I Capture the Castle

by Dodie Smith

set a lot of store by may — I once spent hours trying to describe a single blossom of it, but I only managed “Frank-eyed floweret, kitten-whiskered,” which sticks in your throat like fish-bones. “‘

“I wonder how many more things Heloïse smells,” said Simon. “Let’s see, what could Chesterton’s dog Quoodle smell? Water and stone and dew and thunder…” “And Sunday morning — he was so right about that having a smell of its own,” said Simon. Oh, it is amicable being with someone who knows the poems you know! I do hope I get Simon for a brother-in-law.

she kept holding it up so that the green looked beautiful against her hair, though of course it clashed quite dreadfully with the chestnut leaves. I must say she was being more affected than I ever saw her, but Simon appeared to be enchanted. Neil didn’t — he winked at me once and said: “Your sister’ll be wearing that drink as a hat any minute.”

believe this is called wise-cracking. Rose was right when she said he thinks England is a joke, a comic sort of toy, but I don’t believe he despises it, as she feels he does; it is just that he doesn’t take it seriously. I am rather surprised that Rose resents this so much, because England isn’t one of her special things in the way it is mine — oh, not flags and Kipling and outposts of Empire and such, but the country and London and houses like Scoatney. Eating bread-and-cheese at an inn felt most beautifully English — though the

part of the time Neil drove with his arm round her. “Gosh, what sex-appeal she has,” he said. Then he told her she was a cute pooch, but would she please not wash his ears? Not that it stopped her; Heloïse can never see a human ear at tongue-level without being a mother to it.

While we were waiting at the station, Heloïse arrived, exhausted — having eluded Thomas and raced after our bicycles. She is out of purdah now, and we didn’t like to leave her on the platform, because once when we did that she stowed away on the next train and ended up at King’s Crypt police station. So Stephen got her a dog-ticket and the stationmaster gave her a long drink and found some string to make a leash. She behaved beautifully on the journey, except that after we changed into the London train she took a little boy’s cake away from him. I quickly thanked him for giving it to her and he took my word for it that he had meant to.

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.”