delia' I had put him off with apologies and excuses, but when he was gone she said: "Not yet. Papa doesn't want him yet." Julia, Cara and I were there at the time; we each had something to say, began to speak, and thought better of it. It was never mentioned between the four of us, but Julia, alone with me, said, "Charles, I see great Church trouble ahead." "Can't they even let him die in peace?" "They mean something so different by 'peace.'" "It would be an outrage. No one could have made it clearer, all his life, what he thought of religion. They'll come now, when his mind's wandering and he hasn't the strength to resist, and I claim him as a death-bed penitent. I've had a certain respect for their Church up till now. If they do a thing like that I shall know that everything stupid people say about them is quite true -- that it's all superstition and trickery." Julia said nothing. "Don't you agree?" Still Julia said nothing. "Don't you agree?" "I don't know, Charles. I simply don't know." And, though none of us spoke of it, I felt the question ever present, growing through all the weeks of Lord Marchmain's illness; I saw it when Cordelia drove off early in the mornings to mass; I saw it as Cara took to going with her; this little cloud the size of a man's hand, that was going to swell into a storm among us. Now Brideshead, in his heavy, ruthless way, planted the problem down before us. "Oh, Bridey, do you think he would?" asked Cordelia. "I shall see that he does," said Brideshead. "I shall take Father Mackay in to him to-morrow." Still the clouds gathered and did not break; none of us spoke. Cara and Cordelia went back to the sick-room; Brideshead looked for a book, found one, and left us. "Julia," I said, "how can we stop this tomfoolery?" She did not answer for some time; then: "Why should we?" "You know as well as I do. It's just--just an unseemly incident" "Who am I to object to unseemly incidents?" she asked sadly. "Anyway, what harm can it do? Let's ask the doctor." We asked the doctor, who said: "It's hard to say. It might alarm him of course; on the other hand, I have known cases where it has had a wonderfully soothing effect on a patient; I've even known it act as a positive stimulant. It certainly is usually a great comfort to the relations. Really I think it's a thing for Lord Brideshead to decide. Mind you, there is no need for immediate anxiety. Lord Marchmain is very weak to-day; tomorrow he may be quite strong again. Is it not usual to wait a little?" "Well, he wasn't much help," I said to Julia, when we left him. "Help? I really can't quite see why you've taken it so much at heart that my father shall not have the last sacraments." "It's such a lot of witchcraft and hypocrisy." "Is it? Anyway, it's been going on for nearly two thousand years. I don't know why you should suddenly get in a rage now." Her voice rose; she was swift to anger of late months. "For Christ's sake, write to The Times; get up and make a speech in Hyde Park; start a 'No Popery' riot--but don't bore me about it. What's it got to do with you or me whether my father sees his parish priest?" I knew these fierce moods of Julia's, such as had overtaken her at the fountain in moonlight, and dimly surmised their origin; I knew they could not be assuaged by words. Nor could I have spoken, for the answer to her question was still unformed, but lay in a pocket of my mind, like sea-mist in a dip of the sand dunes; the cloudy sense that the fate of more souls than one was at issue; that the snow was beginning to shift on the high slopes. Brideshead and I breakfasted together next morning with the night-nurse, who had just come off duty. "He's much brighter to-day," she said. "Fie slept very nicely for nearly three hours. When Gaston eame to shave him he was quite chatty." "Good," said Brideshead. "Cordelia went to mass. She's driving Father Mackay back here to breakfast." I had met Father Mackay several times; he was a stocky, middle-aged, genial Glasgow-Irishman who, when we met, was apt to ask me such questions as, "Would you say now, Mr. Ryder, I that the painter Titian was more truly artistic than the painter Raphael?" and, more disconcertingly still, to remember my answers: "To revert, Mr. Ryder, to what you said when last I had the pleasure to meet you,'would it be right now to say that the painter Titian . . ." usually ending with some such reflection as: "Ah, it's a grand resource for a man to have the talent you have, Mr. Ryder, and the time to indulge it." Cordelia could imitate him brilliantly. This morning he made a hearty breakfast, glanced at the headlines of the paper, and then said with professional briskness: "And now, Lord Brideshead, would the poor soul be ready to set me, do you think?" Brideshead led him out; Cordelia followed