"No, he's always very sneery. But Harry rather fancies it."
I had to concentrate on cooking the haddock then; but while we were
eating it I brought up the subject of psycho-analysis again, and told Thomas of the conversation Simon and I had about it that first time we talked on the mound-though I couldn't remember it very clearly.
"I wish I'd got Simon to tell me more," I said.
"Would Harry's Father have any helpful books, do you think ?"
Thomas said he would find out, though that now Rose was going to marry Simon, it didn't matter so much whether Father wrote or not.
"Oh, Thomas, it does!" I cried.
"It matters most terribly to Father.
And to us, too- because if all the eccentric things he's been doing, on and off for months now, aren't leading somewhere, well, then he is
going crazy. And a crazy Father's not a good idea, quite apart from
our tender feelings towards him."
"Have you tender feelings towards him his I don't know that I have
--not that I dislike him."
Just then, Father came in. He barely said "Hello" in answer to mine and started up the kitchen stairs to his bedroom.
Half-way up, he stopped and looked down at us; then came back
quickly.
"Can you spare me this?" he asked, picking up the backbone of the haddock between his forefinger and thumb.
I thought he was being sarcastic- that he meant we had left him no
fish. I explained that we hadn't expected him, and offered to cook
some eggs at once.
He said: "Oh, I've had tea," and then carried the haddock-bone, dripping milk, out through the back door and across to the gatehouse.
About followed him hopefully. By the time he got back- a very
disappointed cat- Thomas and I were lurching about, laughing in a way that hurts.
"Oh, poor About!" I gasped, as I gave him some scraps from my plate.
"Stop laughing, Thomas. We shall be ashamed of our callousness if Father really is going off his head."
"He isn't -he's putting it on or something," said Thomas. Then a scared look came into his eyes and he added:
"Try to keep knives away from him. I'm going to talk to Harry's father tomorrow."
But Harry's Father wasn't in the least helpful.
"He says he's not a psycho-analyst or a psychiatrist or a
psycho-anything, thank God," Thomas told me, when he got back in the evening.
"And he couldn't think why we wanted to make Father write again, because he once had a look at Jacob Wrestling and didn't understand a word of it. Harry was quite embarrassed."
"Does Harry understand it, then?"
"Yes, of course he does--it's the first I've heard about its being hard to understand. Anyway, what's double-Dutch to one generation's just
"The cat sat on the mat" to the next."
"Even the ladder chapter ?"
"Oh, that!" Thomas smiled tolerantly.
"That's just Father's fun.
And who says you always have to understand things his You can like them without understanding them--like "em better sometimes. I ought to have known Harry's Father would be no help to us-he's the kind of man who
says he enjoys a good yarn."
I certainly have been underestimating Thomas--only a few weeks ago I
should have expected him to enjoy a good yarn himself.
And now I find he has read quite a lot of difficult modern poetry (some master at his school lent it to him) and taken it in his stride.
I wish he had let me read it--though I know very well I can't like
things without understanding them. I am astonished to discover how
high-brow his tastes are--far more so than mine; and it is most
peculiar how he can be so appreciative of all forms of art, but so
matter-of-fact and unemotional about it. But then, he is like that
over most things he has been so calm and assured this last week that I often felt he was older than I was. Yet he can get the giggles and
plunge back into being the most ordinary schoolboy.
Really, the puzzling ness of people!
After we talked about Harry's Father, Thomas settled down to his
homework and I wandered out into the lane. There was a vast red sunset full of strangely shaped, prophetic-looking clouds, and a hot due-south wind was blowing--an exciting sort of wind, I always think; we don't
often get it. But I was too depressed to take much interest in the
evening. All day long I had been hopeful about psycho-analysis; I had expected Thomas to bring home some books we could get our teeth into.
And I hadn't only been thinking of Father's welfare. Early that
morning it had struck me that if he started writing again, Rose might believe there would be enough money coming in to make life bearable,
and still might break her engagement off. I wasn't banking on winning Simon even if she gave him up. But I knew, and shall always know, that he ought not to marry a girl who feels towards him as Rose does.
