Brideshead Revisited(84)

I did not speak to Julia, alone, all that evening.

We met for a minute next day on the starboard side of the ship while everyone else crowded to port to see the officials come aboard and to gaze at the green coastline of Devon.

‘What are your plans?’

‘London for a bit,’ she said.

‘Celia’s going straight home. She wants to see the children.’

‘You too?’

‘No.’

‘In London then.’



‘Charles, the little red-haired man Foulenough. Did you see? Two plain clothes police have taken him off.’

‘I missed it. There was such a crowd on that side of the ship.’

‘I found out the trains and sent a telegram. We shall be home by dinner. The children will be asleep. Perhaps we might wake Johnjohn up, just for once.’

‘You go down,’ I said. ‘I shall have to stay in London.’

‘Oh, but Charles, you must come. You haven’t seen Caroline.’

‘Will she change much in a week or two?’

‘Darling, she changes every day.’

‘Then what’s the point of seeing her now? I’m sorry, my dear, but I must get the pictures unpacked and see how they’ve travelled. I must fix up for the exhibition right away.’

‘Must you?’ she said, but I knew that her resistance ended when I appealed to the mysteries of my trade. ‘It’s very disappointing. Besides, I don’t know if Andrew and Cynthia will be out of the flat. They took it till the end of the month.’

‘I can go to an hotel.’

‘But that’s so grim. I can’t bear you to be alone your first night home. I’ll stay and go down tomorrow.’

‘You mustn’t disappoint the children.’

‘No.’ Her children, my art, the two mysteries of our trades.

‘Will you come for the week-end?’

‘If I can.’

‘All British passports to the smoking-room, please,’ said a steward.

‘I’ve arranged with that sweet Foreign Office man at our table to get us off early with him,’ said my wife.





CHAPTER 2




Private view — Rex Mottram at home



IT was my wife’s idea to hold the private view on Friday.

‘We are out to catch the critics this time, I she said. ‘It’s high time they began to take you seriously, and they know it. This is their chance. If you open on Monday, they’ll most of them have just come up from the country, and they’ll dash off a few paragraphs before dinner — I’m only worrying about the weeklies of course. If we give them the week-end to think about it, we shall have them in an urbane Sunday-in-the-country mood. They’ll settle down after a good luncheon, tuck up their cuffs, and turn out a nice, leisurely full-length essay, which they’ll reprint later in a nice little book. Nothing less will do this time.’

She was up and down from the Old Rectory several times during the month of preparation, revising the list of invitations and helping with the hanging.

On the morning of the private view I telephoned to Julia and said: ‘I’m sick of the pictures already and never want to see them again, but I suppose I shall have to put in an appearance.’

‘D’you want me to come?’

‘I’d much rather you didn’t.’

‘Celia sent a card with “Bring everyone” written across it in green ink. When do we meet?’

‘In the train. You might pick up my luggage.’

‘If you’ll have it packed soon I’ll pick you up, too, and drop you at the gallery. I’ve got a fitting next door at twelve.’

When I reached the gallery my wife was standing looking through the window to the street. Behind her half a dozen unknown picture-lovers were moving from canvas to canvas, catalogue in hand; they were people who had once bought a wood: cut and were consequently on the gallery’s list of patrons.

‘No one has come yet,’ said my wife. ‘I’ve been here since ten and it’s been very dull. Whose car was that you came in?’

‘Julia’s.’

‘Julia’s? Why didn’t, you bring her in? Oddly enough, I’ve just been talking about Brideshead to a funny little man who seemed to know us very well. He said he was called Mr Samgrass. Apparently he’s one of Lord Copper’s middle-aged young men on the Daily Beast. I tried to feed him some paragraphs, but he seemed to know more about you than I do. He said he’d met me years ago at Brideshead. I wish Julia had come in; then we could have asked her about him.’

‘I remember him well. He’s a crook.’

‘Yes, that stuck out a mile. He’s been talking all about what he calls the “‘Brideshead set”, Apparently Rex Mottram has made the place a nest of party mutiny. Did you know? What would Teresa Marchmain have thought?’

‘I’m going there tonight.’

‘Not tonight, Charles; you can’t go there tonight. You’re expected at home. You promised, as soon as the exhibition was ready, you’d come home. Johnjohn and Nanny have made a banner with “Welcome” on it. And you haven’t seen Caroline yet.’

‘I’m sorry, it’s all settled.’