I Capture the Castle

by Dodie Smith

I WRITE THIS sitting in the kitchen sink.

A delightful first line.

And I have found that sitting in a place where you have never sat before can be inspiring — I wrote my very best poem while sitting on the hen-house. Though even that isn’t a very good poem. I have decided my poetry is so bad that I mustn’t write any more of it.

Reminds me of going out on my parents' roof in high school.

Beyond the moat, the boggy ploughed fields stretch to the leaden sky. I tell myself that all the rain we have had lately is good for nature, and that at any moment spring will surge on us. I try to see leaves on the trees and the courtyard filled with sunlight. Unfortunately, the more my mind’s eye sees green and gold, the more drained of all colour does the twilight seem.

I know this feeling well. Minus the moat.

Rose looks particularly fetching by firelight because she is a pinkish person; her skin has a pink glow and her hair is pinkish gold, very light and feathery. Although I am rather used to her I know she is a beauty. She is nearly twenty-one and very bitter with life. I am seventeen, look younger, feel older. I am no beauty but have a neatish face.

I love this narrator so far. I know it's page two but so far the voice is 🤌 (pretend that's a chef's kiss and not a mobster hand(/claw?))

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.

Good ol' Rose.

Mother died eight years ago, from perfectly natural causes.

This seems.. incomplete. "Perfectly natural" but young enough to have teenagers at the time leads to one big question mark.

She is a famous artists’ model who claims to have been christened Topaz — even if this is true there is no law to make a woman stick to a name like that.

Shots fired.

She is very beautiful, with masses of hair so fair that it is almost white, and a quite extraordinary pallor. She uses no make-up, not even powder. There are two paintings of her in the Tate Gallery: one by Macmorris, called “Topaz in Jade”, in which she wears a magnificent jade necklace; and 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.

Shots fired, part two.

She has a very deep voice — that is, she puts one on;

Elizabeth Holmes has entered the chat.

She paused on the top step and said “Ah, girls…” with three velvety inflections on each word.

How do you have three velvety inflections for single syllable words?

Poor Rose hates most things she has and envies most things she hasn’t. 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 strikes me so much as the writing of a high schooler. I probably wrote shit like this to be honest.

“And two of the men I sit for are abroad,” she went on, “and I don’t like working for Macmorris.” “Why not?” asked Rose. “He pays better than the others, doesn’t he?” “So he ought, considering how rich he is,” said Topaz. “But I dislike sitting for him because he only paints my head. Your father says that the men who paint me nude paint my body and think of their job, but that Macmorris paints my head and thinks of my body. And it’s perfectly true. I’ve had more trouble with him than I should care to let your father know.” Rose said: “I should have thought it was worth while to have a little trouble in order to earn some real money.” “Then you have the trouble, dear,” said Topaz.

Topaz said she had never been on the streets and rather regretted it, “because one must sink to the depths in order to rise to the heights,” which is the kind of Topazism it requires much affection to tolerate.

As she only cries about once a year I really ought to have gone over and comforted her, but I wanted to set it all down here. I begin to see that writers are liable to become callous. Anyway, Topaz did the comforting far better than I could have done, as I am never disposed to clasp people to my bosom.

Rose is now putting away her ironing, gulping a little, and Topaz is laying the table for tea while outlining impracticable plans for making money — such as giving a lute concert in the village or buying a pig in installments.

Goodness, Topaz is actually putting on eggs to boil! No one told me the hens had yielded to prayer. Oh, excellent hens! 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 shall have to get off the draining-board — Topaz wants the tea-cosy and our dog, Heloïse, has come in and discovered I have borrowed her blanket. She is a bull-terrier, snowy white except where her fondant-pink skin shows through her short hair. All right, Heloïse darling, you shall have your blanket. She gazes at me with love, reproach, confidence and humour — how can she express so much just with two rather small slanting eyes?

I finish this entry sitting on the stairs. I think it worthy of note that I never felt happier in my life — despite sorrow for father, pity for Rose, embarrassment about Stephen’s poetry and no justification for hope as regards our family’s general outlook. Perhaps it is because I have satisfied my creative urge; or it may be due to the thought of eggs for tea.

