if I had to go.
‘Now they have gone across the park, my father and Miss D. What are they saying about me? I hope they decide nothing horrible. Nanny found three eggs in the rose-garden but when she broke them into the basin the smell was awful. It is that brown hen hiding them I think, the one which just eat the cucumber.’
Then she turned the page and dipping her pen into a different coloured ink, wrote:
‘
Marks for the Day.’
Without hesitation, she summed up her day’s behaviour.
‘Goodness. Fair.
Helpfulness to others … Held M’s wool for her, fed hens,
ran errand (Liver salts) for Aunt T.
Industry. Made bed. Learnt vocab.
Did the Pliny. Forgot to turn the mattress, though.
Bravery. Not.
Honesty. O.K.
Prayers. A good ten minutes.
N.B. Must not be morebid any more.’
The mauve ink filled her nails. It had been a good deal of writing for a little girl and had all to be gone through again the next evening. Her life seemed burdened with her own rules. She put away her writing things and lay back (one pillow only lest she should grow a double chin). There was still the antidream formula to be gone through. ‘Please God defend me fromall nightmares, dreams about Chinamen, or gibbets and tumbrils or coffins, or cellars and caves, or snakes and any reptiles or unpleasant creatures, or burglars, or ghosts or skeletons and do not let me be chased or shut up or frightened and do not let me see Thee in a vision because I am not worthy. And last of all, dear God, in your great goodness, do not let me dream anything at all.’
She lay still, looking at the darkening ceiling. ‘Or vampirebats,’ she added, and fell asleep.
They had crossed the park, as Sophy had noted, and now they came to rank grass and the broken boundary fence lying in the nettles. Beyond a little stream the ground rose more steeply towards woods. Marion led the way along the fence, and crossed over a little bridge. They walked through sorrel and clover and came at last to a summer-house, built as a Gothic ruin. It was carefully contrived to look like a fragment of an old abbey and yet not let in the rain.
‘There is a little water-colour of this in my bedroom,’ said Cassandra, sitting down on a stone seat over which he had spread a large yellow silk handkerchief.
‘And I have a pen-and-ink sketch of it in mine,’ he said. ‘I think all the young ladies of the house used to come out here with camp-stools and governesses and sketch-books.’
‘Perhaps I should bring Sophy.’
‘My dear, I didn’t lump
you
in with the camp-stools.’
She was by now so much in love with him that she was ready at all times to take offence at what he said.
‘The woods are most Radcliffean,’ he went on. They were indeed darkly green and menacing and emitted a flustered bird from time to time, a jay with a horrid squawk, or a wood-pigeon breaking out of the branches as if it fled from demons. Before them the plaited water went idly past, weeds of great brilliancywavering above the mosaic of white and black and yellow stones. There was a smell of fungus and rotting leaves and water.
‘What happened about Sophy’s little cat?’
‘It died. And was buried.’
‘Why do you suppose she kept that from me?’
‘It was when I first came. I don’t know. I asked her to tell you …’
‘And she wouldn’t? After all, I gave her the cat.’
‘Perhaps that was why.’
‘No. Who else knew? Tom?’
She was flurried, wanting to lie to him, but unable, because she was nervous of committing herself either way.
‘Yes.’
When it was necessary to ease her silence: ‘You must think this a very odd household.’
The sun set, leaving the tops of the sorrel ruddy and luminous, the grass lay this way and that, full of shadows, every blade separate. The mist moving away across the distant prospect of the park was in keeping with the Gothic woods and ruin, and Cassandra, sitting there with the broken flint walls arching above her, felt
‘Now they have gone across the park, my father and Miss D. What are they saying about me? I hope they decide nothing horrible. Nanny found three eggs in the rose-garden but when she broke them into the basin the smell was awful. It is that brown hen hiding them I think, the one which just eat the cucumber.’
Then she turned the page and dipping her pen into a different coloured ink, wrote:
‘
Marks for the Day.’
Without hesitation, she summed up her day’s behaviour.
‘Goodness. Fair.
Helpfulness to others … Held M’s wool for her, fed hens,
ran errand (Liver salts) for Aunt T.
Industry. Made bed. Learnt vocab.
Did the Pliny. Forgot to turn the mattress, though.
Bravery. Not.
Honesty. O.K.
Prayers. A good ten minutes.
N.B. Must not be morebid any more.’
The mauve ink filled her nails. It had been a good deal of writing for a little girl and had all to be gone through again the next evening. Her life seemed burdened with her own rules. She put away her writing things and lay back (one pillow only lest she should grow a double chin). There was still the antidream formula to be gone through. ‘Please God defend me fromall nightmares, dreams about Chinamen, or gibbets and tumbrils or coffins, or cellars and caves, or snakes and any reptiles or unpleasant creatures, or burglars, or ghosts or skeletons and do not let me be chased or shut up or frightened and do not let me see Thee in a vision because I am not worthy. And last of all, dear God, in your great goodness, do not let me dream anything at all.’
She lay still, looking at the darkening ceiling. ‘Or vampirebats,’ she added, and fell asleep.
They had crossed the park, as Sophy had noted, and now they came to rank grass and the broken boundary fence lying in the nettles. Beyond a little stream the ground rose more steeply towards woods. Marion led the way along the fence, and crossed over a little bridge. They walked through sorrel and clover and came at last to a summer-house, built as a Gothic ruin. It was carefully contrived to look like a fragment of an old abbey and yet not let in the rain.
‘There is a little water-colour of this in my bedroom,’ said Cassandra, sitting down on a stone seat over which he had spread a large yellow silk handkerchief.
‘And I have a pen-and-ink sketch of it in mine,’ he said. ‘I think all the young ladies of the house used to come out here with camp-stools and governesses and sketch-books.’
‘Perhaps I should bring Sophy.’
‘My dear, I didn’t lump
you
in with the camp-stools.’
She was by now so much in love with him that she was ready at all times to take offence at what he said.
‘The woods are most Radcliffean,’ he went on. They were indeed darkly green and menacing and emitted a flustered bird from time to time, a jay with a horrid squawk, or a wood-pigeon breaking out of the branches as if it fled from demons. Before them the plaited water went idly past, weeds of great brilliancywavering above the mosaic of white and black and yellow stones. There was a smell of fungus and rotting leaves and water.
‘What happened about Sophy’s little cat?’
‘It died. And was buried.’
‘Why do you suppose she kept that from me?’
‘It was when I first came. I don’t know. I asked her to tell you …’
‘And she wouldn’t? After all, I gave her the cat.’
‘Perhaps that was why.’
‘No. Who else knew? Tom?’
She was flurried, wanting to lie to him, but unable, because she was nervous of committing herself either way.
‘Yes.’
When it was necessary to ease her silence: ‘You must think this a very odd household.’
The sun set, leaving the tops of the sorrel ruddy and luminous, the grass lay this way and that, full of shadows, every blade separate. The mist moving away across the distant prospect of the park was in keeping with the Gothic woods and ruin, and Cassandra, sitting there with the broken flint walls arching above her, felt
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