I Capture the Castle

by Dodie Smith

And I have found that sitting in a place where you have never sat before can be inspiring

I have just remarked to Rose that our situation is really rather romantic—two girls in this strange and lonely house.

Father explained in court that killing a woman with our silver cake-knife would be a long, weary business entailing sawing her to death, and he was completely exonerated of any intention of slaying mother.

one by H. J. Allardy which shows her nude on an old horsehair-covered sofa that she says was very prickly. This is called “Composition”; but as Allardy has painted her even paler than she is, “Decomposition” would suit it better.

sis

I really am just as discontented, but I don’t seem to notice it so much. I feel quite unreasonably happy this minute, watching them both; knowing I can go and join them in the warmth, yet staying here in the cold.

This idea has, of course, occurred to Rose, but she has always hoped that the man would be handsome, romantic and lovable into the bargain. I suppose it was her sheer despair of ever meeting any marriageable men at all, even hideous, poverty-stricken ones, that made her suddenly burst into tears.

sis, same

When Miss Marcy brought it she said it was “a pretty story.” Rose says it is awful, but she would rather read it than think about herself.

hmmmmmmm miss rose is being too relateable

Now if anyone in this family is nil as an earner, it is Rose; for though she plays the piano a bit and sings rather sweetly and is, of course, a lovely person, she has no real talents at all.

sis just read miss rose to filth

How I wish I lived in a Jane Austen novel!” I said I’d rather be in a Charlotte Brontë.

Contemplation seems to be about the only luxury that costs nothing.

-overthinkers, probably

“It beats me,” said Rose. “After all this time, I still don’t know if she goes on that way because she really feels like it, if she’s acting to impress us, or just acting to impress herself.” “All three,” I said. “And as it helps her to enjoy life, I don’t blame her.”

let people enjoy things miss rose

“I feel grim. I haven’t any clothes, I haven’t any prospects. I live in a mouldering ruin and I’ve nothing to look forward to but old age.”

maybe same lol

“Stephen,” she said, “you go to church. Do they still believe in the Devil there?” “Some do,” said Stephen, “though I wouldn’t say the Vicar did.” “The Devil’s out of fashion,” I said. “Then he might be flattered if I believed in him—and work extra hard for me. I’ll sell him my soul like Faust did.” “Faust sold his soul to get his youth back,” said Thomas. “Then I’ll sell mine to live my youth while I’ve still got it,” said Rose.

“Good enough. Pull me up.” Stephen went to help Thomas. “But not you, Miss Cassandra,” he said, “it’s dangerous.” “I suppose you don’t mind me breaking my neck,” said Rose.

lol miss rose

Am I really admitting that my sister is determined to marry a man she has only seen once and doesn’t much like the look of? It is half real and half pretence—and I have an idea that it is a game most girls play when they meet any eligible young men. They just … wonder.

But it has come to me,

that there is something revolting about the way girls’ minds so often jump to marriage long before they jump to love. And most of those minds are shut to what marriage really means.

i mean, i understand that marriage may mean stability to girls during this time period, and really can you blame them

“Rose, we’re working it up too much. We mustn’t. Of course it’ll be wonderful if we’re asked to parties and things but—Rose, you couldn’t marry that man with a beard?” “I could marry the Devil himself if he had some money,” said Rose.

relateable miss rose

I keep telling myself it is real, it really has happened—we know two men. And they like us—they must, or they wouldn’t have come back so soon.

“Perhaps you were too nice, dearie.” “But I wasn’t,” said Rose. “I was charming but I was—oh, capricious, contradictory. Isn’t that what men like?” “You just be natural, girlie,” said Miss Blossom. Then I went on in my own voice: “How much did you really like them, Rose?” “I don’t know—but I know I don’t like them now. Oh, I don’t want to talk about it.”

And I regret to say that there were moments when my deep and loving pity for her merged into a desire to kick her fairly hard. For she is a girl who cannot walk her troubles off, or work them off; she is a girl to sit around and glare.

if this isnt my friends right now lol

That evening of the row was our lowest depths; miserable people cannot afford to dislike each other.

Incidentally, I never felt less brisk in my life, because being looked at like that makes a person feel dizzy.

