te he said: "The world
is full of different subjects."

     "Very true, Bridey."

     "If I were a painter," he said, "I should choose an entirely  different
subject every time;  subjects  with plenty  of  action in  them like .  . ."
Another pause.  What, I wondered, was  coming? <i>"The Flying Scotsman"'?</i>  "<i>The
Charge  of  the  Light  Brigade"?  "Henley' Regatta"?</i>  Then  surprisingly he
said:". . .  like  <i>'Macbeth</i>.'" There was something supremely preposterous in
the  idea  of  Bridey  as  a  painter  of action  pictures;  he  was usually
preposterous yet seldom quite absurd.  He achieved dignity by his remoteness
and agelessness; he was still half-child, already half-veteran; there seemed
no spark of contemporary life in him; he had a kind of massive rectitude and
impermeability, an  indifference to  the  world,  which  compelled  respect.
Though we  often laughed at<sup>: </sup>him, he was never wholly ridiculous;
at times he was even formidable.

     We talked  of the news  from Central Europe until, suddenly ill cutting
across this barren topic, Bridey asked: "Where are Mummy's jewels?"

     "This was hers," said Julia, "and this.  Cordelia and I had all her own
things. The family jewels went to the bank."

     "It's so long since  I've seen them--I don't know that I ever saw  them
all. What is  there?  Aren't there some  rather  famous rubies, someone  was
telling me?"

     "Yes, a necklace. Mummy used often to wear it, don't you remember ? And
there are the pearls  --  she always had those out. But most of it stayed in
the  bank  year after  year.  There are  some  hideous  diamond  fenders,  I
remember,  and a  Victorian  diamond collar no one could wear now. There's a
mass of good stones. Why?"

     "I'd like to have a look at them some day."

     "I say, Papa isn't going to pop them, is  he? He  hasn't got into  debt
again?"

     "No, no, nothing like that."

     Bridey was a slow  and copious eater.  Julia and I  watched him between
the candles. Presently he said: "If I was Rex . . .".His mind seemed full of
such suppositions: "If I  was Archbishop of Westminster," "If I was head  of
the Great Western Railway," "If I was an actress"--as though it  were a mere
trick  of fate  that  he  was none of  these things, and he might awake  any
morning to find the matter adjusted. "If I  was Rex I should want to live in
my constituency."

     "Rex says it saves four days' work a week not to."

     "I'm sorry he's not here. I have a little announcement to make."

     "Bridey, don't be so mysterious. Out with it."

     He made the grimace, which seemed to mean "not before the servants."

     Later, when port was on the table and we three  were alone, Julia said:
"I'm not going till I hear the announcement."

     "Well," said Bridey sitting back in his chair and gazing fixedly at his
glass. "You have only to wait until Monday to see it in  black and white  in
the newspapers. I am engaged to be married. I hope you are pleased."

     "Bridey. How . . . how very exciting! Who to?."

     "Oh, no one you know."

     "Is she pretty?"

     "I don't think you would exactly call her pretty; 'comely' is the  word
I think of in her connection. She is a big woman."

     "Fat?"

     "No, big. She is called Mrs. Muspratt; her  Christian name is Beryl.  I
have known her for a long time, but until  last year she had a  husband; now
she is a widow. Why do you laugh?"

     "I'm sorry. It isn't the least funny. It's just so unexpected. Is she .
. . is she about your own age?"

     "Just about, I believe. She has three children, the eldest boy has just
gone to Ampleforth. She is not at all well off."

     "But Bridey, where did you find her?"

     "Her  late husband, Admiral Muspratt,  collected  match-boxes," he said
with complete gravity.
     Julia trembled on the verge  of laughter, recovered her self-possession
and asked: "You're not marrying her for her matchboxes?"

     "No, no; the whole  collection was left to the Falmouth Town Library. I
have  a great affection  for her. In spite of all her difficulties she  is a
very  cheerful woman,,  very  fond of  acting.  She  is  connected with  the
Catholic Players' Guild."

     "Does Papa know?"

     "I had a  letter  from him this  morning giving me his approval. He has
been urging me to marry for some time."

     It  occurred  to  both  Julia and myself  simultaneously  that we  were
allowing curiosity and surprise to predominate; now we congratulated him  in
gentler tones from which mockery was almost excluded.

     "Thank you," he said, "thank you. I think I am very fortunate."

     "But when  are we  going to meet her? I do think you might have brought
her down with you."

     He said nothing, sipped and gazed.

     "Bridey," said Julia. "You sly, smug old brute, why haven't you brought
her here?"

     "Oh I couldn't do that, you know."

     "Why  couldn't you?  I'm  dying to meet her.  Let's ring her up now and
invite her. She'll think us most peculiar leaving  her alone at a  time like
this."

