Poverty Castle by John Robin Jenkins

sixty thousand, if he ever wanted to sell. Mr Patterson hoped he would not. It was pleasant to think of the resurrected house on the machair ringing with the laughter of those charming little girls, and having as its chatelaine that sweet lovely woman.
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    H E HAD never let anyone, not even Jessie, see his work in progress. Nor had she ever asked. She knew how touchy and anxious an author was when working on a new book. All the praise in the world wasn’t reassurance enough.
    This time, however, since it would be his last, she subdued her pride and asked how his ‘happy’ novel was getting on. Would he mind if she had a look at what he had done? If he had declined she would have been relieved, because in fairness to both of them she would have to say honestly what she thought, even if it disappointed and hurt him.
    He hesitated. He had only written five chapters, he said. A lot of revision had to be done.
    Thus discouraged she should have said, ‘All right. I’ll wait till it’s finished.’ Except she didn’t think it would ever be finished. But it was her duty as his wife to give him what support she could. If what he had written showed signs of enfeebled powers it would be up to her to try to dissuade him from going on with it, to the detriment of his health, physical and mental.
    â€˜If you like,’ he said at last.
    She waited until he had gone out for his daily walk before reading it. She did not want him moping nearby. Like Harvey the cat when a mouse he had brought in had been taken from him.
    He was back in the house a good three hours before the subject was brought up. Out of pride he would not bring it up, and she perversely indicated that she had more urgent matters to attend to, such as the ironing and preparing the evening meal.
    At table they listened to the six o’clock news on the radio. As usual it was mainly about violence and death.
    â€˜About your book, Donald,’ she said. ‘You’ve cheated. By making them so well-off. So it’s easy for them not to be envious or covetous, which I’ve heard you say are the greatest causes of bitterness and unhappiness. Rich too, through no effort of their own. Handed to them on a plate. I thought you objected to inherited fortunes. Why should a rich man’s children have so many advantages over a poor man’s?’
    He was silent.
    â€˜I’m surprised you didn’t have them give it all away. That would have been more your kind of book.’
    â€˜Perhaps I couldn’t.’
    â€˜Do you mean nobody would have believed you?’
    â€˜A novelist can’t make his characters do what’s untrue to their natures.’
    â€˜Nonsense. They’re your characters, your creations. You can make them do anything you like.’
    â€˜It’s not as simple as that.’
    â€˜Another thing, you said you were going to do without irony. Isn’t calling the house Poverty Castle blatant irony?’
    â€˜Maybe.’
    â€˜How’s it going to end? What’s going to happen to them?’
    â€˜I don’t know that yet.’
    â€˜You mean you haven’t decided?’
    â€˜I mean I don’t know.’
    It wasn’t the first time she had felt impatient at his implying there was something mystical about the relationship between a novelist and his characters.
    â€˜Usually you’ve got some nasty surprises in store for your characters, Donald, but you can’t have for the Sempills. You think they deserve happiness. They don’t know it but it’s
you
who are protecting them.’
    She was doing what she had vowed not to do. By showing interest in his characters she was giving them life.
    â€˜So you would like to know what happens to them?’
    â€˜I won’t lose any sleep over it. It’s real people I’m interested in, not phantoms. I know you have some kind of daft notion that the characters in your books have a kind of reality of