then I got everything ready for Father's meal- it was to be full

dinner, not just glorified tea: melon, cold salmon (we put it down the well to get it really cold), tinned peaches, cheese and biscuits, a

bottle of white wine (three shillings), coffee and another nine penny cigar.

And about an egg-cup full of port which I still had in the medicine

bottle.

We carried it all out on trays just as Godsend church dock struck

seven. It was a glorious, peaceful evening. Soon after we crossed the bridge we could hear Father yelling.

"Have you been wearing yourself out by shouting all afternoon ?"

I said, when Thomas had opened the door.

"Pretty nearly," said Father--his voice sounded very hoarse.

"Someone's bound to pass through the fields sooner or later."

"I doubt it," said Thomas.

"The hay's all in and Mr. Stebbins isn't cutting his wheat for some weeks yet. Anyway, your voice doesn't carry beyond the mound. If

you'll re-pack the lunch basket, I'll haul it up and send your dinner down."

I expected Father to rave but he didn't even reply; and he at once

began to do what Thomas had suggested. His movements were very awkward and jerky. He had taken off his coat and undone his collar, which gave him a pathetic look--rather as if he were ready to be led out to

execution.

"We must bring him pajamas and a dressing-gown for tonight," I whispered to Thomas.

Father heard me and jerked his head upwards.

"If you leave me here all night I shall go out of my mind--I mean it, Cassandra.

This -this sense of imprisonment, I'd forgotten how shocking it can

be. Don't you know what it does to people- being shut up in small

spaces his Haven't you heard of claustrophobia ?"

"There's plenty of space upwards," I said, as firmly as I could.

"And you never suffer from claustrophobia when you lock yourself in the gatehouse."

"But it's different when someone else locks you in."

His voice cracked.

"Oh you damned little idiots--let me out! Let me out!"" I felt dreadful, but Thomas seemed quite unconcerned. He hauled up the basket Father had filled, took out the plates and dishes, and put the dinner in. I think he knew I was weakening, because he whispered: "We've got to go through with it now. You leave it to me." Then he lowered the basket and called down, firmly:

"We'll let you out just as soon as you've written something- say fifty pages."

"I never wrote fifty pages in less than three months even when I could write," said Father, his voice cracking worse than ever. Then he flopped into the arm-chair and gripped his head with his hands.

"Just unpack your dinner, will you?" said Thomas.

"You'd better take the coffee-pot out first."

Father looked up and his whole face went suddenly scarlet. Then he

made a dive at the dinner basket, and the next second a plate flew past my head. A fork whizzed through the door just before we got it closed.

Then we heard crockery breaking against it.

I sat down on the steps and burst into tears. Father croaked: "My God, are you hurt, Cassandra?" I put my face close to the crack under the door and called: "No, I'm perfectly all right. But please, please don't throw all your dinner dishes until you've eaten what's on them.

Oh, won't you just try to write, Father?

Write anything-write "The cat sat on the mat" if you like.

Anything, as long as you write!"

Then I cried harder than ever. Thomas pulled me to my feet and steered me down the steps.

"We ought never to have done it," I sobbed as we went down the mound.

"I shall let him out tonight even if he kills us."

"No, you won't--remember your oath." We had sworn not to give in until both of us agreed to it.

"I'm not weakening yet. We'll see how he is after dinner."

As soon as the daylight began to fade, Thomas got the pyjamas and

dressing-gown, and lit a lantern. There wasn't a sound as we

approached the tower.

"Oh, Thomas--suppose he's dashed his head against the wall!"

I whispered. And then a faint, reassuring smell of cigar smoke was

wafted to us.

When we opened the door, Father was sitting at the table with his back towards us. He turned round with the cigar in one hand and a pencil in the other.

"Your brilliant idea's done the trick!" he cried, hoarsely but happily.

"The miracle's happened! I've begun!"

"Oh, how wonderful!" I gasped.

Thomas said in a level, most un exuberant voice: "That's splendid, Father. May we see what you've written ?"

"Certainly not--you wouldn't understand a word of it. But assure you I've made a start. Now let me out."

"It's a ruse," Thomas whispered.

I said: "How many pages have you written, Father ?"

"Well, not many--the light's been very bad down here for the last hour his "You'll be all right with the lantern," said Thomas, beginning to lower it.

Father took it, and then said in a perfectly reasonable tone:

"Thomas, I give you my word I have begun work-look, you can see for yourself." He held a sheet of paper close to the lantern, then whisked it away.

"Cassandra, you write yourself, so you'll under stand that one's first draft can be--well, not always convincing.

Damn it, I've only started since dinner! An excellent dinner, by the

way; thank you very much. Now hurry up with that ladder

--I

want to get back to the gatehouse and work all night."

"But you're in an ideal place to work all night," said Thomas.

"Moving to the gatehouse would only disrupt you. Here are your pajamas and dressing-gown. I'll come along early in the morning.

Good night, Father." He threw the clothes down, shut the door, and took me firmly by the elbow.

"Come on, Cassandra."

I went without argument. I didn't believe Father was bluffing, I

believed our cure really had begun to work; but I thought it ought to have time to "take." And with Father in that sane, controlled mood, I was quite willing to leave him there for the night.

"But we've got to keep guard," I said, "in case he sets fire to his bedding, or something."

We divided the night into watches. I slept -not very well- until two; then took over from Thomas. I went up the mound every hour, but the

only thing I heard was a faint snore round about five o'clock.

I woke Thomas at seven this morning, intending to go up with him for

the first visit of the day; but he slipped off on his own while I was in Windsor Castle. I met him coming back across the bridge.

He said all was well and Father had been pleased with the bucket of

nice hot water he had taken up.

"And I'm beginning to believe he really is working--he was certainly writing when I opened the door. He's calm, and he's getting much more co-operative- he had all his dinner things packed in the basket ready for me. And he says he'd like his breakfast now."

Each time we have gone up with meals today, he has been writing like

mad. He still asks to be let out, but without wasting much breath on

it. And when we took the lantern this evening, he said:

"Come on, come on- I've been held up for that."

Surely, surely he wouldn't carry on a bluff for so long? I would have let him out tonight, but Thomas says he must show us some of his work first.