and I was left alone among the breakfast things. In less than a minute I heard the voices of all three outside the door. ". . . can only apologize." ". . . poor soul. Mark you, it was seeing a strange face; depend upon it, it was that--an unexpected stranger. I well understand it." ". . . Father, I am sorry . . . bringing you all this way . . ." "Don't think about it at all, Lady Cordelia. Why, I've had bottles thrown at me in the Gorbals. . . . Give him time. I've known worse cases make beautiful deaths. Pray for him . . . I'll come again . . . and now if you'll excuse me I'll just pay a little visit to Mrs. Hawkins. Yes, indeed, I know the way well." Then Cordelia and Brideshead came into the room. "I gather the visit was not a success." "It was not. Cordelia, will you drive Father Mackay home when he comes down from Nanny? I'm going to telephone to Beryl and see when she needs me home." "Bridey, it was horrible. What are we to do?" "We've done everything we can at the moment." He left the room. Cordelia's face was grave; she took a piece of bacon from the dish, dipped it in mustard and ate it. "Damn Bridey," she said, "I knew it wouldn't work." "What happened?" "Would you like to know? We walked in there in a line; Cara was reading the paper aloud to Papa. Bridey said, Tve brought Father Mackay to see you'; Papa said, 'Father Mackay, I am afraid you have been brought here under a misapprehension. I am not in extremis, and I have not been a practising member of your Church for twenty-five years. Brideshead, show Father Mackay the way out.' Then we all turned about and walked away, and I heard Cara start reading the paper again, and that, Charles, was that." I carried the news to Julia, who lay with her bed-table amid a litter of newspapers and envelopes. "Mumbo-jumbo is off," I said, "the witch-doctor has gone." "Poor Papa." "It's great sucks to Bridey." I felt triumphant. I had been right, everyone else had been wrong, truth had prevailed; the thread that I had felt hanging over Julia and me ever since that evening at the fountain had been averted, perhaps dispelled for ever; and there was also--I can now confess it -- another unexpressed, inexpressible, indecent little victory that I was furtively celebrating. I guessed that that morning's business had putBrideshead some considerable way further from his rightful inheritance. In that I was correct; a man was sent for from the solicitors in London; and in a day or two he came and it was known throughout the house that Lord Marchmain had made a new will. But I was wrong in thinking that the religious controversy was quashed; it flamed up again after dinner on Brideshead's last evening. ". . . What Papa said was, 'I am not in extremis; I have not been a practising member of the Church for twenty-five years.'" "Not 'the Church,' 'your Church.'" "I don't see the difference." "There's every difference." "Bridey, it's quite plain what he meant." "I presume he meant what he said. He meant that he had not been accustomed regularly to receive the sacraments, and since he was not at the moment dying, he did not mean to change his ways -- yet." "That's simply a quibble." "Why do people always think that one is quibbling when one tries to be precise? His plain meaning was that he did not want to see a priest that day, but that he would when he was in extremis." "I wish someone would explain to me," I said, "quite what the significance of these sacraments is. Do you mean that if he dies alone he goes to hell, and that if a priest puts oil on him -- " "Oh, it's not the oil," said Cordelia, "that's to heal him." "Odder still -- well, whatever it is the priest does -- that he then goes tq heaven? Is that what you believe?" Cara then interposed: "I think my nurse told me, someone did anyway, that if the priest got there before the body was cold it was all right. That's so, isn't it?" The others turned on her. "No, Cara, it's not." "Of course not." "You've got it all wrong, Cara." "Well, I remember when Alphonse de Grenet died, Madame de Grenet had a priest hidden outside the door -- he couldn't bear the sight of a priest -- and brought him in before the body was cold; she told me herself, and they had a full requiem for him, and I went to it." "Having a requiem doesn't mean you go to heaven necessarily." "Madame de Grenet thought it did." "Well, she was wrong." "Do any of you Catholics know what good you think this priest can do?" I asked. "Do you simply want to arrange it so that your father can have Christian burial? Do you want to keep him out of hell? I only want to be told." Brideshead told me at some length, and when he had finished Cara slightly marred the unity of the Catholic front by saying in simple wonder, "I never heard that before." "Let's get this clear," I said; "he has to