5

LATER. UP ON the chaff in the barn again.

I had to leave Rose stranded at the top of the stairs, because Topaz was ringing the lunch bell. She had been too busy to cook, so we had cold Brussels sprouts and cold boiled rice – hardly my favourite food but splendidly filling. We ate in the drawing-room, which has been cleaned within an inch of its life. In spite of a log fire, it was icy in there; I have noticed that rooms which are extra clean feel extra cold.

Rose and Topaz are now out searching the hedges for something to put in the big Devon pitchers. Topaz says that if they don’t find anything she will get bare branches and tie something amusing to them – if so, I bet it doesn’t amuse me; one would think that a girl who appreciates nudity as Topaz does would let a bare branch stay bare.

None of us is admitting that we expect the Cottons to call very soon, but we are all hoping it like mad. For that is who the two men were, of course: the Cottons of Scoatney, on their way there for the first time. I can’t think why I didn’t guess it at once, for I did know that the estate had passed to an American. Old Mr Cotton’s youngest son went to the States back in the early nineteen hundreds – after some big family row, I believe – and later became an American citizen. Of course, there didn’t seem any likelihood of his inheriting Scoatney then, but two elder brothers were killed in the war and the other, with his only son, died about twelve years ago, in a car smash. After that, the American son tried to make it up with his father, but the old man wouldn’t see him unless he undertook to become English again, which he wouldn’t. He died about a year ago; these two young men are his sons. Simon – he is the one with the beard – said last night that he had just persuaded his grandfather to receive him when poor lonely old Mr Cotton died, which seems very sad indeed.

The younger son’s name is Neil, and the reason he sounds so different from his brother is that he was brought up in California, where his father had a ranch, while Simon lived in Boston and New York with the mother. (I gather the parents were divorced. Mrs Cotton is in London now and is coming down to Scoatney soon.) Father says Simon’s accent is American and that there are as many different accents in America as there are in England – more, in fact. He says that Simon speaks particularly good English, but of an earlier kind than is now fashionable here. Certainly he has a fascinating voice – though I think I like the younger brother best.

It is a pity that Simon is the heir, because Rose thinks the beard is disgusting; but perhaps we can get it off. Am I really admitting that my sister is determined to marry a man she has only seen once and doesn’t much like the look of? It is half real and half pretence – and I have an idea that it is a game most girls play when they meet any eligible young men. They just … wonder. And if any family ever had need of wondering, it is ours. But only as regards Rose. I have asked myself if I am doing any personal wondering and in my deepest heart I am not. I would rather die than marry either of those quite nice men.

Nonsense! I’d rather marry both of them than die. But it has come to me, sitting here in the barn feeling very full of cold rice, that there is something revolting about the way girls’ minds so often jump to marriage long before they jump to love. And most of those minds are shut to what marriage really means. Now I come to think of it, I am judging from books mostly, for I don’t know any girls except Rose and Topaz. But some characters in books are very real – Jane Austen’s are; and I know those five Bennets at the opening of Pride and Prejudice, simply waiting to raven the young men at Netherfield Park, are not giving one thought to the real facts of marriage. I wonder if Rose is? I must certainly try to make her before she gets involved in anything. Fortunately, I am not ignorant in such matters – no stepchild of Topaz’s could be. I know all about the facts of life. And I don’t think much of them.

It was a wonderful moment when Rose stood there at the top of the stairs. It made me think of Beatrix in Esmond – but Beatrix didn’t trip over her dress three stairs from the bottom and have to clutch at the banisters with a green-dyed hand. But it all turned out for the best because Rose had gone self-conscious when she saw the Cottons – I could tell that by the way she was sailing down, graceful but affected. When she tripped, Neil Cotton dashed forward to help her and then everyone laughed and started talking at once, so she forgot her self-consciousness.

