Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh [33]
'That was Sebastian.'
'You seem to let him boss you about a good deal. You shouldn't. It's very bad for him.'
We had turned the comer of the drive now; the colour had died in the woods, and sky,.and the house seemed painted in grisaille, save for the central golden square at the open doors. A man was waiting to take my luggage.
'Here we are.'
She led me up the steps and into the hall, flung her coat on a marble table, and stooped to fondle a dog which came to greet her. 'I wouldn't put it past Sebastian to have started dinner.'
At that moment he appeared between the pillars at the further end, propelling himself in a wheel-chair. He was in pyjamas and dressing-gown, with one foot heavily bandaged.
'Well, darling, I have collected your chum,' she said, again with a barely perceptible note of contempt.
'I thought you were dying,' I said, conscious then, as I had been ever since I arrived, of the predominating emotion of vexation, rather than of relief, that I had been bilked of my expectations of a grand tragedy.
'I thought I was, too. The pain was excruciating. Julia, do you think, if you asked him, Wilcox would give us champagne tonight?'
'I hate champagne and Mr Ryder has had dinner.'
'Mister Ryder? Mister Ryder? Charles drinks champagne at all hours. Do you know, seeing this great swaddled foot of mine, I can't get it out of my mind that I have gout, and that gives me a craving for champagne.'
We dined in a room they called 'the Painted Parlour'. It was a spacious octagon, later in design than the rest of the house its walls, were adorned with wreathed medallions and across its dome prim Pompeian figures stood pastoral groups. They and the satin wood and ormolu furniture, the carpet, the hanging bronze candelabrum, the mirrors and sconces, were all a single composition, the design of one illustrious hand. 'We usually eat here when we're alone,' said Sebastian, 'it's so cosy.'
While they dined I ate a peach and told them of the war with my father.
'He sounds a perfect poppet,' said Julia. 'And now I'm going to leave you boys.'
'Where are you off to?'
'The nursery. I promised nanny a last game of halma.' She kissed the top of Sebastian's head. I opened the door for her. 'Good Night, Mr Ryder, and good-bye. I don't suppose we'll meet tomorrow. I'm leaving early. I can't tell you how grateful I am to you for relieving me at the sick-bed.'
'My sister is very pompous tonight,' said Sebastian, when she was gone.
'I don't think she cares for me,' I said.
'I don't think she cares for anyone much. I love her. She's so like me.'
'Do you? Is she?'
'In looks I mean and the way she talks. I wouldn't love anyone with a character like mine.'
When we had drunk our port, I walked beside Sebastian's chair through the pillared hall to the library, where we sat that night and nearly every night of the ensuing month. It lay on the side of the house that overlooked the lakes; the windows were open to the stars and the scented air, to the indigo and silver, moonlit landscape of the valley and the sound of water falling in the fountain.
'We'll have a heavenly time alone,' said Sebastian and when next morning, while I was shaving, I saw from my bathroom window Julia, with luggage at her back, drive from the forecourt and disappear at the hill's crest, without a backward glance, I felt a sense of liberation and peace such as I was, to know years later when, after a night of unrest, the sirens sounded the 'All Clear'.
4
THE languor of Youth—how unique and quintessential it is! How quickly, how irrecoverably, lost! The zest, the generous affections, the illusions, the despair, all the traditional attributes of Youth—all save this—come and go with us through life. These things are a part of life itself; but languor—the relaxation of yet unwearied sinews, the mind sequestered and self-regarding that belongs to Youth alone and dies with it. Perhaps in the mansions of Limbo the heroes enjoy some such compensation for their loss of the Beatific Vision; perhaps