It is now nearly four o'clock in the morning.

I didn't wake Thomas at two because I wanted to bring this entry up to date;

and the poor boy is sleeping so exhaustedly- he is on the sofa here.

He didn't think there was any need for us to keep watch tonight, but I insisted--apart from the fear of anything happening to Father, the

barometer is falling. Could we remain adamant if it rained heavily?

Thomas is firmer than I am. He sent an umbrella down with the

lantern.

I have looked out of the south window every hour--our main reason for choosing the gatehouse to spend the night in is that we can see

Belmotte Tower through one window and keep a watch on the lane through the other. Though who would come to the castle in the middle of the

night? No one, no one. And yet I feel like a sentinel on guard.

Men must have kept guard in this gatehouse six hundred years ago

...... I have just had another look at the tower. The moon is shining full on it now. I had a queer feeling that it was more than inanimate stones. Does it know that it is playing a part in life again-that its dungeon once more encircles a sleeping prisoner his Four o'clock now.

Mother's little clock is beginning to seem alive in its own right--a

small, squat, busy person a few inches from my hand.

How heavily Thomas is sleeping! Watching sleeping people makes one

feel more separate than ever from them.

Heloise is chasing rabbits through her dreams--she gives little

nose-whimpers, her paws keep twitching. About honored us with his

company till midnight; now he is out hunting under the moon.

Surely we must let Father out tomorrow--even if he still won't show us his work? His upturned face looked so strange as he took the lantern

from us last night--almost saint like as if he had been seeing

visions.

Perhaps it was only because he needed a shave.

Shall I wake Thomas now this journal is up to date? I don't feel at

all sleepy. I am going to put the lamp out and sit in the

moonlight...... I can still see well enough to write. I remember

writing by moonlight the night I started my journal. What a lot has

happened since then!

I shall think of Simon now. Now? As if I didn't think of him all the

time! Even while I have been so worried about Father, a voice in my

heart has kept saying: "But nothing really matters to you but Simon."

Oh, if only Rose will break her engagement off, surely he will turn to me someday? There is actually a car on the Godsend road! It is

strange to watch the headlights and wonder who is driving through the night.

Oh, heavens! The car has turned into our lane!

Oh, what am I to do? Keep calm, keep calm--it has only taken the wrong turning.

It will back out, or at worst turn round when it gets to the castle.

But people who get as far as the castle usually stop to stare at it and if Father has heard the car, could his voice possibly carry? It just

might, in the still night air. Oh, go back, go back!

It is coming on and on. I feel like someone keeping a journal to the

last second of an approaching catastrophe.

The catastrophe has happened. Simon and Topaz are getting out of the

car.

XVI

I went into the kitchen just as Topaz was striking a match to light the lamp. I heard Simon's voice before I saw his face.

"Is Rose here?"

"Rose ?" I must have sounded utterly blank.

"Oh, my God!" said Simon.

The lamp shone out and I caught his look of utter misery.

"She's disappeared," said Topaz.

"Now don't be frightened--it's not an accident or anything;

she left a note for Simon. But was she looked at him quickly, then

went on: "It didn't really explain anything. Apparently she went off this morning. Simon was away driving his Mother to stay with some

friends-Rose hadn't felt like going with them. He stayed there for

dinner so didn't get back to the flat until late. I was out all day

sitting for Macmorris and went to a theatre with him- I only got home as Simon was reading Rose's note.

We thought she might have come here to be with you--so we drove

straight down."

"Well, she's safe, anyway," I said to Simon.

"I had a telegram from her--though it only said she'd write when she could and would I please try to understand." It had just dawned on me that the bit about understanding didn't refer to our quarrel at all,

but to her running away.

"Where was the telegram handed in?" said Topaz.

"I didn't notice. I'll get it and see."

It was in my bedroom. As I dashed off to the front stairs I heard

Topaz say: "Fancy Mortmain sleeping through all this!" I was afraid she would go up to wake him before I got back, but she didn't.

I spread the telegram out under the lamp.

"Why, it's from that little seaside place where we went for the

picnic!" I said to Simon.

"Why on earth would she go there?" said Thomas.

"And why couldn't the silly ass explain in her note ?"

"She explained all right," said Simon.

"Thanks for trying to spare my feelings, Topaz, but it's really rather pointless." He took the note from his pocket and put it down by the telegram.

"You may as well see what she says."

It was just a penciled scribble:

DEAR SIMON,

I want you to know that I wasn't lying in the beginning.

I really thought I loved you. Now there is nothing I can do but beg

your forgiveness.

Rose "Well, that's that," said Thomas, shooting me a private "I told you so" look.

"But it's not final," said Topaz, quickly.

"I've been telling Simon it's just a fit of engagement nerves--she'll feel differently in a day or two. She's obviously gone to this place

to think things out."

Simon looked at his watch.

"Would you be too tired to start right away ?" he said to Topaz.

"You mean, go after her? Oh, Simon, are you sure that's wise? If she wants to be on her own for a bit? "I won't worry her. I won't even see her, if she doesn't want me to. You can talk to her first. But I

must know a little more than I do now."

"Of course I'll come, then. Let me just have a word with Mortmain first his She moved towards the kitchen stairs, but I got in front of her.

"It's no use going up," I said.

"What, is he in London again ?"

"No-was I shot a look at Thomas, hoping he would help me out.

"You see, Topaz-was "What is it? What are you hiding from me?" She was so scared that she forgot to be a contralto.

I said hastily: "He's perfectly all right, but he's not upstairs. It's good news, really, Topaz- you'll be terribly pleased."

Then Thomas took over and said calmly: "Father's been in Belmotte Tower for two days. We locked him up to make him work- and if we're to

believe him, we've done the trick."

I thought he had put it with admirable dearness, but Topaz asked a

great many frantic questions before she took it in. When she finally

did, her rage was terrific.

"You've killed him!" she screamed.

"Well, he was alive and kicking last night," I said.

"Wasn't he Thomas his "Not kicking," said Thomas.

"He'd quite settled down. If you've any sense, Topaz, you'll leave him there for a few more days."