While I was hurrying into my clothes, behind the sheets, the Cottons explained who they were. They have only been in England a few days. I wondered how it would feel to be Simon – to be arriving by night for the first time, at a great house like Scoatney, knowing it belonged to you. For a second, I seemed to see with his eyes and knew how strange our castle must have looked, suddenly rising from the water-logged English countryside. I imagined him peering in through the window over the sink – as I bet he did before he came back without his brother. I think I got this picture straight from his mind, because just as it came to me, he said:

‘I couldn’t believe this kitchen was real – it was like looking at a woodcut in some old book of fairy tales.’

I hope he thought Rose looked like a fairy-tale princess – she certainly did. And she was so charming, so easy; she kept laughing her pretty laugh. I thought of how different she had been in her black mood not half an hour before, and that made me remember her wishing on the devil-angel. Just then, a queer thing happened. Simon Cotton had seemed about equally fascinated by Rose and the kitchen – he kept turning from one to the other. He had taken out his torch – only he called it a flashlight – to examine the fireplace wall (I was dressed by then) and after he had shone it up at the stone head, he went to the narrow window that looks on to the moat, in the darkest corner of the kitchen. The torch went out and he turned it to see if the bulb had gone. And that second, it came on again. For an instant, the shadow of his head was thrown on the wall and, owing to the pointed beard, it was exactly like the Devil.

Rose saw it just as I did and gave a gasp. He turned to her quickly, but just then Heloïse walked through the green sheets and upset a clothes-horse, which created a diversion. I helped it on by calling, ‘Hel, Hel,’ and explaining Heloïse was sometimes called that for short – which went well, though a worn-out joke to the Mortmain family. But I couldn’t forget the shadow. It is nonsense, of course – I never saw anyone with kinder eyes. But Rose is very superstitious. I wonder if the younger brother has any money. He was as nice to Rose as Simon Cotton was. And quite a bit nice to me.

There was one dramatic moment when Simon asked me if we owned the castle and I answered: ‘No – you do!’

I hastily added that we had nearly thirty years of our lease to run. I wonder if leases count if you don’t pay the rent. I did not, of course, mention the rent. I felt it might be damping.

After we had all been talking for twenty minutes or so, Topaz came down wearing her old tweed coat and skirt. She rarely wears tweeds even in the daytime and never, never in the evening – they make her look dreary, just washed-out instead of excitingly white – so I was most astonished; particularly as the door of her room was slightly open and she must have known who had arrived. I have refrained from asking her why she made the worst of herself. Perhaps she thought the tweeds would give our family a county air.

We introduced the Cottons and she talked a little but seemed very subdued – what was the matter with her last night? After a few minutes she began to make cocoa – there was no other drink to offer except water; I had even used the last of the tea for Thomas and very dusty it was.

We never rise to cocoa in the evening unless it is a special occasion – like someone being ill, or to make up a family row – and I hated to think that Thomas and Stephen seemed likely to miss it; they were still away getting horses from Four Stones to pull the car out. I felt, too, that Father ought to be in on any form of nourishment that was loose in the house, but I knew it was useless to ask him to come and meet strangers – I was afraid that even if he came down for a biscuit, he would hear voices when he got as far as his bedroom and turn back. Suddenly, the back door burst open and in he came – it had started to rain heavily again and it is quicker to rush across the courtyard than go carefully along the top of the walls. He was freely damning the weather and the fact that his oil-stove had begun to smoke, and as he had his rug over his head, he didn’t see the Cottons until he was right in the midst of things. Topaz stopped mixing cocoa and said very distinctly and proudly: ‘This is my husband, James Mortmain.’

And then a wonderful thing happened. Simon Cotton said:

‘But – oh, this is a miracle! You must be the author of Jacob Wrestling.’

Father stared at him with a look in his eyes that I can only describe as desperate. At first I thought it was because he had been cornered by strangers. Then he said: ‘Why, yes …’ in a curious, tentative way and I suddenly realized that he was terribly pleased, but not quite believing. I can imagine a shipwrecked man, catching sight of a ship, looking like Father did then. Simon Cotton came up and shook hands and introduced his brother, saying:

‘Neil, you remember Jacob Wrestling?’

