Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh [64]
'Who's hunting tomorrow?' she asked.
'Cordelia,' said Brideshead. 'I'm taking that young horse of Julia's, just to show him the hounds; I shan't keep him out more than a couple of hours.'
'Rex is arriving some time,' said Julia. 'I'd better stay in to greet him.'
'Where's the meet?' said Sebastian suddenly.
'Just here at Flyte St Mary.'
'Then I'd like to hunt, please, if there's anything for me.'
'Of course. That's delightful. I'd have asked you, only you always used to complain so of being made to go out. You can have Tinkerbell. She's been going very nicely this season.'
Everyone was suddenly pleased that Sebastian wanted to hunt; it seemed to undo some of the mischief of the evening. Brideshead rang the bell for whisky.
'Anyone else want any?'
'Bring me some, too,' said Sebastian, and, though it was a footman this time and not Wilcox, I saw the same exchange of glance and nod between the servant and Lady Marchmain. Everyone had been warned. The two drinks were brought in, poured out already in the glasses, like 'doubles' at a bar, and all our eyes followed the tray, as though we were dogs in a dining-room smelling game.
The good humour engendered by Sebastian's wish to hunt persisted, however; Brideshead wrote out a note for the stables, and we all went to bed quite cheerfully.
Sebastian got straight to bed; I sat by his fire and smoked a pipe. I said: 'I rather wish I was coming out with you tomorrow.
'Well,' he said, 'you wouldn't see much sport. I can tell you exactly what I'm going to do. I shall leave Bridey at the first covert, hack over to the nearest good pub, and spend the entire day quietly soaking in the bar parlour. If they treat me like a dipsomaniac, they can bloody well have a dipsomaniac. I hate hunting, anyway.'
'Well, I can't stop you.'
'You can, as a matter of fact—by not giving me any money. They stopped my banking account, you know, in the summer. It's been one of my chief difficulties. I pawned my watch and cigarette case to ensure a happy Christmas, so I shall have to come to you tomorrow for my day's expenses.'
'I won't. You know perfectly well I can't.'
'Won't you, Charles? Well, I daresay I shall manage on my own somehow. I've got rather clever at that lately—managing on my own. I've had to.'
'Sebastian, what have you and Mr Samgrass been up to?'
'He told you at dinner—ruins and guides and mules, that's what Sammy's been up to. We decided to go our own ways, that's all. Poor Sammy's really behaved rather well so far. I hoped he would keep it up, but he seems to have been very indiscreet about my happy Christmas. I suppose he thought if he gave too good an account of me, he might lose his job as keeper.
'He makes quite a good thing out of it, you know. I don't mean that he steals. I should think he's fairly honest about money. He certainly keeps an embarrassing little notebook in which he puts down the travellers' cheques he cashes and what he spends it on, for mummy and the lawyer to see. But he wanted to go to all these places, and it's very convenient for him to have me to take him in comfort, instead of going as dons usually do. The only disadvantage was having to put up with my company, and we soon solved that for him.
'We began very much on a Grand Tour, you know, with letters to all the chief people everywhere, and stayed with the Military Governor at Rhodes and the Ambassador at Constantinople. That was what Sammy had signed on for in the first place. Of course, he had his work cut out keeping his eye on me, but he warned all our hosts beforehand that I was not responsible.'
'Sebastian.'
'Not quite responsible—and as I had no money to spend I couldn't get away very much. He even did the tipping for me, put the note into the man's hand and jotted the amount down then and there in his note-book. My lucky time was at Constantinople. I managed to make some money at cards one evening when Sammy wasn't looking. Next day I gave him the slip and was having a very happy hour in the bar at the Tokatlian when who should come in but Anthony Blanche with a beard and a Jew boy. Anthony lent me a tenner just before Sammy came panting in and recaptured me. After that I didn't get a minute out of sight; the Embassy staff put us in the boat to Piraeus and watched us sail away. But in Athens it was easy. I simply walked out of the Legation one day after lunch, changed my money at Cook's, and asked about sailings to Alexandria just to fox Sammy, then went down to the port in a bus, found a sailor who spoke American, lay up with him till his ship sailed, and popped back to Constantinople, and that was that.