     "She has  the children," said Brideshead.  "Besides, you <i>are</i>  peculiar,
aren't you?"

     "What can you mean?"

     Brideshead  raised  his  head  and looked  solemnly at his  sister, and
continued  in  the same  simple  way,  as  though  he  were  saying  nothing
particularly different from what had gone before, "I couldn't ask  her here,
as things are. It wouldn't be suitable. After all, I am a lodger  here. This
is Rex's house at the moment, as far as it's anybody's. What goes on here is
his business. But I couldn't bring Beryl here."

     "I simply don't understand,"  said  Julia  rather sharply.  I looked at
her.  All the  gentle mockery had gone; she  was alert,  almost  scared,  it
seemed. "Of course, Rex and I want her to come."

     "Oh yes,  I  don't doubt that.  The difficulty is  quite otherwise." He
finished his port, refilled  his  glass, and pushed the decanter towards me.
"You  must  understand that  Beryl is a  woman of strict  Catholic principle
fortified by the prejudices of the  middle class. I  couldn't possibly bring
her here. It is a matter of  indifference whether you choose  to live in sin
with  Rex  or  Charles or  both --  I have always avoided enquiry  into  the
details  of your menage  --but in no  case would Beryl consent  to  be  your
guest."

     Julia rose. "Why, you pompous ass . . ." she said,  stopped, and turned
towards the door.

     At first  I thought she was overcome by laughter; then, as I opened the
door  to  her,  I saw with consternation that she was in tears. I hesitated.
She slipped past me without a glance.

     "I  may  have  given  the  impression  that  this  was  a  marriage  of
convenience,"  Brideshead  continued placidly. "I cannot speak for Beryl; no
doubt the security of my position has some influence on her. Indeed, she has
said as much. But for myself, let me emphasize, I am ardently attracted."

     "Bridey, what a bloody offensive thing to say to Julia!"

     "There was nothing she should object to. I was merely stating!  a  fact
well known to her."


     She was not in the  library; I mounted to her  room, but she  J was not
there. I paused by  her  laden dressing-table wonderingT if she  would come.
Then  through the  open  window, as the  light  I  streamed out  across  the
terrace, into the dusk, to the fountain which in that house seemed always to
draw us  to  itself  for comfort and refreshment,  I caught the glimpse of a
white skirt against  I  the stones. It  was nearly night. I found her in the
darkest  refuge, on  a  wooden seat,  in a  bay  of  the  clipped  box which
encircled the basin. I took  her in my arms and she pressed her  face to  my
heart.

     "Aren't you cold out here?"

     She did not answer, only clung closer to me and shook with sobs.

     "My darling, what is it? Why do you mind? What does it matter what that
old booby says?"

     "I don't; it doesn't. It's just the shock. Don't laugh at me."

     In the two  years of our love, which  seemed a lifetime, I had not seen
her so moved or felt so powerless to help.

     "How  dare he  speak  to you  like that?" I said. "The cold-blooded old
humbug . . ." But I was failing her in sympathy.

     "No," she said, "it's not that. He's  quite right.  They know all about
it, Bridey and his widow; they've  got it in black and white; they bought it
for a penny at the church door. You cat get  anything there for  a penny, in
black  and white, and nobody to see that you  pay; only an  old woman with a
broom at the other end, rattling round the confessionals,  and a young woman
lighting a candle at the Seven Dolours. Put a penny in the box or not,  just
as you like; take your tract. There you've got it in black and white.

     "All  in one  word, too, one  little, flat,  deadly  word that cover  a
lifetime.

     " 'Living in sin';  not just doing  wrong, as I  did  when  I  went  to
America; doing wrong,  knowing it is wrong,  stopping doing  it, forgetting.
That's  not  what they mean. That's  not Bridey's  pennyworth. He means just
what it says in black and white.

     <i>"Living in sin,</i>  with sin, by sin, for sin, every hour, every day, year
in, year out. Waking up with sin in  the morning, seeing the curtains  drawn
on  sin, bathing  it,  dressing  it,  clipping diamonds to  it,  feeding it,
showing it round, giving it a good time, putting it to sleep at night with a
tablet of Dial if it's fretful.

     "Always  the same, like an idiot child  carefully  nursed, guarded from
the world. 'Poor Julia,' they say, 'she can't go out. She's got to take care
of her little sin. A pity  it  ever  lived,' they say,  'but it's so strong.
Children like that always are. Julia's so good to her little, mad sin.'"

