Brideshead Revisited: Book II. A twitch upon the thread. Chapter Five

Chapter Five

my divorce case, or rather my wife's, was due to be heard at about the
same time as Brideshead was to be married. Julia's would not come up till
the following term; meanwhile the game of General Post--moving my property
from the Old Rectory to my flat, my wife's from my flat to the Old Rectory,
Julia's from Rex's house and from Brideshead to my flat, Rex's from Brides,
head to his house, and Mrs. Muspratt's from Falmouth to Brides, head -- was
in full swing and we were all, in varying degrees, homeless, when a halt was
called and Lord Marchmain, with a taste for the dramatically inopportune
which was plainly the prototype of his elder son's, declared his intention,
in view of the international situation, of returning to England and passing
his declining years in his old home.

The only member of the family to whom this change promised any benefit
was Cordelia, who had been sadly abandoned in the turmoil. Brideshead,
indeed, had made a formal request to her to consider his house her home for
as long as it suited her, but when she learned that her sister-in-law
proposed to install her children there for the holidays immediately after
the wedding, in the charge of a sister of hers and the sister's friend,
Cordelia had decided to move, too, and was talking of setting up alone in
London. She now found herself, Cinderella-like, promoted chatelaine, while
her brother and his wife, who had till that moment expected to find
themselves, within a matter of days, absolute owners of the entire property,
were without a roof; the deeds of conveyance, engrossed and ready for
signing, were rolled up, tied and put away in one of the black tin boxes in
Lincoln's Inn. It was bitter for Mrs. Muspratt; she was not an ambitious
woman; something very much less grand than Brideshead would have contented
her heartily; but she did aspire to finding some shelter for her children
over Christmas. The house at Falmouth was stripped and up for sale;
moreover, Mrs. Muspratt had taken leave of the place with some justifiably
rather large talk of her new establishment; they could not return there. She
was obliged in a hurry to move her furniture from Lady Marchmain's room to a
disused coachhouse and to take a furnished villa at Torquay. She was not, as
I have said, a woman of high ambition, but, having had her expectations so
much raised, it was disconcerting to be brought so low so suddenly. In the
village the working party who had been preparing the decorations for the
bridal entry began unpicking the B's on the bunting and substituting M's,
obliterating the Earl's points and stencilling balls and strawberry leaves
on the painted coronets, in preparation for Lord Marchmain's return.

News of his intentions came first to the solicitors, then to, Cordelia,
then to Julia and me, in a rapid succession of contradictory cables. Lord
Marchmain would arrive in time for the wedding; he would arrive after the
wedding, having seen Lord and Lady Brideshead on their way through Paris; he
would see them in Rome. He was not well enough to travel at all; he was just
starting; he had unhappy memories of winter at Brideshead and would not come
until spring was well advanced and the heating apparatus overhauled; he was
coming alone; he was bringing his Italian household; he wished his return to
be unannounced and to lead a life of complete seclusion; he would give a
ball. At last a date in January was chosen which proved to be the correct
one.
Plender preceded him by some days; there was a difficulty here. Plender
was not an original member of the Brideshead household; he had been Lord
Marchmain's servant in the yeomanry, and had only once met Wilcox, on the
painful occasion of the removal of his master's luggage when it was decided
not to return from the war; then Plender had been valet, as, officially, he
still was, but he had in the past years introduced a kind of curate, a Swiss
body-servant, to attend to the wardrobe and also, when occasion arose, lend
a hand with less dignified tasks about the house, and had in effect become
major-domo of that fluctuating and mobile household; sometimes he even
referred to himself on the telephone as the "secretary." There was an acre
of thin ice between him and Wilcox.

Fortunately the two men took a liking to one anodier, and the thing was
solved in a series of three-cornered discussions with Cordelia. Plender and
Wilcox became Joint Grooms of the Chambers, like Blues and Life Guards with
equal precedence, Plender having as his particular province his Lordship's
own apartments, and Wilcox a sphere of influence in the public rooms; the
senior footman was given a black coat and promoted butler, the nondescript
Swiss, on arrival, was to have full valet's status; there was a general
increase in wages to meet the new dignities, and all were content.

Julia and I, who had left Brideshead a month before, thinking we should
not return, moved back for the reception. When the day came, Cordelia went
to the station and we remained to greet him at home. It was a bleak and
gusty day. Cottages and lodges were decorated; plans for a bonfire that
night and for the village silver band to play on the terrace were put down,
but the house flag that had not flown for twenty-five years was hoisted over
the pediment, and flapped sharply against the leaden sky. Whatever harsh
voices might be bawling into the microphones of Central Europe, and whatever
lathes spinning in the armament factories, the return of Lord Marchmain was
a matter of first importance in his own neighbourhood.

He was due at three o'clock. Julia and I waited in the drawing-room
until Wilcox, who had arranged with the station-master to be kept informed,
announced "The train is signalled," and a minute later, "The train is in;
his Lordship is on the way." Then we went to the front portico and waited
there with the upper,' servants. Soon the Rolls appeared at the turn in the
drive, followed at some distance by the two vans. It drew up; first Cordelia
got out, then Cara; there was a pause, a rug was handed to theu chauffeur, a
stick to the footman; then a leg was cautiously thrust I forward. Plender
was by now at the car door; another servant -- the Swiss valet -- had
emerged from a van; together they lifted jj Lord Marchmain out and set him
on his feet; he felt for his stick grasped it, and stood for a minute
collecting his strength for the I few low steps which led to the front door.

Julia gave a little sigh of surprise and touched my hand. We had seen
him nine months ago at Monte Carlo, when he had j been an upright and
stately figure, little changed from when I first met him in Venice. Now he
was an old man. Plender had told us his master had been unwell lately; he
had not prepared us for j this.

Lord Marchmain stood bowed and shrunken, weighed down ... by his
great-coat, a white muffler fluttering untidily at his throat, a cloth cap
pulled low on his forehead, his face white and lined, his nose coloured by
the cold; the tears which gathered in his eyes came not from emotion but
from the east wind; he breathed heavily. Cara tucked in the end of his
muffler and whispered something to him. He raised a gloved hand -- a
schoolboy's glove of grey wool -- and made a small, weary gesture of
greeting to the group at the door; then, very slowly, with his eyes on thfl
ground before him, he made his way into the house.

