2

LATER. WRITTEN IN bed.

I am reasonably comfortable as I am wearing my school coat and have a hot brick for my feet, but I wish it wasn’t my week for the little iron bedstead – Rose and I take it in turns to sleep in the four-poster. She is sitting up in it reading a library book. When Miss Marcy brought it she said it was ‘a pretty story’. Rose says it is awful, but she would rather read it than think about herself. Poor Rose! She is wearing her old blue flannel dressing-gown with the skirt part doubled up round her waist for warmth. She has had that dressing-gown so long that I don’t think she sees it any more; if she were to put it away for a month and then look at it, she would get a shock. But who am I to talk – who have not had a dressing-gown at all for two years? The remains of my last one are wrapped round my hot brick.

Our room is spacious and remarkably empty. With the exception of the four-poster, which is in very bad condition, all the good furniture has gradually been sold and replaced by minimum requirements bought in junkshops. Thus we have a wardrobe without a door and a bamboo dressing-table which I take to be a rare piece. 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. The enamel jug and basin on a metal tripod is my own personal property, the landlady of The Keys having given it to me after I found it doing no good in a stable. It saves congestion in the bathroom. One rather nice thing is the carved wooden window-seat – I am thankful there is no way of selling that. It is built into the thickness of the castle wall, with a big mullioned window above it. There are windows on the garden side of the room, too; little diamond-paned ones.

One thing I have never grown out of being fascinated by is the round tower which opens into a corner. There is a circular stone staircase inside it by which you can go up to the battlemented top, or down to the drawing-room; though some of the steps have crumbled badly.

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.’

The Victorian vandals who did so many unnecessary things to this house didn’t have the sense to put in passages, so we are always having to go through each other’s rooms. Topaz has just wandered through ours – wearing a nightgown made of plain white calico with holes for her neck and arms; she thinks modern under-clothes are vulgar. She looked rather like a victim going to an Auto da Fé, but her destination was merely the bathroom.

Topaz and Father sleep in the big room that opens on to the kitchen staircase. There is a little room between them and us which we call ‘Buffer State’; Topaz uses it as a studio. Thomas has the room across the landing, next to the bathroom.

I wonder if Topaz has gone to ask Father to come to bed – she is perfectly capable of stalking along the top of the castle walls in her nightgown. I hope she hasn’t, because Father does so snub her when she bursts into the gatehouse. We were trained as children never to go near him unless invited and he thinks she ought to behave in the same way.

No – she didn’t go. She came back a few minutes ago and showed signs of staying here, but we didn’t encourage her. Now she is in bed and is playing her lute. I like the idea of a lute, but not the noise it makes; it is seldom in tune and appears to be an instrument that never gets a run at anything.

I feel rather guilty at being so unsociable to Topaz, but we did have such a sociable evening.

Round about eight o’clock, Miss Marcy came with the books. She is about forty, small and rather faded yet somehow very young. She blinks her eyes a lot and is apt to giggle and say: ‘Well, reely!’ 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.

As librarian, she cheats a bit to give us the newest books; she’d had a delivery today and had brought Father a detective novel that only came out the year before last – and it was by one of his favourite authors. Topaz said:

‘Oh, I must take this to Mortmain at once.’ She calls Father ‘Mortmain’ partly because she fancies our odd surname, and partly to keep up the fiction that he is still a famous writer. He came back with her to thank Miss Marcy and for once he seemed quite genuinely cheerful.

‘I’ll read any detective novel, good, bad or indifferent,’ he told her, ‘but a vintage one’s among the rarest pleasures of life.’

Then he found out he was getting this one ahead of the Vicar and was so pleased that he blew Miss Marcy a kiss. She said: ‘Oh, thank you, Mr Mortmain! That is, I mean – well, reely!’ and blushed and blinked. Father then flung his rug round him like a toga and went back to the gatehouse looking quite abnormally good-humoured.

As soon as he was out of earshot, Miss Marcy said: ‘How is he?’ in a hushed sort of voice that implied he was at death’s door or off his head. Rose said he was perfectly well and perfectly useless, as always. Miss Marcy looked shocked.

‘Rose is depressed about our finances,’ I explained.

‘We mustn’t bore Miss Marcy with our worries,’ said Topaz, quickly. She hates anything which casts a reflection on Father.

Miss Marcy said that nothing to do with our household could possibly bore her – I know she thinks our life at the castle is wildly romantic. Then she asked, very diffidently, if she could help us with any advice – ‘Sometimes an outside mind …’

I suddenly felt that I should rather like to consult her; she is such a sensible little woman – it was she who thought of getting me the book on speed-writing. Mother trained us never to talk about our affairs in the village, and I do respect Topaz’s loyalty to Father, but I was sure Miss Marcy must know perfectly well that we are broke.

