Dodie Smith - I Capture the Castle

"We shall have to let him out now," I said to Thomas.

"I would have tomorrow, in any case."

"I wouldn't," said Thomas.

"It's going to wreck the whole experiment." But he went to get the lantern.

The moon was down, but the stars were still bright when we went out

into the courtyard.

"Wait, I'll get my flashlight from the car," said Simon.

"I do apologize," I told him, as we followed the others across Belmotte bridge.

"We've no right to drag you into our family troubles when you're so worried."

He said, "Worried or not, I wouldn't miss this."

No sound came from the tower as we climbed the mound.

"Now don't go yelling that you're coming to rescue him," I said to Topaz.

"You know what it's like being wakened up suddenly."

"If he ever does wake!

his I could have slapped her- partly for being at her most bogus and

partly because I was nervous myself. I certainly didn't think that

Father would be dead, but I did have a slight fear that we might have unhinged him-the state of his hinges being a bit in doubt even before we started.

Still no sound when we got to the foot of the steps.

"Give me the key," Topaz whispered to Thomas.

"I want to face it alone."

"If you're not careful, you'll face it headfirst down fifteen feet," he told her.

"Let Cassandra and me get the door open and the ladder fixed, and then you can descend like a ministering angel."

The ministering angel idea fetched her.

"All right, but let me be the first one he sees."

"Be as quiet as you can," I whispered to Thomas as we got the ladder.

"I'd like to have one look at him before he wakes up. I've borrowed Simon's torch."

We got the door open almost noiselessly, then I shone the torch down

into the blackness.

Father was lying on the bed- so utterly still that for a moment I was terrified. Then a little curling snore relieved my mind. It did look

peculiar down there. In the light from the torch the tall, sun-starved weeds were white as skeleton leaves. The legs of the old iron bedstead were sticking out oddly- evidently it was only just standing up to

Father's weight. Beside it lay the umbrella, opened; I felt his brain must be all right to be capable of such forethought. And my spirits

rose still more when I shone the torch on the rustic table.

As well as the big pile of unused paper there were four small ones,

carefully weighted down with stones.

Thomas and I lowered the ladder quietly--Topaz was behind us simply

panting to descend. She had to go down backwards, of course, which was most unlike a ministering angel, but she made up for that when she got to the bottom. Holding the lantern as high as she could, she cried:

"Mortmain, I've come to rescue you! It's Topaz, Mortmain, You're safe!" Father shot up into a sitting position, gasping: "Great God!

What's happened?" Then she swooped on to him and the bed went down wallop, its head and foot very nearly meeting over them.

Choking with laughter, Thomas and I dodged out of sight and down the

steps. From there we could hear a perfect hullabaloo- Father was

managing to curse, make waking-up noises, and laugh all at the same

time, while Topaz did a sort of double-bass cooing.

"Hadn't you better leave them together for a while ?"

said Simon.

"Yes, let her work off her worst histrionics," I said to Thomas.

We waited in the courtyard until we saw the lantern coming down the

mound. Then Simon tactfully decided not to be seen and went to wait in his car.

"Shall we vanish, too ?" said Thomas.

"No, we'd better get the meeting over."

We ran towards them as they crossed the bridge. Topaz was hanging on

to Father's arm--I heard her say: "Lean on me, Mortmain, lean on me"

-like little Lord Fauntleroy to his grandfather.

"Are you all right, Father ?" I called brightly.

"My dear young jailers," said Father, rather exhaustedly.

"Yes, I think I shall survive if Topaz will stop treating me as if I were both the little princes in the Tower."

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.

We dashed up the mound; luckily I still had Simon's torch.

"Heavens, this is a thrilling moment," I said as we stood in front of the rustic table.

"Perhaps one day I shall be describing it in Father's biography."

Thomas took the stone off the first pile of paper.

"Look, this is the beginning," he said as the torch lit up a large

"Section A." He snatched the top sheet off, then let out a gasp of astonishment.

The whole of the page underneath was covered with large block

capitals--badly formed ones, such as a child makes when learning to

write. As I moved the torch along the lines, we read: THE CAT

SAT ON THE MAT. THE CAT SAT

ON THE MAT. THE

CAT SAT ON THE MAT .. . on and on, to the end of the page.

