normal practice was for a cocktail tray to be brought into the
drawing-room at six; we mixed our own drinks and the bottles were removed
when we went to dress; later just before dinner cocktails appeared again,
this time handed round by the footmen.
Sebastian disappeared after tea; the light had gone and I spent the
next hour playing Mah Jong with Cordelia. At six I was alone in the
drawing-room, when he returned; he was frowning in a way I knew all too
well, and when he spoke I recognized the drunken thickening in his voice.
"Haven't they brought the cocktails yet?" He pulled clumsily on the
bell-rope.
I said, "Where have you been?"
"Up with Nanny."
"I don't believe it. You've been drinking somewhere."
"I've been reading in my room. My cold's worse to-day."
When the tray arrived he slopped gin and vermouth into a tumbler and
carried it out of the room with him. I followed him upstairs, where he shut
his bedroom door in my face and turned the key.
I returned to the drawing-room full of dismay and foreboding.
The family assembled. Lady Marchmain said: "What's become of
Sebastian?"
"He's gone to lie down. His cold is worse."
"Oh dear, I hope he isn't getting flu. I thought he had a feverish look
once or twice lately. Is there anything he wants?"
"No, he particularly asked not to be disturbed."
I wondered whether I ought to speak to Brideshead, but that grim,
rock-crystal mask forbade all confidence. Instead, on the way upstairs to
dress, I told Julia.
"Sebastian's drunk."
"He can't be. He didn't even come for a cocktail."
"He's been drinking in his room all the afternoon."
"How very peculiar! What a bore he isl Will he be all right for
dinner?"
"No."
"Well, you must deal with him. It's no business of mine. Does he often
do this?"
"He has lately."
"How very boring."
I tried Sebastian's door, found it locked and hope,d he was sleeping,
but when I came back from my bath, I found him sitting in the armchair
before my fire; he was dressed for dinner, all but his shoes, but his tie
was awry and his hair on end; he was very red in the face and squinting
slightly. He spoke indistinctly.
"Charles, what you said was quite true. Not with Nanny. Been drinking
whiskey up here. None in the library now party's gone. Now party's gone and
only Mummy. Feeling rather drunk. Think I'd better have something-on-a-tray
up here. Not dinner with Mummy."
"Go to bed," I told him. "I'll say your cold's worse."
"Much worse."
I took him to his room, which was next to mine, and tried to get him to
bed, but he sat in front of his dressing-table squinnying at himself in the
glass, trying to remake his bow tie. On the writing-table by the fire was a
half-empty decanter of whiskey. I took it up, thinking he would not see, but
he spun round from the mirror and said: "You put that down."
"Don't be an ass, Sebastian. You've had enough."
"What the devil's it got to do with you? You're only a guest here -- my
guest. I drink what I want to in my own house."
He would have fought me for it at that moment.
"Very well," I said, putting the decanter back, "only for God's sake
keep out of sight."
"Oh, mind your own business. You came here as my friend; now you're
spying on me for my mother, I know. Well, you can get out, and tell her from
me that I'll choose my friends and she her spies in future."
So I left him and went down to dinner.
"I've been in to Sebastian," I said. "His cold has come on rather
badly. He's gone to bed and says he doesn't want anything."
"Poor Sebastian," said Lady Marchmain. "He'd better have a glass of hot
whiskey. I'll go and have a look at him."
"Don't Mummy, I'll go," said Julia rising.
"I'll go," said Cordelia, who was dining down that night, for a treat
to celebrate the departure of the guests. She was at the door and through
it, before anyone could stop her. Julia caught my eye and gave a tiny, sad
shrug. In a few minutes Cordelia was back, looking grave. "No, he doesn't
seem to want anything," she said. "How was he?" "Well, I don't know, but I
think he's very drunk," she said.
"Cordelia."
Suddenly the child began to giggle. " 'Marquis's Son Unused to Wine,'"
she quoted. " 'Model Student's Career Threatened.'"
"Charles, is this true?" asked Lady Marchmain.
"Yes."
Then dinner was announced, and we went to the dining-room, where the
subject was not mentioned.
When Brideshead and I were left alone he said: "Did you say Sebastian
was drunk?"
"Yes."
"Extraordinary time to choose. Couldn't you stop him?"