She was already at the dresser, where the key to the tower usually

hangs.

"Where is it? Give it me at once! If I don't get that key in two minutes I'll hack through the door with an axe!"

And wouldn't she have enjoyed that I could tell she had stopped being really frightened because her voice was most tragically sepulchral.

"We shall have to let him out now," I said to Thomas.

"I would have tomorrow, in any case."

"I wouldn't," said Thomas.

"It's going to wreck the whole experiment." But he went to get the lantern.

The moon was down, but the stars were still bright when we went out

into the courtyard.

"Wait, I'll get my flashlight from the car," said Simon.

"I do apologize," I told him, as we followed the others across Belmotte bridge.

"We've no right to drag you into our family troubles when you're so worried."

He said, "Worried or not, I wouldn't miss this."

No sound came from the tower as we climbed the mound.

"Now don't go yelling that you're coming to rescue him," I said to Topaz.

"You know what it's like being wakened up suddenly."

"If he ever does wake!

his I could have slapped her- partly for being at her most bogus and

partly because I was nervous myself. I certainly didn't think that

Father would be dead, but I did have a slight fear that we might have unhinged him-the state of his hinges being a bit in doubt even before we started.

Still no sound when we got to the foot of the steps.

"Give me the key," Topaz whispered to Thomas.

"I want to face it alone."

"If you're not careful, you'll face it headfirst down fifteen feet," he told her.

"Let Cassandra and me get the door open and the ladder fixed, and then you can descend like a ministering angel."

The ministering angel idea fetched her.

"All right, but let me be the first one he sees."

"Be as quiet as you can," I whispered to Thomas as we got the ladder.

"I'd like to have one look at him before he wakes up. I've borrowed Simon's torch."

We got the door open almost noiselessly, then I shone the torch down

into the blackness.

Father was lying on the bed- so utterly still that for a moment I was terrified. Then a little curling snore relieved my mind. It did look

peculiar down there. In the light from the torch the tall, sun-starved weeds were white as skeleton leaves. The legs of the old iron bedstead were sticking out oddly- evidently it was only just standing up to

Father's weight. Beside it lay the umbrella, opened; I felt his brain must be all right to be capable of such forethought. And my spirits

rose still more when I shone the torch on the rustic table.

As well as the big pile of unused paper there were four small ones,

carefully weighted down with stones.

Thomas and I lowered the ladder quietly--Topaz was behind us simply

panting to descend. She had to go down backwards, of course, which was most unlike a ministering angel, but she made up for that when she got to the bottom. Holding the lantern as high as she could, she cried:

"Mortmain, I've come to rescue you! It's Topaz, Mortmain, You're safe!" Father shot up into a sitting position, gasping: "Great God!

What's happened?" Then she swooped on to him and the bed went down wallop, its head and foot very nearly meeting over them.

Choking with laughter, Thomas and I dodged out of sight and down the

steps. From there we could hear a perfect hullabaloo- Father was

managing to curse, make waking-up noises, and laugh all at the same

time, while Topaz did a sort of double-bass cooing.

"Hadn't you better leave them together for a while ?"

said Simon.

"Yes, let her work off her worst histrionics," I said to Thomas.

We waited in the courtyard until we saw the lantern coming down the

mound. Then Simon tactfully decided not to be seen and went to wait in his car.

"Shall we vanish, too ?" said Thomas.

"No, we'd better get the meeting over."

We ran towards them as they crossed the bridge. Topaz was hanging on

to Father's arm--I heard her say: "Lean on me, Mortmain, lean on me"

-like little Lord Fauntleroy to his grandfather.

"Are you all right, Father ?" I called brightly.

"My dear young jailers," said Father, rather exhaustedly.

"Yes, I think I shall survive if Topaz will stop treating me as if I were both the little princes in the Tower."

As he went into the kitchen Topaz hung back, grabbed my arm and did one of her most endearing quick changes into hard-headedness.

"Cut back and see what he's written," she whispered.

We dashed up the mound; luckily I still had Simon's torch.

"Heavens, this is a thrilling moment," I said as we stood in front of the rustic table.

"Perhaps one day I shall be describing it in Father's biography."

Thomas took the stone off the first pile of paper.

"Look, this is the beginning," he said as the torch lit up a large

"Section A." He snatched the top sheet off, then let out a gasp of astonishment.

The whole of the page underneath was covered with large block

capitals--badly formed ones, such as a child makes when learning to

write. As I moved the torch along the lines, we read: THE CAT

SAT ON THE MAT. THE CAT SAT

ON THE MAT. THE

CAT SAT ON THE MAT .. . on and on, to the end of the page.

"Oh, Thomas!" I moaned.

"We've turned his brain."

"Rubbish. You heard how sanely he was talking--" "Well, perhaps he's recovering but--don't you see what's happened?" Suddenly it had come back to me.

"Don't you remember what I shouted under the door when I was so

upset?

"Write anything you like as long as you write," I told him.

"Write "The cat sat on the mat."" And he's written it!"

Thomas was turning over more pages. We read: THE CAT BIT THE FAT RAT, and so on, still in block capitals.

"It's just second childhood," I wailed.

"We've brought it on prematurely."

"Look, this is better," said Thomas.

"He's growing up," At last we saw Father's, normal handwriting, at its neatest and most exquisite.

"But what on earth- good Lord, he's been making up puzzles!"

There was an easy acrostic, a rebus, some verses with the names of

animals buried in them--every kind of childish puzzle that is in our

old bound volume of Little Folks. Then came a page of simple riddles.

On the last page of all, Father had written:

Investigate:

Old Copybooks Samplers Child's Guide to Knowledge Jig-saw Puzzles Toys in the London Museum "That's sane enough," said Thomas.

"I tell you this stuff means something."

But I didn't believe him. Oh, I had got over my first fear that Father had gone insane; but I thought all the childish nonsense was a way of passing the time--something like the game he plays with the

Encyclopedia.

Thomas had taken the stone off Section B. "Well, there's nothing childish about this," he said after a few seconds.

"Not that I can make head or tail of it."