They took off his coat and cap and muffler and the kind of leather
jerkin which he wore under them; thus stripped he seemed more than ever
wasted but more elegant; he had cast the shabbiness of extreme fatigue. Cara
straightened his tie; he wiped his eyes with a bandanna handkerchief and
shuffled with' his stick to the hall fire.

There was a little heraldic chair by the chimney-piece, one of a set
which stood against the walls, a little, inhospitable, flat-seated thing, a
mere excuse for the elaborate armorial painting on its back, on which,
perhaps, no one, not even a weary footman, had ever sat since it was made;
there Lord Marchmain sat and wiped his eyes.

"It's the cold," he said. "I'd forgotten how cold it is in England.
Quite bowled me over."

"Can I get you anything, my lord?"

"Nothing, thank you. Cara, where are those confounded pills?"

"Alex, the doctor said not more than three times a day."

"Damn the doctor. I feel quite bowled-over."

Cara produced a blue bottle from her bag and Lord Marchmain took a
pill. Whatever was in it seemed to revive him. He remained seated, his long
legs stuck out before him, his cane between them, his chin on its ivory
handle, but he began to take notice of us all, to greet us and to give
orders.

'Tm afraid I'm not at all the thing to-day; the journey's taken it out
of me. Ought to have waked a night at Dover. Wilcox, what rooms have you
prepared for me?"

"Your old ones, my lord."

"Won't do; not till I'm fit again. Too many stairs; must be on the
ground floor. Plender, get a bed made up for me downstairs."

Plender and Wilcox exchanged an anxious glance.

"Very good, my lord. Which room shall we put it in?"

Lord Marchmain thought' for a moment. "The Chinese drawing-room; and,
Wilcox, the 'Queen's bed.'"

"The Chinese drawing-room, my lord, the 'Queen's bed'?"

"Yes, yes. I may be spending some time there in the next few weeks."

The Chinese drawing-room was one I had never seen used; in fact one
could not normally go further into it than a small roped area round the
door, where sight-seers were corralled on the days the house was open to the
public; it was a splendid uninhabitable museum of Chippendale carving and
porcelain and lacquer and painted hangings; the "Queen's bed," too, was an
exhibition piece, a vast velvet tent like the Baldachino at St. Peter's. Had
Lord Marchmain planned this lying-in-state for himself, I wondered, before
he left the sunshine of Italy? Had he thought of it during the scudding rain
of his long, fretful journey? Had it come to him at that moment, an awakened
memory of childhood, a dream in the nursery -- "When I'm grown up I'll sleep
in the Queen's bed in the Chinese drawing-room" -- the apotheosis of adult
grandeur?
Few things, certainly, could have caused more stir in the house. What
had been foreseen as a day of formality became one of fierce exertion;
housemaids began making a fire, removing covers, unfolding linen; men in
aprons, never normally seen, shifted furniture; the estate carpenters were
collected to dismantle the bed. It came down the main staircase in pieces,
at intervals during the afternoon; huge sections of rococo, velvet-covered
cornice; the twisted gilt and velvet columns which formed its posts; beams
of unpolished wood, made not to be seen, which performed invisible,
structural functions below the draperies; plumes of dyed feathers, which
sprang from gold-mounted ostrich eggs and crowned the canopy; finally, the
mattresses with four toiling men to each. Lord Marchmain seemed to derive
comfort from the consequences of his whim; he sat by the fire watching the
bustle, while we stood in a half-circle--Cara, Cordelia," Julia and I -- and
talked to him.

Colour came back to his cheeks and light to his eyes. "Brides-head and
his wife dined with me in Rome," he said. "Since we are all members of the
family" -- and his eye moved ironically from Cara to me -- "I can speak
without reserve. I found her deplorable. Her former consort, I understand,
was a seafaring man and, presumably, the less exacting, but how my son, at
the ripe age of thirty-eight, with, unless things have changed very much, a
very free choice among the women of England, can have settled on--I suppose
I must call her so--Beryl . . ." He left the sentence eloquently unfinished.

Lord Marchmain showed no inclination to move, so presently we drew up
chairs -- the little heraldic chairs, for everything else in the hall was
ponderous--and sat round him.

"I daresay I shall not be really fit again until summer comes," he
said. "I look to you four to amuse me."

There seemed little we could do at the moment to lighten the rather
sombre mood; he, indeed, was the most cheerful of us. "Tell me," he said,
"the circumstances of Brideshead's courtship."

We told him what we knew.

"Match-boxes," he said. "Match-boxes. Ithink she's past
child-bearing."

Tea was brought us at the hall fireplace.

"In Italy," he said, "no one believes there will be a war. They think
it will all be 'arranged.' I suppose, Julia, you no longer have access to
political information? Cara, here, is fortunately a British subject by
marriage. It is not a thing she customarily mentions, but it may prove
valuable. She is legally Mrs. Hicks, are you not, my dear? We know little of
Hicks, but we shall be grateful to him, none the less, if it comes to war.
And you," he said, turning the attack to me, "you will no doubt become an
official artist?"

"No. As a matter of fact I am negotiating now for a commission in the
Special Reserve."

"Oh, but you should be an artist. I had one with my squadron during the
last war, for weeks -- until we went up to the line."

This waspishness was new. I had always been aware of a frame of
malevolence under his urbanity, now it protruded like his own sharp bones
through the sunken skin.
It was dark before the bed was finished; we went to see it, Lord
Marchmain stepping quite briskly now through the intervening rooms.

"I congratulate you. It really looks remarkably well. Wilcox, I seem to
remember a silver basin and ewer--they stood in a room we called 'the
Cardinal's dressing-room,' I think -- suppostt we had them here on the
console. Then if you will send Plender and Gaston to me, the luggage can
wait till to-morrow -- simply' the dressingose and what I need for the
night. Plender will know. If you will leave me with Plender and Gaston, I
will go td ' bed. We will meet later; you will dine here and keep me
amused."

