I Capture the Castle

by Dodie Smith

But it has gone now; and his unsociability has grown almost into a disease – I often think he would prefer not even to meet his own household. All his natural gaiety has vanished. At times he puts on a false cheerfulness that embarrasses me, but usually he is either morose or irritable – I think I should prefer it if he lost his temper as he used to.

I was only expecting bread and margarine for tea, and I don’t get as used to margarine as I could wish. I thank heaven there is no cheaper form of bread than bread.

And as he came downstairs shaking the rain off his hair, I suddenly felt so fond of him. I fear I don’t feel that very often.

She gazes at me with love, reproach, confidence and humour – how can she express so much just with two rather small slanting eyes?

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

I shall go down and be very kind to everyone. Noble deeds and hot baths are the best cures for depression.

LITTLE DID I think what the evening was to bring – something has actually happened to us! My imagination longs to dash ahead and plan developments; but I have noticed that when things happen in one’s imaginings, they never happen in one’s life, so I am curbing myself.

Father stayed by the fire, waiting for the rain to stop before going back to the gatehouse. He sat very still, just staring in front of him. It struck me how completely out of touch with him I am. I went over and sat on the fender and talked about the weather; and then realized that I was making conversation as if to a stranger. It depressed me so much that I couldn’t think of anything more to

‘How’s the work?’ I asked. A closed-up look came over his face and he said shortly: ‘You’re too old to believe in fairy tales.’ I knew I had put my foot in it and thought I might as well go a bit further. ‘Honestly, Father – aren’t you trying to write at all?’

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

I thought about it a lot, getting warmer and warmer in the beaver, and I decided that it was like the difference between the beautiful old Godsend graves and the new ones open to receive coffins (which I never can bear to look at); that time takes the ugliness and horror out of death and turns it into beauty.

How queer to think that the old lady in the black military cloak was the Miss Milly who went to the dancing class! It makes me wonder what I shall be like when I am old.

He is the kindest person – though as we passed the barn I remembered how very far from kind he was about Rose that day. Perhaps one ought never to count things one overhears.

It was thrilling when we started to get dressed. There was still some daylight left, but we drew the curtains and brought up the lamp and lit candles, because I once read that women of fashion dress for candlelight by candlelight.

Even when we got home we didn’t all rush to compare notes. I got the feeling that we all wanted to do a little private thinking. I certainly did.

We were restless for ages. I tried to invent something soothing for Miss Blossom to say but I wasn’t in the mood. After a while I heard an owl hooting and calmed myself by thinking of it flying over the dark fields – and then I remembered it would be pouncing on mice. I love owls, but I wish God had made them vegetarian. Rose kept flinging herself over in bed.

Yesterday was the first of May. I love the special days of the year – St Valentine’s, Hallowe’en; Midsummer Eve most of all. A May Day that feels as it sounds is rare and, when I leaned out of the bedroom window watching the moat ruffled into sparkles by a warm breeze, I was as happy as I have ever been in my life. I knew it was going to be a lucky day.

The sweet, fresh smell which isn’t quite flowers or grass or scent of any kind, but just clean country air – one forgets to notice this unless one reminds oneself.

I could tell he was still seeing America. I told him I was trying to see it too; if one can sometimes get flashes of other people’s thoughts by telepathy, one ought to be able to see what their minds’ eyes are seeing. ‘Let’s concentrate on it,’ he said, and took my hand under the rug. We shut our eyes and concentrated hard. I think the pictures I saw were just my imaginings of what he had described, but I did get the strangest feeling of space and freedom – so that when I opened my eyes, the fields and hedges and even the sky seemed so close that they were almost pressing on me. Neil looked quite startled when I told him; he said that was how he felt most of the time in England.

It occurred to me that never before had I seen flowers growing above my head, so that I saw the stalks first and only the underneath of the flowers – it was quite a nice change.

It wasn’t any good. She turned a faintly outraged stare on me and murmured foggily: ‘Let the dead bury their dead.’ As far as I know, Everard is alive and kicking and I never have seen how the dead can go burying anyone.

Dear Topaz! Her letter is exactly like her – three quarters practical kindness and one quarter spoof.

While he was gone I told myself it was absurd the way we had all been hypnotized by him not to ask questions, so when he came back I said cheerfully: ‘How was the British Museum?’

Of course no life is perfectly happy – Rose’s children will probably get ill, the servants may be difficult, perhaps dear Mrs Cotton will prove to be the teeniest fly in the ointment. (I should like to know what fly was originally in what ointment.)

Everything in the least connected with him has value for me; if someone even mentions his name it is like a little present to me – and I long to mention it myself, I start subjects leading up to it, and then feel myself going red. I keep swearing to myself not to speak of him again – and then an opportunity occurs and I jump at it.

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.

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.

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.