Brideshead Revisited(70)

‘Yeth,’ said Kurt, ‘I reckon that’s Sebastian’s job.’

So I left him with his friend in the little enclosed house at the end of the alley. There was nothing more I could do for Sebastian.

I had meant to return direct to Paris, but this business of Sebastian’s allowance meant that I must go to London and see Brideshead. I travelled by sea, taking the P. & 0. from Tangier, and was home in early June.



‘Do you consider,’ asked Brideshead, ‘that there is anything vicious in my brother’s connection with this German?’

‘No. I’m sure not. It’s simply a case of two waifs coming together.’

‘You say he is a criminal?’

‘I said “a criminal type”. He’s been in the military prison and was dishonourably discharged.’

‘And the doctor says Sebastian is killing himself with drink?’

‘Weakening himself. He hasn’t D.T.s or cirrhosis.’

‘He’s not insane?’

‘Certainly not. He’s found a companion he happens to like and a place where he happens to like living.’

‘Then he must have his allowance as you suggest. The thing is quite clear.’

In some ways Brideshead was an easy man to deal with. He had a kind of mad certainty about everything which made his decisions swift and easy.

‘Would you like to paint this house?’ he asked suddenly. ‘A picture of the front, another of the back on the park, another of the staircase, another of the big drawing-room? Four small oils; that is what my father wants done for a record, to keep at Brideshead. I don’t know any painters. Julia said you specialized in architecture.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I should like to very much.’

‘You know it’s being pulled down? My father’s selling it. They are going to put up a block of flats here. They’re keeping the name — we can’t stop them apparently.’

‘What a sad thing.’

‘Well, I’m sorry of course. But you think it good architecturally?’

‘One of the most beautiful houses I know.’

‘Can’t see it. I’ve always thought it rather ugly. Perhaps your pictures will make me see it differently.’

This was my first commission; I had to work against time, for the contractors were only waiting for the final signature to start their work of destruction. In spite, or perhaps, because, of that for it is my vice to spend too long on a canvas, never content to leave well alone — those four paintings are particular favourites of mine, and it was their success, both with myself and others, that confirmed me in what has since been my career.

I began in the long drawing-room, for they were anxious to shift the furniture, which had stood there since it was built. It was a long, elaborate, symmetrical Adam room, with two bays of windows opening into Green Park. The light, streaming in from the west on the afternoon when I began to paint there, was fresh green from the young trees outside.

I had the perspective set out in pencil and the detail carefully placed. I held back from painting, like a diver on the water’s edge; once in I found myself buoyed and exhilarated. I was normally a slow and deliberate painter; that afternoon and all next day, and the day after, I worked fast. I could do nothing wrong. At the end of each passage I paused, tense, afraid to start the next, fearing, like a gambler, that luck must turn and the pile be lost. Bit by bit, minute by minute, the thing came into being. There were no difficulties; the intricate multiplicity of light and colour became a whole; the right colour was where I wanted it, on the palette; each brush stroke, as soon as it was complete, seemed to have been there always.

Presently on the last afternoon I heard a voice behind me say: ‘May I stay here and watch?’

I turned and found Cordelia.

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘if you don’t talk,’ and I worked on, oblivious of her, until the failing sun made me put up my brushes.

‘It must be lovely to be able to do that.’

I had forgotten she was there.

‘It is.’

I could not even now leave my picture, although the sun was down and the room fading to monochrome. I took it from the easel and held it up to the windows, put it back and lightened a shadow. Then, suddenly weary in head and eyes and back and arm, I gave it up for the evening and turned to Cordelia.

She was now fifteen and had grown tall, nearly to her full height, in the last eighteen months. She had not the promise of Julia’s full quattrocento loveliness; there was a touch of Brideshead already in her length of nose and high cheekbone; she was in black, mourning for her mother.

‘I’m tired,’ I said.

‘I bet you are. Is it finished?’

‘Practically. I must go over it again tomorrow.’

‘D’you know it’s long past dinner time? There’s no one here to cook anything now. I only came up today, and didn’t realize how far the decay had gone. You wouldn’t like to take me out to dinner, would, you?’

We left by the garden door, into the park, and walked in the twilight to the Ritz Grill.

‘You’ve seen Sebastian? He won’t come home, even now?’

I did not realize till then that she had understood so much. I said so.

‘Well, I love him more than anyone,’ she said. ‘It’s sad about Marchers, isn’t it? Do you know they’re going to build a block of flats, and that Rex wanted to take I what he called a “penthouse” at the top. Isn’t it like him? Poor Julia. That was too much for her. He couldn’t understand at all; he thought she would like to keep up with her old home. Things have all come to an end very quickly, haven’t they? Apparently papa has been terribly in debt for a long time. Selling Marchers has put him straight again and saved I don’t know how much a year in rates. But it seems a shame to pull it down. Julia says she’d sooner that than to have someone else live there.’