Read We Have Always Lived in the Castle for Free Online Page B

at me. “Partly because you bring home food, of course. But partly because I miss you.”
    â€œI’m always happy to get home from the village,” I told her.
    â€œWas it very bad?” She touched my cheek quickly with one finger.
    â€œYou don’t want to know about it.”
    â€œSomeday I’ll go.” It was the second time she had spoken of going outside, and I was chilled.
    â€œConstance,” Uncle Julian said. He lifted a small scrap of paper from his desk and studied it, frowning. “I do not seem to have any information on whether your father took his cigar in the garden as usual that morning.”
    â€œI’m sure he did,” Constance said. “That cat’s been fishing in the creek,” she told me. “He came in all mud.” She folded the grocery bag and put it with the others in the drawer, and set the library books on the shelf where they were going to stay forever. Jonas and I were expected to stay in our corner, out of the way, while Constance worked in the kitchen, and it was a joy to watch her, moving beautifully in the sunlight, touching foods so softly. “It’s Helen Clarke’s day,” I said. “Are you frightened?”
    She turned to smile at me. “Not a bit,” she said. “I’m getting better all the time, I think. And today I’m going to make little rum cakes.”
    â€œAnd Helen Clarke will scream and gobble them.”
    Even now, Constance and I still saw some small society, visiting acquaintances who drove up the driveway to call. Helen Clarke took her tea with us on Fridays, and Mrs. Shepherd or Mrs. Rice or old Mrs. Crowley stopped by occasionally on a Sunday after church to tell us we would have enjoyed the sermon. They came dutifully, although we never returned their calls, and stayed a proper few minutes and sometimes brought flowers from their gardens, or books, or a song that Constance might care to try over on her harp; they spoke politely and with little runs of laughter, and never failed to invite us to their houses although they knew we would never come. They were civil to Uncle Julian, and patient with his talk, they offered to take us for drives in their cars, they referred to themselves as our friends. Constance and I always spoke well of them to each other, because they believed that their visits brought us pleasure. They never walked on the path. If Constance offered them a cutting from a rosebush, or invited them to see a happy new arrangement of colors, they went into the garden, but they never offered to step beyond their defined areas; they walked along the garden and got into their cars by the front door and drove away down the driveway and out through the big gates. Several times Mr. and Mrs. Carrington had come to see how we were getting along, because Mr. Carrington had been a very good friend of our father’s. They never came inside or took any refreshment, but they drove to the front steps and sat in their car and talked for a few minutes. “How are you getting along?” they always asked, looking from Constance to me and back; “how are you managing all by yourselves? Is there anything you need, anything we can do? How are you getting along?” Constance always invited them in, because we had been brought up to believe that it was discourteous to keep guests talking outside, but the Carringtons never came into the house. “I wonder,” I said, thinking about them, “whether the Carringtons would bring me a horse if I asked them. I could ride it in the long meadow.”
    Constance turned and looked at me for a minute, frowning a little. “You will not ask them,” she said at last. “We do not ask from anyone. Remember that.”
    â€œI was teasing,” I said, and she smiled again. “I really only want a winged horse, anyway. We could fly you to the moon and back, my horse and I.”
    â€œI remember when you used to want a