‘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 had a Hogarthian aspect, with the dinner-table set for the four of us by the grotesque, chinoiserie chimney-piece, and the old 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, 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 taken 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 frequented 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 of 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…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 or 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 forth. 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 it 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 could 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 high pinnacle of the temple afforded after the hungry days in the desert and the jackal-haunted nights. Need I reproach myself if sometimes I was taken by 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 were days when Lord Marchmain was dressed, when he stood at the window or moved on his valet’s arm from fire to fire through 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 was 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 he 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 he wanted to have us round him; night or day he could not bear to be alone; when he could not speak his eyes followed us, and if anyone left the room he would look distressed, and Cara, sitting often for hours at a time by his side against the pillows with an 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 day
s 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 having 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 were 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 Mel stead — had come to call as a matter of politeness. Cordelia 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 troubles 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 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 tomorrow.’
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 today; 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 to 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; the 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 today,’ she said. ‘He slept very nicely for nearly three hours. When Gaston came 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, 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.
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 see 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, “I’ve 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 threat 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 put Brideshead some considerable way further from his rightful inheritance.
In that I, was correct; a man was sent for from the solicitors in London; 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.’