‘If you could suggest some ways of earning money,’ I said.

‘Or of making it go further – I’m sure you’re all much too artistic to be really practical. Let’s hold a board meeting!’

She said it as if she were enticing children to a game. She was so eager that it would have seemed quite rude to refuse; and I think Rose and Topaz felt desperate enough to try anything.

‘Now, paper and pencils,’ said Miss Marcy, clapping her hands.

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. In the end, Miss Marcy took the middle pages out of her library record, which gave us a pleasant feeling that we were stealing from the government, and then we sat round the table and elected her chairman. She said she must be secretary, too, so that she could keep the minutes, and wrote down:

ENQUIRY INTO THE FINANCES OF THE MORTMAIN FAMILY

Present:

Miss Marcy (chairman)

Mrs James Mortmain

Miss Rose Mortmain

Miss Cassandra Mortmain

Thomas Mortmain

Stephen Colly

We began by discussing expenditure.

‘First, rent,’ said Miss Marcy.

The rent is forty pounds a year, which seems little for a commodious castle, but we have only a few acres of land, the country folk think the ruins are a drawback, and there are said to be ghosts – which there are not. (There are some queer things up on the mound, but they never come into the house.) Anyway, we haven’t paid any rent for three years. 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.

‘They say the Hall’s going to be re-opened,’ said Miss Marcy when we had told her the position about the rent. ‘Two boys from the village have been taken on as extra gardeners. Well, we will just put the rent down and mark it “optional”. Now what about food? Can you do it on fifteen shillings a week per head? Say a pound per head, including candles, lamp-oil and cleaning materials.’

The idea of our family ever coming by six pounds a week made us all hoot with laughter.

‘If Miss Marcy is really going to advise us,’ said Topaz, ‘she’d better be told we have no visible income at all this year.’

Miss Marcy flushed and said: ‘I did know things were difficult. But, dear Mrs Mortmain, there must be some money, surely?’

We gave her the facts. Not one penny has come in during January or February. Last year Father got forty pounds from America, where Jacob Wrestling still sells. Topaz posed in London for three months, saved eight pounds for us and borrowed fifty; and we sold a tallboy to a King’s Crypt dealer for twenty pounds. We have been living on the tallboy since Christmas.

‘Last year’s income one hundred and eighteen pounds,’ said Miss Marcy and wrote it down. But we hastened to tell her that it bore no relation to this year’s income, for we have no more good furniture to sell, Topaz has run out of rich borrowees, and we think it unlikely that Father’s royalties will be so large, as they had dwindled every year.

‘Should I leave school?’ said Thomas. But of course we told him that would be absurd as his schooling costs us nothing owing to his scholarship, and the Vicar has just given him a year’s ticket for the train.

Miss Marcy fiddled with her pencil a bit and then said:

‘If I am to be a help, I must be frank. Couldn’t you make a saving on Stephen’s wages?’

I felt myself go red. Of course we have never paid Stephen anything – never even thought of it. And I suddenly realized that we ought to have done so. (Not that we’ve had any money to pay him with since he’s been old enough to earn.)

‘I don’t want wages,’ said Stephen, quietly. ‘I wouldn’t take them. Everything I’ve ever had has been given to me here.’

‘You see, Stephen’s like a son of the house,’ I said. Miss Marcy looked as if she wasn’t sure that was a very good thing to be, but Stephen’s face quite lit up for a second. Then he got embarrassed and said he must see if the hens were all in. After he had gone, Miss Marcy said:

‘No – no wages at all? Just his keep?’

‘We don’t pay ourselves any wages,’ said Rose – which is true enough; but then we don’t work so hard as Stephen or sleep in a dark little room off the kitchen. ‘And I think it’s humiliating discussing our poverty in front of Miss Marcy,’ Rose went on, angrily. ‘I thought we were just going to ask her advice about earning.’

After that, a lot of time was wasted soothing Rose’s pride and Miss Marcy’s feelings. Then we got down to our earning capacities.

Topaz said she couldn’t earn more than four pounds a week in London and possibly not that, and she would need three pounds to live on, and some clothes, and the fare to come down here at least every other weekend.

‘And I don’t want to go to London,’ she added, rather pathetically. ‘I’m tired of being a model. And I miss Mortmain dreadfully. And he needs me here – I’m the only one who can cook.’

‘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. I suppose if nothing turns up I’ll have to go to London. I could send about ten shillings a week home.’

‘Well, that’s splendid,’ said Miss Marcy and wrote down: ‘Mrs James Mortmain: a potential ten shillings weekly.’

‘Not all the year round,’ said Topaz, firmly. ‘I couldn’t stand it and it would leave me no time for my own painting. I might sell some of that, of course.’

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, 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.

‘Perhaps I could look after little children,’ she suggested.