make an act of will; he has to be contrite and wish to be reconciled; is that right? But only God knows whether he has really made an act of will; the priest can't tell; and if there isn't a priest there, and he makes the act of will alone, that's as good as if there were a priest. And it's quite possible that the will may still be working when a man is too weak to make any outward sign of it; is that right? He may be lying, as though for dead, and willing all the time, and being reconciled, and God understands that; is that right?" "More or less," said Brideshead. "Well, for heaven's sake," I said, "what is the priest for?" There was a pause in which Julia sighed and Brideshead drew breath as though to start further subdividing the propositions. In the silence Cara said, "All I know is that I shall take very good care to have a priest." "Bless you," said Cordelia, "I believe that's the best answer." And we let the argument drop, each for different reasons, thinking it had been inconclusive. Later Julia said: "I wish you wouldn't start these religious arguments." "I didn't start it." "You don't convince anyone else and you don't really convince yourself." "I only want to know what these people believe. They say it's all based on logic." "If you'd let Bridey finish, he would have made it all quite logical." "There were four of you," I said. "Cara didn't know the first thing it was about, and may or may not have believed it; you knew a bit and didn't believe a word; Cordelia knew about aS much and believed it madly; only poor Bridey knew and believed, and I thought he made a pretty poor show when it came to explaining. And people go round saying, 'At least Catholics know what they believe.' We had a fair cross-section to-night--" "Oh, Charles, don't rant. I shall begin to think you're getting doubts yourself." The weeks passed and still Lord Marchmain lived on. In June my divorce was made absolute and my former wife married for the second time. Julia would be free in September. The nearer our marriage got, the more wistfully, I noticed, Julia spoke of it; war was growing nearer, too -- we neither of us doubted that-- but Julia's tender, remote, it sometimes seemed desperate longing did not come from any uncertainty outside herself; it suddenly darkened too, into brief accesses of hate when she seemed to throw herself against the restraints of her love for me like a caged animal against the bars. I was summoned to the War Office, interviewed and put on a list in case of emergency; Cordelia also, on another list; lists were becoming part of our lives once more, as they had been at school--those strips of paper on the green baize notice boards which defined success and failure. No one in that dark office spoke the word "war"; it was taboo; we should be called for if there was "an emergency" -- not in case of strife, an act of human will; nothing so clear and simple as wrath or retribution; an emergency; something coming out of the waters, a monster with sightless face and thrashing tail thrown up from the depdis. Lord Marchmain took little interest in events outside his own room; we took him the papers daily and made the attempt to read to him, but he turned his head on the pillows and with his eyes followed the intricate patterns about him. "Shall I go on?" "Please do if it's not boring you." But he was not listening; occasionally at a familiar name he would whisper: "Irwin ... I knew him -- a mediocre fellow"; occasionally some remote comment: "Czechs make good coachmen; nothing else"; but his mind was far from world affairs; it was there, on the spot, turned in on himself; he had no strength for any other war than his own solitary struggle to keep alive. I said to the doctor, who was with us daily: "He's got a wonderful will to live, hasn't he?" "Would you put it like that? I should say a great fear of death." "Is there a difference?" "Oh dear, yes. He doesn't derive any strength from his fear, you know. It's wearing him out." Next to death, perhaps because they are like death, he feared darkness and loneliness. He liked to have us in his room and the lights burnt all night among the gilt figures; he did not wish us to speak much, but he talked himself, so quietly that we could often not hear him; he talked, I think, because his was the only voice he could trust, when it assured him that he was still alive; what he said was not for us, nor for any ears but his own. "Better to-day. Better to-day. I can see now, in the corner of the fireplace, where the mandarin is holding his gold bell and the crooked tree is in flower below his feet, where yesterday I was confused and took the little tower for another man. Soon I shall see the bridge and the three storks and know where the path leads over the hill. "Better to-morrow. We live