held Cassandra’s journal could be worked open with the key of her mother’s sewing-machine. Indeed, she did not know now whether Cassandra had known this.
She had still a slight feeling of sacrilege on going into Cassandra’s tiny dark room.
‘It was in the window-seat,’ said Cassandra. ‘As I remember.’ She knelt down in the bay of the window and turned back the lid. There were armfuls of the Game; an enormous roll of oilskin, several shoe boxes of clay figures, more boxes of little cards, which were written over with rules and forfeits laid out like laws, long, heavy ledgers written up alternately by Cassandra and Julia; move by move chronicles, increasing in length and complexity over the years. It had all begun when they were seven and nine, with the personification of a pack of cards which they had divided into four armies – the red were Julia’s, the black Cassandra’s. From day to day they had expanded the account of their battles, rounding out characters and creating rules for movement – the oilskin map had come next with a whole countryside laid out on it, castles, rivers, cottages, chapels, glued and varnished largely by Cassandra who was capable of producing fine and delicate lines with a paint brush and pen. This oilskin map covered a good half of their hall area, when unrolled now; they had wanted to make it three-dimensional, but had run into storage problems.
The clay figures had been a later development, when the armies had expanded beyond their original thirteen men, and when Cassandra had discovered Morris, Tennyson and the
Morte d’Arthur
indiscriminately together. In the early days, they had worked entirely together, and the plots they created had consisted largely of the machinations of organized military antagonism. Later, the emphasis shifted from the moves on theboard to the chronicling of intrigue, misguided love and eternal hatred: Cassandra wrote long poems in ballad metre about the affairs of Queen Morgan, and Julia chronicled every stage of the hopeless passion of Elaine of Astolat. Both sisters at this stage were aware that the other’s imagination was also vigorously working in private on what was discussed less hotly in public, over the map. Julia had what she read of Cassandra’s journal to prove it. But it had been completely absorbing, Julia thought now, it had taken up almost all her attention between the ages of seven and seventeen: they had worked out already attitudes to all sorts of adult problems which she for one had found alternately percipient and fantastically thwarting – how did one ever rid oneself of a longing for a devouring love which one saw, wisely, to be impossible, but had enjoyed in such verisimilitude and detail when nothing else was happening to one at all? She looked at Cassandra, who was silently, with pursed lips, deploying her black forces across the map. The things
she
had imagined had frightened Julia, who as a child had had nightmares, and woken screaming and sweating to be comforted by Inge on account of things she had lived through with Cassandra earlier in the day. Cassandra had always seen the nightmares as a simple manoeuvre to gain credit for herself and put Cassandra in the wrong; but for days together Julia had walked up and down the village streets pursued by vague fears and a sense of doom. Her attempts to palliate Cassandra’s dramas with happy endings, or innocent affections, had been no use – Cassandra paid little attention, and when she did twisted Julia’s stories towards her own grim conclusions.
Well, she had shaken it off, slowly, and felt impoverished for it. She had shaken off, that was, almost everything but the nightmares, which persisted; her own countryside peopled by Cassandra’s characters and events. It was easy enough to see what Cassandra had made of it all – an object for detailed examination, sterilized with footnotes and things.
She could guess, she thought, what Cassandra dreamed – and not only at
She had still a slight feeling of sacrilege on going into Cassandra’s tiny dark room.
‘It was in the window-seat,’ said Cassandra. ‘As I remember.’ She knelt down in the bay of the window and turned back the lid. There were armfuls of the Game; an enormous roll of oilskin, several shoe boxes of clay figures, more boxes of little cards, which were written over with rules and forfeits laid out like laws, long, heavy ledgers written up alternately by Cassandra and Julia; move by move chronicles, increasing in length and complexity over the years. It had all begun when they were seven and nine, with the personification of a pack of cards which they had divided into four armies – the red were Julia’s, the black Cassandra’s. From day to day they had expanded the account of their battles, rounding out characters and creating rules for movement – the oilskin map had come next with a whole countryside laid out on it, castles, rivers, cottages, chapels, glued and varnished largely by Cassandra who was capable of producing fine and delicate lines with a paint brush and pen. This oilskin map covered a good half of their hall area, when unrolled now; they had wanted to make it three-dimensional, but had run into storage problems.
The clay figures had been a later development, when the armies had expanded beyond their original thirteen men, and when Cassandra had discovered Morris, Tennyson and the
Morte d’Arthur
indiscriminately together. In the early days, they had worked entirely together, and the plots they created had consisted largely of the machinations of organized military antagonism. Later, the emphasis shifted from the moves on theboard to the chronicling of intrigue, misguided love and eternal hatred: Cassandra wrote long poems in ballad metre about the affairs of Queen Morgan, and Julia chronicled every stage of the hopeless passion of Elaine of Astolat. Both sisters at this stage were aware that the other’s imagination was also vigorously working in private on what was discussed less hotly in public, over the map. Julia had what she read of Cassandra’s journal to prove it. But it had been completely absorbing, Julia thought now, it had taken up almost all her attention between the ages of seven and seventeen: they had worked out already attitudes to all sorts of adult problems which she for one had found alternately percipient and fantastically thwarting – how did one ever rid oneself of a longing for a devouring love which one saw, wisely, to be impossible, but had enjoyed in such verisimilitude and detail when nothing else was happening to one at all? She looked at Cassandra, who was silently, with pursed lips, deploying her black forces across the map. The things
she
had imagined had frightened Julia, who as a child had had nightmares, and woken screaming and sweating to be comforted by Inge on account of things she had lived through with Cassandra earlier in the day. Cassandra had always seen the nightmares as a simple manoeuvre to gain credit for herself and put Cassandra in the wrong; but for days together Julia had walked up and down the village streets pursued by vague fears and a sense of doom. Her attempts to palliate Cassandra’s dramas with happy endings, or innocent affections, had been no use – Cassandra paid little attention, and when she did twisted Julia’s stories towards her own grim conclusions.
Well, she had shaken it off, slowly, and felt impoverished for it. She had shaken off, that was, almost everything but the nightmares, which persisted; her own countryside peopled by Cassandra’s characters and events. It was easy enough to see what Cassandra had made of it all – an object for detailed examination, sterilized with footnotes and things.
She could guess, she thought, what Cassandra dreamed – and not only at
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