‘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 of 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?