Neil said: ‘Yes, of course, he was splendid’ – by which I knew that he thought Jacob Wrestling was the name of a character in the book, instead of meaning Jacob wrestling with the angel, as it really does. Simon began to talk of the book as if he had only just put it down, though I gathered gradually that he’d studied it in college, years ago. At first Father was nervous and awkward, standing there with his rug clutched round him, but he got easier and easier until he was doing most of the talking, with Simon just getting in a word occasionally. And at last Father flung the rug off as if it were hampering him and strode over to the table saying: ‘Cocoa, cocoa!’ – it might have been the most magnificent drink in the world; which, personally, I think it is.

While we drank it conversation became more general. Father chaffed us about our green hands and Neil Cotton discovered the dinner dish in the bath and thought it very funny that I had been sitting on it. All the time, Rose got nicer and nicer, smiling and gentle. She sat by the fire, nursing Ab, who is nearly the same colour as her hair, and the Cottons kept wandering over to stroke him. I could see they were fascinated by everything – when Heloïse jumped up to sleep on the warm top of the copper, Neil said it was the cutest thing he’d ever seen in his life. I didn’t say very much myself – Father and the Cottons did most of the talking – but the Cottons seemed to think everything I did say was amusing.

And then, just when everything was going so swimmingly, Simon Cotton asked the one question I had been praying he wouldn’t ask. He turned to Father and said:

‘And when may we expect the successor to Jacob Wrestling?’

I knew I ought to create a diversion by upsetting my cocoa, but I did so want it. And while I was struggling with my greed, Father answered:

‘Never.’

He didn’t say it angrily or bitterly. He just breathed it. And I don’t suppose anyone but me saw that he somehow deflated; the carriage of his head changed and his shoulders sagged. But almost before I had taken this in, Simon Cotton said:

‘There couldn’t be, of course, when one comes to think of it.’

Father shot a look at him and he went on quickly:

‘Certain unique books seem to be without forerunners or successors as far as their authors are concerned. Even though they may profoundly influence the work of other writers, for their creator they’re complete, not leading anywhere.’

Topaz was watching Father anxiously as I was.

‘Oh, but surely—’ she began protestingly. Father interrupted her.

‘Do you mean that the writers of such books are often one-book men?’ he asked, very quietly.

‘Heaven forbid,’ said Simon Cotton. ‘I only mean that I was wrong to use the word “successor”. The originators among writers – perhaps, in a sense, the only true creators – dip deep and bring up one perfect work; complete, not a link in a chain. Later, they dip again – for something as unique. God may have created other worlds, but he obviously didn’t go on adding to this one.’

He said it in a rather stately, literary way but quite sincerely – and yet I didn’t feel it was sincere. And I didn’t feel it meant very much. I think it was really a kind and clever way of sliding over a difficult moment; though, if so, he must have been very quick to realize how difficult the moment was. The odd thing was that Father seemed so impressed. He jerked his head as if some idea had just struck him, but he didn’t answer – it was as if he wanted to think for a minute. Then Simon Cotton asked him a question about the third dream in Jacob Wrestling and he came to life again – I haven’t seen him so alive since the year he married Topaz. And he didn’t talk only about himself; after he had answered the question he drew us all in, particularly Rose – he kept saying things which made the Cottons turn to her, which they seemed very glad to do.

Neil Cotton didn’t talk as much as his brother. Most of the time he sat on the copper with Heloïse. He winked at me once in a friendly way.

At last Thomas came in to say the horses were waiting. (There was enough cocoa left for him but none for Stephen, who had stayed with the horses. Luckily I had saved half mine and put it by the fire to keep warm.) Father and I sloshed down the lane with the Cottons to see the car hauled out – Rose couldn’t come because of her tea-gown and Topaz didn’t seem to want to. There was much pleasant confusion, with the Cottons flashing torches and everyone laughing and making the noises horses expect, and then the car was safely on the road again. After that, the goodbyes were rather hurried, but both the Cottons said that they would see us again soon and I am sure that they meant it.

