‘Never,’ I said, and he looked at me with the expression I have seen since in the religious, of innocent wonder that those who expose themselves to the dangers of the world should avail themselves so little of its varied solace.
Sebastian always heard his mass, which was ill-attended. Brideshead was not an old-established centre of Catholicism. Lady Marchmain had introduced a few Catholic servants, but the majority of them, and all the cottages, prayed, if anywhere, among the Flyte tombs in the little grey church at the gates.
Sebastian’s faith was an enigma to me at that time, but not one which I felt particularly concerned to solve. I had no religion. I was taken to church weekly as a child, and at school attended chapel daily, but, as though in compensation, from the time I went to my public school I was excused church in the holidays. The masters who taught me Divinity told me that biblical texts were highly untrustworthy. They never suggested I should try to pray. My father did not go to church except on family occasions and then with derision. My mother, I think, was devout. It once seemed odd to me that she should have thought it her duty to leave my father and me and go off with an ambulance, to Serbia, to die of exhaustion in the snow in Bosnia. But later I recognized some such spirit in myself. Later, too, I have come to accept claims which then, in 1923, I never troubled to examine, and to accept the supernatural as the real. I was aware of no such needs that summer at Brideshead.
Often, almost daily, since I had known Sebastian, some chance word in his conversation had reminded me that he was a Catholic, but I took it as a foible, like his teddy-bear. We never discussed the matter until on the second Sunday at Brideshead, when Father Phipps had left us and we sat in the colonnade with the papers, he surprised me by saying: ‘Oh dear, it’s very difficult being a Catholic.’
‘Does it make much difference to you?’
‘Of course. All the time.’
‘Well, I can’t say I’ve noticed it. Are you struggling against temptation? You don’t seem much more virtuous than me.’
‘I’m very, very much wickeder,’ said Sebastian indignantly.
‘Well then?’
‘Who was it used to pray, “O God, make me good, but not yet”?’
‘I don’t know. You, I should think.’
‘Why, yes, I do, every day. But it isn’t that.’ He turned back to the pages of the News of the World and said, ‘Another naughty scout-master.’
‘I suppose they try and make you believe an awful lot of nonsense?’
‘Is it nonsense? I wish it were. It sometimes sounds terribly sensible to me.’
‘But my dear Sebastian, you can’t seriously believe it all.’
‘Can’t I?’
‘I mean about Christmas and the star and the three kings and the ox and the ass.’
‘Oh yes, I believe that. It’s a lovely idea.’
‘But you can’t believe things because they’re a lovely idea.’
‘But I do. That’s how I believe.’
‘And in prayers? Do you think you can kneel down in front of a statue and say a few words, not even out loud, just in your mind, and change the weather; or that some saints are more influential than others, and you must get hold of the right one to help you on the right problem?’
‘Oh yes. Don’t you remember last term when I took Aloysius and left him behind I didn’t know where. I prayed like mad to St Anthony of Padua that morning, and immediately after lunch there was Mr Nichols at Canterbury Gate with Aloysius in his arms, saying I’d left him in his cab.’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘if you can believe all that and you don’t want to be good, where’s the difficulty about your religion?’
‘If you can’t see, you can’t.’
‘Well, where?’
‘Oh, don’t be a bore, Charles. I want to read about a woman in Hull who’s been using an instrument.’
‘You started the subject. I was just getting interested.’
‘I’ll never mention it again…thirty-eight other cases were taken into consideration in sentencing her to six months — golly!’ But he did mention it again, some ten days later, as we were lying on the roof of the house, sunbathing and watching through a telescope the Agricultural Show which was in progress in the park below us. It was a modest two-day show serving the neighbouring parishes, and surviving more as a fair and social gathering than as a centre of serious competition. A ring was marked out in flags, and round it had been pitched half a dozen tents of varying size; there was a judges’ box and some pens for livestock; the largest marquee was for refreshments, and there the farmers congregated in numbers. Preparations had been going on for a week. ‘We shall have to hide,’ said Sebastian as the day approached. ‘My brother will be here. He’s a big part of the Agricultural Show.’ So we lay on the roof under the balustrade.