I have thought some more—I have been stuck in the un-blank kind of dream. I re-lived the minute when Stephen looked at me across the table. Even to remember it made me feel dizzy. I liked feeling dizzy. Then, in my mind, I went for the walk with him that I didn’t go. We went along the lane, over the Godsend road and into the little larch wood. There are no bluebells there yet, but I put them in. It was nearly dark in the wood and suddenly cool, cold, there was a waiting feeling. I made up things for Stephen to say, I heard his voice saying them. It got darker and darker until there was only the palest gleam of sky through the tops of the trees. And at last he kissed me.

girlie and yet you said you dont want him to kiss you uwu

I have just looked down on him from the window and I feel most guilty about taking him for that walk in my mind; guilty and ashamed, with a weak feeling round my ribs.

And I am now quite certain I don’t want him to kiss me.

sure jan

“Ah, but you’re the insidious type—Jane Eyre with a touch of Becky Sharp. A thoroughly dangerous girl. I like your string of coral.”

“I wish I knew more about men.” “Why specially?” I asked, in a quietly encouraging voice. She was silent so long that I thought she wasn’t going to answer; then the words came rushing out: “He’s attracted—I know he is! But he’s probably been attracted to lots of girls; it doesn’t necessarily mean he’s going to propose. If only I knew the clever way to behave!”

Of course Neil never will propose to me now that I have let myself imagine it.

girlie, same lol

He sounded faintly sad. Perhaps he finds beauty saddening—I do myself sometimes. Once when I was quite little I asked father why this was and he explained that it was due to our knowledge of beauty’s evanescence, which reminds us that we ourselves shall die.

I felt that what with the moonlight, the music, the scent of the stocks and having swum round a six-hundred-year-old moat, romance was getting a really splendid leg-up and it seemed an awful waste that we weren’t in love with each other—

I think it was that moment I decided I would do anything, anything, to stop being so horribly poor.

It is really a very good thing that he seems to have lost interest in me because, feeling like this, I might not have been brisk with him. Feeling like what, Cassandra Mortmain? Flat? Depressed? Empty? If so, why, pray?

Heavens, I’m not envying Rose, I’m missing her! Not missing her because she is away now—though I have been a little bit lonely—but missing the Rose who has gone away for ever. There used to be two of us always on the look-out for life, talking to Miss Blossom at night, wondering, hoping; two Brontë-Jane Austen girls, poor but spirited, two Girls of Godsend Castle. Now there is only one, and nothing will ever be quite such fun again.

Don’t you go feeling rich, it isn’t safe.”

bruh real

“What nonsense, Simon! Of course I didn’t mind.”

sis thats your sister's fiance

“So damned unresponsive—and so obviously sure of her power over him. Oh, I daresay she can’t help it—she’s one of the women who oughtn’t to be loved too kindly; when they are, some primitive desire for brutality makes them try to provoke it.

father what do you even mean?? these words are not in the bible lol

I only know that I am miserable, I am in love, but I raven food and sleep. Another great luxury is letting myself cry—I always feel marvellously peaceful after that.

samedt

“That’s right—go through it, not round it, duckie. It’s the best way for most of us in the end.”

All that I felt was resentment against Stephen because his being hurt was going to interfere with my pleasure in Simon’s present; not very much though—nothing could do that.

sis what lol

“It’s odd how that dress changes you. I don’t know that I approve of your growing up. Oh, I shall get used to it.” He smiled at me. “But you were perfect as you were.”

sir you think of her as a child and you still kissed her. on the lips! unprovoked!!! while you are engaged with her sister no less!!!!! disgursting syet

“I’ve got to be needed, Cassandra—I always have been. Men have either painted me, or been in love with me, or just plain ill-treated me—some men have to do a lot of ill-treating, you know, it’s good for their work; but one way or another, I’ve always been needed. I’ve got to inspire people, Cassandra—it’s my job in life.”

sis, theraphy

“Rose, you don’t love him.” She gave me a little ironic smile and said: “No. Isn’t it a pity?”

“Cassandra, I swear by everything I hold sacred that I’d give him up if I thought he’d marry you instead. Why, I’d jump at it—we’d still have money in the family and I wouldn’t have to have him as a husband. I don’t want Scoatney—I don’t want a lot of luxury. All I ask is, not to go back to quite such hideous poverty—I won’t do that, I won’t, I won’t! And I’d have to, if I gave him up, because I know he wouldn’t fall in love with you. He just thinks of you as a little girl.”

“It’s him I’m thinking of now, not me. You’re not going to marry him without loving him.” She said: “Don’t you know he’d rather have me that way than not at all?”

“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.”

“Well, at least we’re companions in misfortune,” I said.

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!”

lol i knew it; they were quite on the nose with their enemys to lovers bit XD

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.

“Quite sure. I only want to write. And there’s no college for that except life.”

truly, experience is the best teacher