     An hour ago, I thought, under the sunset, she  sat  turning her ring in
the water fend counting the days of happiness; now under the first stars and
the last grey whisper of day, all this mysterious tumult of sorrow! What had
happened to  us in  the  Painted  Parlour? What shadow  had  fallen  in  the
candlelight? Two rough sentences and a trite phrase. She was beside herself;
her voice, now muffled in my breast,  now clear and anguished, came to me in
single words and broken sentences, which may be strung together thus: --

     "Past and future; the years when I was trying to be a good wife, in the
cigar smoke,  while time crept on and the counters clicked on the backgammon
board, and the man who was  'dummy' at the men's  table  filled the glasses;
when I was trying  to bear his child,  torn in  pieces by something  already
dead; putting him, away, forgetting him, finding you,  the  past  two  years
with you, all  the future with you, all  the future with or without you, war
coming, world ending -- sin.

     "A word from  so  long ago, from  Nanny Hawkins stitching by the hearth
and the nightlight burning before the Sacred Heart. Cordelia and me with the
catechism, in  Mummy's room, before luncheon on  Sundays. Mummy carrying  my
sin  with her to church,  bowed under it  and  the  black lace veil,  in the
chapel; slipping out  with it in London before the fires were lit; taking it
with her through  the empty  streets, where  the milkman's ponies stood with
their forefeet on the pavement; Mummy dying with my sin eating at her,  more
cruelly than her own deadly illness.

     "Mummy  dying  with  it;  Christ dying  with it, nailed hand and  foot;
hanging over the bed in the night-nursery; hanging  year after  year  in the
dark little study at Farm  Street with  the shining oilcloth; hanging in the
dark church  where only the old char-  woman raises the dust and  one candle
burns; hanging at noon, high among  the crowds and  the soldiers; no comfort
except a  sponge of vinegar and the kind words  of a thief; hanging forever;
never  the cool  sepulchre  and the  grave clothes spread on the stone slab,
never the  oil and spices in the dark  cave; always I the midday sun and the
dice clicking for the seamless coat.

     "Never the  shelter of the cave or of the  castle  walls. Outcast il in
the desolate spaces where the hyenas roam at night and  the  1 rubbish heaps
smoke  in the daylight. No  way back;  the gates barred; all  the saints and
angels posted along  the  walls. Nothing  but bare stone and  dust  and  the
smouldering  dumps.  Thrown away, scrapped, rotting  down; the  old man with
lupus and the  forked stick who limps out at nightfall to turn the rubbish,,
hoping for  something to put in  his sack,  something marketable, turns away
with disgust.

     "Nameless  and dead, like the baby they wrapped up and took away before
I had seen her."

     Between her tears she talked herself  into silence. I could do nothing;
I was adrift  in a  strange sea; my hands on the  metal-spun threads of  her
tunic were cold and stiff, my eyes  dry; I was as far from her in spirit, as
she clung  to me in the darkness, as  when years ago I had lit her cigarette
on the way from the station; as far as when she was out of mind, in the dry,
empty years at the Old Rectory and in the jungle.

     Tears spring from speech; presently in the silence her weeping stopped.
She sat up, away from me, took my handkerchief, shivered, rose to her feet.

     "Well,"  she said, in a  voice  much  like  normal. "Bridey is  one for
bombshells, isn't he?"

     I followed  her  into  the  house  and  to  her  room; she  sat  at her
looking-glass.  "Considering  that  I've  just  recovered  from   a  fit  of
hysteria,"  she said, "I  don't  call that  at  all  bad."  Her  eyes seemed
unnaturally large and bright, her cheeks pale with two spots of high colour,
where, as a  girl,  she  used to put a  dab of rouge. "Most hysterical women
look as if they had a bad cold. You'd  better change your shirt before going
down; it's all tears and lipstick."

     "Are we going down?"

     "Of course, we mustn't leave poor Bridey on his engagement night."

     When I came back  to her  she  said: "I'm sorry  for  that appalling  '
scene, Charles. I can't explain."

     Brideshead was  in  the library, smoking  his pipe,  placidly reading a
detective story.

     "Was it nice out? If I'd known you were going I'd have come, too."

     "Rather cold."

     "I hope it's  not going to be inconvenient for Rex  moving out of here.
You see,  Barton Street is  much too  small  for us and the  three children.
Besides, Beryl likes  the country. In  his letter Papa  proposed making over
the whole estate right away."

     I remembered how Rex had greeted  me on  my first arrival at Brideshead
as Julia's guest. "A very happy arrangement," he had said. "Suits me down to
the ground. The old boy keeps the place up; Bridey does all the feudal stuff
with the  tenants; I have the run of the house rent-free. All it costs me is
the food and the wages of the indoor servants. Couldn't ask faker than that,
could you?"

     "I should think he'll be sorry to go," I said.

     "Oh, he'll find another bargain somewhere," said Julia; "trust him."

     "Beryl's got some  furniture of her own she's very attached to. I don't
know that  it  would go very well  here. You know,  oak dressers  and coffin
stools and things. I thought she could put it in Mummy's old room."