Brideshead came down by train in the morning and lunched with Colonel Fender, the agent. I met him for five minutes on his arrival. Anthony Blanche’s description was peculiarly apt; he had the Flyte face, carved by an Aztec. We could see him now, through the telescope, moving awkwardly among the tenants, stopping to greet the judges in their box, leaning over a pen gazing seriously at the cattle.
‘Queer fellow, my brother,’ said Sebastian.
‘He looks normal enough.’
‘Oh, but he’s not. If you only knew, he’s much the craziest of us, only it doesn’t come out at all. He’s all twisted inside. He wanted to be a priest, you know.’
‘I didn’t.’
‘I think he still does. He nearly became a Jesuit, straight from Stonyhurst. It was awful for mummy. She couldn’t exactly try and stop him, but of course it was the last thing she wanted. Think what people would have said — the eldest son; it’s not as if it had been me. And poor papa. The Church has been enough trouble to him without that happening. There was a frightful to do — monks and monsignori running round the house like mice, and Brideshead just sitting glum and talking about the will of God. He was the most upset, you see, when papa went abroad — much more than mummy really. Finally they persuaded him to go to Oxford and think it over for three years. Now he’s trying to make up his mind. He talks of going into the Guards and into the House of Commons and of marrying. He doesn’t know what he wants. I wonder if I should have been like that, if I’d gone to Stonyhurst. I should have gone, only papa went abroad before I was old enough, and the first thing he insisted on was my going to Eton.
‘Has your father given up religion?’
‘Well, he’s had to in a way; he only took to it when he married mummy. When he went off, he left that behind with the rest of us. You must meet him. He’s a very nice man.’
Sebastian had never spoken seriously of his father before.
I said: ‘It must have upset you all when your father went a way.’
‘All but Cordelia. She was too young. It upset me at the time. Mummy tried to explain it to the three eldest of us so that we wouldn’t hate papa. I was the only one who didn’t. I believe she wishes I did. I was always his favourite. I should be staying with him now, if it wasn’t for this foot. I’m the only one who goes. Why don’t you come too? You’d like him.’
A man with a megaphone was shouting the results of the last event in the field below; his voice came faintly to us.
‘So you see we’re a mixed family religiously. Brideshead and Cordelia are both fervent, Catholics; he’s miserable, she’s bird-happy; Julia and I are half-heathen; I am happy, I rather think Julia isn’t; mummy is popularly believed to be a saint and papa is excommunicated — and I wouldn’t know which of them was happy. Anyway, however you look at it, happiness doesn’t seem to have much to do with it, and that’s all I want I wish I liked Catholics more.’
‘They seem just like other people.’
‘My dear Charles, that’s exactly what they’re not particularly in this country, where they’re so few. It’s not just that they’re a clique — as a matter of fact, they’re at least four cliques all blackguarding each other half the tim
e — but they’ve got an entirely different outlook on life; everything they think important is different from other people. They try and hide it as much as they can, but it comes out all the time. It’s quite natural, really, that they should. But you see it’s difficult for semi-heathens like Julia and me.’
We were interrupted in this unusually grave conversation by loud, childish cries from beyond the chimneystacks, ‘Sebastian, Sebastian.’
‘Good heavens!’ said Sebastian, reaching for a blanket. ‘That sounds like my sister Cordelia. Cover yourself up.’
‘Where are you?’
There came into view a robust child of ten or eleven; she had the unmistakable family characteristics, but had them ill-arranged in a frank and chubby plainness; two thick old fashioned pigtails hung down her back.
‘Go away, Cordelia. We’ve got no clothes on.’
‘Why? You’re quite decent. I guessed you were here. You didn’t know I was about, did you? I came down with Bridey and stopped to see Francis Xavier.’ (To me) ‘He’s my pig. Then we had lunch with Colonel Fender and then the show. Francis Xavier got a special mention. That beast Randal got first with a mangy animal. Darling Sebastian, I am pleased to see you again. How’s your poor foot?’
‘Say how-d’you-do to Mr Ryder.