"No."
"No," said Brideshead, "I don't suppose you could. I once saw my father
drunk, in this room. I wasn't more than about ten at the time. You can't
stop people if they want to get drunk. My mother couldn't stop my father,
you know."
He spoke in his odd, impersonal way. The more I saw of this family, I
reflected, the more singular I found them. "I shall ask my mother to read to
us to-night."
It was the custom, I learned later, always to ask Lady March-main to
read aloud on evenings of family tension. She had a beautiful voice and
great humour of expression. That night she read part of The Wisdom of Father
Brown. Julia sat with' a stool covered with manicure things and carefully
revarnished her nails; Cordelia nursed Julia's Pekinese; Brideshead played
patience; I sat unoccupied studying the pretty group they made, and mourning
my friend upstairs. But the horrors of that evening were not yet over. It
was sometimes Lady Marchmain's practice, when the family were alone, to
visit the chapel before going to bed. She had just closed her book and
proposed going there when the door opened and Sebastian appeared. He was
dressed as I had last seen him, but now instead of being flushed he was
deathly pale.
"Come to apologize," he said.
"Sebastian, dear, do go back to your room," said Lady Marchmain. "We
can talk about it in the morning."
"Not to you. Come to apologize to Charles. I was bloody to him and he's
my guest. He's my guest and my only friend and I was bloody to him."
A chill spread over us. I led him back to his room; his family went to
their prayers. I noticed when we got upstairs that the decanter was now
empty. "It's time you were in bed," I said.
Sebastian began to weep. "Why do you take their side against me? I knew
you would if I let you meet them. Why do you spy on me?"
He said more than I can bear to remember, even at twenty years'
distance. At last I got him to sleep and very sadly went to bed myself.
Next morning, he came to rny room very early, while the house still
slept; he drew the curtains and the sound of it woke me, to find him there
fully dressed, smoking, with his back to me, looking out of the windows to
where the long dawn-shadows lay across the dew and the first birds were
chattering in the budding tree-tops. When I spoke he turned a face, which
showed no ravages of the evening before, but was fresh and sullen as a
disappointed child's.
"Well," I said. "How do you feel?"
"Rather odd. I think perhaps I'm still a little drunk. I've just been
down to the stables trying to get a car but everything was locked. We're
off."
He drank from the water-bottle by my pillow, threw his cigarette from
the window, and lit another with hands which trembled like an old man's.
"Where are you going?"
"I don't know. London, I suppose. Can I come and stay with you?"
"Of course."
"Well, get dressed. They can send our luggage on by train."
"We can't just go like this."
"We can't stay."
He sat on the window-seat looking away from me, out of the windoyv.
Presently he said: "There's smoke coming from some of the chimneys. They
must have opened the stables now. Come on."
"I can't go," I said. "I must say good-bye to your mother."
"Sweet bulldog."
"Well, I don't happen to like running away."
"And I couldn't care less. And I shall go on running away, as far and
as fast as I can. You can hatch up any plot you like with my mother; I
shan't come back."
"That's how you talked last night."
"I know. I'm sorry, Charles. I told you I was still drunk. If it's any
comfort to you, I absolutely detest myself."
"It's no comfort at all."
"It must be a little, I should have thought. Well, if you won't come,
give my love to Nanny."
"You're really going?"
"Of course."
"Shall I see you in London?"
"Yes, I'm coming to stay with you."
He left me but I did not sleep again; nearly two hours later a footman
came with tea and bread and butter and set my clothes out for a new day.
Later that morning I sought Lady Marchmain; the wind had freshened and
we stayed indoors; I sat near her before the fire in her room, while she
bent over her needlework and the budding creeper rattled on the
window-panes.
"I wish I had not seen him," she said. "That was cruel. I do not mind
the idea of his being drunk. It is a thing all men do when they are young. I
am used to the idea of it. My brothers were wild at his age. What hurt last
night was that there was nothing happy about him."
"I know," I said. "I've never seen him like that before."
"And last night of all nights . . . when everyone had gone and there
were only ourselves here -- you see, Charles, I look on you very much as one
of ourselves. Sebastian loves you -- when there was no need for him to make
an effort to be gay. And he wasn't gay. I slept very little last night, and
all the time I kept coming back to that one thing: he was so unhappy."