     "Yes, that would be the place."

     So brother and sister sat and talked about the arrangement of the house
until bed-time. An hour ago, I  thought, in  the  black refuge  in  the  box
hedge,  she  wept  her heart out  for  the  death of  her God;  now  she  is
discussing whether  Beryl's children shall take the old smoking-room  or the
schoolroom for their own. I was all at sea.

     "Julia," I said  later, when Brideshead had gone  upstairs,  "have  you
ever seen a picture of Holman Hunt's called 'The Awakened Conscience'?"

     "No."

     I had seen a copy of <i>Pre-Raphaelitism</i> in the  library some days before;
I  found  it  again  and read her Ruskin's description.  She  laughed  quite
happily.

     "You're perfectly right. That's exactly what I did feel."

     "But,  darling, I  can't  believe that all that tempest of emotion came
just  from a  few words of  Bridey's. You  must have been thinking about  it
before."

     "Hardly at all;  now and then; more,  lately, with the  Last  Trump  so
near."

     "Of course it's a thing psychologists could  explain; a preconditioning
from childhood; feelings  of guilt from the nonsense you  were taught in the
nursery. You do know at heart that it's all bosh, don't you?"

     "How I wish it was!"

     "Sebastian once said almost the same thing to me."

     "He's gone back to the Church, you know. Of course, he never left it as
definitely as I did. I've gone too far; there's no turning back  now; I know
that, if that's wha you mean by thinking it all bosh.  All I can hope to do
is to put my life in some  sort of  order in a human  way, before all  human
order comes to an end. That's why I want to marry you. I should like to have
a  child. That's one  thing I can do. . . .  Let's  go  out  again. The moon
should be up by now."

     The moon was full and high. We walked  round the house; under the limes
Julia  paused and idly  snapped off one  of  the  long  shoots,  last year's
growth, that fringed  their boles, and  stripped it as  she walked, making a
switch, as children do, but with petulant movements that were not a child's,
snatching nervously  at  the leaves and crumpling them  between her fingers;
she began peeling the bark, scratching it with her nails.

     Once more we stood by the fountain.

     "It's like the setting of a comedy," I said. "Scene: a baroque fountain
in  a  nobleman's  grounds.  Act  One, Sunset;  Act  Two, Dusk;  Act  Three,
Moonlight. The characters keep assembling at  the fountain for no very clear
reason."

     "Comedy?"

     "Drama. Tragedy.  Farce.  What you  will. This  is  the  reconciliation
scene."

     "Was there a quarrel?"

     "Estrangement and misunderstanding in Act Two."

     "Oh,  don't talk  in  that  damned bounderish  way. Why  must  you  see
everything secondhand? Why must this be a play? Why  must my conscience be a
Pre-Raphaelite picture?"

     "It's a way I have."

     "I hate it."

     Her anger was as  unexpected as every change on  this  evening of swift
veering moods. Suddenly  she  cut me  across  the face  with  her switch,  a
vicious, stinging little blow as hard as she could strike.

     "Now do you see how I hate it?"

     She hit me again.

     "All right," I said, "go on."

     Then,  though  her  hand  was  raised, she  stopped  and  threw  |  the
half-peeled wand  into  the water, where  it floated white and  black in the
moonlight.

     "Did that hurt?"

     "Yes."

     "Did it? ... Did I?"

     In the instant her rage was gone; her tears, newly flowing, were  on my
cheek. I held her at arm's length and  she  put  down  her head, stroking my
hand on her shoulder with her face, catlike,  but,  unlike a cat, leaving  a
tear there.

     "Cat on the roof-top," I said.

     "Beast!"

     She bit at my hand, but when  I did not  move it and her  teeth touched
me, she changed the bite to a kiss, the kiss to a lick of her tongue.

     "Cat in the moonlight."

     This  was the mood I knew. We turned towards the house. When we came to
the lighted hall she said:  "Your poor  face," touching  the weals with  her
fingers. "Will there be a mark to-morrow?"

     "I expect so."

     "Charles, am I going crazy? What's happened to-night? I'm so tired."

     She yawned; a fit of  yawning  took her. She sat at her dressing-table,
head bowed, hair over her face, yawning helplessly; when she looked up I saw
over her shoulder in  the glass a face that was dazed with weariness like  a
retreating soldier's, and beside it my own, streaked with two crimson lines.

     "So  tired,"  she repeated,  taking off her  gold tunic and letting, it
fall to the floor, "tired and crazy and good for nothing."

