‘Oh, I suppose it’s none of my business really.’

‘Nor mine strictly, now that he is safely home. Lady Marchmain did me the honour of consulting me. But it is less Sebastian’s welfare than our own I have at heart at the moment. I need my third glass of port; I need that hospitable tray in the library. And yet you specifically advise against it tonight. I wonder why. Sebastian can come to no mischief today. For one thing, he has no money. I happen to know. I saw to it. I even have his watch and cigarette case upstairs. He will be quite harmless…as long as no one is so wicked as to give him any….Ah, Lady Julia, good morning to you, good morning. And how is the peke this hunting morning?’

‘Oh, the peke’s all right. Listen. I’ve got Rex Mottram coming here today. We simply can’t have another evening like last night. Someone must speak to mummy.’

‘Someone has. I spoke. I think it will be all right.’

‘Thank God for that. Are you painting today, Charles?’

It had been the custom that on every visit to Brideshead I painted a medallion on the walls of the garden-room. The custom suited me well, for it gave me a good reason to detach myself from the rest of the party; when the house was full, the garden-room became a rival to the nursery, where from time to time people took refuge to complain about the others; thus without effort I kept in touch with the gossip of the place. There were three finished medallions now, each rather pretty in its way, but unhappily each in a different way, for my tastes had changed and I had become more dexterous in the eighteen months since the series was begun. As a decorative scheme, they were a failure. That morning was typical of the many mornings when I had found the garden-room a sanctuary. There I went and was soon at work. Julia came with me to see me started and we talked, inevitably, of Sebastian.

‘Don’t you get bored with the subject?’ she asked. ‘Why must everyone make such a Thing about it?’

‘Just because we’re fond of him.’

‘Well. I’m fond of him too, in a way, I suppose, only I wish he’d behave like anybody else. I’ve grown up with one family skeleton, you know – papa. Not to be talked of before the servants, not to be talked of before us when we were children. If mummy is going to start making a skeleton out of Sebastian, it’s too much. If he wants to be always tight, why doesn’t he go to Kenya or somewhere where it doesn’t matter?’

‘Why does it matter less being unhappy in Kenya than anywhere else?’

‘Don’t pretend to be stupid, Charles. You understand perfectly.’

‘You mean there won’t be so many embarrassing situations for you? Well, all I was trying to say was that I’m afraid there may be an embarrassing situation tonight if Sebastian gets the chance. He’s in a bad mood.’