It was impossible for me to explain to her what I only half understood
myself; even then I felt, "She will learn it soon enough. Perhaps she knows
it now."
"It was horrible," I said. "But please don't think that's his usual
way."
"Mr. Samgrass told me he was drinking too much all last term."
"Yes, but not like that -- never before."
"Then why now? Here? With us? All night I have been thinking and
praying and wondering what I was to say to him, and now, this morning, he
isn't here at all. That was cruel of him, leaving without a word. J don't
want him to be ashamed -- it's being ashamed that makes it all so wrong of
him."
"He's ashamed of being unhappy," I said.
"Mr. Samgrass says he is noisy and high-spirited. I believe," she said,
with a faint light of humour streaking the clouds, "I believe you and he
tease Mr. Samgrass rather. It's naughty of you. I'm very fond of Mr.
Samgrass, and you should be too, after all he's done for you. But I think
perhaps if I were your age and a man, I might be just a little inclined to
tease Mr. Samgrass myself. No, I don't mind that, but last night and this
morning are something quite different. You see, it's all happened before."
"I can only say I've seen him drunk often and I've been drunk with him
often, but last night was quite new to me."
"Oh, I don't mean with Sebastian. I mean years ago. I've been through
it all before with someone else whom I loved. Well, you must know what I
mean -- with his father. He used to be drunk in just that way. Someone told
me he is not like that now. I pray God it's true and thank God for it with
all my heart, if it is. But the running away -- he ran away, too, you know.
It was as you said just now, he was ashamed of being unhappy. Both of them
unhappy, ashamed and running away. It's too pitiful. The men I grew up with"
-- and her great eyes moved from the embroidery to the three miniatures in
the folding leather case on the chimney-piece -- "were not like that. I
simply don't understand it. Do you, Charles?"
"Only very little."
"And yet Sebastian is fonder of you than of any of us, you know. You've
got to help him. I can't."
I have here compressed into a few sentences what, there, required many.
Lady Marchmain was not diffuse, but she took hold of her subject in a
feminine, flirtatious way, circling, approaching, retreating, feinting; she
hovered over it like a butterfly; she played "grandmother's steps" with it,
getting nearer the real point imperceptibly while one's back was turned,
standing rooted when she was observed. The unhappiness, the running away --
these made up her sorrow, and in her own way she exposed the whole of it,
before she was done. It was an hour before she had said all she meant to
say. Then, as I rose to leave her, she added as though in an afterthought:
"I wonder have you seen my brother's book? It has just come out."
I told her I had looked through it in Sebastian's rooms.
"I should like you to have a copy. May I give you one? They were three
splendid men; Ned was the best of them. He was the last to be killed, and
when the telegram came, as I knew it would come, I thought: 'Now it's my
son's turn to do what Ned can never do now.' I was alone then. He was just
going to Eton. If you read Ned's book you'll understand."
She had a copy lying ready on her bureau. I thought at the time, "She
planned this parting before ever I came in. Had she rehearsed all the
interview? If things had gone differently would she have put the book back
in the drawer?"
She wrote her name and mine on the fly-leaf, the date and place.
"I prayed for you, too, in the night," she said.
I closed the door behind me, shutting out the bondieuserie, the low
ceiling, the chintz, the lambskin bindings, the views of Florence, the bowls
of hyacinth and pot-pourri, the petit point, the intimate feminine, modern
world, and was back under the coved and coffered roof, the columns and
entablature of the central hall, in the august, masculine atmosphere of a
better age.
I was no fool; I was old enough to know that an attempt had been made
to suborn me and young enough to have found the experience agreeable.
I did not see Julia that morning, but just as I was leaving Cordelia
ran to the door of the car and said: "Will you be seeing Sebastian? Please
give him my special love. Will you remember -- my special love?"
In the train to London I read the book Lady Marchmain had given me. The
frontispiece reproduced the photograph of a young man in Grenadier uniform,
and I saw plainly revealed there the origin of that grim mask which, in
Brideshead, overlaid the gracious features of his father's family; this was
a man of the woods and caves, a hunter, a judge of the tribal council, the
repository of the harsh traditions of a people at war with their
environment. There were other illustrations in the book, snapshots of the
three brothers on holiday, and in each I traced the same archaic lines; and
remembering Lady Marchmain, starry and delicate, I could find no likeness to
her in these sombre men.