long in our family and marry late. Seventy-three is no age. Aunt Julia, my father's aunt, lived to be eighty-eight, born and died here, never married, saw the fire on beacon hill for the battle of Trafalgar, always called it 'the New House'; that Was the name they had for it in the nursery and in the fields when unlettered men had long memories. You can see where the old house stood near the village church; they call the field 'Castle Hill,' Horlick's field where the ground's uneven and half of it is waste, nettle and brier in hollows too deep for ploughing. They dug to the foundations to carry the stone for the new house; the house that was a century old when Aunt Julia was born. Those were our roots in the waste hollows of Castle Hill, in the brier and nettle; among the tombs in the old church and the chantrey where no clerk sings. "Aunt Julia knew the tombs, cross-legged knight and doubleted earl, marquis like a Roman senator, limestone, alabaster, and Italian marble; tapped the escutcheons with her ebony cane, made the casque ring over old Sir Roger. We were knights then, barons since Agincourt; the larger honours came with the Georges. They came the last and they'll go the first; the barony descends in the female line; when Brideshead is buried--he married late -- Julia's son will be called by the name his fathers bore before the fat days; the days of wool shearing and the wide corn lands, the days of growth and building, when the marshes were drained and the waste land brought under the plough, when one built the house, his son added the dome, his son spread the wings and dammed the river. Aunt Julia watched them build the fountain; it was old before it came here, weathered two hundred years by the suns of Naples, brought by man-o'-war in the days of Nelson. Soon the fountain will be dry till the rain fills it, setting the fallen leaves afloat in the basin and over the lakes the reeds will spread and close. Better to-day. "Better to-day. I have lived carefully, sheltered myself from the cold winds, eaten moderately of what was in season, drunk fine claret, slept in my own sheets; I shall live long. I was fifty when they dismounted us and sent us into the line; old men stay at the base, the orders said, but Walter Venables, my commanding officer, my nearest neighbour, said: 'You're as fit as the youngest of them, Alex.' So I was; so I am now, if I could only breathe. "No air; no wind stirring under the velvet canopy; no one has opened the door for a thousand years in Aladdin's treasury, deep underground where the jinns burrow like moles and no wind stirs. When the summer comes," said Lord Marchmain, oblivious of the deep corn and swelling fruit and the surfeited bees who slowly sought their hives in the heavy afternoon sunlight outside his windows, "when the summer comes I shall leave my bed and sit in the open air and breathe more easily. "Better to-morrow, when the wind comes down the valley and a man can turn to meet it and fill himself with air like a beast at water. Who would have thought that all these little gold men-, gentlemen in their own country, could live so long without breathing? Like toads in the coal, down a deep mine, untroubled. God take it, why have they dug a hole for me? Must a man stifle to death in his own cellars? Plender, Gaston, open the windows." "The windows are all wide open, my lord." "I know them. I was born in this house. They open from a cellar into a tunnel. It can only be done by gunpowder; bore the rock, cram it with powder, trace the fuse, crouch under cover round the corner while we touch it off; we'll blast our way to daylight." A cylinder of oxygen was placed beside his bed, with a long1 tube, a face-piece, and a little stop-cock he could work himself. Often he said: "It's empty; look, nurse, there's nothing cornel out." "No, Lord Marchmain, it's quite full; the bubble here in the glass bulb shows that; it's at full pressure; listen, don't you hear it hiss? Try and breathe slowly, Lord Marchmain; quite gently, then you get the benefit." "Free as air; that's what they say -- 'free as air.' I was free once. I committed a crime in the name of freedom. Now they bring me my air in an iron barrel." Once he said: "Cordelia, what became of the chapel?" "They locked it up, Papa, when Mummy died." "It was hers, I gave it to her. We've always been builders in our family. I built it for her; pulled down the pavilion that stood there; rebuilt with the old stones; it was the last of the. new house to come, the first to go. There used to be a chaplain until the war. Do you remember him?" "I was too young." "Then I went away -- left her in the chapel praying. It was hers. It was the place for her. I never came back to disturb her prayers. They said we were fighting for freedom; I had my own