Stephen and Thomas took the horses back and Father and I trudged home in the rain. The boys took the lantern so it was very dark – I need hardly say that our family hasn’t possessed a working torch for years. Father held my arm firmly and seemed wonderfully cheerful. I asked him what he thought of the Cottons and he said: ‘Well, I shouldn’t think they’d dun us for the rent.’ Then he said he had forgotten how stimulating Americans could be and told me interesting bits about his American lecture tours. And he said Simon Cotton was the Henry James type of American, who falls in love with England – ‘He’ll make an admirable owner for Scoatney.’ The only Henry James novel I ever tried to read was What Maisie Knew, when I was about nine – I expected it to be a book for children. We had a beautiful plum-coloured edition of James’s works then, but of course it got sold with the other valuable books.

As soon as we got back to the castle Father went up to the gatehouse room and I rushed to join the girls. They were talking excitedly – Topaz had got over her quiet mood. She was sure Rose had made a hit, and started to plan how to alter a dress for her, a real London dress that Rose has always admired. And they decided about cleaning the drawing-room in case the Cottons called very soon. I said wasn’t it wonderful that Father actually seemed to like them. Through the back windows of the gatehouse, we could see him sitting at his desk. Topaz said:

‘It’s happened – the miracle! He’s going to start work again!’

Stephen and Thomas came back and I made Stephen drink the cocoa I’d saved for him – I had to hold it ready to pour down the sink before he would take it. Then we went to bed. Rose got all her clothes out and draped them over Miss Blossom, to see if any of them were better than she remembered. They were worse. But even that didn’t depress her.

We talked and talked. Suddenly I sat up in bed and said:

‘Rose, we’re working it up too much. We mustn’t. Of course it’ll be wonderful if we’re asked to parties and things but – Rose you couldn’t marry that man with a beard?’

‘I could marry the Devil himself if he had some money,’ said Rose.

I am pretty sure she was remembering Simon Cotton’s shadow; but as she didn’t mention it, I didn’t. There is no point in working up a thing like that about a wealthy man.

After we had blown the candles out I made Miss Blossom talk – I can never think of the sort of things she says unless I pretend she is really saying them. When I asked her what she thought about it all, she answered:

‘Well, it’s a start, girlies, there’s no denying that. Now you just make the best of yourselves. Of course all these old clothes you’ve draped over me won’t help you much, but wash your hair and keep your hands nice – that green stuff on them’s funny for once but the joke’s over. And now you’d better think of your complexions and get some beauty sleep.’

Rose certainly took the hint about the dye; this morning she scrubbed and scrubbed her hands until she got it all off. She used our last grains of scouring powder, so my dye will just have to wear off – it has now reached a grey stage which looks like dirt. Oh, I have just had an idea – after tea I shall attack myself with sandpaper.

How quickly life can change! This time yesterday it was a wintery blank – and now not only have we met the Cottons, but there is a real hint of spring. From up here in the barn I can see blackthorn buds on the hedges … I have just discovered that by moving my head I can make the square opening, near the roof, frame different parts of the lane – it is rather a fascinating game—

Oh! Oh, my goodness! They’re here – the Cottons – they’ve just come round the last bend of the lane! Oh, what am I to do? …

They have gone past. There was no way I could warn Rose and Topaz – I couldn’t have got out of the barn without being seen. At least I know they are back from their walk because I heard Rose playing the piano some time ago. But how will they be dressed? And, heavens, Rose was thinking of washing her hair! Never did we dare to hope the Cottons would come this very day!

