Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh [59]
'I wish I had not seen him, she said. 'That was cruel. I do not mind the idea of his being drunk. It is a thing all men do when they are young. I am used to the idea of it. My brothers were wild at. his age. What hurt last night was that there was nothing happy about him.'
'I know,' I said. 'I've never seen him like that before.'
And last night of all nights...when everyone had gone and there were only ourselves here—you see, Charles, I look on you very much as one of ourselves. Sebastian loves you—when there was no need for him to make an effort to be gay. And he wasn't gay. I slept very little last night, and all the time I kept coming back to that one thing; he was so unhappy.'
It was impossible for me to explain to her what I only half understood myself; even then I felt, 'She will learn it soon enough. Perhaps she knows it now.'
'It was horrible,' I said. 'But please don't think that's his usual way.'
'Mr Samgrass told me he was drinking too much all last term.'
'Yes, but not like that—never before.'
'Then why now? here? with us? All night I have been thinking and praying and wondering what I was to say to him, and now, this morning, he isn't here at all. That was cruel of him, leaving without a word. I don't want him to be ashamed—it's being ashamed that makes it all so wrong of him.'
'He's ashamed of being unhappy,' I said.
'Mr Samgrass says he is noisy and high-spirited. I believe,' she said, with a faint light of humour streaking the clouds, 'I believe you and he tease Mr Samgrass rather. It's naughty of you. I'm very fond of Mr Samgrass, and you should be too, after all he's done for you. But I think perhaps if I were your age and a man I might be just a little inclined to tease Mr Samgrass myself. No, I don't mind that, but last night and this morning are something quite different. You see, it's all happened before.'
'I can only say I've seen him drunk often and I've been drunk with him often, but last night was quite new to me.'
'Oh, I don't mean with Sebastian. I mean years ago. I've been through it all before with someone else whom I loved. Well, you must know what I mean—with his father. He used to be drunk in just that way. Someone told me he is not like that now. I pray God it's true and thank God for it with all my heart, if it is. But the running away—he ran away, too, you know. It was as you said just now, he was ashamed of being unhappy. Both of them unhappy, ashamed, and running away. It's too pitiful. The men I grew up with'—and her great eyes moved from the embroidery to the three miniatures in the folding leathecase on the chimney-piece—'were not like that. I simply don't understand it. Do you, Charles?'
'Only very little.'
'And yet Sebastian is fonder of you than of any of us, you know. You've got to help him. I can't.'
I have here compressed into a few sentences what, there, required many. Lady Marchmain was not diffuse, but she took hold of her subject in a feminine, flirtatious way, circling, approaching, retreating, feinting; she hovered over it like a butterfly; she played 'grandmother's steps' with it, getting nearer the real point imperceptibly while one's back was turned, standing rooted when she was observed. The unhappiness, the running away—these made up her sorrow, and in her own way she exposed the whole of it, before she was done. It was an hour before she had said all she meant to say. Then, as I rose to leave her, she added as though in an afterthought: 'I wonder have you seen my brothers' book? It has just come out.'
I told her I had looked through it in Sebastian's room.
'I should like you to have a copy. May I give you one? They were three splendid men; Ned was the best of them. He was the last to be killed, and when the telegram came, as I knew it would come, I thought: "Now it's my son's turn to do what Ned can never do now." I was alone then. He was just going to Eton. If you read Ned's book you'll understand.'
She had a copy