victory. Was it a crime?" "I think it was, Papa." "Crying to heaven for vengeance? Is that why they've locked me in this cave, do you think, with a black tube of air and the little yellow men along the walls, who live without breathing? Do you think that, child? But the wind will come soon, tomorrow perhaps, and we'll breathe again. The ill wind that will blow me good. Better to-morrow." Thus, till mid-July, Lord Marchmain lay dying, wearing himself down in the struggle to live. Then, since there was no reason to expect an immediate change, Cordelia went to London to see her women's organization about the coming "emergency." That day Lord Marchmain's condition became suddenly worse. He lay silent and quite still, breathing laboriously; only his open eyes, which sometimes moved about the room, gave any sign of consciousness. "Is this the end?" Julia asked. "It is impossible to say," the doctor answered; "when he does die it will probably be like this. He may recover from the present attack. The only thing is not to disturb him. The least shock will be fatal." "I'm going for Father Mackay," she said. I was not surprised. I had seen it in her mind all the summer. When she had gone I said to the doctor, "We must stop this nonsense." He said: "My business is with the body. It's not my business to argue whether people are better alive or dead or what happens to them after death. I only try to keep them alive." "And you said just now any shock would kill him. What could be worse for a man who fears death, as he does, than to have a priest brought to him -- a priest he turned out when he had the strength?" "I think it may kill him." "Then will you forbid it?" "I've no authority to forbid anything. I can only give my opinion." "Cara, what do you think?" "I don't want him made unhappy. That is all there is to hope for now; that he'll die without knowing it. But I should like the priest there, all the same." "Will you try and persuade Julia to keep him away-- until the end? After that he can do no harm." "I will ask her to leave Alex happy, yes." In half an hour Julia was back with Father Mackay. We all met in the library. "I've telegraphed for Bridey and Cordelia," I said. "I hope you agree that nothing must be done till they arrive." "I wish they were here," said Julia. "You can't take the responsibility alone," I said; "everyone else ' is against you. Doctor, tell her what you said to me just now." "I said that the shock of seeing a priest might well kill him; without that he may survive this attack. As his medical man I must protest against anything being done to disturb him." "Cara?" "Julia, dear, I know you are thinking for the best, but, you know, Alex was not a religious man. He scoffed always. We mustn't take advantage of him, now he's weak, to comfort our own consciences. If Father Mackay comes to him when he is unconscious, then he can be buried in the proper way, can he not, Father?" "I'll go and see how he is," said the doctor, leaving us. "Father Mackay," I said. "You know how Lord Marchmain greeted you last time you came; do you think it possible he can have changed now?" "Thank God, by His grace it is possible." "Perhaps," said Cara, "you could slip in while he is sleeping, say the words of absolution over him; he would never know." "I have seen so many men and women die," said the priest; , "I never knew them sorry to have me there at the end." "But they were Catholics; Lord Marchmain has never been one" except in name--at any rate, not for years. He was a scoffer, Cara said so." "Christ came to call, not the righteous, but sinners to repentance." The doctor returned. "There's no change," he said. "Now, Doctor," said the priest, "how would I be a shock to anyone?" He turned his bland, innocent, matter-of-fact face first on the doctor, then upon the rest of us. "Do you know what I want to do? It is something so small, no show about it. I don't wear special clothes, you know. I go just as I am. He knows the look of me now. There's nothing alarming. I just want to ask him if he is sorry for his sins. I want him to make some little sign of assent; I want him, anyway, not to refuse me; then I Want to give him God's pardon. Then, though that's not essential, I want to anoint him. It is nothing, a touch of the fingers, just some oil. from this little box, look, it is pure oil, nothing to hurt him." "Oh, Julia," said Cara, "what are we to say? Let me speak to him." She went to the Chinese drawing-room; we waited in silence; there was a wall of fire between Julia and me. Presently Cara returned. "I don't think he heard," she said. "I thought I knew how to put it to him. I said: 'Alex, you remember the priest from Melstead. You were very naughty when he came to see you. You hurt his feelings very much. Now he's here again. I want you