trying to hold my deepest feelings back- I hadn't even let myself
realize he was going away. There would be a long time for realizing it after he had gone.
At last he said: "I think your father believes that the interest so many people take in puzzles and problems--which often starts in
earliest childhood--represents more than a mere desire for recreation; that it may even derive from man's eternal curiosity about his origin.
Anyway, it makes use of certain faculties for progressive, cumulative search which no other mental exercise does. Your father wants to
communicate his ideas through those faculties."
I asked him to repeat it, slowly. And suddenly I saw--oh, I saw
absolutely!
"But how does it work?" I cried.
He told me to think of a crossword puzzle--of the hundreds of images
that pass through the mind while solving one.
"In your father's puzzles, the sum-total of the images adds up to the meaning he wants to convey. And the sum-total of all the sections of
his book, all the puzzles, problems, patterns, progressions--I believe there's even going to be a detective section- will add up to his
philosophy of search-creation."
"And where do those cats on mats come in ?" I enquired, a bit satirically.
He said they were probably there to induce a mood.
"Imagine yourself a child faced with the first enigmatic symbols of your lifetime-the letters of the alphabet.
Think of letters before you understood them, then of the letters
becoming words, then of the words becoming pictures in the mind. Why
are you looking so worried? Am I confusing you ?"
"Not in the least," I said.
"I understand everything you've said. But- oh, Simon, I feel so
resentful Why should Father make things so difficult? Why can't he
say what he means plainly ?"
"Because there's so much that just can't be said plainly. Try
describing what beauty is- plainly- and you'll see what I mean." Then he said that art could state very little- that its whole business was to evoke responses. And that without innovations and experiments such as Father's -all art would stagnate.
"That's why one ought not to let oneself resent them- though I believe it's a normal instinct, probably due to subconscious fear of what we
don't understand."
Then he spoke of some of the great innovations that had been resented at first Beethoven's last quartets, and lots of modern music, and the work of many great painters that almost everyone now admires. There
aren't as many innovations in literature as in the other arts, Simon
said, and that is all the more reason why Father ought to be
encouraged.
"Well, I'll encourage him for all I'm worth," I said.
"Even if I still do resent him a bit, I'll try to hide it."
"You won't be able to," said Simon.
"And resentment will paralyse your powers of perception.
Oh, lord, how am I to get you on his side?
Look--can you always express just what you want to express, in your
journal? Does everything go into nice tidy words? Aren't you
constantly driven to metaphor his The first man to use a metaphor was a whale of an innovator--and now we use them almost without realizing it.
In a sense your father's whole work is only an extension of
metaphor."
When he said that, I had a sudden memory of how difficult it was to
describe the feelings I had on Midsummer Eve, and of how I wrote of the day as a cathedral-like avenue. The images that came into my mind then have been linked with that day and with Simon ever since. Yet I could never explain how the image and the reality merge, and how they somehow extend and beautify each other.
"Was Father trying to express things as inexpressible as that... his
"Something's clicked in your mind," said Simon.
"Can you put it into words ?"
"Certainly not into nice tidy ones--" I tried to speak lightly; remembering Midsummer Eve had made me so very conscious of loving
him.
"But I've stopped feeling resentful. It'll be all right now.
I'm on his side."
After that we talked about what started Father writing again.
I suppose we shall never know if locking him in the tower really did
any good.
Simon thought it was more likely that everything worked together--"Our coming here; Mother's very stimulating, you know. And his reading at
Scoatney may have helped-I strewed the place with stuff that I thought might interest him. I believe he does feel that being shut in the
tower caused some kind of emotional release; and he certainly hands you full credit for telling him to write "The cat sat on the mat."
That started him off--gave him the whole idea of the child learning to read."
Personally, I think what helped Father most was losing his temper. I
feel more and more sure that the cake-knife incident taught him too
much of a lesson, somehow tied him up mentally. Simon thought that was quite a good theory.
"What's his temper like nowadays ?" he asked.
"Well, most of the time he's nicer than I ever remember him. But in spasms, it's terrific.
Topaz is adoring life."
"Dear Topaz!" said Simon, smiling.
"She's the perfect wife for him now that he's working--and he knows it.
But I don't see how life at the castle can be much fun for you this
winter. There'll be a maid at the flat, if you feel like staying there sometimes. Are you sure you don't want to go to college ?"
"Quite sure. I only want to write. And there's no college for that except life."
He laughed and said I was a complete joy to him sometimes so old for my age and sometimes so young.
"I'd rather like to learn typing and real shorthand," I told him.
"Then I could be an author's secretary while I'm waiting to be an author."
He said Topaz would arrange it for me. I know he is leaving money with her for all of us--he made her feel that she ought to take it to shield Father from anxiety. Oh, he is indeed a most gracious and generous
"patron"!
"And you must write to me for anything you want," he added.
"Anyway, I shall be back soon."
"I wonder."
He looked at me quickly and asked what I meant.
I wished I hadn't said it. For weeks now I have feared that having
been hurt so much by Rose may have put him off living in England.
"I just wondered if America might claim you," I said.
He didn't answer for so long that I visualized him gone for ever and
the Fox-Cottons installed at Scoatney as they so much want to be.
"Perhaps I shall never see him again," I thought, and suddenly felt so cold that I gave a little shiver.
Simon noticed it and moved closer, pulling the rug up around us both.
Then he said:
"I shall come back all right. I could never desert
I said I knew he loved it dearly.
"Dearly and sadly. In a way, it's like loving a beautiful, dying woman. One knows the spirit of such houses can't survive very much
longer."
Then we spoke of the autumn--he hoped he would he in time to catch a
glimpse of it in New England.
"Is it more beautiful than this ?" I asked.
"No. But it's less melancholy. So many of the loveliest things in England are melancholy." He stared across the fields, then added quickly--"Not that I'm melancholy this afternoon. I never am, when I'm with you. Do you know this is our third conversation on Belmotte
mound?"
I knew it very well.
"Yes, I suppose it is," I said, trying to sound casual. I don't think I managed it, because he suddenly slipped his arm round me. The still afternoon seemed stiller, the late sunlight was like a blessing. As
long as I live I shall remember that silent minute.
At last he said: "I wish I could take you to America with me. Would you like to come ?"