‘Oh, no,’ said Miss Marcy, hurriedly, ‘I mean, dear – well, I don’t think it would suit you at all.’

‘I’ll go to Scoatney Hall as a maid,’ said Rose, looking as if she were already ascending the scaffold.

‘Well, they do have to be trained, dear,’ said Miss Marcy, ‘and I can’t feel your father would like it. 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.’

Miss Marcy leaned forward and said in a hushed voice: ‘My dears, you know I’m trying to help you all. What’s the real trouble with Mr Mortmain? Is it – is it – drink?’

We laughed so much that Stephen came in to see what the joke was.

‘Poor, poor Mortmain,’ gasped Topaz, ‘as if he ever laid his hands on enough to buy a bottle of beer! Drink costs money, Miss Marcy.’

Miss Marcy said it couldn’t be drugs either – and it certainly couldn’t; he doesn’t even smoke, once his Christmas cigars from the Vicar are gone.

‘It’s just sheer laziness,’ said Rose, ‘laziness and softness. And I don’t believe he was ever very good, really. I expect Jacob Wrestling was over-estimated.’

Topaz looked so angry that I thought for a second she was going to hit Rose. Stephen came to the table and stood between them.

‘Oh, no, Miss Rose,’ he said quietly, ‘it’s a great book – everyone knows that. But things have happened to him so that he can’t write any more. You can’t write just for the wanting.’

I expected Rose to snub him, but before she could say a word he turned to me and went on quickly: ‘I’ve been thinking, Miss Cassandra, that I should get work – they’d have me at Four Stones Farm.’

‘But the garden, Stephen!’ I almost wailed – for we just about live on our vegetables.

He said the days would soon draw out and that he’d work for us in the evenings.

‘And I’m useful in the garden, aren’t I, Stephen?’ said Topaz.

‘Yes, ma’am, very useful. I couldn’t get a job if you went to London, of course – there’d be too much work for Miss Cassandra.’

Rose isn’t good at things like gardening and housework.

‘So you could put me down for twenty-five shillings a week, Miss Marcy,’ Stephen went on, ‘because Mr Stebbins said he’d start me at that. And I’d get my dinner at Four Stones.’

I was glad to think that would mean he’d get one square meal a day.

Miss Marcy said it was a splendid idea, though it was a pity it meant striking out Topaz’s ten shillings. ‘Though, of course, it was only potential.’ While she was putting Stephen’s twenty-five shillings on her list, Rose suddenly said:

‘Thank you, Stephen.’

And because she doesn’t bother with him much as a rule, it somehow sounded important. 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. I thought Stephen would be tremendously pleased, but he only nodded and swallowed several times.

Just then, Father came out on the staircase and looked down on us all.

‘What, a round game?’ he said – and I suppose it must have looked like one, with us grouped round the table in the lamplight. Then he came downstairs saying: ‘This book’s first-rate. I’m having a little break, trying to guess the murderer. I should like a biscuit, please.’

Whenever Father is hungry between meals – and he eats very little at them, less than any of us – he asks for a biscuit. I believe he thinks it is the smallest cheapest thing he can ask for. Of course, we haven’t had any real shop biscuits for ages but Topaz makes oatcake, which is very filling. She put some margarine on a piece for him. I saw a fraction of distaste in his eyes and he asked her if she could sprinkle it with a little sugar.

‘It makes a change,’ he said, apologetically. ‘Can’t we offer Miss Marcy something? Some tea or cocoa, Miss Marcy?’

She thanked him but said she mustn’t spoil her appetite for supper.

‘Well, don’t let me interrupt the game,’ said Father. ‘What is it?’ And before I could think of any way of distracting him, he had leaned over her shoulder to look at the list in front of her. As it then stood, it read:

Earning Capacity for Present Year

Mrs Mortmain	nil.
Cassandra Mortmain	nil.
Thomas Mortmain	nil.
Rose Mortmain	nil.
Mr Mortmain	nil.
Stephen Colly	25s. a week.

Father’s expression didn’t change as he read, he went on smiling; but I could feel something happening to him. Rose says I am always crediting people with emotions I should experience myself in their situation, but I am sure I had a real flash of intuition then. 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.

When he had finished, he said quite lightly: ‘And is Stephen giving us his wages?’

‘I ought to pay for my board and lodging, Mr Mortmain, sir,’ said Stephen, ‘and for – for past favours; all the books you’ve lent me—’

‘I’m sure you’ll make a very good head of the family,’ said Father. He took the oatcake with sugar on it from Topaz and moved towards the stairs. She called after him: ‘Stay by the fire for a little while, Mortmain.’ But he said he wanted to get back to his book. Then he thanked Miss Marcy again for bringing him such a good one, and said goodnight to her very courteously. We could hear him humming as he went through the bedrooms on his way to the gatehouse.