to see him just for my sake, to make friend's.' But he didn't answer. If he's unconscious, it couldn't make him unhappy to see the priest, could it, Doctor?" Julia, who had been standing still and silent, suddenly moved. "Thank you for your advice, Doctor," she said. "I take full responsibility for whatever happens. Father Mackay, will you please come and see my father now," and without looking at me, led him to the door. We all followed. Lord Marchmain was lying as I had seen him that morning, but his eyes were now shut; his hands lay, palm-up wards, above the bed-clothes; the nurse had her fingers on the pulse of one of them. "Come in," she said brightly, "you won't disturb him now." "D'you mean . . . ?" "No, no, but he's past noticing anything." She held the oxygen apparatus to his face and the hiss of escaping gas was the only sound at the bedside. The priest bent over Lord Marchmain and blessed him. Julia and Cara knelt at the foot of the bed. The doctor, the nurse and I stood behind them. "Now," said the priest, "I know you are sorry for all the sins of your life, aren't you? Make a sign, if you can. You're sorry, aren't you?" But there was no sign. "Try and remember your sins; tell God you are sorry. I am going to give you absolution. While I am giving it, tell God you are sorry you have offended Him." He began to speak in Latin. I recognized the words Ego te absolvo in nomine Patris . . . and saw the priest make the sign of the cross. Then I knelt, too, and prayed: "O God, if there is a God, forgive him his sins, if there is such a thing as sin," and the man on the bed opened his eyes and gave a sigh, the sort of sigh I had imagined people made at the moment of death, but his eyes moved so that we knew there was still life in him. I suddenly felt the longing for a sign, if only of courtesy, if only for the sake of the woman I loved, who knelt in front of me, praying, I knew, for a sign. It seemed so small a thing that was asked, the bare acknowledgment of a present, a nod in the crowd. All over the world people were on their knees before innumerable crosses, and here the drama was being played again by two men -- by one man, rather, and he nearer death than life; the universal drama in which there is only one actor. The priest took the little silver box from his pocket and spoke again in Latin, touching the dying man with an oily wad; he-finished what he had to do, put away the box and gave the final blessing. Suddenly Lord Marchmain moved his hand to his forehead; I thought he had felt the touch of the chrism and was wiping it away. "O God," I prayed, "don't let him do that." But there was no need for fear; the hand moved slowly down his breast, then to his shoulder, and Lord Marchmain made the sign of the cross. Then I knew that the sign I had asked for was not a little thing, not a passing nod of recognition, and a phrase came back to me from my childhood of the veil of the temple being rent from top to bottom. It was over; we stood up; the nurse went back to the oxygen cylinder; the doctor bent over his patient. Julia whispered to me: "Will you sec Father Mackay out? I'm staying here for a little." Outside the door Father Mackay became the simple, genial man I had known before. "Well, now, and that was a beautiful thing to see. I've known it happen that way again and again. The devil resists to the last moment and then the Grace of God is too much for him. You're not a Catholic, I think, Mr. Ryder, but at least you'll be glad for the ladies to have the comfort of it.'' As we were waiting for the chauffeur, it occurred to me that Father Mackay should be paid for his services. I asked him awkwardly. "Why, don't think about it, Mr. Ryder. It was a pleasure," he said, "but anything you care to give is useful in a parish like mine." I found I had three pounds in my note-case and gave them to him. "Why, indeed, that's more than generous. God bless you, Mr. Ryder. I'll call again, but I don't think the poor soul has long for this world." Julia remained in the Chinese drawing-room until, at five o'clock that evening, her father died, proving both sides right in the dispute, priest and doctor. Thus I come to the broken sentences which were the last words spoken between Julia and me, the last memories. When htr father died Julia remained some minutes with his body; the nurse came to the next room to announce the news and I had a glimpse of her, through the open door, kneeling at the foot of the bed, and of Cara sitting by her. Presently the two women came out together, and Julia said to me: "Not now; I'm just taking Cara up to her room; later." While she was still upstairs Brideshead and Cordelia arrived from London; when at last we met alone it was by stealth, like young lovers. Julia said: "Here in the shadow, in the corner