‘Oh, Bridey, do you think he would?’ asked Cordelia.

‘I shall see that he does,’ said Brideshead. ‘I shall take Father Mackay in to him tomorrow.’

Still the clouds gathered and did not break; none of us spoke. Cara and Cordelia went back to the sickroom; Brideshead looked for a book, found one, and left us.

‘Julia,’ I said, ‘how can we stop this tomfoolery?’

She did not answer for some time; then: ‘Why should we?’

‘You know as well as I do. It’s just – just an unseemly incident.’

‘Who am I to object to unseemly incidents?’ she asked sadly. ‘Anyway, what harm can it do? Let’s ask the doctor.’

We asked the doctor, who said: ‘It’s hard to say. It might alarm him of course; on the other hand, I have known cases where it has had a wonderfully soothing effect on a patient; I’ve even known it act as a positive stimulant. It certainly is usually a great comfort to the relations. Really I think it’s a thing for Lord Brideshead to decide. Mind you, there is no need for immediate anxiety. Lord Marchmain is very weak today; tomorrow he may be quite strong again. Is it not usual to wait a little?’

‘Well, he wasn’t much help,’ I said to Julia, when we left him.

‘Help? I really can’t quite see why you’ve taken it so much to heart that my father shall not have the last sacraments.’

‘It’s such a lot of witchcraft and hypocrisy.’

‘Is it? Anyway, it’s been going on for nearly two thousand years. I don’t know why you should suddenly get in a rage now.’ Her voice rose; she was swift to anger of late months. ‘For Christ’s sake, write to The Times; get up and make a speech in Hyde Park; start a “No Popery” riot, but don’t bore me about it. What’s it got to do with you or me whether my father sees his parish priest?’

I knew these fierce moods of Julia’s, such as had overtaken her at the fountain in moonlight, and dimly surmised their origin; I knew they could not be assuaged by words. Nor could I have spoken, for the answer to her question was still unformed; the sense that the fate of more souls than one was at issue; that the snow was beginning to shift on the high slopes.

—

Brideshead and I breakfasted together next morning with the night-nurse, who had just come off duty.

‘He’s much brighter today,’ she said. ‘He slept very nicely for nearly three hours. When Gaston came to shave him he was quite chatty.’

‘Good,’ said Brideshead. ‘Cordelia went to mass. She’s driving Father Mackay back here to breakfast.’

I had met Father Mackay several times; he was a stocky, middle-aged, genial Glasgow-Irishman who, when we met, was apt to ask me such questions as, ‘Would you say now, Mr Ryder, that the painter Titian was more truly artistic than the painter Raphael?’ and, more disconcertingly still, to remember my answers: ‘To revert, Mr Ryder, to what you said when last I had the pleasure to meet you, would it be right now to say that the painter Titian…’ usually ending with some such reflection as: ‘Ah, it’s a grand resource for a man to have the talent you have, Mr Ryder, and the time to indulge it.’ Cordelia could imitate him.