     I saw her to bed; the blue lids fell over her eyes; her pale lips moved
on the pillow, but whether to  wish me good-night or to murmur a prayer -- a
jingle  of  the  nursery  that  came to her now in the twilit world  between
sorrow  and  sleep;  some ancient  pious  rhyme that had come down to  Nanny
Hawkins from  centuries of  bedtime  whispering, through all the changes  of
language, from the days  of pack-horses on the Pilgrim's  Way  -- I did  not
know.

     Next night Rex and his political associates were with us.

     "They won't fight."

     "They can't fight. They haven't the money; they haven't the oil."

     "They haven't the wolfram; they haven't the men."

     "They haven't the guts."

     "They're afraid."

     "Scared of the  French; scared of  the Czechs; scared  of  the Slovaks;
scared of us." '

     "It's a bluff."

     "Of  course  it's  a  bluff.  Where's  their  tungsten?  Where's  their
manganese?"

     "Where's their chrome?"

     "I'll tell you a thing . . ."

     "Listen to this; it'll be good; Rex will tell you a thing."

     "...  Friend of mine motoring in the Black Forest,  only the other day,
just came back and told me about it while  we  played a round of golf. Well,
this friend  driving along, turned  down a lane  into the  high  road.  What
should he find but a military convoy? Couldn't  stop, drove  right into  it,
smack into  a tank, broadside-on. Gave himself  up for dead.  . . . Hold on,
this is the funny part."

     "This is the funny part."

     "Drove clean through  it, didn't scratch his  paint. What do you think?
It was made of canvas -- a bamboo frame and painted canvas."

     "They haven't the steel."

     "They  haven't  the  tools.  They  haven't  the  labour.  They're  half
starving. They haven't the fats. The children have rickets."

     "The women are barren."

     "The men are impotent."

     "They haven't the doctors."

     "The doctors were Jewish."

     "Now they've got consumption."

     "Now they've got syphilis."

     "Goering told a friend of mine . . ."

     "Goebbels told a friend of mine . . ."

     "Ribbentrop told me that the army just kept Hitler in power, so long as
he was able to get things for nothing.  The moment anyone  stands up to him,
he's finished. The army will shoot him."

     "The liberals will hang him."

     "The Communists will tear him limb from limb."

     "He'll scupper himself."

     "He'd do it now if it wasn't for Chamberlain."

     "If it wasn't for Halifax."

     "If it wasn't for Sir Samuel Hoare."

     "And the 1920 Committee."

     "Peace Pledge."

     "Foreign Office."

     "New York banks."

     "All that's wanted is a good strong line."

     "A line from Rex."

     "And a line from me."

     "We'll give Europe a good strong line. Europe is waiting for | a speech
from' Rex."

     "And a speech from me."

     "And a speech from me. Rally the freedom-loving peoples of 'the  world.
Germany will rise; Austria will rise. The  Czechs and  the Slovaks are bound
to rise."

     "To a speech from Rex and a speech from me."

     "What about a rubber? How about a whiskey? Which of you chaps will have
a big cigar? Hullo, you two going out?"

     "Yes, Rex," said Julia. "Charles and I are going into the moon-light."

     We shut the windows behind us and the  voices ceased; the moonlight lay
like  hoar-frost on the terrace  and the music of the fountain  crept in our
ears; the  stone balustrade of the terrace might have been the Trojan walls,
and in  the silent park might have stood the Grecian tents where Cressid lay
that night.

     "A few days, a few months."

     "No time to be lost."

     "A lifetime between  the rising of the mooii  and its setting. Then the
dark."


     <i>Chapter Four</i>

     "and of course Celia will have custody of the children."

     "Of course."

     "Then what about the Old Rectory? I don't imagine you'll want to settle
down with Julia bang  at our gates.  The children look on it as their  home,
you  know.  Robin's got no place of  his own till his uncle dies. After all,
you never used the studio, did you? Robin was saying only the other day what
a good playroom it would make--big enough for badminton."

     "Robin can have the Old Rectory."

     "Now with  regard to money, Celia and  Robin  naturally  don't want  to
accept anything  for themselves, but there's the question of  the children's
education."

     "That will be all right. I'll see the lawyers about it."

     "Well, I think that's everything," said Mulcaster. "You know, I've seen
a few divorces  in my time, and I've never known one work out so happily for
all concerned. Almost  always, however  matey people are at  the start,  bad
blood crops up when they get down to detail. Mind you, I don't miricl saying
there have been times in the last two years when I thought you were treating
Celia a  bit rough. It's hard to tell with one's own sister, but I've always
thought her a jolly attractive girl, the sort of girl any chap would be glad
to have--artistic, too,  just down your street.  But I  must admit you're  a
good picker.  I've always had a soft  spot for Julia. Anyway, as things have
turned out everyone seems satisfied. Robin's been mad about Celia for a year
or more. D'you know him?"

