Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh [90]
We were sitting round after luncheon that day when Bill Meadows came back from the telephone in high spirits.
'Come on,' he said. 'There's a perfectly good battle in the Commercial Road.'
We drove at great speed and arrived to find a steel hawser stretched between lamp posts, an overturned truck and a policeman, alone on the pavement, being kicked by half a dozen youths. On either side of this centre of disturbance, and at a little distance from it, two opposing parties had formed. Near us, as we disembarked, a second policeman was sitting on the pavement, dazed, with his head in his hands and blood running through his fingers; two or three sympathizers were standing over him; on the other side of the hawser was a hostile knot of young dockers. We charged in cheerfully, relieved the policeman, and were just falling upon the main body of the enemy when we came into collision with a party of local clergy and town councillors who arrived simultaneously by another route to try persuasion. They were our only victims, for just as they went down there was a cry of 'Look out. The coppers,' and a lorry-load of police drew up in our rear.
The crowd broke and disappeared. We picked up the peace-makers (only one of whom was seriously hurt), patrolled some of the side streets looking for trouble and finding none, and at length returned to Bratt's. Next day the General Strike was called off and the country everywhere, except in the coal fields, returned to normal. It was as though a beast long fabled for its ferocity had emerged for an hour, scented danger, and slunk back to its lair. It had not been worth leaving Paris.
Jean, who joined another company, had a pot of ferns dropped on his head by an elderly widow in Camden Town and was in hospital for a week.
It was through my membership of Bill Meadows' squad that Julia learned I was in England. She telephoned to say her mother was anxious to see me.
'You'll find her terribly ill,' she said.
I went to Marchmain House on the first morning of peace. Sir Adrian Porson passed me in the hall, leaving, as I arrived; he held a bandanna handkerchief to his face and felt blindly for his hat and stick; he was in tears.
I was shown into the library and in less than a minute Julia joined me. She shook hands with a gentleness and gravity of a ghost.
'It's sweet of you to come. Mummy has kept asking for you, but I don't know if she'll be able to see you now, after all. She's just said "good-bye" to Adrian Porson and it's tired her.'
'Good-bye?'
'Yes. She's dying. She may live a week or two or she may go at any minute. She's so weak. I'll go and ask nurse.'
The stillness of death seemed in the house already. No one ever sat in the library at Marchmain House. It was the one ugly room in either of their houses. The bookcases of Victorian oak held volumes of Hansard and obsolete encyclopedias that were never opened; the bare mahogany table seemed set for the meeting of a committee; the place had the air of being both public and unfrequented; outside lay the forecourt, the railings, the quiet cul-de-sac.
Presently Julia returned.
'No, I'm afraid you can't see her. She's asleep. She may lie like that for hours; I can tell you what she wanted. Let's go somewhere else. I hate this room.'
We went across the hall to the small drawing-room where luncheon parties used to assemble, and sat on either side of the fireplace. Julia seemed to reflect the crimson and gold of the walls and lose some of her warmness.
'First, I know, mummy wanted to say how sorry she is she was so beastly to you last time you met. She's spoken of it often. She knows now she was wrong about you. I'm quite sure you understood and put it out of your mind immediately, but it's the kind of thing mummy can never forgive herself—it's the kind of thing she so seldom did.'
'Do tell her I understood completely.'
'The other thing, of course, you have guessed—Sebastian. She wants him. I don't know if that's possible. Is it?'
'I hear he's in a very