I keep my bedside candlestick on a battered tin trunk that cost one shilling; Rose has hers on a chest of drawers painted to imitate marble, but looking more like bacon.

Perhaps I ought to have counted Miss Blossom as a piece of furniture. She is a dressmaker’s dummy of most opulent figure with a wire skirt round her one leg. We are a bit silly about Miss Blossom — we pretend she is real. We imagine her to be a woman of the world, perhaps a barmaid in her youth. She says things like “Well, dearie, that’s what men are like,” and “You hold out for your marriage lines.”

She is a Londoner but has been in the village over five years now. I believe she teaches very nicely; her specialities are folk song and wild flowers and country lore. She didn’t like it here when first she came (she always says she “missed the bright lights”); but she soon made herself take an interest in country things, and now she tries to make the country people interested in them too.

Writing paper is scarce in this house, and I had no intention of tearing sheets out of this exercise book, which is a superb sixpenny one the Vicar gave me.

Ahhh this explains the title of this section.

Our landlord, a rich old gentleman who lived at Scoatney Hall, five miles away, always sent us a ham at Christmas whether we paid the rent or not. He died last November and we have sadly missed the ham.

“That’s hardly very important when we’ve nothing to cook,” said Rose. “Could I earn money as a model?” “I’m afraid not,” said Topaz. “Your figure’s too pretty — there isn’t enough drawing in your bones. And you’d never have the patience to sit still.

Miss Marcy said “Of course you might,” very politely; then turned to me. I said my speed-writing was getting quite fast, but of course it wasn’t quite like real shorthand (or quite like real speed-writing, for that matter); and I couldn’t type and the chance of getting anywhere near a typewriter was remote. “Then I’m afraid, just until you get going with your literary work, we’ll have to count you as nil,” said Miss Marcy. “Thomas, of course, is bound to be nil for a few years yet. Rose, dear?” 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.

Couldn’t you do some pretty sewing?” “What on?” said Rose. “Sacking?” Anyway, Rose is hopeless at sewing. Miss Marcy was looking at her list rather depressedly. “I fear we must call dear Rose nil just for the moment,” she said. “That only leaves Mr. Mortmain.” Rose said: “If I rank as nil, father ought to be double nil.”

And she smiled so very sweetly. Poor Rose has been so miserable lately that a smile from her is like late afternoon sunshine after a long, wet day. I don’t see how anyone could see Rose smile without feeling fond of her.

And I suddenly saw his face very clearly, not just in the way one usually sees the faces of people one is very used to. I saw how he had changed since I was little and I thought of Ralph Hodgson’s line about “tamed and shabby tigers.” How long it takes to write the thoughts of a minute! I thought of many more things, complicated, pathetic and very puzzling, just while father read the list.

So true. This is why I dislike hand-writing things.

Then she looked around at the ruins and said how beautiful they were but she supposed I was used to them. I wanted to get back to the fire so I just said yes; but it wasn’t true. I am never used to the beauty of the castle.

The full moon was hidden by clouds but had turned them silver so that the sky was quite light. Belmotte Tower, high on its mound, seemed even taller than usual. Once I really looked at the sky, I wanted to go on looking; it seemed to draw me towards it and make me listen hard, though there was nothing to listen to, not so much as a twig was stirring. When Stephen came back I was still gazing upwards.

As we walked back to the house he asked if I thought La Belle Dame sans Merci would have lived in a tower like Belmotte. I said it seemed very likely; though I never really thought of her having a home life.

I don't know why but the second part of this is funny to me.

I wonder if I can get a few more minutes’ light by making wicks of match sticks stuck into the liquid wax. Sometimes that will work. It was no good — like trying to write by the light of a glow-worm. But the moon has fought its way through the clouds at last and I can see by that. It is rather exciting to write by moonlight.

don’t feel in the least sleepy. I shall hold a little mental chat with Miss Blossom. Her noble bust looks larger than ever against the silvery window. I have just asked her if she thinks Rose and I will ever have anything exciting happen to us, and I distinctly heard her say: “Well, I don’t know, ducks, but I do know that sister of yours would be a daisy if she ever got the chance!” I don’t think I should ever be a daisy.