     "Vaguely.  A  half-baked, pimply  youth  as  I  remember him."  "Oh,  I
wouldn't  quite say that. He's rather young, of  course, but the great thing
is  that  Johnjohn and Caroline adore him. You've got two grand kids  there,
Charles. Remember me to Julia; wish her all the best for old time's sake."


     "So  you're  being  divorced,"  said  my  father.  "Isn't  that  rather
unnecessary, after you've been happy together all these years?"

     "We weren't particularly happy, you know."

     "Weren't you? Were you not? I distinctly remember last Christmas seeing
you together  and thinking how  happy you looked, and wondering  why. You'll
find  it  very  disturbing,  you  know,  starting  off  again.  How  old are
you--thirty-four? That's  no age to  be starting. You ought  to be  settling
down. Have you made any plans?"

     "Yes. I'm marrying again as soon as the divorce is through."

     "Well, I do call that a lot of nonsense. I can understand a man wishing
he hadn't married and  trying  to  get  out of it  -- though  I  never  felt
anything of the kind myself --  but to get rid of one wife  and take up with
another immediately  is beyond all reason.  Celia was always perfectly civil
to me. I had quite a liking for her, in a way. If you couldn't be happy with
her, why on  earth should you  expect to be happy  with anyone else? Take my
advice, my dear boy, and give up the whole idea."

     "Why bring Julia and me into this?" asked Rex. "If Celia wants to marry
again, well and good; let her. That's  your business and  hers. But I should
have thought Julia and I were quite happy as we are. You can't say I've been
difficult. Lots of chaps would have cut  up nasty. I  hope I'm a man  of the
world. I've had my own fish to fry, too. But a  divorce is a different thing
altogether; I've never known a divorce do anyone any good."

     "That's your affair and Julia's."

     "Oh, Julia's set on it. What I hoped was, you might be able to talk her
round.  I've tried to keep out of the  way as much as I could; if I've  been
around too much,  just tell me, I shan't mind. But there's too much going on
altogether  at the moment,  what with Bridey wanting me  to clear out of the
house; it's disturbing, and I've got a lot on my mind."

     Rex's public life was approaching a climacteric. Things had not gone as
smoothly with him as he had planned. I knew nothing of finance,  but I heard
it  said  that his dealings were badly looked on by orthodox  conservatives;
even  his  good qualities  of geniality and impetuosity counted against him,
for his parties at  Brideshead got  talked about. There was always too  much
about him in the papers; he was one with the press lords and their sad-eyed,
smiling hangers-on; in his speeches he said the sort of thing  which "made a
story" in Fleet Street, and that did him no good with his party chiefs; only
war could put Rex's fortunes right and carry him into power. A divorce would
do Him no harm  with these cronies; it  was  rather that  with  a  big  bank
running he could not look up from the table.

     "If  Julia insists on a divorce, I  suppose she must have it," he said.
"But she couldn't have chosen  a  worse  time.  Tell her to  hang  on a bit,
Charles, there's a good fellow."

     "Bridey's  widow  said:  'So  you're  divorcing  one divorced  man  and
marrying another. It sounds rather complicated, but  my dear' --  she called
me 'my dear' about twenty times -- 'I've usually found every Catholic family
has one lapsed member, and it's often the nicest.'"

     Julia had just returned from  a luncheon party given by Lady Rosscommon
in honour of Brideshead's engagement.

     "What's she like?"

     "Majestic and voluptuous; common, of  course; might be Irish  or Jewish
or both; husky voice, big mouth, small eyes, dyed  hair -- I'll tell you one
thing,  she's lied to Bridey about her age. She's a good forty-five. I don't
see  her providing  an heir. Bridey  can't take his eyes  off  her.  He  was
gloating on her in the most revolting way all through luncheon."

     "Friendly?"

     "Goodness, yes, in a condescending way. You see, I imagine 1 she's been
used  to  bossing  things  rather in  naval circles,  with  flag-lieutenants
trotting round  and young officers-on-the-make sucking up to her.  Well, she
clearly couldn't do  a great  deal of bossing at Aunt Fanny's, so it put her
rather at ease to have me there as the black  sheep. She concentrated on me,
in fact; asked my advice about shops and things; said, rather pointedly, she
hoped to see me  often <i>in London.</i>  I think Bridey's scruples only extend  to
her sleeping under the same roof with me. Apparently I can do her no serious
harm in a hat-shop or hairdresser's ' or lunching at the Ritz. The  scruples
are all on Bridey's part, anyway; the widow is madly tough."

     "Does she boss him?"

     "Not yet,  much.  He's  in an amorous  stupor, poor beast,  and doesn't
quite know where  he is. She's just a good-hearted  woman who wants  a  good
home for her children and isn't going to let anything get in her way.  She's
playing up the religious stuff at j the moment for all it's worth. I daresay
she'll ease up a bit when she's settled."