There were a lot of numbered sentences, each about two or three lines long. At first I thought they were poetry; there were beautiful

combinations of words, and though they were mysterious I felt there was a meaning behind them. Then my new-born hope died suddenly.

"They're the clues to a crossword puzzle," I said disgustedly.

"He's just been amusing himself -I'm not going to read any more." It had just struck me that if I didn't hurry back to the castle, I might not see Simon again before he went.

"Here, come back with that torch," shouted Thomas, as I started up the ladder.

"I'm not leaving until I've looked at everything he's written." I didn't stop, so he snatched the torch from me. By the time I reached

the top of the ladder he was calling after me: "You should see Section C--it's all diagrams showing the distances between places. And he's

drawn a bird, with words coming out of its mouth."

"It's a homing pigeon," I called back derisively.

"You'll probably come to the carpet-bag and the willow-pattern plate before long."

He shouted that I was just being Harry's Father, jeering at Jacob

Wrestling "There's something in all this, I'm positive."

But I still didn't believe him. And for the moment, I didn't much

care one way or the other.

My whole mind had swung back to Simon.

Topaz came running downstairs from the bedroom as I went into the

kitchen.

"It's all right to talk -Mortmain's gone to have a bath," she said.

"Oh, isn't it wonderful that he's begun work his What did you find ?"

I so hated having to disappoint her that I told her Thomas might be

right and I might be wrong. But the minute I mentioned the crossword

puzzle her spirits sank.

"Though I'm sure he thinks he's been working," she said, worriedly.

"His mind must be confused-it's all he's been through. I've a few things to say to you, my girl But there's no time for that now;

we must do something about Simon. Cassandra, will you go with him

instead of me his Then I can stay with Mortmain. I don't want him to

know about Rose until he's recovered a bit- he doesn't even know that Simon's here."

My heart gave a leap.

"Yes, of course I'll go."

"And for goodness' sake try to make Rose see sense. I've told Simon I'd rather you went and he thinks it's a good idea- that you may have more influence with her. He's waiting in his car."

I ran upstairs and got ready. It was the wicked est moment of my life, because in spite of believing we had failed with Father, in spite of

the wretchedness I had seen on Simon's face, I was wildly happy. Rose had given him up and I was going to drive with him into the dawn.

It was still dark when I ran out to the car, but there was a vague,

woolly look about the sky and the stars were dimming. As I crossed the drawbridge I heard Heloise howling in the gatehouse room where we had left her shut in. She was up on Father's desk with her long face

pressed close to the dark window.

Seeing her reminded me that my journal was still on the desk, but

luckily Topaz came after me with some sandwiches and promised to put it away without trying to read the speed-writing.

"And give my love to Father and tell him we meant it for the best," I said--I was so happy that I wanted to be kind to every one in the

world. Then off we went--past the barn where I once overheard Simon,

past the cross-roads where we started quoting poetry on May Day, past the village green where we stood counting scents and sounds. As we

drove under the chestnut tree in front of the inn I felt a pang for

Simon--would he remember Rose's hair against its leaves his "Oh, I'll make it up to him," I told myself.

"I swear I can, now that I'm free to try."

We had talked a little about Father soon after we started off. Simon

wouldn't believe that what Thomas and I had found really was nonsense; he said he would have to see for himself.

"Though I must admit it sounds very peculiar," he added. After that, he fell silent.

We were some miles beyond Godsend before he said:

"Did you know how Rose felt about me ?"

I was so long thinking out what to say that he went on:

"Forget it. It's not fair to ask you."

I began, "Simon-was He stopped me.

"I believe I'd rather not talk about it at all- not until I'm sure she really means it."

Then he asked if I was warm enough or if he should close the car; it

had been hot when they left London and Topaz had wanted it open. I

said I did, too. The air was fresh and cool, but not really cold.

It was a queer feeling, driving through the sleeping villages--each

time, the car suddenly seemed noisier, the headlights more brilliant. I noticed that Simon always slowed down; I bet most men feeling as he did would have driven through like fury. In one cottage there was

candlelight beyond the diamond panes of an upstairs window and a car at the door.

"Perhaps a doctor's there," I said.

"Somebody dying or getting born, maybe," said Simon. Gradually the dark sky paled until it looked like far away smoke. There was no color anywhere; the cottages were chalk drawings on gray paper. It felt more like dusk than dawn, but not really like any time of day or night. When I said that to Simon, he told me that he always thought of the strange light before dawn as limbo-light.

A little while after that, he stopped to look at a map. All around us, beyond the hedge less ditches, were misty water-meadows dotted with pol larded willow trees. Very far away, a cock was crowing.

"Pity there isn't a good sunrise for you," said Simon.

But no sunrise I ever saw was more beautiful than when the thick gray mist gradually changed to a golden haze.

"That really is remarkable," Simon said, watching it.

"And one can't actually see any sun at all."

I told myself it was symbolic that he couldn't yet see how happy I

would make him one day.

"Could you fancy a sandwich?" I asked.

I think he only took one to keep me company, but he talked quite

naturally while we ate--about the difficulty of finding words to

describe the luminous mist, and why one has the desire to describe

beauty.

"Perhaps it's an attempt to possess it," I said.

"Or be possessed by it; perhaps that's the same thing, really. I suppose it's the complete identification with beauty one's seeking."

The mist grew brighter and brighter. I could have looked at it for

ever, we drove but Simon on. hid the sandwich paper neatly down the

ditch Before long, there was the feel of the sea in the air. The mist over the salt marshes was too thick for the sunrise to penetrate, but the whiteness was dazzling.

It was like travelling through a tunnel in the clouds.

"Are you sure this is where we came for the picnic ?"

Simon asked as we drove along the main street.

"It looks different, somehow."

I said that was due to the summer-holiday atmosphere.

In May, the village had seemed just like an inland village; now,

children's buckets and spades and shrimping nets were standing outside doors, bathing-suits were hanging over window ledges. I had a sudden

fancy to be a child waking up in a strange bedroom, with a day on the sands ahead of me--though, goodness knows, I wouldn't have changed

places with anyone in the world just then.

We didn't see a soul in the main street, but we found the front door of the one hotel open and a charwoman scrubbing the hall. She let us look at the hotel register.