I watched them pass, through the hinge of the barn door; then scrambled up on the chaff again and watched until they disappeared into the gatehouse passage. Ought I to go in? I want to, of course – but there is a huge hole in my stocking and my gym-dress is all dusty from the chaff …

It must be half an hour since I wrote that last line. I didn’t go in. I have been lying here on the chaff thinking of them in the drawing-room with the log fire burning. It won’t really matter if Rose did wash her hair, because it looks very beautiful when it is drying. I feel sure I did right to stay here – for one thing, I talk too much sometimes. I must be desperately careful never to distract attention from Rose. I keep telling myself it is real, it really has happened – we know two men. And they like us – they must, or they wouldn’t have come back so soon.

I don’t really want to write any more, I just want to lie here and think. But there is something I want to capture. It has to do with the feeling I had when I watched the Cottons coming down the lane, the queer separate feeling. I like seeing people when they can’t see me. I have often looked at our family through lighted windows and they seem quite different, a bit the way rooms seen in looking-glasses do. I can’t get the feeling into words – it slipped away when I tried to capture it.

Simon Cotton’s black beard looks queerer than ever by daylight, especially now I have realized he isn’t at all old – I should guess him to be under thirty. He has nice teeth and rather a nice mouth with a lot of shape to it. It has a peculiar naked look in the midst of all that hair. How can a young man like to wear a beard? I wonder if he has a scar?

His eyebrows go up at the corners.

Neil Cotton has such a charming face though no particular feature is striking. Very nice hair, fairish, curly. He looks very healthy; Simon is a bit pale. They’re both tall; Simon is a bit the taller, Neil a bit the broader. They don’t look like brothers any more than they sound it.

Simon is wearing tweeds, very English-looking.

Neil is wearing a coat such as I never saw in my life before: checked back and front, but plain sleeves. Perhaps it was made out of two old coats – though I hope not, as that would show him to be poor and his brother mean. And it looked rather a noisily new coat. I expect it’s just American.

They’re coming out of the castle! Shall I run to meet them and just shake hands? No, not with these grey hands …

Something awful has happened – so awful that I can hardly bear to write it. Oh, how could they, how could they?

As they came towards the barn, I heard them talking. Neil said: ‘Gosh, Simon, you’re lucky to get away with your life.’

‘Extraordinary, wasn’t it?’ said Simon. ‘She didn’t give that impression at all last night.’ Then he turned to look back at the castle and said: ‘What a wonderful place! But hellish uncomfortable. And they obviously haven’t a cent. I suppose one can’t blame the poor girl.’

‘One can blame her for being so darned obvious,’ said Neil. ‘And that ridiculous dress – at this time of the day! Funny, I rather liked her in it last night.’

‘The stepmother seems quite pleasant. She looked about as uncomfortable as I felt. My God, how that girl embarrassed me!’

‘We shall have to drop them, Simon. If we don’t, she may put you in a very awkward position.’

Simon said he supposed so. They were talking quietly, but it was so still that every word came to me clearly. As they passed the barn, Neil said:

‘Pity we didn’t see the child again. She was a cute kid.’

‘A bit consciously naïve, don’t you think?’ said Simon. ‘I shall feel worst about dropping the old man – I’d rather hoped I could help him. But I don’t suppose there’s much one can do if he’s a hopeless drunk.’

Oh, I could kill them! When Father doesn’t even get enough to eat, let alone any strong drink! And he isn’t an old man – he’s not yet fifty.

I didn’t hear any more. I wish now that I had rushed out and hit them. That would have showed them if I am consciously naïve!

What on earth did Rose do? I must go in.

Eight o’clock. In the drawing-room.

I have come in here to get away from Rose. She is drying her hair in the kitchen and manicuring her nails with a sharpened match. And she is talking, talking. I don’t know how Topaz can stand it, knowing what she does know – for I couldn’t keep it to myself, I couldn’t bear to. I might have done if I hadn’t found her alone when I got in; but I did and she saw that I was upset. I began to tell her in a whisper – ours is a dreadful house for being overheard in – but she said: ‘Wait,’ and pulled me out into the garden. We could hear Rose singing upstairs, so we didn’t talk until we had crossed the bridge and gone a little way up the mound.

