We Have Always Lived in the Castle

the drop fell Charles would go away, but I knew that was not true; holding my breath was too easy.

“Oh, well,” Charles said to Jonas, “Constance likes me, and I guess that’s all that matters.”

Constance came to the doorway, waited for Jonas to move, and when he did not, stepped over him. “More pancakes?” she said to Charles.

“No, thanks. I’m trying to get acquainted with my little cousin.”

“It won’t be long before she’s fond of you.” Constance was looking at me. Jonas had fallen to washing himself, and I thought at last of what to say.

“Today we neaten the house,” I said.

Uncle Julian slept all morning in the garden. Constance went often to the back bedroom windows to look down on him while we worked and stood sometimes, with the dustcloth in her hands, as though she were forgetting to come back and dust our mother’s jewel box that held our mother’s pearls, and her sapphire ring, and her brooch with diamonds. I looked out the window only once, to see Uncle Julian with his eyes closed and Charles standing nearby. It was ugly to think of Charles walking among the vegetables and under the apple trees and across the lawn where Uncle Julian slept.

“We’ll let Father’s room go this morning,” Constance said, “because Charles is living there.” Some time later she said, as though she had been thinking about it, “I wonder if it would be right for me to wear Mother’s pearls. I have never worn pearls.”

“They’ve always been in the box,” I said. “You’d have to take them out.”

“It’s not likely that anyone would care,” Constance said.

“I would care, if you looked more beautiful.”

Constance laughed, and said, “I’m silly now. Why should I want to wear pearls?”

“They’re better off in the box where they belong.”

Charles had closed the door of our father’s room so I could not look inside, but I wondered if he had moved our father’s things, or put a hat or a handkerchief or a glove on the dresser beside our father’s silver brushes. I wondered if he had looked into the closet or into the drawers. Our father’s room was in the front of the house, and I wondered if Charles had looked down from the windows and out over the lawn and the long driveway to the road, and wanted to be on that road and away home.

“How long did it take Charles to get here?” I asked Constance.

“Four or five hours, I think,” she said. “He came by bus to the village, and had to walk from there.”

“Then it will take him four or five hours to get home again?”

“I suppose so. When he goes.”

“But first he will have to walk back to the village?”

“Unless you take him on your winged horse.”

“I don’t have any winged horse,” I said.

“Oh, Merricat,” Constance said. “Charles is not a bad man.”

There were sparkles in the mirrors and inside our mother’s jewel box the diamonds and the pearls were shining in the darkness. Constance made shadows up and down the hall when she went to the window to look down on Uncle Julian and outside the new leaves moved quickly in the sunlight. Charles had only gotten in because the magic was broken; if I could reseal the protection around Constance and shut Charles out he would have to leave the house. Every touch he made on the house must be erased.

“Charles is a ghost,” I said, and Constance sighed.

I polished the doorknob to our father’s room with my dust cloth, and at least one of Charles’ touches was gone.

When we had neatened the upstairs rooms we came downstairs together, carrying our dust cloths and the broom and dustpan and mop like a pair of witches walking home. In the drawing room we dusted the golden-legged chairs and the harp, and everything sparkled at us, even the blue dress in the portrait of our mother. I dusted the wedding-cake trim with a cloth on the end of a broom, staggering, and looking up and pretending that the ceiling was the floor and I was sweeping, hovering busily in space looking down at my broom, weightless and flying until the room swung dizzily and I was again on the floor looking up.

“Charles has not yet seen this room,” Constance said. “Mother was so proud of it; I ought to have showed it to him right away.”

“May I have sandwiches for my lunch? I want to go down to the creek.”

“Sooner or later you’re going to have to sit at the table with him, Merricat.”

“Tonight at dinner. I promise.”

We dusted the dining room and the silver tea service and the high wooden backs of the chairs. Constance went every few minutes into the kitchen to look out the back door and check on Uncle Julian, and once I heard her laugh and call, “Watch out for the mud down there,” and I knew she was talking to Charles.

“Where did you let Charles sit last night at dinner?” I asked her once.

“In Father’s chair,” she said, and then, “He has a perfect right to sit there. He’s a guest, and he even looks like Father.”

“Will he sit there tonight?”

“Yes, Merricat.”

I dusted our father’s chair thoroughly, although it was small use if Charles was to sit there again tonight. I would have to clean all the silverware.

When we had finished neatening the house we came back to the kitchen. Charles was sitting at the kitchen table smoking his pipe and looking at Jonas, who was looking back at him. The pipe smoke was disagreeable in our kitchen, and I disliked having Jonas look at Charles. Constance went on out the back door to get Uncle Julian, and we could hear him say, “Dorothy? I was not asleep, Dorothy.”

“Cousin Mary doesn’t like me,” Charles said again to Jonas. “I wonder if Cousin Mary knows how I get even with people who don’t like me? Can I help you with that chair, Constance? Have a nice nap, Uncle?”

Constance made sandwiches for Jonas and me, and we ate them in a tree; I sat in a low fork and Jonas sat on a small branch near me, watching for birds.

“Jonas,” I told him, “you are not to listen any more to Cousin Charles,” and Jonas regarded me in wide-eyed astonishment, that I should attempt to make decisions for him. “Jonas,” I said, “he is a ghost,” and Jonas closed his eyes and turned away.

It was important to choose the exact device to drive Charles away. An imperfect magic, or one incorrectly used, might only bring more disaster upon our house. I thought of my mother’s jewels, since this was a day of sparkling things, but they might not be strong on a dull day, and Constance would be angry if I took them out of the box where they belonged, when she herself had decided against it. I thought of books, which are always strongly protective, but my father’s book had fallen from the tree and let Charles in; books, then, were perhaps powerless against Charles. I lay back against the tree trunk and thought of magic; if Charles had not gone away before three days I would smash the mirror in the hall.

He sat across from me at dinner, in our father’s chair, with his big white face blotting out the silver on the sideboard behind him. He watched while Constance cut up Uncle Julian’s chicken and put it correctly on the plate, and he watched when Uncle Julian took the first bite and turned it over and over in his mouth.

“Here is a biscuit, Uncle Julian,” Constance said. “Eat the soft inside.”

Constance had forgotten and put dressing on my salad, but I would not have eaten anyway with that big white face watching. Jonas, who was not allowed chicken, sat on the floor beside my chair.

“Does he always eat with you?” Charles asked once, nodding his head at Uncle Julian.

“When he’s well enough,” Constance said.

“I wonder how you stand it,” Charles said.

“I tell you, John,” Uncle Julian said suddenly to Charles, “investments are not what they were when Father made his money. He was a shrewd man, but he never understood that times change.”

“Who’s he talking to?” Charles asked Constance.

“He thinks you are his brother John.”

Charles looked at Uncle Julian for a long minute, and then shook his head and returned to his chicken.