We turned to go; as I was at the door he called me back.

"It looks very well, does it not?"

"Very well."

"You might paint it, eh --and call it "The Death Bed'?"


"Yes," said Cara, "he has come home to die."

"But when he first arrived he was talking so confidently of recovery."

"That was because he was so ill. When he is himself, he knows he is
dying and accepts it. His sickness is up and down; one day, sometimes for
several days on end, he is strong and lively and then he is ready for death,
then he is down and afraid. I do not | know how it will be when he is more
and more down. That must come in good time. The doctors in Rome gave him
less than a year. There is someone coining from London, I think to-morrow, j
who will tell us more."

"What is it?"

"His heart; some long word at the heart. He is dying of a long word."

That evening Lord Marchmain was in good spirits; the room I had a
Hogarthian aspect, with the dinner-table set for the four of us by the
grotesque, chinoiserie chimney-piece, and the old j man propped among his
pillows, sipping champagne, tasting,' praising, and failing to eat the
succession of dishes which had been prepared for his homecoming. Wilcox had
brought out for the occasion the gold plate, which I had not before seen in
use; that and the gilt mirrors and the lacquer and the drapery of the great
bed and Julia's mandarin coat gave the scene an air of pantomime, of
Aladdin's cave.

Just at the end, when the time came for us to go, his spirits flagged.

"I shall not sleep," he said. "Who is going to sit with me? Cara,
carissima, you are fatigued. Cordelia, will you watch for an hour in this
Gethsemane?"

Next morning I asked her how the night had passed.

"He went to sleep almost at once. I came in to see him at two to make
up the fire; the lights were on, but he was asleep again. He must have woken
up and turned them on; he had to get out of bed to. do that. I think perhaps
he is afraid of the dark."

It was natural, with her hospital experience, that Cordelia should take
charge of her father. When the doctors came that day they gave their
instructions to her, instinctively.

"Until he gets worse," she said, "I and the valet can look after him.
We don't want nurses in the house before they are needed." At this stage the
doctors had nothing to recommend except to keep him comfortable and
administer certain drugs when his attacks came on. "How long will it be?"

"Lady Cordelia, there are men walking about in hearty old age whom
their doctors gave a week to live. I have learned one thing in medicine:
never prophesy."

These two men had made a long journey to tell her this; the local
doctor was there to accept the same advice in technical phrases.

That night Lord Marchmain reverted to the topic of his new
daughter-in-law; it had never been long out of his mind, finding expression
in various sly hints throughout the day; now he lay back in his pillows and
talked of her at length.

"I have never been much moved by family piety until now," he said, "but
I am frankly appalled at the prospect of-- of Beryl taking what was once my
mother's place in this house. Why
should that uncouth pair sit here childless while the place crumbles
about their ears? I will not disguise from you that I have take a dislike to
Beryl.

"Perhaps it was unfortunate that we met in Rome. Anywhere else might
have been more sympathetic. And yet, if one comes to consider it, where
could I have met her without repugnance? We dined at Ranieri's; it is a
quiet little restaurant I have fire quented for years -- no doubt you know
it. Beryl seemed to fill the place. I, of course, was host, though to hear
Beryl press my son with food, you might have thought otherwise. Brideshead
was always a greedy boy; a wife who has his best interests at heart should
seek to restrain him. However, that is a matter ol small importance.

"She had no doubt heard of me as a man of irregular life. I can only
describe her manner to me as roguish. A naughty old man, that's what she
thought I was. I suppose she had met naughty old admirals and knew how they
should be humoured; a stage-door chappie, a bit of a lad ... I could not
attempt to reproduce her conversation. I will give you one example.

"They had been to an audience at the Vatican that morning; a blessing
for their marriage -- I did not follow attentively ---something of the kind
had happened before I gathered, some previous husband, some previous Pope.
She described, rather vivaciously, how on this earlier occasion she had gone
with a whole body of newly married couples, mostly Italians of all ranks,
some of the simpler girls in their wedding dresses, and how each had
appraised the other, the bridegrooms looking the brides over, comparing
their own with one another's, and so fordi. Then she said, 'This time, of
course, we were in private, but do you know, Lord Marchmain, I felt as
though it was I who was leading in the bride.'

"It was said with great indelicacy. I have not yet quite fathomed her
meaning. Was she making a play on my son's name, or was she, do you think,
referring to his undoubted virginity? I fancy the latter. Anyway, it was
with pleasantries of that kind that we passed the evening.

"I don't think she would be quite in her proper element here, do you?
Who shall I leave k to? The entail ended with me, you know. Sebastian, alas,
is out of the question. Who wants it? Quis? Would you like it, Cara? No, of
course you would not. Cordelia? I think I shall leave it to Julia and
Charles."

"Of course not, Papa, it's Bridey's."

"And . . . Beryl's? I will have Gregson down one day soon and go over
the matter. It is time I brought my will up to date; it is full of anomalies
and anachronisms. ... I have rather a fancy for the idea of installing Julia
here; so beautiful this evening, my dear; so beautiful always; much, much
more suitable."

Shortly after this he sent to London for his solicitor, but, on the day
he came, Lord Marchmain was suffering from an attack and would not see him.
"Plenty of time," he said, between painful gasps for breath, "another day,
when I am stronger," but the choice of his heir was constantly in his mind,
and he referred often to the time when Julia and I should be married and in
possession.
"Do you think he really means to leave it to us?" I asked Julia.

"Yes, I think he does.'

"But it's monstrous for Bridey."

"Is it? I don't think he cares much for the place. I do, you know. He
and Beryl would be much more content in some little house somewhere."

"You mean to accept it?"

"Certainly. It's Papa's to leave as he likes. I think you and I would
be very happy here."

It opened a prospect; the prospect one gained at the turn of the
avenue, as I had first seen it with Sebastian, of the secluded valley, the
lakes falling away one below the other, the old house in the foreground, the
rest of the world abandoned and forgotten; a world of its own of peace and
love and beauty; a soldier's dream in a foreign bivouac; such a prospect
perhaps as a hig pinnacle of the temple afforded after the hungry days in
desert and the jackal-haunted nights. Need I reproach myself if sometimes I
was rapt in the vision?