Topaz wasn’t as furious as I had expected – but, of course, I didn’t tell her the bit about Father. She wasn’t even surprised. She said Rose had seen the Cottons coming from her bedroom window and nothing would stop her changing into the tea-gown. (As if anyone ever wore a tea-gown for tea!) And she had behaved insanely, making a dead set at Simon Cotton.

‘Do you mean she was too nice to him?’

‘Not exactly – that mightn’t have mattered so much. She was terribly affected, she kept challenging him – if she’d had a fan she’d have tapped him with it and said, “Fie, fie!” And she fluttered her eyelids. It’d all have been very fetching a hundred years ago.’

Oh, I could see it! Rose got it out of old books. We’ve never known any modern women except Topaz, and Rose would never dream of copying her. Oh, poor, poor Rose – she never even saw modern girls on the pictures, as I did.

‘They won’t come back,’ said Topaz, ‘I’d have known that, even if you hadn’t overheard what they said.’

I said we didn’t want them, that they must be hateful people to talk like that. But Topaz said that was nonsense – ‘Rose asked for it. Men don’t really mind your showing you like them when you do, but they run a mile from obvious fascination – that’s what it was, of course, all the challenging and head-tossing, and all directed at Simon in the crudest way. If Mortmain had been in he might have chaffed her out of it – anyway, he’d have talked to them himself. Oh, blast!’

Father had gone for a walk – the first he has taken for months. Topaz said Simon Cotton had brought him a book by a famous American critic because one of the essays in it dealt with Jacob Wrestling.

‘I suppose Simon just might come back to talk to Mortmain,’ she said. But I knew better.

It was beginning to get dark. There was a light down in the kitchen. We saw Rose pass the window.

‘Shall we tell her?’ I said.

Topaz thought not – unless we ever get asked to Scoatney – ‘If we do, we might try to kick some sense into her.’

We won’t get asked.

Topaz put her arm round me and we trudged down the mound – very awkwardly because she takes longer strides than I can. When we got to the bottom she looked back at Belmotte Tower, dark against the twilight sky.

‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’ she said in her most velvety tones.

How could she really be interested in beauty at such a moment? Incidentally, when she painted the tower she made it look like a black rolling-pin on an overturned green pudding basin.

My candle is burning out and the drawing-room is getting colder and colder – the fire has been out for hours; but I can’t write this in the same room with Rose. When I look at her I feel I am watching a rat in a trap that hopes it will get out when I know it won’t. Not that I ever watched a rat in a trap, nor does Rose think she is in one; but this is no moment to be finicky about metaphors.

Heloïse has just pushed the door open and come in and licked me, which is kind but so chilly as I dry. And I can now hear what is going on in the kitchen far more fully than I could wish. Father is there now and is talking excitedly – he says the American critic has discovered things in Jacob Wrestling that he certainly never put there and that the arrogance of critics is beyond belief. He is obviously enjoying the thought of discussing it all with Simon Cotton. Rose’s exuberance has risen higher and higher. I regret to say that she is now whistling.

Stephen has been in and put his coat round me. It smells of horses.

Am I consciously naïve? Perhaps I am, perhaps this journal is. In future I will write it in stark prose. But I won’t really write it at all any more, because I have come to the end of this exercise book – I have already used both inside covers and am now crossing my writing, and crossed speed-writing will probably never come uncrossed.

It must be just twenty-four hours since those Cottons walked in on me in my bath.

Topaz has just yelled that she is making cocoa. Oh, comfortable cocoa! Not so good – Topaz has now yelled that it will have to be made with water because the Cottons drank the milk; there was no tea to offer them. Still, any kind of cocoa is good. But it will be agony to know that Rose will think we are having it to celebrate, while Topaz and I know that it is funeral baked meats.

THE END
SLAM THE BOOK SHUT