Shirley Jackson - We Have Always Lived In The Castle by Shirley Jackson

Author:Shirley Jackson
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2011-04-22T07:49:20+00:00

Shirley Jackson - We Have Always Lived In The Castle

“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 with the crooked link, and I knew without seeing that our father’s watch was in his pocket. I thought that tomorrow he would be wearing our father’s signet ring, and I wondered if he would make Constance put on our mother’s pearls.

“You stay away from Jonas,” I said.

“As a matter of fact,” he said, “come about a month from now, I wonder who will still be here? You,” he said, “or me?

I ran back into the house and straight up to our father’s room, where I hammered with a shoe at the mirror over the dresser until it cracked across. Then I went into my room and rested my head on the window sill and slept.

I was remembering these days to be kinder to Uncle Julian. I was sorry because he was spending more and more time in his room, taking both his breakfast and his lunch on a tray and only eating his dinners in the dining room under the despising eye of Charles.

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