of the stair -- a minute to say good-bye." "So long to say so little." "You knew?" "Since this morning; since before this morning; all this year." "I didn't know till to-day. Oh, my dear, if you could only understand. Then I could bear to part, or bear it better. I should say my heart was breaking, if I believed in broken hearts. I can't marry you, Charles; I can't be with you ever again." "I know." "How can you know?" "What will you do?" "Just go on -- alone. How can I tell what I shall do? You know the whole of me. You know I'm not one for a life of mourning. I've always been bad. Probably I shall be bad again, punished again. But the worse I am, the more I need God. I can't shut myself out from His mercy. That is what it would mean; starting a life with you, without Him. One can only hope to see one step ahead. But I saw to-day there was one thing unforgivable-- like things in the schoolroom, so bad they are unpunishable, that only Mummy could deal with -- the bad thing I was on the point of doing, that I'm not quite bad enough to do; to set up a rival good to God's. Why should I be allowed to understand that, and not you, Charles? It may be because of Mummy, Nanny, Cordelia, Sebastian -- perhaps Bridey and Mrs. Muspratt -- keeping my name in their prayers; or it may be a private bargain between me and God, that if I give up this one thing I want so much, however bad I am, He won't quite despair of me in the end. "Now we shall both be alone, and I shall have no way of making you understand." "I don't want to make it easier for you," I said; "I hope your heart may break; but I do understand." The avalanche was down, the hillside swept bare behind it; the last echoes died on the white slopes; the new mound glittered and lay still in the silent valley. Epilogue "the worst place we've struck yet," said the commanding officer; "no facilities, no amenities, and Brigade sitting right on top of us. There's one pub in Flyte St. Mary with capacity for about twenty -- that, of course, will be out of bounds for officers; there's a Naafi in the camp area. I hope to run transport once a week to Melstead Carbury. Marchmain is ten miles away and damn-all when you get there. It will therefore be the first concern of company officers to organize recreation for their men. M.O., I want you to take a look at the lakes to see if they're fit for bathing." "Very good, sir." "Brigade expects us to clean up the house for them. I should have thought some of those half-shaven scrimshankers I see lounging round Headquarters might have saved us the trouble; however . . . Ryder, you will find a fatigue party of fifty and report to the quartering commandant at the house at 10-45 hours; he'll show you what we're taking over." "Very good, sir." "Our predecessors do not seem to have been very enterprising. The valley has great potentialities for an assault course and a mortar range. Weapon-training officer, make a recce this morn-' ing and get something laid on before Brigade arrives." "Very good, sir." "I'm going out myself with the adjutant to recce training areas. Anyone happen to know this district?" I said nothing. "That's all then, get cracking." "Wonderful old place in its way," said the quartering commandant; "pity to knock it about too much." He was an old, retired, re-appointed lieutenant-colonel from some miles away. We met in the space before the main doors, where I had my half-company fallen-in, waiting for orders. "Come in. I'll soon show you over. It's a great warren of a place, but we've only requisitioned the ground floor and half a dozen bedrooms. Everything else upstairs is still private property, mostly cram full of furniture; you never saw such stuff, priceless some of it. "There's a caretaker and a couple of old servants live at the top -- they won't be any trouble to you -- and a blitzed R.C. padre whom Lady Julia gave a home to -- jittery old bird, but no trouble. He's opened the chapel; that's in bounds for the troops; surprising lot use it, too. "The place belongs to Lady Julia Flyte, as she calls herself now. She was married to Mottram, the Minister of whatever-it-is. She's abroad in some woman's service, and I try to keep an eye on things for her. Queer thing the old marquis leaving everything to her -- rough on the boys. "Now this is where the last lot put the clerks; plenty of room, anyway. I've had the walls and fireplaces boarded up you see -- valuable old work underneath. Hullo, someone seems to have been making a beast of himself here; destructive beggars, soldiers are! Lucky we spotted it, or it would have been charged to you chaps. "This is another good-sized room, used to be full of tapestry.., I'd advise you to use this for conferences." "I'm only here to clean up, sir. Someone from Brigade will allot the