I Capture the Castle

by Dodie Smith

I have just remarked to Rose that our situation is really rather romantic — two girls in this strange and lonely house. She replied that she saw nothing romantic about being shut up in a crumbling ruin surrounded by a sea of mud. I must admit that our home is an unreasonable place to live in. Yet I love it.

The only time father obliged me by reading one of them, he said I combined stateliness with a desperate effort to be funny. He told me to relax and let the words flow out of me.

I 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.

Then he said his hands were quite numb; not complainingly, more in a tone of faint surprise — though I find it hard to believe that anyone living at the castle in winter can be surprised at any part of themselves being numb.

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

I have rarely heard such rain as there was during the meal. I am never happy when the elements go to extremes — I don’t think I am frightened, but I imagine the poor countryside being battered until I end by feeling battered myself. Rose is just the opposite — it is as if she is egging the weather on, wanting louder claps of thunder and positively encouraging forked lightning. She went to the door while it was raining and reported that the garden was completely flooded.

“What’s specially the matter with you, Rose?” asked Thomas. “You’ve been beating your breast for days and it’s very boring. We can at least get a laugh out of Topaz, but you’re just monotonously grim.”

The last stage of a bath, when the water is cooling and there is nothing to look forward to, can be pretty disillusioning. I expect alcohol works much the same way.

It was only while I was changing that I fully realized what I had let myself in for — I who hate cold water so much that even putting on a bathing-suit makes me shiver. I went down the kitchen stairs feeling like an Eskimo going to his frozen hell.

I said to God: “Please, I’m doing this for my sister — warm it up a bit.” But of course I knew He wouldn’t. My last thought before I jumped was that I’d almost sooner die. It was agony — like being skinned with icy knives. I swam madly, telling myself it would be better in a minute and feeling quite sure it wouldn’t. Neil swam beside me. I must have looked very grim because he suddenly said: “Say, are you all right?” “Just,” I gasped, pulling myself up on to the plank bridge.

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.