The weeks of illness wore on and the life of the house kept pace with
the faltering strength of the sick man. There days when Lord Marchmain was
dressed, when he stood at the window or moved on his valet's arm from fire
to fire through if the rooms of the ground floor, when visitors came and
went -- neighbours and people from the estate, men of business from London
-- parcels of new books were opened and discussed, a piano moved into the
Chinese drawing-room; once at the end of February, on a single, unexpected
day of brilliant sunshine, he called for a car and got as far as the hall,
had on his fur coat and reached the front door. Then suddenly he lost
interest in the drive, said, "Not now. Later. One day in the summer," took
his man's arm again and was led back to his chair. Once ho had the humour of
changing his room and gave detailed orders for a move to the Painted
Parlour; the chinoiserie, he said disturbed his rest -- he kept the lights
full on at night -- but again lost heart, countermanded everything, and kept
his room.

On other days the house was hushed as he sat high in bed,]' propped by
his pillows, with labouring breath; even then Wanted to have us round him;
night or day he could not bead to be alone; when he could not speak his eyes
followed us, and ii| anyone left the room he would look distressed, and
Cara, sitting I often for hours at a time by his side against the pillows
with atilj arm .in his, would say, "It's all right, Alex, she's coming
back."

Brideshead and his wife returned from their honeymoon and stayed a few
nights; it was one of the bad times, and Lord Marchmain refused to have them
near him. It was Beryl's first visit, and she would have been unnatural if
she had shown no" curiosity about what had nearly been, and now again
promised soon to be, her home. Beryl was natural enough, and surveyed the
place fairly thoroughly in the days she was there. In the strange disorder
caused by Lord Marchmain's illness, it must have seemed capable of much
improvement; she referred once or twice to the way in which establishments
of similar size had been managed at various Government Houses she had
visited. Brideshead took her visiting among the tenants by day, and in the
evenings she talked to me of painting, or to Cordelia of hospitals, or to
Julia of clothes, with cheerful assurance. The shadow of betrayal, the
knowledge of how precarious were their just expectations, was all one-sided.
I was not easy with them; but that was no new thing to Brideshead; in the
little circle of shyness in which he was used to move, my guilt passed
unseen.
Eventually it became clear that Lord Marchmain did not intend to see
more of them. Brideshead was admitted alone for a minute's leave-taking;
then they left.

"There's nothing we can do here," said Brideshead, "and it's very
distressing for Beryl. We'll come back if things get worse."

The bad spells became longer and more frequent; a nurse was engaged. "I
never saw such a room," she said, "nothing like it anywhere; no conveniences
of any sort." She tried to have her patient moved upstairs, where there was
running water, a dressing-room for herself, a "sensible" narrow bed she
could "get round" --what she was used to--but Lord Marchmain would not
budge. Soon, as days and nights became indistinguishable to him, a second
nurse was installed; the specialists came again from London; they
recommended a new and rather daring treatment, but his body seemed weary of
all drugs and did not respond. Presently there were no good spells, merely
brief fluctuations in the speed of his decline.

Brideshead was called. It was the Easter holidays and Beryl was busy
with her children. He came alone, and haying stood silently for some minutes
beside his father, who sat silently looking at him, he left the room and,
joining the rest of us who wertfj in the library, said, "Papa must see a
priest."

It was not the first time the topic had come up. In the early days,
when Lord Marchmain first arrived, the parish priest-since the chapel was
shut there was a new church and presbytery in Melstead -- had come to call
as a matter of politeness. Cordelia' I had put him off with apologies and
excuses, but when he was gone she said: "Not yet. Papa doesn't want him
yet."

Julia, Cara and I were there at the time; we each had something to say,
began to speak, and thought better of it. It was never mentioned between the
four of us, but Julia, alone with me, said, "Charles, I see great Church
trouble ahead."

"Can't they even let him die in peace?"

"They mean something so different by 'peace.'"

"It would be an outrage. No one could have made it clearer, all his
life, what he thought of religion. They'll come now, when his mind's
wandering and he hasn't the strength to resist, and I claim him as a
death-bed penitent. I've had a certain respect for their Church up till now.
If they do a thing like that I shall know that everything stupid people say
about them is quite true -- that it's all superstition and trickery." Julia
said nothing. "Don't you agree?" Still Julia said nothing.

"Don't you agree?"

"I don't know, Charles. I simply don't know."

And, though none of us spoke of it, I felt the question ever present,
growing through all the weeks of Lord Marchmain's illness; I saw it when
Cordelia drove off early in the mornings to mass; I saw it as Cara took to
going with her; this little cloud the size of a man's hand, that was going
to swell into a storm among us.

Now Brideshead, in his heavy, ruthless way, planted the problem down
before us.

"Oh, Bridey, do you think he would?" asked Cordelia.

"I shall see that he does," said Brideshead. "I shall take Father
Mackay in to him to-morrow."

Still the clouds gathered and did not break; none of us spoke. Cara and
Cordelia went back to the sick-room; Brideshead looked for a book, found
one, and left us.

"Julia," I said, "how can we stop this tomfoolery?"

She did not answer for some time; then: "Why should we?"

"You know as well as I do. It's just--just an unseemly incident"

"Who am I to object to unseemly incidents?" she asked sadly. "Anyway,
what harm can it do? Let's ask the doctor."

We asked the doctor, who said: "It's hard to say. It might alarm him of
course; on the other hand, I have known cases where it has had a wonderfully
soothing effect on a patient; I've even known it act as a positive
stimulant. It certainly is usually a great comfort to the relations. Really
I think it's a thing for Lord Brideshead to decide. Mind you, there is no
need for immediate anxiety. Lord Marchmain is very weak to-day; tomorrow he
may be quite strong again. Is it not usual to wait a little?"

"Well, he wasn't much help," I said to Julia, when we left him.

"Help? I really can't quite see why you've taken it so much at heart
that my father shall not have the last sacraments."

"It's such a lot of witchcraft and hypocrisy."