"Oh, Thomas!" I moaned.

"We've turned his brain."

"Rubbish. You heard how sanely he was talking--" "Well, perhaps he's recovering but--don't you see what's happened?" Suddenly it had come back to me.

"Don't you remember what I shouted under the door when I was so

upset?

"Write anything you like as long as you write," I told him.

"Write "The cat sat on the mat."" And he's written it!"

Thomas was turning over more pages. We read: THE CAT BIT THE FAT RAT, and so on, still in block capitals.

"It's just second childhood," I wailed.

"We've brought it on prematurely."

"Look, this is better," said Thomas.

"He's growing up," At last we saw Father's, normal handwriting, at its neatest and most exquisite.

"But what on earth- good Lord, he's been making up puzzles!"

There was an easy acrostic, a rebus, some verses with the names of

animals buried in them--every kind of childish puzzle that is in our

old bound volume of Little Folks. Then came a page of simple riddles.

On the last page of all, Father had written:

Investigate:

Old Copybooks Samplers Child's Guide to Knowledge Jig-saw Puzzles Toys in the London Museum "That's sane enough," said Thomas.

"I tell you this stuff means something."

But I didn't believe him. Oh, I had got over my first fear that Father had gone insane; but I thought all the childish nonsense was a way of passing the time--something like the game he plays with the

Encyclopedia.

Thomas had taken the stone off Section B. "Well, there's nothing childish about this," he said after a few seconds.

"Not that I can make head or tail of it."

There were a lot of numbered sentences, each about two or three lines long. At first I thought they were poetry; there were beautiful

combinations of words, and though they were mysterious I felt there was a meaning behind them. Then my new-born hope died suddenly.

"They're the clues to a crossword puzzle," I said disgustedly.

"He's just been amusing himself -I'm not going to read any more." It had just struck me that if I didn't hurry back to the castle, I might not see Simon again before he went.

"Here, come back with that torch," shouted Thomas, as I started up the ladder.

"I'm not leaving until I've looked at everything he's written." I didn't stop, so he snatched the torch from me. By the time I reached

the top of the ladder he was calling after me: "You should see Section C--it's all diagrams showing the distances between places. And he's

drawn a bird, with words coming out of its mouth."

"It's a homing pigeon," I called back derisively.

"You'll probably come to the carpet-bag and the willow-pattern plate before long."

He shouted that I was just being Harry's Father, jeering at Jacob

Wrestling "There's something in all this, I'm positive."

But I still didn't believe him. And for the moment, I didn't much

care one way or the other.

My whole mind had swung back to Simon.

Topaz came running downstairs from the bedroom as I went into the

kitchen.

"It's all right to talk -Mortmain's gone to have a bath," she said.

"Oh, isn't it wonderful that he's begun work his What did you find ?"

I so hated having to disappoint her that I told her Thomas might be

right and I might be wrong. But the minute I mentioned the crossword

puzzle her spirits sank.

"Though I'm sure he thinks he's been working," she said, worriedly.

"His mind must be confused-it's all he's been through. I've a few things to say to you, my girl But there's no time for that now;

we must do something about Simon. Cassandra, will you go with him

instead of me his Then I can stay with Mortmain. I don't want him to

know about Rose until he's recovered a bit- he doesn't even know that Simon's here."

My heart gave a leap.

"Yes, of course I'll go."

"And for goodness' sake try to make Rose see sense. I've told Simon I'd rather you went and he thinks it's a good idea- that you may have more influence with her. He's waiting in his car."

I ran upstairs and got ready. It was the wicked est moment of my life, because in spite of believing we had failed with Father, in spite of

the wretchedness I had seen on Simon's face, I was wildly happy. Rose had given him up and I was going to drive with him into the dawn.

It was still dark when I ran out to the car, but there was a vague,

woolly look about the sky and the stars were dimming. As I crossed the drawbridge I heard Heloise howling in the gatehouse room where we had left her shut in. She was up on Father's desk with her long face

pressed close to the dark window.