     The divorces were much talked of among our friends; even in that summer
of general  alarm  there were still corners where  private affairs commanded
first attention. My wife was able to put it across  that  the business was a
matter of congratulation for her and reproach for me; that  she had  behaved
wonderfully, had stood it longer  than anyone but she would have done; Robin
was seven years younger and a little immature for his age, they whispered in
their  private  corners,  but he was  absolutely  devoted to poor Celia, and
really  she deserved it after all she had been through. As for Julia and me,
that was an old story. "To put it crudely," said my cousin Jasper, as though
he had ever in his life put anything otherwise:  "I don't see why you bother
to marry."

     Summer passed; delirious crowds  cheered  Neville Chamberlain's  return
from Munich;  Rex made a rabid  speech in the House of Commons which  sealed
his fate one way  or the other; sealed it, as is  sometimes done  with naval
orders, to be opened later at sea. Julia's family lawyers,  whose black, tin
boxes, painted  marquis of marchmain, seemed to fill a room,  began the slow
process of her divorce; my  own,  brisker firm, two  doors down,  were weeks
ahead  with my affairs.  It was  necessary  for  Rex and  Julia  to separate
formally, and since, for the  time being, Brideshead was still her home, she
remained there and  Rex  removed  his trunks and  valet  to their  house  in
London. Evidence was taken against Julia and me in my flat. A date was fixed
for  Brideshead's  wedding, early  in  the Christmas holidays, so  that  his
future stepchildren might take part.
     One  afternoon  in  November Julia  and  I stood  at  a  window in  the
drawing-room watching  the wind at work stripping  the  lime-trees, sweeping
down the yellow leaves, sweeping them up and round and along the terrace and
lawns, trailing them through puddles and over the wet grass, pasting them on
walls and window-panes, leaving  them at length in sodden  piles against the
stonework.

     "We shan't see them in spring," said Julia; "perhaps never again."

     "Once before," I said, "I went away, thinking I should never return."

     "Perhaps years later, to what's left of it, with what's left of us ..."

     A  door  opened  and  shut  in  the darkling  room  behind  us.  Wilcox
approached through the firelight into the dusk about the long windows.

     "A telephone message, my lady, from Lady Cordelia."

     "Lady Cordelia! Where was she?"

     "In London, my lady."

     "Wilcox, how lovely! Is she coming home?"

     "She was just starting for the station. She will be here after dinner."

     "I haven't seen her for twelve years," I said -- not since  the evening
when  we dined together and she  spoke  of being a  nun; the evening when  I
painted the drawing-room at Marchmain House.

     "She was an enchanting child."

     "She's  had  an  odd  life. First, the  convent; then, when that was no
good, the war in  Spain. I've  not seen  her since then. The other girls who
went with  the ambulance came back  when the  war was over;  she  stayed on,
getting people  back  to their homes,  helping in  the prison camps. An  odd
girl. She's grown up quite plain, you know."

     "Does she know about us?"

     "Yes, she wrote me a sweet letter."

     It hurt to think  of Cordelia  growing up quite plain; to  think of all
that burning love spending itself on serum  injections and delousing powder.
When  she arrived,  tired from  her  journey,  rather  shabby, moving in the
manner  of one who has no interest in pleasing, I thought her an ugly woman.
It  was  odd,  I  thought, how  the same ingredients, differently dispensed,
could produce  Brideshead,  Sebastian, Julia and her. She  was  unmistakably
their  sister,  without  any  of  Julia's  or  Sebastian's  grace,   without
Brideshead's  gravity. She seemed  brisk and matter-of-fact,  steeped in the
atmosphere of camp and dressing station, so accustomed to gross suffering as
to lose the finer shades of  pleasure.  She looked more  than her twenty-six
years;  hard  living  had roughened her;  constant  intercourse in a foreign
tongue had  worn  away the nuances of speech; she straddled a little  as she
sat by the fire, and when she said, "It's wonderful  to be home," it sounded
to my ears like the grunt of an animal returning to its basket.

     Those  were  the impressions of the first half-hour, sharpened  by  the
contrast  with  Julia's white  skin and silk and  jewelled hair  and with my
memories of her as a child.

     "My job's over in Spain," she  said; "the authorities were very polite,
thanked me for all I'd done,  gave me a medal and sent  me packing. It looks
as though there'll be plenty of the same sort of work over here soon."

     Then she said: "Is it too late to see Nanny?"