"Is it? Anyway, it's been going on for nearly two thousand years. I
don't know why you should suddenly get in a rage now." Her voice rose; she
was swift to anger of late months. "For Christ's sake, write to The Times;
get up and make a speech in Hyde Park; start a 'No Popery' riot--but don't
bore me about it. What's it got to do with you or me whether my father sees
his parish priest?"

I knew these fierce moods of Julia's, such as had overtaken her at the
fountain in moonlight, and dimly surmised their origin; I knew they could
not be assuaged by words. Nor could I have spoken, for the answer to her
question was still unformed, but lay in a pocket of my mind, like sea-mist
in a dip of the sand dunes; the cloudy sense that the fate of more souls
than one was at issue; that the snow was beginning to shift on the high
slopes.

Brideshead and I breakfasted together next morning with the
night-nurse, who had just come off duty.

"He's much brighter to-day," she said. "Fie slept very nicely for
nearly three hours. When Gaston eame to shave him he was quite chatty."

"Good," said Brideshead. "Cordelia went to mass. She's driving Father
Mackay back here to breakfast."

I had met Father Mackay several times; he was a stocky, middle-aged,
genial Glasgow-Irishman who, when we met, was apt to ask me such questions
as, "Would you say now, Mr. Ryder, I that the painter Titian was more truly
artistic than the painter Raphael?" and, more disconcertingly still, to
remember my answers: "To revert, Mr. Ryder, to what you said when last I had
the pleasure to meet you,'would it be right now to say that the painter
Titian . . ." usually ending with some such reflection as: "Ah, it's a grand
resource for a man to have the talent you have, Mr. Ryder, and the time to
indulge it." Cordelia could imitate him brilliantly.

This morning he made a hearty breakfast, glanced at the headlines of
the paper, and then said with professional briskness: "And now, Lord
Brideshead, would the poor soul be ready to set me, do you think?"

Brideshead led him out; Cordelia followed and I was left alone among
the breakfast things. In less than a minute I heard the voices of all three
outside the door.

". . . can only apologize."

". . . poor soul. Mark you, it was seeing a strange face; depend upon
it, it was that--an unexpected stranger. I well understand it."

". . . Father, I am sorry . . . bringing you all this way . . ."

"Don't think about it at all, Lady Cordelia. Why, I've had bottles
thrown at me in the Gorbals. . . . Give him time. I've known worse cases
make beautiful deaths. Pray for him . . . I'll come again . . . and now if
you'll excuse me I'll just pay a little visit to Mrs. Hawkins. Yes, indeed,
I know the way well."

Then Cordelia and Brideshead came into the room.

"I gather the visit was not a success."

"It was not. Cordelia, will you drive Father Mackay home when he comes
down from Nanny?

I'm going to telephone to Beryl and see when she needs me home."

"Bridey, it was horrible. What are we to do?"

"We've done everything we can at the moment." He left the room.

Cordelia's face was grave; she took a piece of bacon from the dish,
dipped it in mustard and ate it. "Damn Bridey," she said, "I knew it
wouldn't work."

"What happened?"

"Would you like to know? We walked in there in a line; Cara was reading
the paper aloud to Papa. Bridey said, Tve brought Father Mackay to see you';
Papa said, 'Father Mackay, I am afraid you have been brought here under a
misapprehension. I am not in extremis, and I have not been a practising
member of your Church for twenty-five years. Brideshead, show Father Mackay
the way out.' Then we all turned about and walked away, and I heard Cara
start reading the paper again, and that, Charles, was that."

I carried the news to Julia, who lay with her bed-table amid a litter
of newspapers and envelopes.

"Mumbo-jumbo is off," I said, "the witch-doctor has gone."

"Poor Papa."

"It's great sucks to Bridey."

I felt triumphant. I had been right, everyone else had been wrong,
truth had prevailed; the thread that I had felt hanging over Julia and me
ever since that evening at the fountain had been averted, perhaps dispelled
for ever; and there was also--I can now confess it -- another unexpressed,
inexpressible, indecent little victory that I was furtively celebrating. I
guessed that that morning's business had putBrideshead some considerable way
further from his rightful inheritance.
In that I was correct; a man was sent for from the solicitors in
London; and in a day or two he came and it was known throughout the house
that Lord Marchmain had made a new will. But I was wrong in thinking that
the religious controversy was quashed; it flamed up again after dinner on
Brideshead's last evening.

". . . What Papa said was, 'I am not in extremis; I have not been a
practising member of the Church for twenty-five years.'"

"Not 'the Church,' 'your Church.'"

"I don't see the difference."

"There's every difference."

"Bridey, it's quite plain what he meant."

"I presume he meant what he said. He meant that he had not been
accustomed regularly to receive the sacraments, and since he was not at the
moment dying, he did not mean to change his ways -- yet."

"That's simply a quibble."
"Why do people always think that one is quibbling when one tries to be
precise? His plain meaning was that he did not want to see a priest that
day, but that he would when he was in extremis."

"I wish someone would explain to me," I said, "quite what the
significance of these sacraments is. Do you mean that if he dies alone he
goes to hell, and that if a priest puts oil on him -- "

"Oh, it's not the oil," said Cordelia, "that's to heal him."

"Odder still -- well, whatever it is the priest does -- that he then
goes tq heaven? Is that what you believe?"

Cara then interposed: "I think my nurse told me, someone did anyway,
that if the priest got there before the body was cold it was all right.
That's so, isn't it?"

The others turned on her.

"No, Cara, it's not."

"Of course not."

"You've got it all wrong, Cara."

"Well, I remember when Alphonse de Grenet died, Madame de Grenet had a
priest hidden outside the door -- he couldn't bear the sight of a priest --
and brought him in before the body was cold; she told me herself, and they
had a full requiem for him, and I went to it."

"Having a requiem doesn't mean you go to heaven necessarily."

"Madame de Grenet thought it did."

"Well, she was wrong."

"Do any of you Catholics know what good you think this priest can do?"
I asked. "Do you simply want to arrange it so that your father can have
Christian burial? Do you want to keep him out of hell? I only want to be
told."

Brideshead told me at some length, and when he had finished Cara
slightly marred the unity of the Catholic front by saying in simple wonder,
"I never heard that before."