Seeing her reminded me that my journal was still on the desk, but

luckily Topaz came after me with some sandwiches and promised to put it away without trying to read the speed-writing.

"And give my love to Father and tell him we meant it for the best," I said--I was so happy that I wanted to be kind to every one in the

world. Then off we went--past the barn where I once overheard Simon,

past the cross-roads where we started quoting poetry on May Day, past the village green where we stood counting scents and sounds. As we

drove under the chestnut tree in front of the inn I felt a pang for

Simon--would he remember Rose's hair against its leaves his "Oh, I'll make it up to him," I told myself.

"I swear I can, now that I'm free to try."

We had talked a little about Father soon after we started off. Simon

wouldn't believe that what Thomas and I had found really was nonsense; he said he would have to see for himself.

"Though I must admit it sounds very peculiar," he added. After that, he fell silent.

We were some miles beyond Godsend before he said:

"Did you know how Rose felt about me ?"

I was so long thinking out what to say that he went on:

"Forget it. It's not fair to ask you."

I began, "Simon-was He stopped me.

"I believe I'd rather not talk about it at all- not until I'm sure she really means it."

Then he asked if I was warm enough or if he should close the car; it

had been hot when they left London and Topaz had wanted it open. I

said I did, too. The air was fresh and cool, but not really cold.

It was a queer feeling, driving through the sleeping villages--each

time, the car suddenly seemed noisier, the headlights more brilliant. I noticed that Simon always slowed down; I bet most men feeling as he did would have driven through like fury. In one cottage there was

candlelight beyond the diamond panes of an upstairs window and a car at the door.

"Perhaps a doctor's there," I said.

"Somebody dying or getting born, maybe," said Simon. Gradually the dark sky paled until it looked like far away smoke. There was no color anywhere; the cottages were chalk drawings on gray paper. 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.

A little while after that, he stopped to look at a map. All around us, beyond the hedge less ditches, were misty water-meadows dotted with pol larded willow trees. Very far away, a cock was crowing.

"Pity there isn't a good sunrise for you," said Simon.

But no sunrise I ever saw was more beautiful than when the thick gray mist gradually changed to a golden haze.

"That really is remarkable," Simon said, watching it.

"And one can't actually see any sun at all."

I told myself it was symbolic that he couldn't yet see how happy I

would make him one day.

"Could you fancy a sandwich?" I asked.

I think he only took one to keep me company, but he talked quite

naturally while we ate--about the difficulty of finding words to

describe the luminous mist, and why one has the desire to describe

beauty.

"Perhaps it's an attempt to possess it," I said.

"Or be possessed by it; perhaps that's the same thing, really. I suppose it's the complete identification with beauty one's seeking."

The mist grew brighter and brighter. I could have looked at it for

ever, we drove but Simon on. hid the sandwich paper neatly down the

ditch Before long, there was the feel of the sea in the air. The mist over the salt marshes was too thick for the sunrise to penetrate, but the whiteness was dazzling.

It was like travelling through a tunnel in the clouds.

"Are you sure this is where we came for the picnic ?"

Simon asked as we drove along the main street.

"It looks different, somehow."

I said that was due to the summer-holiday atmosphere.

In May, the village had seemed just like an inland village; now,

children's buckets and spades and shrimping nets were standing outside doors, bathing-suits were hanging over window ledges. I had a sudden

fancy to be a child waking up in a strange bedroom, with a day on the sands ahead of me--though, goodness knows, I wouldn't have changed

places with anyone in the world just then.

We didn't see a soul in the main street, but we found the front door of the one hotel open and a charwoman scrubbing the hall. She let us look at the hotel register.

There was no sign of Rose's name.

"We'd better wait until people are awake and then try every house in the village," I said.

"I suppose she wouldn't be at "The Swan"?"

said the charwoman.

"It's not rightly a hotel but they do take one or two."

I remembered it from the day of the picnic, a tiny inn right down by

the sea, about a mile away; but I couldn't believe Rose would ever stay there.

"Still, it's somewhere to try until the village wakes up," said Simon.

We drove along the lonely coast road. There was no mist over the sea; it was all pale, shimmering gold, so calm that the waves seemed only