She appeared seldom in the book; she was older than the eldest of them
by nine years and had married and left home while they were schoolboys;
between her and them stood two other sisters; after the birth o the third
daughter there had been pilgrimages and pious benefactions in request for a
son, for theirs was a wide property and an ancient name; male heirs had come
late and, when they came, in a profusion which at the time seemed to promise
continuity to "the line which, in the tragic event, ended abruptly with
them.
The family history was typical of the Catholic squires of England; from
Elizabeth's reign till Victoria's they lived sequestered lives among their
tenantry and kinsmen, sending their sons to school abroad; often marrying
there--inter-marrying, if not, with a score of families like themselves,
debarred from all preferment; and learning, in those lost generations,
lessons which, could still be read in the lives o the last three men of the
house. Mr. Samgrass's deft editorship had assembled and arranged a curiously
homogeneous little body of writing--poetry, letters, scraps of a journal, an
unpublished essay or two -- which all exhaled the same high-spirited,
serious, chivalrous, other-worldly air; and the letters from their
contemporaries, written after their deaths, all in varying degrees of
articulateness, told the same tale of men who were, in all the full flood of
academic and athletic success, of popularity and the promise of great
rewards ahead, seen somehow as set apart from their fellows, garlanded
victims, devoted to the sacrifice. These men must die to make a world for
Hooper; they were the aborigines, vermin by right of lawy to be shot off at
leisure so that things might be safe for the travelling salesman, with his
polygonal pince-nez, his fat wet hand-shake, his grinning dentures. I
wondered, as the train carried me farther and farther from Lady Marchmain,
whether perhaps there was not on her, too, the same blaze, marking her and
hers for destruction by other ways than war. Did she see a sign in the red
centre of her cosy grate and hear it in the rattle of creeper on the
window-pane, this whisper of doom?
Then I reached Paddington and, returning home, found ebastian there,
and the sense of tragedy vanished, for he was gay and free as when I first
met him.
"Cordelia sent you her special love."
"Did you have a 'little talk' with Mummy?"
"Yes."
"Have you gone over to her side?"
The day before I would have said: "There aren't two sides"; that day I
said, "No, I'm with you, Sebastian contra mundum"
And that was all the conversation we had on the subject, then or ever.
But the shadows were closing round Sebastian. We returned to Oxford and
once again the gillyflowers bloomed under my windows and the chestnut lit
the streets and the warm stones strewed their flakes upon the cpbble; but it
was not as it had been; there was midwinter in Sebastian's heart.
The weeks went by; we looked for lodgings for the coming term and found
them in Merton Street, a secluded, expensive little house near the tennis
court.
Meeting Mr. Samgrass, whom we had seen less often of late, I told him
of our choice. He was standing at the table in Black-well's where recent
German books were displayed, setting aside a little heap of purchases.
"You're sharing digs with Sebastian?" he said. "So he is coming up next
term?"
"I suppose so. Why shouldn't he be?"
"I don't know why; I somehow thought perhaps he wasn't. I'm always
wrong about things like that. I like Merton Street."
He showed me the books he was buying, which, since I knew no German,
were not of interest to me. As I left him he said: "Don't think me
interfering, you know, but I shouldn't make any definite arrangement in
Merton Street until you're sure."
I told Sebastian of this conversation and he said: "Yes, there's a plot
on. Mummy wants me to go and live with Monsignor Bell."
"Why didn't you tell me about it?"
"Because I'm not going to live with Monsignor Bell."
"I still think you might have told me. When did it start?"
"Oh, it's been going on. Mummy's very clever you know. She saw she'd
failed with you. I expect it was the letter you wrote after reading Uncle
Ned's book."
"I hardly said anything."
"That was it. If you were going to be any help to her, you would have
said a lot. Uncle Ned is the test, you know."
But it seemed she had not quite despaired, for a few days later I got a
note from her which said: 7 shall be passing through Oxford on Tuesday and
hope to see you and Sebastian. I would life to see you alone for five
minutes before I see him. Is that too much to ask? I will come to your rooms
at about twelve.