"Let's get this clear," I said; "he has to make an act of will; he has
to be contrite and wish to be reconciled; is that right? But only God knows
whether he has really made an act of will; the priest can't tell; and if
there isn't a priest there, and he makes the act of will alone, that's as
good as if there were a priest. And it's quite possible that the will may
still be working when a man is too weak to make any outward sign of it; is
that right? He may be lying, as though for dead, and willing all the time,
and being reconciled, and God understands that; is that right?"

"More or less," said Brideshead.

"Well, for heaven's sake," I said, "what is the priest for?"

There was a pause in which Julia sighed and Brideshead drew breath as
though to start further subdividing the propositions.

In the silence Cara said, "All I know is that I shall take very good
care to have a priest."

"Bless you," said Cordelia, "I believe that's the best answer."

And we let the argument drop, each for different reasons, thinking it
had been inconclusive.
Later Julia said: "I wish you wouldn't start these religious
arguments."

"I didn't start it."

"You don't convince anyone else and you don't really convince
yourself."

"I only want to know what these people believe. They say it's all based
on logic."

"If you'd let Bridey finish, he would have made it all quite logical."

"There were four of you," I said. "Cara didn't know the first thing it
was about, and may or may not have believed it; you knew a bit and didn't
believe a word; Cordelia knew about aS much and believed it madly; only poor
Bridey knew and believed, and I thought he made a pretty poor show when it
came to explaining. And people go round saying, 'At least Catholics know
what they believe.' We had a fair cross-section to-night--"

"Oh, Charles, don't rant. I shall begin to think you're getting doubts
yourself."

The weeks passed and still Lord Marchmain lived on. In June my divorce
was made absolute and my former wife married for the second time. Julia
would be free in September. The nearer our marriage got, the more wistfully,
I noticed, Julia spoke of it; war was growing nearer, too -- we neither of
us doubted that-- but Julia's tender, remote, it sometimes seemed desperate
longing did not come from any uncertainty outside herself; it suddenly
darkened too, into brief accesses of hate when she seemed to throw herself
against the restraints of her love for me like a caged animal against the
bars.

I was summoned to the War Office, interviewed and put on a list in case
of emergency; Cordelia also, on another list; lists were becoming part of
our lives once more, as they had been at school--those strips of paper on
the green baize notice boards which defined success and failure. No one in
that dark office spoke the word "war"; it was taboo; we should be called for
if there was "an emergency" -- not in case of strife, an act of human will;
nothing so clear and simple as wrath or retribution; an emergency; something
coming out of the waters, a monster with sightless face and thrashing tail
thrown up from the depdis.

Lord Marchmain took little interest in events outside his own room; we
took him the papers daily and made the attempt to read to him, but he turned
his head on the pillows and with his eyes followed the intricate patterns
about him. "Shall I go on?" "Please do if it's not boring you." But he was
not listening; occasionally at a familiar name he would whisper: "Irwin ...
I knew him -- a mediocre fellow"; occasionally some remote comment: "Czechs
make good coachmen; nothing else"; but his mind was far from world affairs;
it was there, on the spot, turned in on himself; he had no strength for any
other war than his own solitary struggle to keep alive.

I said to the doctor, who was with us daily: "He's got a wonderful will
to live, hasn't he?"

"Would you put it like that? I should say a great fear of death."

"Is there a difference?"

"Oh dear, yes. He doesn't derive any strength from his fear, you know.
It's wearing him out."

Next to death, perhaps because they are like death, he feared darkness
and loneliness. He liked to have us in his room and the lights burnt all
night among the gilt figures; he did not wish us to speak much, but he
talked himself, so quietly that we could often not hear him; he talked, I
think, because his was the only voice he could trust, when it assured him
that he was still alive; what he said was not for us, nor for any ears but
his own.

"Better to-day. Better to-day. I can see now, in the corner of the
fireplace, where the mandarin is holding his gold bell and the crooked tree
is in flower below his feet, where yesterday I was confused and took the
little tower for another man. Soon I shall see the bridge and the three
storks and know where the path leads over the hill.

"Better to-morrow. We live long in our family and marry late.
Seventy-three is no age. Aunt Julia, my father's aunt, lived to be
eighty-eight, born and died here, never married, saw the fire on beacon hill
for the battle of Trafalgar, always called it 'the New House'; that Was the
name they had for it in the nursery and in the fields when unlettered men
had long memories. You can see where the old house stood near the village
church; they call the field 'Castle Hill,' Horlick's field where the
ground's uneven and half of it is waste, nettle and brier in hollows too
deep for ploughing. They dug to the foundations to carry the stone for the
new house; the house that was a century old when Aunt Julia was born. Those
were our roots in the waste hollows of Castle Hill, in the brier and nettle;
among the tombs in the old church and the chantrey where no clerk sings.
"Aunt Julia knew the tombs, cross-legged knight and doubleted earl,
marquis like a Roman senator, limestone, alabaster, and Italian marble;
tapped the escutcheons with her ebony cane, made the casque ring over old
Sir Roger. We were knights then, barons since Agincourt; the larger honours
came with the Georges. They came the last and they'll go the first; the
barony descends in the female line; when Brideshead is buried--he married
late -- Julia's son will be called by the name his fathers bore before the
fat days; the days of wool shearing and the wide corn lands, the days of
growth and building, when the marshes were drained and the waste land
brought under the plough, when one built the house, his son added the dome,
his son spread the wings and dammed the river. Aunt Julia watched them build
the fountain; it was old before it came here, weathered two hundred years by
the suns of Naples, brought by man-o'-war in the days of Nelson. Soon the
fountain will be dry till the rain fills it, setting the fallen leaves
afloat in the basin and over the lakes the reeds will spread and close.
Better to-day.

"Better to-day. I have lived carefully, sheltered myself from the cold
winds, eaten moderately of what was in season, drunk fine claret, slept in
my own sheets; I shall live long. I was fifty when they dismounted us and
sent us into the line; old men stay at the base, the orders said, but Walter
Venables, my commanding officer, my nearest neighbour, said: 'You're as fit
as the youngest of them, Alex.' So I was; so I am now, if I could only
breathe.