There was no sign of Rose's name.

"We'd better wait until people are awake and then try every house in the village," I said.

"I suppose she wouldn't be at "The Swan"?"

said the charwoman.

"It's not rightly a hotel but they do take one or two."

I remembered it from the day of the picnic, a tiny inn right down by

the sea, about a mile away; but I couldn't believe Rose would ever stay there.

"Still, it's somewhere to try until the village wakes up," said Simon.

We drove along the lonely coast road. There was no mist over the sea; it was all pale, shimmering gold, so calm that the waves seemed only

just able to crawl on to the shore and spread a lacy film over the

sands.

"Look! That's where we had the barbecue," I cried. Simon only nodded and I wished I hadn't spoken. It wasn't a moment to remind him of a

very happy day.

We could see "The Swan" from far off, it was the only building ahead of us: an old, old inn, rather like "The Keys" at Godsend but even smaller and simpler. The windows glittered, reflecting the early sun.

Simon drew up just outside the door.

"Someone's awake," he said, looking upwards.

A window was open in the gable- a window extraordinarily like the gable window at "The Keys," even to the jug and basin standing there.

Floating out to us came the sound of a girl's voice singing "Early One Morning."

"It's Rose!" I whispered.

Simon looked astonished.

"Are you sure?"

"Certain."

"I'd no idea she could sing like that."

He sat listening, his eyes suddenly alight. After a few seconds, she

stopped singing the words and just hummed the tune. I heard her moving about, a drawer being opened and closed.

"Surely she couldn't sing like that if she wasn't happy?" said Simon.

I forced myself to say: "Perhaps it's all right--perhaps it was just nerves, as Topaz said. Shall I call up to her ?"

Before he could answer, there was a knock on a door inside the inn.

Then a man's voice said: "Good morning! Are you ready to come out and bathe ?"

I heard Simon gasp. The next instant he had re-started the car and we shot forward.

"But what does it mean ?" I cried.

"That was Neil!"

Simon nodded.

"Don't talk for a bit."

After a few minutes, he stopped the car and lit a cigarette.

"It's all right- don't look so agonized," he said.

"I feel now as if I'd always known it."

"But, Simon, they hate each other!"

"Looks like it, doesn't it ?" said Simon, grimly.

We drove on until we found a different road to go back by, to avoid

re-passing the inn.

Simon didn't talk much, but he did tell me that he had known Neil was attracted by Rose in the beginning.

"Then he decided she was affected and mercenary--at least, that's what he said. I kidded myself he was piqued because she preferred me--just as I kidded myself she really cared for me; that is, I did at first.

For weeks now, I've had my doubts, but I hoped things would come right after we were married. God knows I never had the remotest idea she was in love with Neil, or Neil with her. They might have told me honestly.

This isn't like Neil."

"I shouldn't have thought it was like Rose," I said miserably. We went home through the full brightness of the morning. All the villages were waking up and a great many cheerful dogs were barking in them. There

were still a few scarves of mist floating the water-meadows where we

had watched the veiled sunrise. As we drove past I remembered how I

had told myself I would make Simon happy. I didn't feel the same

person. For I now knew that I had been stuffing myself up with a silly fairy tale, that I could never mean to him what Rose had meant. I

think I knew it first as I watched his face while he listened to her

singing, and then more and more, as he talked about the whole wretched business- not angrily or bitterly, but quietly and without ever saying a word against Rose. But most of all I knew it because of a change in myself. Perhaps watching someone you love suffer can teach you even

more than suffering yourself can.

Long before we got back to the castle, with all my heart and for my own heart's ease as well as his, I would have given her back to him if I

could.

Now it's October.

I am up on the mound, close to the circle of stones. There are still

some bits of charred wood left from my Midsummer fire.

It is a wonderful afternoon, golden, windless--quite a bit chilly,

though, but I am wearing Aunt Millicent's little sealskin jacket, which is gloriously warm, and I have Father's old traveling rug to sit on. He now uses the big bearskin coat. One way or another all Aunt

Millicent's furs have at last fulfilled themselves.

Now the wheat fields are all string-colored stubble.

The only bright color I can see anywhere is the spindle-berry bush down in the lane. Over towards Four Stones, Mr. Stebbins and his horses

are ploughing. Soon we shall be surrounded by what Rose used to call a sea of mud.

I had a letter from her this morning.

She and Neil have driven across America and are now in the Californian desert, which sounds less and less like my idea of a desert; Rose says there are no camels and the ranch has three bathrooms. She is

perfectly happy--except about her trousseau which has turned into fairy gold. She only needs slacks and shorts now, she says, which it didn't happen to contain. But Neil is going to take her to stay in Beverly

Hills so that she can dance in her evening dresses.

I wish I didn't still feel so angry with her; it is wrong of me when I have officially forgiven her. And she and Neil didn't really run away without explaining to Simon. Neil wrote the explanation and left it

with Rose's note on the hall table, but it got under the letters that came by the afternoon post. Simon never thought of opening anything

else after reading Rose's message.

I only saw her alone once before she went to America. It was on the

awful day when we all went to the flat and everything was patched up.

First Mrs. Cotton had an interview with Rose and Neil to forgive them, and then Simon had an interview with each of them separately, to go on with the forgiving. Then Mrs. Cotton asked Father if he would like to see Rose alone and he said:

"Great God, no! I can't think why Simon endures all this horror." Mrs.

Cotton said:

"One must be civilized"--at which Father gave such an angry snort that Topaz grabbed his arm warningly.

After that we all had a hollow champagne lunch.

Stephen came, in a very well-cut suit, looking quite staggeringly

handsome. When Rose shook hands with him she said: "I'll thank you as long as I live."

I didn't know what she meant until I was alone with her afterwards,

helping her to pack. Then she told me that Stephen had gone to Neil's hotel and told him plainly that she wasn't in love with Simon.

I think Neil must have believed me when I wrote and told him she was; anyway, he had hardly let himself see her while she was in London. But after talking to Stephen, he went to the flat and asked her straight

out.

"And do you know what it was like?" she said.