‘Oh, sorry. How d’you do?’ All the family charm was in her smile. ‘They’re all getting pretty boozy down there, so I came away. I say, who’s been painting the office? I went in to look for a shooting-sick and saw it.’
‘Be careful what you say. It’s Mr Ryder.’
‘But it’s lovely. I say, did you really? You are clever. Why don’t you both dress and come down? There’s no one, about.’
‘Bridey’s sure to bring the judges in.
‘But he won’t. I heard making plans not to. He’s very sour today. He didn’t want me to have dinner with you, but I fixed that. Come on. I’ll be in the nursery when you’re fit to be seen.’
We were a sombre little party that evening. Only Cordelia was perfectly at ease, rejoicing in the food, the lateness of the hour, and her brothers’ company. Brideshead was three years older than Sebastian and I, but he seemed of another generation. He had the physical tricks of his family, and his smile, when it rarely came, was as lovely as theirs; he spoke, in their voice, with a gravity and restraint which in my cousin jasper would have sounded pompous and false, but in him was plainly unassumed and unconscious.
‘I am so sorry to miss so much of your visit,’ he said to me. ‘You are being looked after properly? I hope Sebastian is seeing to the wine. Wilcox is apt to be rather grudging when he is on his own.’
‘He’s treated us very liberally.’
‘I am delighted to hear it. You are fond of wine?’
‘Very.’
‘I wish I were. It is such a bond with other men. At Magdalen I tried to get drunk more than once, but I did not enjoy it. Beer and whisky I find even less appetizing. Events like this afternoon’s are a torment to me in consequence.’
‘I like wine,’ said Cordelia.
‘My sister Cordelia’s last report said that she was not only the worst girl in the school, but the worst there had ever been in the memory of the oldest nun.’
‘That’s because I refused to be an Enfant de Marie. Reverend Mother said that if I didn’t keep my room tidier I couldn’t be one, so I said, well, I won’t be one, and I don’t believe our Blessed Lady cares two hoots whether I put my gym shoes on the left or the right of my dancing shoes. Reverend Mother was livid.
‘Our Lady cares about obedience.’
‘Bridey, you mustn’t be pious,’ said Sebastian. ‘We’ve got an atheist with us.’
‘Agnostic,’ I said.
‘Really? Is there much of that at your college? There was a certain amount at Magdalen.’
‘I really don’t know. I was one long before I went to Oxford.’
‘It’s everywhere,’ said Brideshead.
Religion seemed an inevitable topic that day. For some time we talked about the Agricultural Show. Then Brideshead said, ‘I saw the Bishop in London last week. You know, he wants to close our chapel.’
‘Oh, he couldn’t,’ said Cordelia.
‘I don’t think mummy will let him,’ said Sebastian.
‘It’s too far away,’ said Brideshead. ‘There are a dozen families round Melstead who can’t get here. He wants to open a mass centre there.’
‘But what about us?’ said Sebastian. ‘Do we have to drive out on winter mornings?’
‘We must have the Blessed Sacrament here,’ said Cordelia. ‘I like popping in at odd times; so does mummy.’
‘So do I, “ said Brideshead, ‘but there are so few of us. It’s not as though we were old Catholics with everyone on the estate coming to mass. It’ll have to go sooner or later, perhaps after mummy’s time. The point is whether it wouldn’t be better to let it go now. You are an artist, Ryder, what do you think of it aesthetically?’
‘I think it’s beautiful,’ said Cordelia with tears in her eyes.
‘Is it Good Art?’
‘Well, I don’t quite know what you mean,’ I said warily. ‘I think it’s a remarkable example of its period. Probably in eighty years it will be greatly admired.’
‘But surely it can’t be good twenty years ago and good in eighty years, and not good now?’
‘Well, it may be good now. All I mean is that I don’t happen to like it much.’
‘But is there a difference between liking a thing and thinking it good?’
‘Bridey, don’t be so Jesuitical,’ said Sebastian, but I knew that this disagreement was not a matter of words only, but expressed a deep and impassable division between us; neither had any understanding of the other, nor ever could.
‘Isn’t that just the distinction you made about wine?’
‘No. I like and think good the end to which wine is sometimes the means — the promotion of sympathy between man and man. But in my own case it does not achieve that end, so I neither like it nor think it good for me.’
