Dodie Smith - I Capture the Castle

"But I think he's rather glad to be shaken. And it's important that he should be dropped at the feet of the right people."

I said: "Simon, as a parting present, could you tell me anything that would help me to understand what he's driving at ?"

To my surprise, he said he'd already made up his mind to try.

"You see, when I'm gone you'll be the one person in close touch with him who's capable of understanding it--oh, Thomas is a clever lad, but there's an oddly casual quality about his interest--in a way, it's

still the interest of a child.

Anyhow, I'm sure it's your understanding that your Father hankers

for."

I was astonished and flattered.

"Well, I'm only too willing. But if he won't explain Why won't he, Simon ?"

"Because it's the essence of an enigma that one must solve it for oneself."

"But at least one is allowed to know--well, the rules for solving puzzles."

He said he rather agreed with me there and that was why he had

persuaded Father to let him talk to me.

"Do you want to ask me questions ?"

"I certainly do. The first one is: Why does his work have to be an enigma at all?"

Simon laughed.

"You've started off with a honey.

No one will ever know why a creator creates the way he does. Anyway,

your father had a very distinguished forerunner. God made the universe an enigma."

I said, "And very confusing it's been for everybody. I don't see why Father had to copy Him."

Simon said he thought every creative artist did, and that perhaps every human being was potentially creative.

"I

think one of the things your father's after is to stimulate that

potential creativeness-to make those who study his work share in its

actual creation.

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."

I think he must have seen me looking a little bewildered because he

stopped himself and said: "I'm not putting this clearly--wait-give me a minute--" He thought with his eyes closed, as he did once on May Day; but this time I only dared take one quick glance at his face. I was

trying to hold my deepest feelings back- I hadn't even let myself

realize he was going away. There would be a long time for realizing it after he had gone.

At last he said: "I think your father believes that the interest so many people take in puzzles and problems--which often starts in

earliest childhood--represents more than a mere desire for recreation; that it may even derive from man's eternal curiosity about his origin.

Anyway, it makes use of certain faculties for progressive, cumulative search which no other mental exercise does. Your father wants to

communicate his ideas through those faculties."

I asked him to repeat it, slowly. And suddenly I saw--oh, I saw

absolutely!

"But how does it work?" I cried.

He told me to think of a crossword puzzle--of the hundreds of images

that pass through the mind while solving one.

"In your father's puzzles, the sum-total of the images adds up to the meaning he wants to convey. And the sum-total of all the sections of

his book, all the puzzles, problems, patterns, progressions--I believe there's even going to be a detective section- will add up to his

philosophy of search-creation."

"And where do those cats on mats come in ?" I enquired, a bit satirically.

He said they were probably there to induce a mood.

"Imagine yourself a child faced with the first enigmatic symbols of your lifetime-the letters of the alphabet.

Think of letters before you understood them, then of the letters

becoming words, then of the words becoming pictures in the mind. Why

are you looking so worried? Am I confusing you ?"

"Not in the least," I said.

"I understand everything you've said. But- oh, Simon, I feel so

resentful Why should Father make things so difficult? Why can't he

say what he means plainly ?"

"Because there's so much that just can't be said plainly. Try

describing what beauty is- plainly- and you'll see what I mean." Then he said that art could state very little- that its whole business was to evoke responses. And that without innovations and experiments such as Father's -all art would stagnate.

"That's why one ought not to let oneself resent them- though I believe it's a normal instinct, probably due to subconscious fear of what we

don't understand."

Then he spoke of some of the great innovations that had been resented at first Beethoven's last quartets, and lots of modern music, and the work of many great painters that almost everyone now admires. There

aren't as many innovations in literature as in the other arts, Simon

said, and that is all the more reason why Father ought to be

encouraged.

"Well, I'll encourage him for all I'm worth," I said.

"Even if I still do resent him a bit, I'll try to hide it."

"You won't be able to," said Simon.

"And resentment will paralyse your powers of perception.

Oh, lord, how am I to get you on his side?

