The whole interior had been gutted, elaborately refurnished and redecorated in the arts-and-crafts style of the last decade of the nineteenth century. Angels in printed cotton smocks, rambler-roses, flower-spangled meadows, frisking lambs, texts in Celtic script, saints in armour, covered the walls in an intricate pattern of clear, bright colours. There was a triptych of pale oak, carved so as to give it the peculiar property of seeming to have been moulded in Plasticine. The sanctuary lamp and all the metal furniture were of bronze, hand-beaten to the patina of a pock-marked skin; the altar steps had a carpet of grass-green, strewn with white and gold daisies.

‘Golly,’ I said.

‘It was papa’s wedding present to mama. Now, if you’ve seen enough, we’ll go.’

On the drive we passed a closed Rolls-Royce driven by a chauffeur; in the back was a vague, girlish figure who looked round at us through the window.

‘Julia,’ said Sebastian. ‘We only just got away in time.’

We stopped to speak to a man with a bicycle – ‘That was old Bat,’ said Sebastian – and then were away, past the wrought-iron gates, past the lodges, and out on the road heading back to Oxford.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Sebastian after a time. ‘I’m afraid I wasn’t very nice this afternoon. Brideshead often has that effect on me. But I had to take you to see nanny.’

Why? I wondered; but said nothing – Sebastian’s life was governed by a code of such imperatives. ‘I must have pillar-box red pyjamas,’ ‘I have to stay in bed until the sun works round to the windows,’ ‘I’ve absolutely got to drink champagne tonight!’ – except, ‘It had quite the reverse effect on me.’

After a long pause he said petulantly, ‘I don’t keep asking you questions about your family.’

‘Neither do I about yours.’

‘But you look inquisitive.’

‘Well, you’re so mysterious about them.’

‘I hoped I was mysterious about everything.’

‘Perhaps I am rather curious about people’s families – you see, it’s not a thing I know about. There is only my father and myself. An aunt kept an eye on me for a time but my father drove her abroad. My mother was killed in the war.’

‘Oh…how very unusual.’

‘She went to Serbia with the Red Cross. My father has been rather odd in the head ever since. He just lives alone in London with no friends and footles about collecting things.’

Sebastian said, ‘You don’t know what you’ve been saved. There are lots of us. Look them up in Debrett.’

His mood was lightening now. The further we drove from Brideshead, the more he seemed to cast off his uneasiness – the almost furtive restlessness and irritability that had possessed him. The sun was behind us as we drove, so that we seemed to be in pursuit of our own shadows.

‘It’s half past five. We’ll get to Godstow in time for dinner, drink at the Trout, leave Hardcastle’s motor-car, and walk back by the river. Wouldn’t that be best?’