‘Bridey, do stop.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘I thought it rather an interesting point.’
‘Thank God I went to Eton,’ said Sebastian.
After dinner Brideshead said: ‘I’m afraid I must take Sebastian away for half an hour. I shall be busy all day tomorrow, and I’m off immediately after the show. I’ve a lot of papers for father to sign. Sebastian must take them out and explain them to him. It’s time you were in bed, Cordelia.’
‘Must digest first,’ she said. ‘I’m not used to gorging like this at night. I’ll talk to Charles.’
‘“Charles?”‘ said Sebastian. ‘“Charles?”‘ “Mr Ryder” to you, child.’
‘Come on Charles.’
When we were alone: she said: ‘Are you really an agnostic?’
‘Does your family always talk about religion all the time?’
‘Not all the time. It’s a subject that just comes up naturally, doesn’t-it?’
‘Does it? It never has with me before.’
‘Then perhaps you are an agnostic. I’ll pray for you.’
‘That’s very kind of you.’
‘I can’t spare you a whole rosary you know. Just a decade. I’ve got such a long list of people. I take them in order and they get a decade about once a week.’
‘I’m sure it’s more than I deserve.’
‘Oh, I’ve got some harder cases than you. Lloyd George and the Kaiser and Olive Banks.’
‘Who is she?’
‘She was bunked from the convent last term. I don’t quite know what for. Reverend Mother found something she’d been writing. D’you know, if you weren’t an agnostic, I should ask you for five shillings to buy a black god-daughter.’
‘Nothing will surprise me about your religion.’
‘It’s a new thing a missionary priest started last term. You send five bob to some nuns in Africa and they christen a baby and name her after you. I’ve got six black C
ordelias already. Isn’t it lovely?’
When Brideshead and Sebastian returned, Cordelia was sent to bed. Brideshead began again on our discussion.
‘Of course, you are right really,’ he said. ‘You take art as a means not as an end. That is strict theology, but it’s unusual to find an agnostic believing it.’
‘Cordelia has promised to pray for me,’ I said.
‘She made a novena I for her pig’ said Sebastian.
‘You know all this is very puzzling to me,’ I said.
‘I think we’re causing scandal, said Brideshead.
That night I began to realize how little I really knew of Sebastian, and to understand why he had always sought to keep me apart from the rest of his life. He was like a friend made on board ship, on the high seas; now we had come to his home port.
Brideshead and Cordelia went away; the tents were struck on the show ground, the flags uprooted; the trampled grass began to regain its colour; the month that had started in leisurely fashion came swiftly to its end. Sebastian walked without a stick now and had forgotten his injury.
‘I think you’d better come with me to Venice,’ he said.
‘No money.’
‘I thought of that. We live on papa when we get there. The lawyers pay my fare — first class and sleeper. We can both travel third for that.’
And so we went; first by the long, cheap sea-crossing to Dunkirk, sitting all night on deck under a clear sky, watching the grey dawn break over the sand dunes; then to Paris, on wooden seats, where we drove to the Lotti, had baths and shaved, lunched at Foyot’s, which was hot and half-empty, loitered sleepily among the shops, and sat long in a café waiting till the time of our train; then in the warm, dusty evening to the Gare de Lyon, to the slow train south, again the wooden seats, a carriage full of the poor, visiting their families — travelling, as the poor do in Northern countries, with a multitude of small bundles and an air of patient submission to authority — and sailors returning from leave. We slept fitfully, jolting and stopping, changed once in the night, slept again and awoke in an empty carriage, with pine woods passing the windows and the distant view of mountain peaks. New uniforms at the frontier, coffee and bread at the station buffet, people round us of Southern grace and gaiety; on again into the plains, conifers changing to vine and olive, a change of trains at Milan; garlic sausage, bread, and a flask of Orvieto bought from a trolley (we had spent all our money save for a few francs, in Paris); the sun mounted high and the country glowed with heat; the carriage filled with peasants, ebbing and flowing at each station, the smell of garlic was overwhelming in the hot carriage. At last in the evening we arrived at Venice.