She came; she admired my rooms. . . . "My brothers Simon and Ned were
here, you know. Ned had rooms on the garden front. I wanted Sebastian to
come here, too, but my husband was at Christ Church and, as you know, he
took charge of Sebastian's education"; she admired my drawings . . .
"'everyone loves your paintings in the garden-room. We shall never forgive
you if you don't finish them." Finally, she came to her point.
"I expect you've guessed already what I have come to ask. Quite simply,
is Sebastian drinking too much this term?"
I had guessed; I answered: "If he were, I shouldn't answer. As it is, I
can say, 'No.'"
She said: "I believe you. Thank God!" and we went together to luncheon
at Christ Church.
That night Sebastian had his third disaster and was found by the junior
dean at one o'clock, wandering round Tom Quad hopelessly drunk.
I had left him morose but completely sober at a few minutes before
twelve. In the succeeding hour he had drunk half a bottle of whiskey alone.
He did not remember much about 1 it when he came to tell me next morning.
"Have you been doing that a lot," I asked--"drinking by yourself after
I've gone?"
"About twice; perhaps four times. It's only when they start bothering
me. I'd be all right if they'd only leave me alone."
"They won't now," I said.
"I know."
We both knew that this was a crisis. I had no love for Sebastian that
morning; he needed it, but I had none to give.
"Really," I said, "if you are going to embark on a solitary bout of
drinking every time you see a member of your family, it's perfectly
hopeless."
"Oh, yes," said Sebastian with great sadness. "I know. It's hopeless."
But my pride was stung because I had been made to look a liar and I
could not respond to his need.
"Well, what do you propose to do?"
"I shan't do anything. They'll do it all."
And I let him go without comfort.
Then the machinery began to move again, and I saw it all repeated as it
had happened in December; Mr. Samgrass and Monsignor Bell saw the Dean of
Christ Church; Brideshead came up for a night; the heavy wheels stirred and
the small wheels spun. Everyone was exceedingly sorry for Lady Marchmain,
whose brothers' names stood in letters of gold on the war memorial, whose
brothers' memory was fresh in many breasts.
She came to see me and, again, I must reduce to a few words a
conversation which took us from Holywell to the Parks, through Mesopotamia,
and over the ferry to North Oxford, where she was staying the night with a
houseful of nuns who were in some way under her protection.
"You must believe," I said, "that when I told you Sebastian was not
drinking, I was telling you the truth, as I knew it."
"I know you wish to be a good friend to him."
"That is not what I mean. I believed what I told you. I still believe
it to some extent. I believe he has been drunk two or three times before,
not more."
"It's no good, Charles," she said. "All you can mean is that you have
not as much influence or knowledge of him as I thought. It is no good either
of us trying to believe him. I've - known drunkards before. One of the most
terrible things about them is their deceit. Love of truth is the first thing
that goes.
"After that happy luncheon together. When you left he was so sweet to
me, just as he used to be as a little boy, and I agreed to all he wanted.
You know I had been doubtful about his sharing rooms with you. I know you'll
understand me when I say that. You know that we are all fond of you apart
from your being Sebastian's friend. We should miss you so much if you ever
stopped coming to stay with us. But I want Sebastian to have all sorts of
friends, not just one. Monsignor Bell tells me he never mixes with the other
Catholics, never goes to the Newman, very rarely goes to mass even. Heaven
forbid that he should only know Catholics, but he must know some. It needs a
very strong faith to stand entirely alone and Sebastian isn't strong.'
"But I was so happy at luncheon on Tuesday that I gave up all my
objections; I went round widi him and saw the rooms you had chosen. They are
charming. And we decided on some furniture you could have from London to
make them nicer. And then, on the very night after I had seen him! No,
Charles, it is not in the Logic of the Thing."
As she said it I thought, That's a phrase she's picked up from one of
her intellectual hangers-on.
"Well," I said, "have you a remedy?"
"The College are being extraordinarily kind. They say they will not
send him down provided he goes to live with Monsignor Bell. It's not a thing
I could have suggested myself, but it was the
Monsignor's own idea. He specially sent a message to you to say how
welcome you would always be. There's not room for you actually in the old
Palace, but I daresay you wouldn't want that yourself."
"Lady Marchmain, if you want to make him a drunkard that's the way to
do it. Don't you see that any idea of his being watched would be fatal?"