Miss Marcy made no remark about the incident, which shows what a tactful person she is; but she looked embarrassed and said she must be getting along. Stephen lit a lantern and said he would go as far as the road with her – she had left her bicycle there because of the awful mud in our lane. I went out to see her off. As we crossed the courtyard, she glanced up at the gatehouse window and asked if I thought Father would be offended if she brought him a little tin of biscuits to keep there. I said I didn’t think any food could give offence in our house and she said: ‘Oh, dear!’ 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. And after she and Stephen had gone I realized it was looking particularly lovely. It was a queer sort of night. 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.

‘It’s too cold for you to be out without a coat, Miss Cassandra,’ he said. But I had forgotten about feeling cold, so of course I wasn’t cold any more.

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.

After that, we all decided to go to bed to save making up the fire, so we got our hot bricks out of the oven and wended our ways. But going to bed early is hard on candles. I reckoned I had two hours of light in mine, but a bit of wick fell in and now it is a melted mass. (I wonder how King Alfred got on with his clock-candles when that happened.) I have called Thomas to see if I can have his, but he is still doing his homework. I shall have to go to the kitchen – I have a secret cache of ends there. And I will be noble and have a companionable chat with Topaz, on the way down.

… I am back. Something rather surprising happened. When I got to the kitchen, Heloïse woke and barked and Stephen came to his door to see what was the matter. I called out that it was only me and he dived back into his room. I found my candle-end and had just knelt down by Heloïse’s basket to have a few words with her (she had a particularly nice warm-clean-dog smell after being asleep) when out he came again, wearing his coat over his nightshirt.

‘It’s all right,’ I called, ‘I’ve got what I wanted.’

Just then, the door on the kitchen stairs swung to, so that we were in darkness except for the pale square at the window. I groped my way across the kitchen and bumped into the table. Then Stephen took my arm and guided me to the foot of the stairs.

‘I can manage now,’ I said – we were closer to the window and there was quite a lot of the queer, shrouded moonlight coming in.

He still kept hold of my arm. ‘I want to ask you something, Miss Cassandra,’ he said. ‘I want to know if you’re ever hungry – I mean when there’s nothing for you to eat.’

I would probably have answered, ‘I certainly am,’ but I noticed how strained and anxious his voice was. So I said:

‘Well, there generally is something or other, isn’t there? Of course, it would be nicer to have lots of exciting food, but I do get enough. Why did you suddenly want to know?’

He said he had been lying awake thinking about it and that he couldn’t bear me to be hungry.

‘If ever you are, you tell me,’ he said, ‘and I’ll manage something.’

I thanked him very much and reminded him he was going to help us all with his wages.

‘Yes, that’ll be something,’ he said. ‘But you tell me if you don’t get enough. Goodnight, Miss Cassandra.’

As I went upstairs I was glad I hadn’t admitted that I was ever uncomfortably hungry, because as he steals Herrick for me, I should think he might steal food. It was rather a dreadful thought but somehow comforting.

Father was just arriving from the gatehouse. He didn’t show any signs of having had his feelings hurt. He remarked that he’d kept four chapters of his book to read in bed.

‘And great strength of mind it required,’ he added.

Topaz looked rather depressed.

I found Rose lying in the dark because Thomas had borrowed her candle to finish his homework by. She said she didn’t mind as her book had turned out too pretty to be bearable.

I lit my candle-end and stuck it on the melted mass in the candlestick. I had to crouch low in bed to get enough light to write by. I was just ready to start again, when I saw Rose look round to make sure that I had closed the door of Buffer. Then she said:

‘Did you think of anything when Miss Marcy said Scoatney Hall was being re-opened? I thought of the beginning of Pride and Prejudice – where Mrs Bennet says, “Netherfield Park is let at last.” And then Mr Bennet goes over to call on the rich new owner.’

‘Mr Bennet didn’t owe him any rent,’ I said.

‘Father wouldn’t go anyway. How I wish I lived in a Jane Austen novel!’

I said I’d rather be in a Charlotte Brontë.

‘Which would be nicest – Jane with a touch of Charlotte, or Charlotte with a touch of Jane?’

This is the kind of discussion I like very much but I wanted to get on with my journal, so I just said: ‘Fifty per cent each way would be perfect,’ and started to write determinedly. Now it is nearly midnight. I feel rather like a Brontë myself, writing by the light of a guttering candle with my fingers so numb I can hardly hold the pencil. I wish Stephen hadn’t made me think of food, because I have been hungry ever since; which is ridiculous as I had a good egg tea not six hours ago. Oh, dear – I have just thought that if Stephen was worrying about me being hungry, he was probably hungry himself. We are a household!

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.

Rose is asleep – on her back, with her mouth wide open. Even like that she looks nice. I hope she is having a beautiful dream about a rich young man proposing to her.

I 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.