I could easily go on writing all night but I can’t really see and it’s extravagant on paper, so I shall merely think. Contemplation seems to be about the only luxury that costs nothing.

Rose doesn’t like the flat country but I always did — flat country seems to give the sky such a chance.

Then he turned and exclaimed in horror at the wallpaper — he said it looked like giant squashed frogs. It certainly did, and there was a monstrosity of a fireplace surrounded by tobacco-coloured tiles.

It had a huge bath with a wide mahogany surround, and two mahogany-seated lavatories, side by side, with one lid to cover them both. The pottery parts showed views of Windsor Castle and when you pulled the plug the bottom of Windsor Castle fell out.

Pottery parts?

We climbed the ridges and then Rose and I took hands and ran down the smooth slope — faster and faster, so that I thought we should fall. All the time we were running I felt extremely frightened, but I enjoyed it. The whole evening was like that.

Then I went into the garden, where the lawns had been cut and the flower-beds tidied; there were a lot of early wallflowers which smelt very sweet.

I did not know wallflowers were literal flowers.

It is a very pretty village and has the unlikely name of Godsend, a corruption of Godys End, after the Norman knight, Etienne de Godys, who built Belmotte Castle. Our castle — I mean the moated one, on to which our house is built — is called Godsend, too; it was built by a later de Godys.

I know this is not the same at all but it is similar enough to Gravesend in A Prayer For Owen Meany.

The later Normans began building great square stone towers (called keeps), but it was found possible to mine the corners of these — mining was just digging then, of course, not the use of explosives — so they took to building round towers, of which Belmotte is one.

They're mining the outside corners?? I'm confused about the relationship here.

There is a bubbling noise in the cistern which means that Stephen is pumping. Oh, joyous thought, to-night is my bath night! And if Stephen is in, it must be tea-time. I shall go down and be very kind to everyone. Noble deeds and hot baths are the best cures for depression.

I told him the two attic leaks had started before I came down but there were buckets under them. He went to see if they were overflowing and returned to say that there were four more leaks. We had run out of buckets so he collected three saucepans and the soup-tureen. “Maybe I’d best stay up there and empty them as they fill,” he said. He took a book and some candle-ends and I thought how gloomy it would be for him reading poetry in the middle of six drips.

“There’s quite a bit of spring in the air to-night,” I told her. “You go out and smell it.” Rose never gets emotional about the seasons so she took no notice, but Topaz went to the door at once and flung it open. Then she threw her head back, opened her arms wide and took a giant breath. “It’s only a whiff of spring, not whole lungs full,” I said, but she was too rapt to listen.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” said 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.” “Well, that’s been the outlook for years,” said Thomas. “Why has it suddenly got you down?” “It’s the long, cold winter,” I suggested. “It’s the long, cold winter of my life,” said Rose, at which Thomas laughed so much that he choked. Rose had the sense to laugh a little herself. She came and sat on the table, looking a bit less glowering.

“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. “Well, I’d rather you didn’t,” said Stephen, “but I know you wouldn’t stop for the asking. Anyway, it’s you who want to wish on the angel, not Miss Cassandra.” I’d have been glad to wish on anything, but I wouldn’t have gone up there for a pension. “It’s a devil, not an angel, I tell you,” said Rose. She sat swinging her legs a minute, then looked round at us all. “Does anyone dare me?” “No!” we all shouted, which must have been very irritating. She said: “Then I dare myself. Haul me up.” Thomas and Stephen hauled. When she was about ten feet from the floor, I asked them to stop a minute. “How does it feel, Rose?” I said. “Peculiar, but a nice change. Go on, boys.” They pulled again. The carved head must be over twenty feet up and as she rose higher and higher I had an awful feeling in my stomach — I don’t think I had realized until then how very dangerous it was. When she was within a few feet of the head, Stephen called up: “That’s as high as the rack’ll go.”

Topaz came downstairs just then, in her black oilskins, sou’wester hat and rubber boots, looking as if she were going to man the lifeboat. She said her dyed tea-gown had shrunk so much that she couldn’t breathe in it and Rose could have it. Then she strode out, leaving the door wide open. “Don’t swallow the night, will you?” Thomas called after her.

Wtf does this mean?

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.