"Oh, dear, it's no good trying to explain. Protestants always think
Catholic priests are spies."
"I don't mean that." I tried to explain but made a poor business of it.
"He must feel free."
"But he's been free, always, up till now, and look at the result."
We had reached the ferry; we had reached a deadlock. With scarcely
another word I saw her to the convent, then took the bus back to Carfax.
Sebastian was in my rooms waiting for me. "I'm going to cable to Papa,"
he said. "He won't let them force me into this priest's house."
"But if they make it a condition, of your coming up?"
"I shan't come up. Can you imagine me -- serving mass twice a week,
helping at tea parties for shy Catholic freshmen, dining with the visiting
lecturer at the Newman, drinking a glass of port when we have guests, with
Monsignor Bell's eye on me to see I don't get too much, being explained,
when I was out of the room, as the rather embarrassing local inebriate who's
being taken in because his mother is so charming?"
"I told her it wouldn't do," I said.
"Shall we get really drunk to-night?"
"It's the one time it could do no conceivable harm," I said.
"Contra mundum?"
"Contra mundum."
"Bless you, Charles. There aren't many evenings left to us."
And that night, the first time for many weeks, we got deliriously drunk
together; I saw him to the gate as all the bells were striking midnight, and
reeled back to my rooms under a starry heaven which swam dizzily among the
towers, and fell asleep in my clothes as I had not done for a year.
Next day Lady Marchmain left Oxford, taking Sebastian with her.
Brideshead and I went to his rooms to sort out what he would have sent on
and what leave behind.
Brideshead was as grave and impersonal as ever. "It's a pity Sebastian
doesn't know Monsignor Bell better," he said. "He'd find him a charming man
to live with. I was there my last year. My mother believes Sebastian is a
confirmed drunkard. Is he?"
"He's in danger of becoming one."
"I believe God prefers drunkards to a lot of respectable people."
"For God's sake," I said, for I was near to tears that morning, "why
bring God into everything?"
"I'm sorry. I forgot. But you know that's an extremely funny question."
"Is it?"
"To me. Not to you."
"No, not to me. It seems to me that without your religion Sebastian
would have the chance to be a happy and healthy man."
"It's arguable," said Brideshead. "Do you think he will need this
elephant's foot again?"
That evening I went across the quad to visit Collins. He was alone with
his texts working by the failing light at his open window. "Hullo," he said.
"Come in. I haven't seen you all the term. I'm afraid I've nothing to offer
you. Why have you deserted the smart set?"
"I'm the loneliest man in Oxford," I said. "Sebastian Flyte's been sent
down."
Presently I asked him what he was doing in the Long Vacation. He told
me; it sounded excruciatingly dull. Then I aske him if ,he had got digs for
next term. Yes, he told me, rather far out but very comfortable. He was
sharing with Tyngate, the secretary of the College Essay Society.
"There's one room we haven't filled yet. Barker was coming, but he
feels now he's standing for president of the Union he ought to be nearer
in."
It was in both our minds that perhaps I might take that room.
"Where are you going?"
"I was going to Merton Street with Sebastian Flyte. That's no use now."
Still neither of us made the suggestion and the moment passed. When, I
left he said, "I hope you find someone for Merton Street," and I said, "I
hope you find someone for the Iffley Road," and I never spoke to him again.
There was only ten days of term to go; I got through them somehow and
returned to London as I had done in such different circumstances the year
before, with no plans made.
"That very good-looking friend of yours," asked my father -- "is he not
with you?"
"No."
"I quite thought he had taken this over as his home. I'm sorry. I liked
him."
"Father, do you particularly want me to take my degree?"
"I want you to? Good gracious, why should I want such a thing? No use
to me. Not much use to you either, as far as I've seen."
"That's exactly what I've been thinking. I thought perhaps it was
rather a waste of time going back to Oxford."
Until then my father had taken only a limited interest in what I was
saying; now he put down his book, took off his spectacles, and looked at me
hard. "You've been sent down," he said. "My brother warned me of this."
"No, I've not."
"Well, then, what's all the talk about?" he asked testily, resuming his
spectacles, searching for his place on the page. "Everyone stays up at least
three years. I knew one man who took seven to get a pass degree in
theology."