"No air; no wind stirring under the velvet canopy; no one has opened
the door for a thousand years in Aladdin's treasury, deep underground where
the jinns burrow like moles and no wind stirs. When the summer comes," said
Lord Marchmain, oblivious of the deep corn and swelling fruit and the
surfeited bees who slowly sought their hives in the heavy afternoon sunlight
outside his windows, "when the summer comes I shall leave my bed and sit in
the open air and breathe more easily.

"Better to-morrow, when the wind comes down the valley and a man can
turn to meet it and fill himself with air like a beast at water. Who would
have thought that all these little gold men-, gentlemen in their own
country, could live so long without breathing? Like toads in the coal, down
a deep mine, untroubled. God take it, why have they dug a hole for me? Must
a man stifle to death in his own cellars? Plender, Gaston, open the
windows."

"The windows are all wide open, my lord."

"I know them. I was born in this house. They open from a cellar into a
tunnel. It can only be done by gunpowder; bore the rock, cram it with
powder, trace the fuse, crouch under cover round the corner while we touch
it off; we'll blast our way to daylight."

A cylinder of oxygen was placed beside his bed, with a long1
tube, a face-piece, and a little stop-cock he could work himself.
Often he said: "It's empty; look, nurse, there's nothing cornel out."

"No, Lord Marchmain, it's quite full; the bubble here in the glass bulb
shows that; it's at full pressure; listen, don't you hear it hiss? Try and
breathe slowly, Lord Marchmain; quite gently, then you get the benefit."

"Free as air; that's what they say -- 'free as air.' I was free once. I
committed a crime in the name of freedom. Now they bring me my air in an
iron barrel."

Once he said: "Cordelia, what became of the chapel?"

"They locked it up, Papa, when Mummy died."

"It was hers, I gave it to her. We've always been builders in our
family. I built it for her; pulled down the pavilion that stood there;
rebuilt with the old stones; it was the last of the. new house to come, the
first to go. There used to be a chaplain until the war. Do you remember
him?"

"I was too young."

"Then I went away -- left her in the chapel praying. It was hers. It
was the place for her. I never came back to disturb her prayers. They said
we were fighting for freedom; I had my own victory. Was it a crime?"

"I think it was, Papa."

"Crying to heaven for vengeance? Is that why they've locked me in this
cave, do you think, with a black tube of air and the little yellow men along
the walls, who live without breathing? Do you think that, child? But the
wind will come soon, tomorrow perhaps, and we'll breathe again. The ill wind
that will blow me good. Better to-morrow."

Thus, till mid-July, Lord Marchmain lay dying, wearing himself down in
the struggle to live. Then, since there was no reason to expect an immediate
change, Cordelia went to London to see her women's organization about the
coming "emergency." That day Lord Marchmain's condition became suddenly
worse. He lay silent and quite still, breathing laboriously; only his open
eyes, which sometimes moved about the room, gave any sign of consciousness.
"Is this the end?" Julia asked.

"It is impossible to say," the doctor answered; "when he does die it
will probably be like this. He may recover from the present attack. The only
thing is not to disturb him. The least shock will be fatal."

"I'm going for Father Mackay," she said. I was not surprised. I had
seen it in her mind all the summer. When she had gone I said to the doctor,
"We must stop this nonsense."

He said: "My business is with the body. It's not my business to argue
whether people are better alive or dead or what happens to them after death.
I only try to keep them alive."

"And you said just now any shock would kill him. What could be worse
for a man who fears death, as he does, than to have a priest brought to him
-- a priest he turned out when he had the strength?"

"I think it may kill him." "Then will you forbid it?"

"I've no authority to forbid anything. I can only give my opinion."

"Cara, what do you think?"

"I don't want him made unhappy. That is all there is to hope for now;
that he'll die without knowing it. But I should like the priest there, all
the same."

"Will you try and persuade Julia to keep him away-- until the end?
After that he can do no harm." "I will ask her to leave Alex happy, yes." In
half an hour Julia was back with Father Mackay. We all met in the library.

"I've telegraphed for Bridey and Cordelia," I said. "I hope you agree
that nothing must be done till they arrive."

"I wish they were here," said Julia.

"You can't take the responsibility alone," I said; "everyone else ' is
against you. Doctor, tell her what you said to me just now."

"I said that the shock of seeing a priest might well kill him; without
that he may survive this attack. As his medical man I must protest against
anything being done to disturb him."

"Cara?"

"Julia, dear, I know you are thinking for the best, but, you know, Alex
was not a religious man.

He scoffed always. We mustn't take advantage of him, now he's weak, to
comfort our own consciences. If Father Mackay comes to him when he is
unconscious, then he can be buried in the proper way, can he not, Father?"

"I'll go and see how he is," said the doctor, leaving us.

"Father Mackay," I said. "You know how Lord Marchmain greeted you last
time you came; do you think it possible he can have changed now?"

"Thank God, by His grace it is possible."

"Perhaps," said Cara, "you could slip in while he is sleeping, say the
words of absolution over him; he would never know."

"I have seen so many men and women die," said the priest; , "I never
knew them sorry to have me there at the end."

"But they were Catholics; Lord Marchmain has never been one" except in
name--at any rate, not for years. He was a scoffer, Cara said so."

"Christ came to call, not the righteous, but sinners to repentance."

The doctor returned. "There's no change," he said.

"Now, Doctor," said the priest, "how would I be a shock to anyone?" He
turned his bland, innocent, matter-of-fact face first on the doctor, then
upon the rest of us. "Do you know what I want to do? It is something so
small, no show about it. I don't wear special clothes, you know. I go just
as I am. He knows the look of me now. There's nothing alarming. I just want
to ask him if he is sorry for his sins. I want him to make some little sign
of assent; I want him, anyway, not to refuse me; then I Want to give him
God's pardon. Then, though that's not essential, I want to anoint him. It is
nothing, a touch of the fingers, just some oil. from this little box, look,
it is pure oil, nothing to hurt him." "Oh, Julia," said Cara, "what are we
to say? Let me speak to him."

