Brideshead Revisited(22)
Strife was internecine during the next fortnight, but I suffered the more, for my father had greater reserves to draw on and a wider territory for manoeuvre, while I was pinned to my bridgehead between. the uplands and the sea. He never declared his war aims, and I do not to this day know whether they, were purely punitive — whether he had really at the back of his mind some geopolitical idea of getting me out of the country, as my Aunt Philippa had been driven to Bordighera and cousin Melchior to Darwin, or whether, as seems most likely, he fought for the sheer love of a battle in which indeed he shone.
I received one letter from Sebastian, a conspicuous object which was brought to me in my father’s presence one day when he was lunching at home; I saw him look curiously at it and bore it away to read in solitude. It was written on, and enveloped in, heavy late-Victorian mourning paper, black-coroneted and black-bordered. I read it eagerly:
Brideshead Castle,
Wiltshire
I wonder what the date is
Dearest Charles,
I found a box of this paper at the back of a bureau so I must write to you as I am mourning for my lost innocence. It never looked like living. The doctors despaired of it from the start.
Soon I am off to Venice to stay with my papa in his palace of sin. I wish you were coming. I wish you were here.
I am never quite alone. Members of my family keep turning up and collecting luggage and going away again but the white raspberries are ripe.
I have a good mind not to take Aloysius to Venice. I don’t want him to meet a lot of horrid Italian bears and pick up bad habits.
Love or what you will.
S.
I knew his letters of old; I had had them at Ravenna; I should not have been disappointed; but that day as I tore the stiff sheet across and let it fall into the basket, and gazed resentfully across the grimy gardens and irregular backs of Bayswater, at the jumble of soil-pipes and fire-escapes and protuberant little conservatories, I saw, in my mind’s eye, the pale face of Anthony Blanche, peering through the straggling leaves as it had peered through the candle flames at Thame, and heard, above the murmur of traffic, his clear tones…’You mustn’t blame Sebastian if at times he seems a little insipid…When I hear him talk I am reminded of that in some ways nauseating picture of “Bubbles”.’
For days after that I thought I hated Sebastian; then one Sunday afternoon a telegram came from him, which dispelled that shadow, adding a new and darker one of its own.
My father was out and returned to find me in a condition of feverish anxiety. He stood in the hall with his panama hat still on his head and beamed at me.
‘You’ll never guess how I have spent the day; I have been to the Zoo. It was most agreeable; the animals seem to enjoy the sunshine so much.’
‘Father, I’ve got to leave at once.’
‘Yes?’
‘A, great friend of mine — he’s had a terrible accident. I must go to him at once. Hayter’s packing for me, now. There’s a train in half an hour.’
I showed him the telegram, which read simply: ‘Gravely injured come at once Sebastian.’
‘Well,’ said my father. ‘I’m sorry you are upset. Reading this message I should not say that the accident was as serious as you seem to think — otherwise it would hardly be signed by the victim himself. Still, of course, he may well be fully conscious but blind or paralysed with a broken back. Why exactly is your presence so necessary? You have no medical knowledge. You are not in holy orders. Do you hope for a legacy?’
‘I told you, he is a great friend.’
‘Well, Orme-Herrick is a great friend of mine, but I should not go tearing off to his deathbed on a warm Sunday afternoon. I should doubt whether Lady Orme-Herrick would welcome me. However, I see you have no such doubts. I shall miss you, my dear boy, but do not hurry back on my account.’
Paddington Station on that August Sunday evening, with the sun streaming through the obscure panes of its roof, the bookstalls shut, and the few passengers strolling unhurried beside their porters, would have soothed a mind less agitated than mine. The train was nearly empty. I had my suitcase put in the corner of a third-class carriage and took a seat in the dining-car. ‘First dinner after Reading, sir; about seven o’clock. Can I get you anything now?’ I ordered gin and vermouth; it was brought to me as we pulled out of the station. The knives and forks set up their regular jingle; the bright landscape rolled past the windows. But I had no mind for these smooth things; instead, fear worked like yeast in my thoughts, and the fermentation brought to the surface, in great gobs of scum, the images of disaster; a loaded gun held carelessly at a stile, a horse rearing and rolling over, a shaded pool with a submerged, stake, an elm bough falling suddenly on a still morning, a car at a blind corner; all the catalogue of threats to civilized life rose and haunted me; I even pictured a homicidal maniac mouthing in the shadows, swinging a length of lead pipe. The cornfields and heavy woodland sped past, deep in the golden evening, and the throb of the wheels repeated monotonously in my ears. ‘You’ve come too late. You’ve come too late. He’s dead. He’s dead. He’s dead.’
I dined and changed trains to the local line, and in twilight came to Melstead Carbury, which was my destination.
‘Brideshead, sir? Yes, Lady Julia’s in the yard.’
She was sitting at the wheel of an open car. I recognized her at once; I could not have failed to do so.