"I only thought that if I was not going to take up one o the
professions where a degree is necessary, it might be best to start now on
what I intend doing. I intend to be a painter."
But to this my father made no answer at the time.
The idea, however, seemed to take root in his mind; by the time we
spoke of the matter again it was firmly established.
"When you're a painter," he said suddenly at Sunday luncheon, "you'll
need a studio."
"Yes."
"Well, there isn't a studio here. There isn't even a room you could
decently use as a studio. I'm not going to have you painting in the
gallery."
"No. I never meant to."
"Nor will I have undraped models all over the house, not critics with
their horrible jargon. And I don't like the smell of turpentine. I presume
you intend to do the thing thoroughly and use oil paint?" My father belonged
to a generation which divided painters into the serious and the amateur,
according as they used oil or water.
"I don't suppose I should do much painting the first year. Anyway, I
should be working at a school."
"Abroad?" asked my father hopefully. "There are some excellent schools
abroad I believe."
It was all happening rather faster than I had intended.
"Abroad or here. I should have to look round first."
"Look round abroad," he said.
"Then you agree to my leaving Oxford?"
"Agree? Agree? My dear boy, you're twenty-two."
"Twenty," I said, "twenty-one in October."
"Is that all? It seems much longer."
A letter from Lady Marchmain completes this episode.
My dear Charles [she wrote],
Sebastian left me this morning to join his father abroad. Before he
went I asked him if he had written to you. He said no, so I must write, tho'
I can hardly hope to say in a letter what I could not say on our last walk.
But you must not be left in silence.
The College has sent Sebastian down for a term only, and will take him
back after Christmas on condition he goes to live with Mgr. Bell. It is for
him to decide. Meanwhile Mr. Samgrass has very kindly consented to take
charge of him. As soon as his visit to his father is over Mr. Samgrass will
pick him up and they will go together to the Levant, where Mr. Samgrass has
long been anxious to investigate a number of orthodox monasteries. He hopes
this may be a new interest for Sebastian.
Sebastian's stay here has not been happy.
When they come home at Christmas I know Sebastian will want to see you,
and so shall we all. I hope your arrangements for next term have not been
too much upset and that everything will go well with you.
Yours sincerely,
teresa marchmain
I went to the garden-room this morning ahd was so very sorry.
Chapter Six
"And when we reached the top of the pass," said Mr. Samgrass, "we heard
the galloping horses behind, and two soldiers rode up to the head of the
caravan and turned us back. The General had sent them, and they reached us
only just in time. There was a band, not a mile ahead."
He paused, and his small audience sat silent, conscious that he had
sought to impress them but in doubt as to how they could politely show their
interest.
"A band?" said Julia. "Goodness!"
Still he seemed to expect more. At last Lady Marchmain said, "I suppose
the sort of folk-music you get in those parts is very monotonous."
"Dear Lady Marchmain, a band of brigands." Cordelia, beside me on the
sofa, began to giggle noiselessly. "The mountains are full of them.
Stragglers from Kemal's army; Greeks who got cut off in the retreat. Very
desperate fellows, I assure you."
"Do pinch me," whispered Cordelia.
I pinched her and the agitation of the sofa-springs cedsed.
"Thanks," she said, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.
"So you never got to wherever-it-was," said Julia. "Weren't you
terribly disappointed, Sebastian?"
"Me?" said Sebastian from the shadows beyond the lamplight, beyond the
warmth of the burning logs, beyond the family circle and the photographs
spread out on the card-table. "Me? Oh, I don't think I was there that day,
was I, Sammy?"
"That was the day you were ill."
"I was ill," he repeated like an echo, "so I never should have got to
wherever-it-was, should I, Sammy?"
"Now this, Lady Marchmain, is the caravan at Aleppo in the-courtyard of
the inn. That's our Armenian cook, Begedbian; that's me on the pony; that's
the tent folded up; that's a rather tiresome Kurd who would follow us about
at the time. . . . Here I am in Pontus, Ephesus, Trebizond,
Krak-des-chevaliers, Samothrace, Batum -- of course, I haven't got them in
chronological order yet."
"All guides and ruins and mules," said Cordelia. "Where's Sebastian?"
