We Have Always Lived in the Castle

things, and something from this drawer might be extraordinarily powerful, since it would carry a guilt of Charles. I was not surprised to find that he had been looking at our father’s jewelry; inside the drawer was a leather box which held, I knew, a watch and chain made of gold, and cuff links, and a signet ring. I would not touch our mother’s jewelry, but Constance had not said anything about our father’s jewelry, had not even come into this room to neaten, so I thought I could open the box and take something out. The watch was inside, in a small private box of its own, resting on a satin lining and not ticking, and the watch chain was curled beside it. I would not touch the ring; the thought of a ring around my finger always made me feel tied tight, because rings had no openings to get out of, but I liked the watch chain, which twisted and wound around my hand when I picked it up. I put the jewelry box carefully back inside the drawer and closed the drawer and went out of the room and closed the door after me, and took the watch chain into my room, where it curled again into a sleeping gold heap on the pillow.

I had intended to bury it, but I was sorry when I thought how long it had been there in the darkness in the box in our father’s drawer, and I thought that it had earned a place up high, where it could sparkle in the sunlight, and I decided to nail it to the tree where the book had come down. While Constance made gingerbread in the kitchen, and Uncle Julian slept in his room, and Charles walked in and out of the village stores, I lay on my bed and played with my golden chain.

“That’s my brother’s gold watch chain,” Uncle Julian said, leaning forward curiously. “I thought he was buried in it.”

Charles’ hand was shaking as he held it out; I could see it shaking against the yellow of the wall behind him. “In a tree,” he said, and his voice was shaking too. “I found it nailed to a tree, for God’s sake. What kind of a house is this?”

“It’s not important,” Constance said. “Really, Charles, it’s not important.”

“Not important? Connie, this thing’s made of gold.”

“But no one wants it.”

“One of the links is smashed,” Charles said, mourning over the chain. “I could have worn it; what a hell of a way to treat a valuable thing. We could have sold it,” he said to Constance.

“But why?”

“I certainly did think he was buried in it,” Uncle Julian said. “He was never a man to give things away easily. I suppose he never knew they kept it from him.”

“It’s worth money,” Charles said, explaining carefully to Constance. “This is a gold watch chain, worth possibly a good deal of money. Sensible people don’t go around nailing this kind of valuable thing to trees.”

“Lunch will be cold if you stand there worrying.”

“I’ll take it up and put it back in the box where it belongs,” Charles said. No one but me noticed that he knew where it had been kept. “Later,” he said, looking at me, “we’ll find out how it got on the tree.”

“Merricat put it there,” Constance said. “Please do come to lunch.”

“How do you know? About Mary?”

“She always does.” Constance smiled at me. “Silly Merricat.”

“Does she indeed?” said Charles. He came slowly over to the table, looking at me.

“He was a man very fond of his person,” Uncle Julian said. “Given to adorning himself, and not overly clean.”

It was quiet in the kitchen; Constance was in Uncle Julian’s room, putting him to bed for his afternoon nap. “Where would poor Cousin Mary go if her sister turned her out?” Charles asked Jonas, who listened quietly. “What would poor Cousin Mary do if Constance and Charles didn’t love her?”

I cannot think why it seemed to me that I might simply ask Charles to go away. Perhaps I thought that he had to be asked politely just once; perhaps the idea of going away had just not come into his mind and it was necessary to put it there. I decided that asking Charles to go away was the next thing to do, before he was everywhere in the house and could never be eradicated. Already the house smelled of him, of his pipe and his shaving lotion, and the noise of him echoed in the rooms all day long; his pipe was sometimes on the kitchen table and his gloves or his tobacco pouch or his constant boxes of matches were scattered through our rooms. He walked into the village each afternoon and brought back newspapers which he left lying anywhere, even in the kitchen where Constance might see them. A spark from his pipe had left a tiny burn on the rose brocade of a chair in the drawing room; Constance had not yet noticed it and I thought not to tell her because I hoped that the house, injured, would reject him by itself.

“Constance,” I asked her on a bright morning; Charles had been in our house for three days then, I thought; “Constance, has he said anything yet about leaving?”

She was increasingly cross with me when I wanted Charles to leave; always before Constance had listened and smiled and only been angry when Jonas and I had been wicked, but now she frowned at me often, as though I somehow looked different to her. “I’ve told you,” she said to me, “I’ve told you and told you that I won’t hear any more silliness about Charles. He is our cousin and he has been invited to visit us and he will probably go when he is ready.”

“He makes Uncle Julian sicker.”

“He’s only trying to keep Uncle Julian from thinking about sad things all the time. And I agree with him. Uncle Julian should be cheerful.”

“Why should he be cheerful if he’s going to die?”

“I haven’t been doing my duty,” Constance said.

“I don’t know what that means.”

“I’ve been hiding here,” Constance said slowly, as though she were not at all sure of the correct order of the words. She stood by the stove in the sunlight with color in her hair and eyes and not smiling, and she said slowly, “I have let Uncle Julian spend all his time living in the past and particularly re-living that one dreadful day. I have let you run wild; how long has it been since you combed your hair?”

I could not allow myself to be angry, and particularly not angry with Constance, but I wished Charles dead. Constance needed guarding more than ever before and if I became angry and looked aside she might very well be lost. I said very cautiously, “On the moon…”

“On the moon,” Constance said, and laughed unpleasantly. “It’s all been my fault,” she said. “I didn’t realize how wrong I was, letting things go on and on because I wanted to hide. It wasn’t fair to you or to Uncle Julian.”

“And Charles is also mending the broken step?”

“Uncle Julian should be in a hospital, with nurses to take care of him. And you—” She opened her eyes wide suddenly, as though seeing her old Merricat again, and then she held out her arms to me. “Oh, Merricat,” she said, and laughed a little. “Listen to me scolding you; how silly I am.”

I went to her and put my arms around her. “I love you, Constance.”

“You’re a good child, Merricat,” she said.

That was when I left her and went outside to talk to Charles. I knew I would dislike talking to Charles, but it was almost too late to ask him politely and I thought I should ask him once. Even the garden had become a strange landscape with Charles’ figure in it; I could see him standing under the apple trees and the trees were crooked and shortened beside him. I came out the kitchen door and walked slowly toward him. I was trying to think charitably of him, since I would never be able to speak kindly until I did, but whenever I thought of his big white face grinning at me across the table or watching me whenever I moved I wanted to beat at him until he went away, I wanted to stamp on him after he was dead, and see him lying dead on the grass. So I made my mind charitable toward Charles and came up to him slowly.

“Cousin Charles?” I said, and he turned to look at me. I thought of seeing him dead. “Cousin Charles?”

“Well?”

“I have decided to ask you please to go away.”

“All right,” he said. “You asked me.”

“Please will you go away?”

“No,” he said.

I could not think of anything further to say. I saw that he was wearing our father’s gold watch chain, even