Look--can you always express just what you want to express, in your

journal? Does everything go into nice tidy words? Aren't you

constantly driven to metaphor his The first man to use a metaphor was a whale of an innovator--and now we use them almost without realizing it.

In a sense your father's whole work is only an extension of

metaphor."

When he said that, I had a sudden memory of how difficult it was to

describe the feelings I had on Midsummer Eve, and of how I wrote of the day as a cathedral-like avenue. The images that came into my mind then have been linked with that day and with Simon ever since. Yet I could never explain how the image and the reality merge, and how they somehow extend and beautify each other.

"Was Father trying to express things as inexpressible as that... his

"Something's clicked in your mind," said Simon.

"Can you put it into words ?"

"Certainly not into nice tidy ones--" I tried to speak lightly; remembering Midsummer Eve had made me so very conscious of loving

him.

"But I've stopped feeling resentful. It'll be all right now.

I'm on his side."

After that we talked about what started Father writing again.

I suppose we shall never know if locking him in the tower really did

any good.

Simon thought it was more likely that everything worked together--"Our coming here; Mother's very stimulating, you know. And his reading at

Scoatney may have helped-I strewed the place with stuff that I thought might interest him. I believe he does feel that being shut in the

tower caused some kind of emotional release; and he certainly hands you full credit for telling him to write "The cat sat on the mat."

That started him off--gave him the whole idea of the child learning to read."

Personally, I think what helped Father most was losing his temper. I

feel more and more sure that the cake-knife incident taught him too

much of a lesson, somehow tied him up mentally. Simon thought that was quite a good theory.

"What's his temper like nowadays ?" he asked.

"Well, most of the time he's nicer than I ever remember him. But in spasms, it's terrific.

Topaz is adoring life."

"Dear Topaz!" said Simon, smiling.

"She's the perfect wife for him now that he's working--and he knows it.

But I don't see how life at the castle can be much fun for you this

winter. There'll be a maid at the flat, if you feel like staying there sometimes. Are you sure you don't want to go to college ?"

"Quite sure. I only want to write. And there's no college for that except life."

He laughed and said I was a complete joy to him sometimes so old for my age and sometimes so young.

"I'd rather like to learn typing and real shorthand," I told him.

"Then I could be an author's secretary while I'm waiting to be an author."

He said Topaz would arrange it for me. I know he is leaving money with her for all of us--he made her feel that she ought to take it to shield Father from anxiety. Oh, he is indeed a most gracious and generous

"patron"!

"And you must write to me for anything you want," he added.

"Anyway, I shall be back soon."

"I wonder."

He looked at me quickly and asked what I meant.

I wished I hadn't said it. For weeks now I have feared that having

been hurt so much by Rose may have put him off living in England.

"I just wondered if America might claim you," I said.

He didn't answer for so long that I visualized him gone for ever and

the Fox-Cottons installed at Scoatney as they so much want to be.

"Perhaps I shall never see him again," I thought, and suddenly felt so cold that I gave a little shiver.

Simon noticed it and moved closer, pulling the rug up around us both.

Then he said:

"I shall come back all right. I could never desert

I said I knew he loved it dearly.

"Dearly and sadly. In a way, it's like loving a beautiful, dying woman. One knows the spirit of such houses can't survive very much

longer."

Then we spoke of the autumn--he hoped he would he in time to catch a

glimpse of it in New England.

"Is it more beautiful than this ?" I asked.

"No. But it's less melancholy. So many of the loveliest things in England are melancholy." He stared across the fields, then added quickly--"Not that I'm melancholy this afternoon. I never am, when I'm with you. Do you know this is our third conversation on Belmotte

mound?"

I knew it very well.

"Yes, I suppose it is," I said, trying to sound casual. I don't think I managed it, because he suddenly slipped his arm round me. The still afternoon seemed stiller, the late sunlight was like a blessing. As

long as I live I shall remember that silent minute.

At last he said: "I wish I could take you to America with me. Would you like to come ?"