"He," said Mr. Samgrass, with a hint of triumph in his voice, as though
he had expected the question and prepared the answer, "he held the camera.
He became quite an expert as soon as he learned not to put his hand over the
lens, didn't you, Sebastian?"
There was no answer from the shadows. Mr. Samgrass delved again into
his pig-skin satchel.
"Here," he said, "is a group taken by a street photographer on the
terrace of the St. George Hotel at Beirut. There's Sebastian."
"Why," I said, "there's Anthony Blanche, surely?"
"Yes, we saw quite a lot of him; met him by chance at Constantinople. A
delightful companion. I can't think how I missed knowing him. He came with
us all the way to Beirut."
Tea had been cleared away and the curtains drawn. It was two days after
Christmas, the first evening of my visit; the first, too, of Sebastian's and
Mr. Samgrass's, whom to my surprise I had found on the platform when I
arrived.
Lady Marchmain had written three weeks before: I have just heard from
Mr. Samgrass that he and Sebastian will be home for Christmas as we hoped. I
had not heard from them for so long that I was afraid they were lost and did
not want to make any arrangements until I knew. Sebastian will be longing to
see you. Do come to us for Christmas if you can manage it, or as soon after
as you can.
Christmas with my uncle was an engagement I could not break, so I
travelled across country and joined the local train midway, expecting to
find Sebastian already established; there he was, however, in the next
carriage to mine, and when I asked him what he was doing Mr. Samgrass
replied with such glibness and at such length, telling rne of mislaid
luggage and of Cook's being shut over the holidays, that I was at once aware
of some other explanation which was being withheld.
Mr. Samgrass was not at ease; he maintained all the physical habits of
self-confidence, but guilt hung about him like stale cigar smoke, and in
Lady Marchmain's greeting of him I caught a note of anticipation. He kept up
a lively account of his tour during tea, and then Lady Marchmain drew him
away with her, upstairs, for a "little talk." I watched him go with
something near compassion; it was plain to anyone with a poker sense that
Mr. Samgrass held a very imperfect hand and, as I watched him at tea, I
began to suspect that he was not only bluffing but cheating. There was
something he must say, did not want to say, and did not quite know how to
say to Lady Marchmain about his doings over Christmas, but, more than that,
I guessed, there was a great deal he ought to say and had no intention at
all of saying about the whole Levantine tour.
"Come and see Nanny," said Sebastian.
"Please, can I come, too?" said Cordelia.
"Come on."
We climbed to the nursery in the dome. On the way Cordelia said:
"Aren't you at all pleased to be home?"
"Of course I'm pleased," said Sebastian.
"Well, you might show it a bit. I've been looking forward to it so
much."
Nanny did not particularly wish to be talked to; she liked visitors
best when they paid no attention to her and let her knit away, and watch
their faces and think of them as she had known them as small children; their
present goings-on did not signify much beside those early illnesses and
crimes.
"Well," she said, "you are looking peaky. I expect it's all that
foreign food doesn't agree with you. You must fatten up now you're back.
Looks as though you'd been having some late nights, too, by the look of your
eyes -- dancing, I suppose." (It was ever Nanny Hawkins's belief that the
upper classes spent most of their leisure evenings in the ballroom.) "And
that shirt wants darning. Bring it to me before it goes to the wash."
Sebastian certainly did look ill; five months had wrought the change of
years in him. He was paler, thinner, pouchy under the eyes, drooping in the
corners of his mouth, and he showed
the scars of a boil on the side of his chin; his voice seemed flatter
and his movements alternately listless and jumpy; he looked down-at-heel,
too, with clothes and hair, which formerly had been happily negligent, now
unkempt; worst of all, there was a wariness in his eye which I had surprised
there at Easter, and which now seemed habitual to him.
Restrained by this wariness I asked him nothing of himself, but told
him instead about my autumn and winter. I told him about my rooms in the Ile
St.-Louis and the art school, and how good the old teachers were and how bad
the students.
"They never go near the Louvre," I said, "or, if they do, it's only
because one of their absurd reviews has suddenly 'discovered' a master who
fits in with that month's aesthetic theory. Half of them are out to make a
popular splash like Picabia; the other half quite simply want to earn their
living doing advertisements for Vogue and decorating night clubs. And the
teachers still go on