Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh [45]
He was with Lady Marchmain when I first met them, and I thought then that she could not have found a greater contrast to herself than this intellectual-on-the-make, nor a better foil to her own charm. It was not her way to make a conspicuous entry into anyone's life, but towards the end of that week Sebastian said rather sourly: 'You and mummy seem very thick,' and I realized that in fact I was being drawn into intimacy by swift, imperceptible stages, for she was impatient of any human relationship that fell short of it. By the time that she left I had promised to spend all next vacation, except Christmas itself, at Brideshead.
One Monday morning a week or two later I was in Sebastian's room waiting for him to return from a tutorial, when Julia walked in, followed by a large man whom she introduced as 'Mr Mottram' and addressed as 'Rex'. They were motoring up from a house where they had spent the week-end, they explained. Rex Mottram was warm and confident in a check ulster; Julia cold and rather shy in furs; she made straight for the fire and crouched over it shivering.
'We hoped Sebastian might give us luncheon,' she said. 'Failing him we can always try Boy Mulcaster, but I somehow thought we should eat better with Sebastian, and we're very hungry. We've been literally starved all the week-end at the Chasms.'
'He and Sebastian are both lunching with me. Come too.'
So, without demur, they joined the party in my rooms, one of the last of the old kind that I gave. Rex Mottram exerted himself to make an impression. He was a handsome fellow with dark hair growing low on his forehead and heavy black eyebrows. He spoke with an engaging Canadian accent. One quickly learned all that he wished one to know about him, that he was a lucky man with money, a member of parliament, a gambler, a good fellow; that he played golf regularly with the Prince of Wales and was on easy terms with 'Max' and 'F.E.' and 'Gertie' Lawrence and Augustus John and Carpentier—with anyone, it seemed, who happened to be mentioned. Of the University he said: 'No, I was never here. It just means you start life three years behind the other fellow.'
His life, so far as he made it known, began in the war, where he had got a good M.C. serving with the Canadians and had ended as A.D.C. to a popular general.
He cannot have been more than thirty at the time we met him, but he seemed very old to us in Oxford. Julia treated him, as she seemed to treat all the world, with mild disdain, but with an air of possession. During luncheon she sent him to the car for her cigarettes, and once or twice when he was talking very big, she apologized for him, saying: 'Remember he's a colonial,' to which he replied with boisterous laughter.
When he had gone I asked who he was.
'Oh, just someone of Julia's,' said Sebastian.
We were slightly surprised a week later to get a telegram from him asking us and Boy Mulcaster to dinner in London on the following night for 'a party of Julia's'.
'I don't think he knows anyone young,' said Sebastian; 'all his friends are leathery old sharks in the City and the House of Commons. Shall we go?'
We discussed it, and because our life at Oxford was now so much in the shadows, we decided that we would.
'Why does he want Boy?'
'Julia and I have known him all our lives. I suppose, finding him at lunch with you, he thought he was a chum.'
We had no great liking for Mulcaster, but the three of us were in high spirits when, having got leave for the night from our colleges, we drove off on the London road in Hardcastle's car.
We were to spend the night at Marchmain House. We went there to dress and, while we dressed, drank a bottle of champagne, going in and out of one another's rooms which were together three floors up and rather shabby compared with the splendours below. As we came downstairs Julia passed us going up to her room still in her day clothes.
'I'm going to be late,' she said; 'you boys had better go on to Rex's. It's heavenly of you to come.'
'What is this party?'
'A ghastly charity ball I'm involved with. Rex insisted on giving a dinner party for it. See you there.'