For a second, I thought it was just a joking remark, but he asked me

again--"Would you--Cassandra?" Then something about the way he spoke my name made me sure that if I said yes, he would ask me to marry him.

And I couldn't do it- though I don't think I fully knew why until

now.

I said, in as normal a voice as I could manage: "If only I were trained already, I could come as your secretary. Though I don't know that I'd care to be away from Father too long this year."

I thought that if I put it that way he wouldn't know I had guessed what was in his mind. But I think he did, because he said very quietly:

"Oh, wise young judge." Then we talked quite ordinarily about a car he is lending to Father and about our all going over to Scoatney whenever we feel like it. I didn't say very much myself--most of my mind was

wondering if I had made a dreadful mistake.

When he got up to go he wrapped the rug tightly round me, then told me to slip out my hand.

"It's not a little green hand this time," he said as he took it in his.

I said, "Simon, you know I'd love to see America if ever the

circumstances were well favorable."

He turned my hand over and kissed the palm, then said: I'll report on them when I come back."

And then he went quickly down the mound. As his car drove along the

lane, a sudden gust of wind sprang up and blew brown leaves from the

hedges and trees, so that a cloud of them seemed to be following him.

I didn't make any mistake. I know that when he nearly asked me to

marry him it was only an impulse--just as it was when he kissed me on Midsummer Eve; a mixture of liking me very much and longing for Rose.

It is part of a follow-my-leader game of second-best we have all been playing--Rose with Simon, Simon with me, me with Stephen, and Stephen, I suppose, with that detestable Leda Fox-Cotton. It isn't a very good game; the people you play it with are apt to get hurt. Perhaps even

Leda has, though I can't say the thought of that harrows me much.

But why, oh why, must Simon still love Rose his When she has so little in common with him and I have so much his Part of me longs to run after him to Scoatney and cry "Yes, yes, yes!" A few hours ago, when I wrote that I could never mean anything to him, such a chance would have

seemed heaven on earth. And surely I could give him- a sort of

contentment?

That isn't enough to give. Not for the giver.

The daylight is going. I can hardly see what I am writing and my

fingers are cold. There is only one more page left in my beautiful

blue leather manuscript book; but that is as much as I shall need.

I don't intend to go on with this journal; I have grown out of wanting to write about myself. I only began today out of a sense of duty- I

felt I ought to finish Rose's story off tidily. I seem to have

finished my own off, too, which I didn't quite bargain for ...... What a preposterous self-pitying remark--with Simon still in the world, and a car being lent to us and a flat in London! Stephen has a flat there, too, now; just a little one. He wandered about with the goats so

satisfactorily that he is to speak lines in his next picture. If I

stay at the Cottons' flat I can go out with him sometimes and be very, very kind to him, though in a determinedly sisterly way. Now I come to think of it, the winter ought to be very exciting, particularly with

Father so wonderfully cheerful or else so refreshingly violent. And

there are thousands of people to write about who aren't me ...... It

isn't a bit of use my pretending I'm not crying, because I am......

Pause to mop up.

Better now.

Perhaps it would really be rather dull to be married and settled for

life. Liar! It would be heaven.

Only half a page left now. Shall I fill it with "I love you, I love you"--like Father's page of cats on the mat? No. Even a broken heart doesn't warrant a waste of good paper.

There is a light down in the castle kitchen. Tonight I shall have my

bath in front of the fire, with Simon's gramophone playing. Topaz has it on now, much too loud-to bring Father back to earth in time for

tea--but it sounds beautiful from this distance. She is playing the

Berceuse from Stravinsky's "The Firebird." It seems to say, "What shall I do his Where shall I go ?"

You will go in to tea, my girl--and a much better tea than you would

have come by this time last year.

A mist is rolling over the fields. Why is summer mist romantic and

autumn mist just sad?

There was mist on Midsummer "Eve, mist when we drove into the dawn.

He said he would come back.

Only the margin left to write on now. I love you, I love you, I love

you.