"Can you remember me coming home after I had scarlet fever --how we hugged and hugged each other without saying a word his It was like that only a million times more so. I thought we never would stop holding on to each other.

I'd have married him if he hadn't had a penny--and I would weeks ago

if only he'd given me the chance. You see, I didn't know that he cared for me."

"But, Rose, how did Stephen know he did?" I asked.

"Well, he had a little clue that Neil was, well, interested in me," she said, then went off into one of her nicest giggles.

"Do you remember that night they mistook me for a bear, when I slapped Neil's face his After he carried me across the railway line to the

field behind the station, he set me down and said: "This is for

slapping me,"--and then he kissed me. And Stephen saw."

So that was what she had up her sleeve when we talked in bed that

night! I felt she was hiding something--and then I forgot all about

it.

I said: "But just because he saw Neil kiss you once" "It was more than once, it was quite a lot of times. And it was wonderful. But I

thought he needed punishing for the things you heard him say about me in the lane- and for daring to kiss me like that, even though I'd liked it.

Besides, he wasn't the rich one. Though--truly, Cassandra, I don't

believe I'd have let that stand in the way if he'd ever showed he

really cared for me. But he never did--he wasn't ever nice to me

again, always rude and horrid; because he thought I was chasing Simon-which I certainly was.

And when Simon kissed me, that was a bit wonderful, too-you can't

really judge by kisses- so I got mixed. But not for long."

Oh, so many things came back to me! I could see how she had tried to

work herself up into hating Neil-her dislike for him had always seemed exaggerated. I remembered how quick she had been to tell Simon to make him come to the flat that night I was there, how she had asked him to dance with her, how depressed she had seemed when they came back to the glittering corridor.

And, of course, so much of Neil's anger on the night of the engagement had been due to jealousy!

They had walked out of the flat that morning hoping to get married at once" You can do that in America, Neil says; but we soon found you can't here. So we went down to the inn to wait until we could. We

chose that place because Neil said the picnic was the last time he'd

seen me human. And of course, darling, it's really you I have to thank for everything, because I'm sure Stephen only went to Neil on your

account. He told Neil you were the right one for Simon--I suppose he'd guessed you were in love and was trying to help you."

Oh, my dear, dear Stephen, how can I ever repay you for such

unselfishness? But the happiness you hoped to win for me will never be mine.

"And of course everything will come right now," Rose chattered on.

"Just as soon as Simon's got over me a bit, you'll be able to get him

."

"I should have thought you'd have grown out of talking about "getting"

men," I said coldly.

She flushed.

"I didn't mean it that way- you know I didn't. I'm hoping he'll really fall in love with you. He likes you so much already- he said so only

today."

A dreadful thought struck me.

"Rose- oh, Rose!" I cried.

"You didn't tell him I'm in love with him ?" She swore she hadn't. But I fear she had. He has been so kind ever since then he was always

that, but now his kindness seems deliberate. Or do I imagine it? I

know it has made me feel I can hardly bear to see him;

but it takes so much strength of mind not to, when he comes to talk to Father nearly every day. They are in the gatehouse together, now.

Apparently I was all wrong about Father.

Apparently it is very clever to start a book by writing THE CAT SAT ON

THE MAT nineteen times.

Now stop it, Cassandra Mortmain. You are still piqued because Thomas

was the one to guess that what we found in the tower wasn't just

nonsense. You are trying to justify your stupidity--and it was

stupidity, considering Father had told you plainly that all his

eccentricities meant something. And it isn't true that the book starts with nineteen cats on mats; in the revised version there are only seven of them. And there is a perfectly logical explanation of them,

according to that bright boy Thomas. They are supposed to be in the

mind of a child learning to read and write.

Am I unusually stupid his Am I old-fashioned his Am I really Harry's

father jeering at Jacob Wrestling? Oh, I can see that Father's puzzles and problems are clever in themselves, that the language in which he

sets them out conjures up beautiful images; but why are they supposed to be more than puzzles and problems his Thomas and I were used as

guinea-pigs for the first four sections when Father had fully revised them; there is a lot more in them now than when we found them two

months ago. I really did try. I worked out the children's puzzles

quite easily. I managed to do the crossword--and I can't say I enjoyed it, as the clues are all to do with nightmares and terror. I treated

that homing pigeon with the greatest respect (it is the hero of a kind of comic strip called "Pigeon's Progress"). I even fought my way through most of Section D, which is a new kind of puzzle invented by

Father, partly words, partly patterns, with every clue taking you

further and further back into the past. But none of it meant anything to me-and it did to Thomas, though he admitted he couldn't get his

feelings into words.

Father said: "If you could, my boy, I'd go out and drown myself." Then he roared with laughter because Topaz said Section A had "overtones of eternity."

As far as I am concerned, it all has overtones of lunacy NO. I am

jeering again. I am DENSE. If Simon says Father's Enigmatism is

wonderful, then it is. (it was Simon who christened it

"Enigmatism"-and a very good name for it.) And publishers both in England and America have paid Father an advance, even though the whole book may not be finished for years. And the first four sections are

going to be printed in an American magazine very soon. So now will I

stop jeering?

If only Father would answer a few questions! If Thomas would throw out some more of his bright ideas! (after telling me Section A was a child learning to read and write, he decided he was not "prepared" to say any more.) Topaz, of course, is always delighted to air her views, but I

hardly find them helpful.

Her latest contributions are "cosmic significance" and "spherical profundity."

The one person who could help me, of course, is Simon; but I don't like to ask him to have a private talk in case he thinks I am running after him. I try to avoid meeting him unless someone else is there. Often I keep out of the way until I know he has gone back to Scoatney.

Shall I let myself see him today? Shall I run down from the mound when he comes out of the gatehouse, then say I want to ask him about

Father's work? I do indeed, but more than anything I just want to be

with him. If only I could be sure that Rose didn't tell him about

me!

I will wait until tomorrow. I promise myself tomorrow.

It is out of my hands. I looked down and saw him standing in the

courtyard--he waved to me -started towards the bridge--he is coming up!

Oh, I won't let myself be self-conscious! It will help if I talk hard about Father-How much one can learn in an hour!

All I really want to write about is what happened just before he left.