She went to the Chinese drawing-room; we waited in silence; there was a
wall of fire between Julia and me. Presently Cara returned.

"I don't think he heard," she said. "I thought I knew how to put it to
him. I said: 'Alex, you remember the priest from Melstead. You were very
naughty when he came to see you. You hurt his feelings very much. Now he's
here again. I want you to see him just for my sake, to make friend's.' But
he didn't answer. If he's unconscious, it couldn't make him unhappy to see
the priest, could it, Doctor?"

Julia, who had been standing still and silent, suddenly moved.

"Thank you for your advice, Doctor," she said. "I take full
responsibility for whatever happens. Father Mackay, will you please come and
see my father now," and without looking at me, led him to the door.

We all followed. Lord Marchmain was lying as I had seen him that
morning, but his eyes were now shut; his hands lay, palm-up wards, above the
bed-clothes; the nurse had her fingers on the pulse of one of them. "Come
in," she said brightly, "you won't disturb him now."

"D'you mean . . . ?"

"No, no, but he's past noticing anything."

She held the oxygen apparatus to his face and the hiss of escaping gas
was the only sound at the bedside.

The priest bent over Lord Marchmain and blessed him. Julia and Cara
knelt at the foot of the bed. The doctor, the nurse and I stood behind them.

"Now," said the priest, "I know you are sorry for all the sins of your
life, aren't you? Make a sign, if you can. You're sorry, aren't you?" But
there was no sign. "Try and remember your sins; tell God you are sorry. I am
going to give you absolution. While I am giving it, tell God you are sorry
you have offended Him." He began to speak in Latin. I recognized the words
Ego te absolvo in nomine Patris . . . and saw the priest make the sign of
the cross. Then I knelt, too, and prayed: "O God, if there is a God, forgive
him his sins, if there is such a thing as sin," and the man on the bed
opened his eyes and gave a sigh, the sort of sigh I had imagined people made
at the moment of death, but his eyes moved so that we knew there was still
life in him.
I suddenly felt the longing for a sign, if only of courtesy, if only
for the sake of the woman I loved, who knelt in front of me, praying, I
knew, for a sign. It seemed so small a thing that was asked, the bare
acknowledgment of a present, a nod in the crowd. All over the world people
were on their knees before innumerable crosses, and here the drama was being
played again by two men -- by one man, rather, and he nearer death than
life; the universal drama in which there is only one actor.

The priest took the little silver box from his pocket and spoke again
in Latin, touching the dying man with an oily wad; he-finished what he had
to do, put away the box and gave the final blessing. Suddenly Lord Marchmain
moved his hand to his forehead; I thought he had felt the touch of the
chrism and was wiping it away. "O God," I prayed, "don't let him do that."
But there was no need for fear; the hand moved slowly down his breast, then
to his shoulder, and Lord Marchmain made the sign of the cross. Then I knew
that the sign I had asked for was not a little thing, not a passing nod of
recognition, and a phrase came back to me from my childhood of the veil of
the temple being rent from top to bottom.

It was over; we stood up; the nurse went back to the oxygen cylinder;
the doctor bent over his patient. Julia whispered to me: "Will you sec
Father Mackay out? I'm staying here for a little."
Outside the door Father Mackay became the simple, genial man I had
known before. "Well, now, and that was a beautiful thing to see. I've known
it happen that way again and again. The devil resists to the last moment and
then the Grace of God is too much for him. You're not a Catholic, I think,
Mr. Ryder, but at least you'll be glad for the ladies to have the comfort of
it.''

As we were waiting for the chauffeur, it occurred to me that Father
Mackay should be paid for his services. I asked him awkwardly. "Why, don't
think about it, Mr. Ryder. It was a pleasure," he said, "but anything you
care to give is useful in a parish like mine." I found I had three pounds in
my note-case and gave them to him. "Why, indeed, that's more than generous.
God bless you, Mr. Ryder. I'll call again, but I don't think the poor soul
has long for this world."

Julia remained in the Chinese drawing-room until, at five o'clock that
evening, her father died, proving both sides right in the dispute, priest
and doctor.

Thus I come to the broken sentences which were the last words spoken
between Julia and me, the last memories.

When htr father died Julia remained some minutes with his body; the
nurse came to the next room to announce the news and I had a glimpse of her,
through the open door, kneeling at the foot of the bed, and of Cara sitting
by her. Presently the two women came out together, and Julia said to me:
"Not now; I'm just taking Cara up to her room; later."

While she was still upstairs Brideshead and Cordelia arrived from
London; when at last we met alone it was by stealth, like young lovers.

Julia said: "Here in the shadow, in the corner of the stair -- a minute
to say good-bye."

"So long to say so little."

"You knew?"

"Since this morning; since before this morning; all this year."

"I didn't know till to-day. Oh, my dear, if you could only understand.
Then I could bear to part, or bear it better. I should say my heart was
breaking, if I believed in broken hearts. I can't marry you, Charles; I
can't be with you ever again."

"I know."

"How can you know?"

"What will you do?"

"Just go on -- alone. How can I tell what I shall do? You know the
whole of me. You know I'm not one for a life of mourning. I've always been
bad. Probably I shall be bad again, punished again. But the worse I am, the
more I need God. I can't shut myself out from His mercy. That is what it
would mean; starting a life with you, without Him. One can only hope to see
one step ahead. But I saw to-day there was one thing unforgivable-- like
things in the schoolroom, so bad they are unpunishable, that only Mummy
could deal with -- the bad thing I was on the point of doing, that I'm not
quite bad enough to do; to set up a rival good to God's. Why should I be
allowed to understand that, and not you, Charles? It may be because of
Mummy, Nanny, Cordelia, Sebastian -- perhaps Bridey and Mrs. Muspratt --
keeping my name in their prayers; or it may be a private bargain between me
and God, that if I give up this one thing I want so much, however bad I am,
He won't quite despair of me in the end.

"Now we shall both be alone, and I shall have no way of making you
understand."

"I don't want to make it easier for you," I said; "I hope your heart
may break; but I do understand."

The avalanche was down, the hillside swept bare behind it; the last
echoes died on the white slopes; the new mound glittered and lay still in
the silent valley.