Brideshead Revisited(42)

‘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 tonight.’

It was the custom, I learned later, always to ask Lady Marchmain 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 1 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 my 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 window. 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.’