But if I let myself start with that I might forget some of the things which came first. And every word he said is of deepest value to me.

We sat side by side on the rug. He had come to say good-bye; in a few days he is going to America--partly because Mrs. Cotton wants to be in New York for the winter and partly so that he can be there when

Father's work first comes out in the magazine.

He is going to write some articles on it.

"Your Father says I'm like an alert terrier shaking a rat," he told me.

"But I think he's rather glad to be shaken. And it's important that he should be dropped at the feet of the right people."

I said: "Simon, as a parting present, could you tell me anything that would help me to understand what he's driving at ?"

To my surprise, he said he'd already made up his mind to try.

"You see, when I'm gone you'll be the one person in close touch with him who's capable of understanding it--oh, Thomas is a clever lad, but there's an oddly casual quality about his interest--in a way, it's

still the interest of a child.

Anyhow, I'm sure it's your understanding that your Father hankers

for."

I was astonished and flattered.

"Well, I'm only too willing. But if he won't explain Why won't he, Simon ?"

"Because it's the essence of an enigma that one must solve it for oneself."

"But at least one is allowed to know--well, the rules for solving puzzles."

He said he rather agreed with me there and that was why he had

persuaded Father to let him talk to me.

"Do you want to ask me questions ?"

"I certainly do. The first one is: Why does his work have to be an enigma at all?"

Simon laughed.

"You've started off with a honey.

No one will ever know why a creator creates the way he does. Anyway,

your father had a very distinguished forerunner. God made the universe an enigma."

I said, "And very confusing it's been for everybody. I don't see why Father had to copy Him."

Simon said he thought every creative artist did, and that perhaps every human being was potentially creative.

"I

think one of the things your father's after is to stimulate that

potential creativeness-to make those who study his work share in its

actual creation.

Of course, he sees creation as discovery. I mean, everything is

already created, by the first cause-call it God if you like; everything is already there to be found."

I think he must have seen me looking a little bewildered because he

stopped himself and said: "I'm not putting this clearly--wait-give me a minute--" He thought with his eyes closed, as he did once on May Day; but this time I only dared take one quick glance at his face. I was

trying to hold my deepest feelings back- I hadn't even let myself

realize he was going away. There would be a long time for realizing it after he had gone.

At last he said: "I think your father believes that the interest so many people take in puzzles and problems--which often starts in

earliest childhood--represents more than a mere desire for recreation; that it may even derive from man's eternal curiosity about his origin.

Anyway, it makes use of certain faculties for progressive, cumulative search which no other mental exercise does. Your father wants to

communicate his ideas through those faculties."

I asked him to repeat it, slowly. And suddenly I saw--oh, I saw

absolutely!

"But how does it work?" I cried.

He told me to think of a crossword puzzle--of the hundreds of images

that pass through the mind while solving one.

"In your father's puzzles, the sum-total of the images adds up to the meaning he wants to convey. And the sum-total of all the sections of

his book, all the puzzles, problems, patterns, progressions--I believe there's even going to be a detective section- will add up to his

philosophy of search-creation."

"And where do those cats on mats come in ?" I enquired, a bit satirically.

He said they were probably there to induce a mood.

"Imagine yourself a child faced with the first enigmatic symbols of your lifetime-the letters of the alphabet.

Think of letters before you understood them, then of the letters

becoming words, then of the words becoming pictures in the mind. Why

are you looking so worried? Am I confusing you ?"

"Not in the least," I said.

"I understand everything you've said. But- oh, Simon, I feel so

resentful Why should Father make things so difficult? Why can't he

say what he means plainly ?"

"Because there's so much that just can't be said plainly. Try

describing what beauty is- plainly- and you'll see what I mean." Then he said that art could state very little- that its whole business was to evoke responses. And that without innovations and experiments such as Father's -all art would stagnate.

"That's why one ought not to let oneself resent them- though I believe it's a normal instinct, probably due to subconscious fear of what we

don't understand."

Then he spoke of some of the great innovations that had been resented at first Beethoven's last quartets, and lots of modern music, and the work of many great painters that almost everyone now admires. There

aren't as many innovations in literature as in the other arts, Simon

said, and that is all the more reason why Father ought to be

encouraged.

"Well, I'll encourage him for all I'm worth," I said.

"Even if I still do resent him a bit, I'll try to hide it."

"You won't be able to," said Simon.

"And resentment will paralyse your powers of perception.

Oh, lord, how am I to get you on his side?

Look--can you always express just what you want to express, in your

journal? Does everything go into nice tidy words? Aren't you

constantly driven to metaphor his The first man to use a metaphor was a whale of an innovator--and now we use them almost without realizing it.

In a sense your father's whole work is only an extension of

metaphor."

When he said that, I had a sudden memory of how difficult it was to

describe the feelings I had on Midsummer Eve, and of how I wrote of the day as a cathedral-like avenue. The images that came into my mind then have been linked with that day and with Simon ever since. Yet I could never explain how the image and the reality merge, and how they somehow extend and beautify each other.

"Was Father trying to express things as inexpressible as that... his

"Something's clicked in your mind," said Simon.

"Can you put it into words ?"

"Certainly not into nice tidy ones--" I tried to speak lightly; remembering Midsummer Eve had made me so very conscious of loving

him.

"But I've stopped feeling resentful. It'll be all right now.

I'm on his side."

After that we talked about what started Father writing again.

I suppose we shall never know if locking him in the tower really did

any good.

Simon thought it was more likely that everything worked together--"Our coming here; Mother's very stimulating, you know. And his reading at

Scoatney may have helped-I strewed the place with stuff that I thought might interest him. I believe he does feel that being shut in the

tower caused some kind of emotional release; and he certainly hands you full credit for telling him to write "The cat sat on the mat."

That started him off--gave him the whole idea of the child learning to read."

Personally, I think what helped Father most was losing his temper. I

feel more and more sure that the cake-knife incident taught him too

much of a lesson, somehow tied him up mentally. Simon thought that was quite a good theory.

"What's his temper like nowadays ?" he asked.

"Well, most of the time he's nicer than I ever remember him. But in spasms, it's terrific.

Topaz is adoring life."

