For the rest of that term he haunted us. Now that we were ‘gated’ we could not spend our evenings together, and from nine o’clock onwards were alone and at Mr Samgrass’s mercy. Hardly an evening seemed to pass but he called on one or the other of us. He spoke of ‘our little escapade’ as though he, too, had been in the cells, and had that bond with us….Once I climbed out of college and Mr Samgrass found me in Sebastian’s rooms after the gate was shut and that, too, he made into a bond. It did not surprise me, therefore, when I arrived at Brideshead, after Christmas, to find Mr Samgrass, as though in wait for me, sitting alone before the fire in the room they called the ‘Tapestry Hall’.

‘You find me in solitary possession,’ he said, and indeed he seemed to possess the hall and the sombre scenes of venery that hung round it, to possess the caryatids on either side of the fireplace, to possess me, as he rose to take my hand and greet me like a host: ‘This morning,’ he continued, ‘we had a lawn meet of the Marchmain Hounds – a deliciously archaic spectacle – and all our young friends are foxhunting, even Sebastian who, you will not be surprised to hear, looked remarkably elegant in his pink coat. Brideshead was impressive rather than elegant; he is Joint-master with a local figure of fun named Sir Walter Strickland-Venables. I wish the two of them could be included in these rather humdrum tapestries – they would give a note of fantasy.

‘Our hostess remained at home; also a convalescent Dominican who has read too much Maritain and too little Hegel; Sir Adrian Porson, of course, and two rather forbidding Magyar cousins – I have tried them in German and in French, but in neither tongue are they diverting. All these have now driven off to visit a neighbour. I have been spending a cosy afternoon before the fire with the incomparable Charlus. Your arrival emboldens me to ring for some tea. How can I prepare you for the party? Alas, it breaks up tomorrow. Lady Julia departs to celebrate the New Year elsewhere, and takes the beau-monde with her. I shall miss the pretty creatures about the house – particularly one Celia; she is the sister of our old companion in adversity, Boy Mulcaster, and wonderfully unlike him. She has a bird-like style of conversation, pecking away at the subject in a way I find most engaging, and a school-monitor style of dress which I can only call “saucy”. I shall miss her, for I do not go tomorrow. Tomorrow I start work in earnest on our hostess’s book – which, believe me, is a treasure-house of period gems; pure authentic 1914.’

Tea was brought and, soon after it, Sebastian returned; he had lost the hunt early, he said, and hacked home; the others were not long after him, having been fetched by car at the end of the day; Brideshead was absent; he had business at the kennels and Cordelia had gone with him. The rest filled the hall and were soon eating scrambled eggs and crumpets; and Mr Samgrass, who had lunched at home and dozed all the afternoon before the fire, ate eggs and crumpets with them. Presently Lady Marchmain’s party returned, and when, before we went upstairs to dress for dinner, she said ‘Who’s coming to chapel for the Rosary?’ and Sebastian and Julia said they must have their baths at once, Mr Samgrass went with her and the friar.