I went to the end of the lane and turned on to the Godsend road, trying all the time to think of some way of helping both Father and myself.
When I came to the high part of the road I looked back and saw his lamp alight in the gatehouse. I thought how often I had seen it shining
across the fields on my summer evening walks, and how it always
conjured up an image of him-remote, withdrawn, unapproachable. I said to myself, "Surely one ought to know a little more of one's father than we do ?" And as I began walking back to the castle I wondered if the fault could be ours, as well as his. Had I myself really tried to make friends with him his I was sure I had in the past--but had I lately?
No. I excused myself by thinking: "Oh, it's hopeless to make friends with people who never talk about themselves." And then it came to me that one of the few things I do know about psycho-analysis is that
people have to be made to talk about themselves. Had I tried hard
enough with Father--hadn't I always been rebuffed too easily his "Are you frightened of him ?" I asked myself. I knew in my heart that I was. But why his "Has he ever in his life struck any of you ?" Never.
His only weapon has been silence--and sometimes a little sarcasm.
"Then what is this insurmountable barrier round him? What's it made of?
Where did it come from ?"
It had become as if someone outside myself were asking the questions, attacking me with them. I tried to find answers. I wondered if
Mother's training that we must never worry or disturb him had gone on operating-and Topaz had perpetuated it by her habit of protecting him.
I wondered if I had some undetected fear left from the day when I saw him brandishing the cake-knife --if I believed, without ever having
admitted, it, that he really did mean to stab Mother.
"Heavens," I thought, "I'm psycho-analyzing myself, now! If only I could do this to Father!"
I had come round the last bend of the lane and could see him through
the lamp-lit window of the gatehouse. What was he doing? The fact
that he was at his desk didn't necessarily mean he was writing--he
always sits there when reading the Encyclopedia, because it is so heavy to hold. Was he reading now his His head was bent, but I couldn't see what over. Just then he raised his hand to push his hair back. He was holding a pencil And that instant, the voice that had been attacking me as I walked home said: "Suppose he's really working all the time?
Supposing he's writing some wonderful, money-earning book- but you
don't find out until it's too late to help you and Rose?"
I began walking towards the castle again. I don't remember planning
anything, even making a definite decision- it was as if my mind could not go ahead of my steps. I went into the dimness of the gatehouse
passage, then into the blackness of the tower staircase. I groped my
way up to Father's door. I knocked on it.
"Go away," came the instant reply.
The key was in the outside keyhole so I knew he hadn't locked himself in. I opened the door.
As I went in, he swung round from his desk looking furious.
But almost before I had time to notice his expression it was as if a
curtain came down over it, and the fury was hidden.
"Something important ?" he asked, in a perfectly controlled voice.
"Yes. Very," I said, and shut the door behind me.
He got up, looking at me closely.
"What's the matter, Cassandra?
You're unusually pale. Are you ill his You'd better sit down."
But I didn't sit. I stood there staring at the room. Something had
happened to it. Facing me, instead of the long rows of bookshelves
stretching between the north and south windows, was an expanse of
brightly colored paper.
"Heavens, what have you been doing in here ?" I gasped.
He save what I was staring at. ""Oh, those are just American comic strips--commonly called 'the funnies."
Now what is it, Cassandra ?"
I went closer and saw that what I had taken for wallpaper was sheets
and sheets from newspapers, the top edges of which were tacked to the edges of the bookshelves. In the dim light from the lamp I couldn't
see the pictures clearly, but they seemed to be small colored
illustrations joined together.
"Where did they come from ?" I asked.
"I brought them back from Scoatney yesterday.
They're from the American Sunday papers--I gather Neil can't live
without them.
Good heavens, don't start reading them."
"Are they to do with your work ?"
He opened his mouth to reply, and then a nervous, secretive look came into his eyes.