     "No, she sits up to all hours with her wireless." We went up, all three
together,  to  the old  nursery. Julia and  I  always spent part of our  day
there. Nanny Hawkins and my father were two people who  seemed impervious to
change; neither  an  hour older than when  I first knew them. A wireless set
had now been  added  to  Nanny  Hawkins's small assembly  of  pleasures--the
rosary,  the <i>Peerage</i> with its neat brown-paper wrapping protecting  the  red
and gold covers, the photographs and holiday souvenirs -- on her table. When
we broke it to her  that Julia and I  were to be married,  she  said, "Well,
dear, I hope it's all for the best," for it  was not part of her religion to
question the propriety of Julia's actions.

     Brideshead had never been a favourite with her; she greeted the news of
his engagement with "He's certainly taken long enough to  make up his mind,"
and, when  the  search through  Debrett afforded  no  information about Mrs.
Muspratt's connections: "She's caught him, I daresay."
     We found  her, as  always  in the evening,  at the  fireside  with  her
teapot, and the wool rug she was making.

     "I knew  you'd  be up," she said. "Mr.  Wilcox sent to tell me you were
coming."

     "I brought you some lace."

     "Well, dear, that is nice.  Just like her poor Ladyship used to wear at
mass. Though why they  made it black I never did understand, seeing lace  is
white naturally. That is very welcome, I'm sure."

     "May I turn off the wireless, Nanny?"

     "Why,  of course; I didn't notice it was  still  on, in the pleasure of
seeing you. What have you done to your hair?"

     "I know  it's terrible. I  must  get all that put right  now  I'm back.
Darling Nanny."

     As we sat there talking, and I saw Cordelia's fond eyes on all of us, I
began to realize that she, too, had a beauty of her own.

     "I saw Sebastian last month."

     "What a time he's been gone! Was he quite well?"

     "Not very. That's  why  I went. It's quite near you know  from Spain to
Tunis. He's with the monks there."

     "I hope they look after him properly. I expect they find him a  regular
handful. He always sends to me at Christmas, but it's not the same as having
him home.  Why you must all always be going abroad  I  never did understand.
Just  like his  Lordship. When there was that talk  about going to  war with
Munich, I said  to  myself, there's Cordelia and Sebastian and  his Lordship
all abroad; that'll be very awkward for them."

     "I wanted him  to  come home with me, but he wouldn't. He's  got  beard
now, you know, and he's very religions."

     "That  I won't believe, not even if I see it. He  was  always a  little
heathen. Brideshead  was  one  for church, not  Sebastian. And a beard, only
fancy; such a nice fair skin as he had; always looked clean  though he'd not
been near water all  day, while Brideshead there  was no doing anything with
scrub as you might."

     "It's frightening," Julia once said, "to think how  completely you have
forgotten Sebastian."

     "He was the forerunner."

     "That's what  you said in the storm.  I've thought  since: perhaps I am
only a forerunner, too."

     Perhaps, I thought,  while  her words still hung in the  air between us
like a  wisp of  tobacco smoke -- a thought to  fade and  vanish  like smoke
without a  trace -- perhaps  all our loves  are merely hints  and symbols; a
hill of many invisible  crests; doors that open as in a dream to reveal only
a further  stretch  of  carpet and another door; perhaps you and I are types
and   this   sadness   which  sometimes  falls  between  us   springs   from
disappointment in our search, each straining  through and beyond the  other,
snatching a glimpse now and then of the shadow which turns the corner always
a pace or two ahead of us.

     I had not forgotten Sebastian. He was with me daily in Julia; or rather
it was Julia I had known in him, in those distant, Arcadian days.

     "That's  cold comfort for  a girl," she said when I  tried  to explain.
"How  do I know I shan't suddenly turn out to be somebody else? It's an easy
way to chuck."

     I had not forgotten Sebastian; every stone of the house had a memory of
him, and  when I heard him spoken of by Cordelia as someone she  had  seen a
month  ago,  my lost friend filled  my thoughts. When we left the nursery, I
said, "I want to hear all about Sebastian."

     "To-morrow. It's a long story."

     And next day, walking through the wind-swept park, she told me: --

     "I  heard he was dying," she  said.  "A  journalist  in Burgos told me,
who'd just arrived  from North Africa.  A  down-and-out  called  Flyte,  who
people  said was an English lord, whom the fathers had  found  starving  and
taken in at a monastery near Carthage.  That was how the story reached me. I
knew it couldn't be quite true--however  little we  did for Sebastian, he at
least got his money sent him--but I started off at once.

     "It was all quite easy. I went to the consulate first and they knew all
about  him;  he was in  the infirmary of the  head house  of some missionary
fathers. The  consul's story was that Sebastian had turned up in  Tunis  one
day, some weeks before, in  a motor bus from Algiers,  and had applied to be
taken on as a missionary lay brother. The fathers took one look  at him  and
turned him down.  Then he started  drinking. He lived in a little<i>.'</i> hotel on
the  edge of the Arab quarter. I