"Dear Topaz!" said Simon, smiling.

"She's the perfect wife for him now that he's working--and he knows it.

But I don't see how life at the castle can be much fun for you this

winter. There'll be a maid at the flat, if you feel like staying there sometimes. Are you sure you don't want to go to college ?"

"Quite sure. I only want to write. And there's no college for that except life."

He laughed and said I was a complete joy to him sometimes so old for my age and sometimes so young.

"I'd rather like to learn typing and real shorthand," I told him.

"Then I could be an author's secretary while I'm waiting to be an author."

He said Topaz would arrange it for me. I know he is leaving money with her for all of us--he made her feel that she ought to take it to shield Father from anxiety. Oh, he is indeed a most gracious and generous

"patron"!

"And you must write to me for anything you want," he added.

"Anyway, I shall be back soon."

"I wonder."

He looked at me quickly and asked what I meant.

I wished I hadn't said it. For weeks now I have feared that having

been hurt so much by Rose may have put him off living in England.

"I just wondered if America might claim you," I said.

He didn't answer for so long that I visualized him gone for ever and

the Fox-Cottons installed at Scoatney as they so much want to be.

"Perhaps I shall never see him again," I thought, and suddenly felt so cold that I gave a little shiver.

Simon noticed it and moved closer, pulling the rug up around us both.

Then he said:

"I shall come back all right. I could never desert

I said I knew he loved it dearly.

"Dearly and sadly. In a way, it's like loving a beautiful, dying woman. One knows the spirit of such houses can't survive very much

longer."

Then we spoke of the autumn--he hoped he would he in time to catch a

glimpse of it in New England.

"Is it more beautiful than this ?" I asked.

"No. But it's less melancholy. So many of the loveliest things in England are melancholy." He stared across the fields, then added quickly--"Not that I'm melancholy this afternoon. I never am, when I'm with you. Do you know this is our third conversation on Belmotte

mound?"

I knew it very well.

"Yes, I suppose it is," I said, trying to sound casual. I don't think I managed it, because he suddenly slipped his arm round me. The still afternoon seemed stiller, the late sunlight was like a blessing. As

long as I live I shall remember that silent minute.

At last he said: "I wish I could take you to America with me. Would you like to come ?"

For a second, I thought it was just a joking remark, but he asked me

again--"Would you--Cassandra?" Then something about the way he spoke my name made me sure that if I said yes, he would ask me to marry him.

And I couldn't do it- though I don't think I fully knew why until

now.

I said, in as normal a voice as I could manage: "If only I were trained already, I could come as your secretary. Though I don't know that I'd care to be away from Father too long this year."

I thought that if I put it that way he wouldn't know I had guessed what was in his mind. But I think he did, because he said very quietly:

"Oh, wise young judge." Then we talked quite ordinarily about a car he is lending to Father and about our all going over to Scoatney whenever we feel like it. I didn't say very much myself--most of my mind was

wondering if I had made a dreadful mistake.

When he got up to go he wrapped the rug tightly round me, then told me to slip out my hand.

"It's not a little green hand this time," he said as he took it in his.

I said, "Simon, you know I'd love to see America if ever the

circumstances were well favorable."

He turned my hand over and kissed the palm, then said: I'll report on them when I come back."

And then he went quickly down the mound. As his car drove along the

lane, a sudden gust of wind sprang up and blew brown leaves from the

hedges and trees, so that a cloud of them seemed to be following him.

I didn't make any mistake. I know that when he nearly asked me to

marry him it was only an impulse--just as it was when he kissed me on Midsummer Eve; a mixture of liking me very much and longing for Rose.

It is part of a follow-my-leader game of second-best we have all been playing--Rose with Simon, Simon with me, me with Stephen, and Stephen, I suppose, with that detestable Leda Fox-Cotton. It isn't a very good game; the people you play it with are apt to get hurt. Perhaps even

Leda has, though I can't say the thought of that harrows me much.

But why, oh why, must Simon still love Rose his When she has so little in common with him and I have so much his Part of me longs to run after him to Scoatney and cry "Yes, yes, yes!" A few hours ago, when I wrote that I could never mean anything to him, such a chance would have

seemed heaven on earth. And surely I could give him- a sort of

contentment?

That isn't enough to give. Not for the giver.

The daylight is going. I can hardly see what I am writing and my

fingers are cold. There is only one more page left in my beautiful

blue leather manuscript book; but that is as much as I shall need.

I don't intend to go on with this journal; I have grown out of wanting to write about myself. I only began today out of a sense of duty- I

felt I ought to finish Rose's story off tidily. I seem to have

finished my own off, too, which I didn't quite bargain for ...... What a preposterous self-pitying remark--with Simon still in the world, and a car being lent to us and a flat in London! Stephen has a flat there, too, now; just a little one. He wandered about with the goats so

satisfactorily that he is to speak lines in his next picture. If I

stay at the Cottons' flat I can go out with him sometimes and be very, very kind to him, though in a determinedly sisterly way. Now I come to think of it, the winter ought to be very exciting, particularly with

Father so wonderfully cheerful or else so refreshingly violent. And

there are thousands of people to write about who aren't me ...... It

isn't a bit of use my pretending I'm not crying, because I am......

Pause to mop up.

Better now.

Perhaps it would really be rather dull to be married and settled for

life. Liar! It would be heaven.

Only half a page left now. Shall I fill it with "I love you, I love you"--like Father's page of cats on the mat? No. Even a broken heart doesn't warrant a waste of good paper.

There is a light down in the castle kitchen. Tonight I shall have my

bath in front of the fire, with Simon's gramophone playing. Topaz has it on now, much too loud-to bring Father back to earth in time for

tea--but it sounds beautiful from this distance. She is playing the

Berceuse from Stravinsky's "The Firebird." It seems to say, "What shall I do his Where shall I go ?"

You will go in to tea, my girl--and a much better tea than you would

have come by this time last year.

A mist is rolling over the fields. Why is summer mist romantic and

autumn mist just sad?

There was mist on Midsummer "Eve, mist when we drove into the dawn.

He said he would come back.

Only the margin left to write on now. I love you, I love you, I love

you.