rooms." "Oh, well, you've got an easy job. Very decent fellows the last lot. They shouldn't have done that to the fireplace though. How did they manage it? Looks solid enough. I wonder if it can be mended? "I expect the brigadier will take this for his office; the last did. It's got a lot of painting that can't be moved, done on the walla. As you see, I've covered it up as best I can, but soldiers get through anything -- as the brigadier's done in the corner. There was another painted room, outside under the pillars -- modern work but, if you ask me, the prettiest in the place; it was the signal office and they made absolute hay of it; rather a shame. "This eye-sore is what they used as the mess; that's why I didn't cover it up; not that it would matter much if it did get damaged; always reminds me of one of the costlier knocking-shops, you know--'Maison Japonaise' . . . and this was the ante-room . . ." It did not take us long to make our tour of the echoing rooms. Then we went outside on the terrace. "Those are die other ranks' latrines and wash-house; can't think why they built them just there; it was done before I took the job over. All this used to be cut off from the front. We laid the road through the trees joining it up with the main drive; unsightly but very practical; awful lot of transport comes in and out; cuts the place up, too. Look where one careless devil went smack through the box-hedge and carried away all that balustrade; did it with a three-ton lorry, too; you'd think he had a Churchill tank at least. "That fountain is rather a tender spot with our landlady; the young officers used to lark about in it on guest nights and it was looking a bit the worse for wear, so I wired it in and turned the water off. Looks a bit untidy now; all the drivers throw their cigarette-ends and the remains of the sandwiches there, and you can't get to it to clean it up, since I put the wire round it. Florid great thing, isn't it? ... "Well, if you've seen everything I'll push off. Good day to you." His driver threw a cigarette into the dry basin of the fountain; saluted and opened the door of the car. I saluted and the quartering commandant drove away through the new, metalled gap in the lime-trees. "Hooper," I said, when I had seen my men started, "do you think I can safely leave you in charge of the work-party for half an hour?" "I was just wondering where we could scrounge some tea." "For Christ's sake," I said, "they've only just begun work." "They're awfully browned-off." "Keep them at it." "Rightyoh." I did not spend long hi the desolate ground-floor rooms, but went upstairs and wandered down the familiar corridors, trying doors that were locked, opening doors into rooms piled to the ceiling with furniture. At length I met an old housemaid carrying a cup of tea. "Why," she said, "isn't it Mr. Ryder ?" "It is. I was wondering when I should meet sorheone I knew." "Mrs. Hawkins is up in her old room. I was just taking her some tea." "I'll take it for you," I said, and passed through the baize doors, up the uncarpeted stairs, to the nursery. Nanny Hawkins did not recognize me until I spoke, and my arrival threw her into some confusion; it was not until I had been sitting some time by her fireside that she recovered her old calm. She, who had changed so little in all the years I knew her, had lately become greatly aged. The changes of the last years had come too late in her life to be accepted and understood; her sight was failing, she told me, and she could see only the coarsest needlework. Her speech, sharpened by years of gentle conversation, had reverted now to the soft, peasant tones of its origin. ". . . only myself here and the two girls and poor Father Membling who was blown up, not a roof to his head nor a stick of furniture till Julia took him in with the kind heart she's got, , and his nerves something shocking. . . . Lady Brideshead, too, who I ought by rights to call her Ladyship now, but it doesn't come natural, it was the same with her. First, when Julia and Cordelia left to the war, she came here with the two boys and then the military turned them out, so they went to London, nor they hadn't been in their house not a month, and Bridey away with the yeomanry the same as his poor Lordship, when they were blown up too, everything gone, all the furniture she brought here and kept in the coach-house. Then she had another house outside London, and the military took that, too, and there she is now, when I last heard, in a hotel at the seaside, which isn't the same as your own home, is it? It doesn't seem right. ". . . Did you listen to Mr. Mottram last night? Very nasty he was about Hitler. I said to the girl Effie who does for me: 'If Hitler was listening, and if he understands English, which I doubt, he must feel very Small.'