We Have Always Lived in the Castle

by Shirley Jackson

I came from my place in the corner to take a cup of tea from Constance and carry it over to Mrs. Wright, whose hand trembled when she took it. “Thank you, my dear,” she said. I could see the tea trembling in the cup; it was only her second visit here, after all. “Sugar?” I asked her; I couldn’t help it, and besides, it was polite. “Oh, no,” she said. “No, thank you. No sugar.” I thought, looking at her, that she had dressed to come here today; Constance and I never wore black but Mrs. Wright had perhaps thought it was appropriate, and today she wore a plain black dress with a necklace of pearls. She had worn black the other time, too, I recalled; always in good taste, I thought, except in our mother’s drawing room. I went back to Constance and took up the plate of rum cakes and brought them to Mrs. Wright; that was not kind either, and she should have had the sandwiches first, but I wanted her to be unhappy, dressed in black in our mother’s drawing room. “My sister made these this morning,” I said. “Thank you,” she said. Her hand hesitated over the plate and then she took a rum cake and set it carefully on the edge of her saucer. I thought that Mrs. Wright was being almost hysterically polite, and I said, “Do take two. Everything my sister cooks is delicious.” “No,” she said. “Oh, no. Thank you.” Helen Clarke was eating sandwiches, reaching down past Constance to take one after another. She wouldn’t behave like this anywhere else, I thought, only here. She never cares what...