Religion predominated in the house; not only in its practices--the daily mass and rosary, morning and evening in the chapel--but in all its intercourse. "We must make a Catholic of Charles," Lady Marchmain said, and we had many little talks together during my visits when she delicately steered the subject into a holy quarter. After the first of these Sebastian said: "Has Mummy been having one of her 'little talks' with you? She's always doing it. I wish to hell she wouldn't."
One was never summoned for a little talk, or consciously led to it; it merely happened, when she wished to speak intimately, that one found oneself alone with her, if it was summer in a secluded walk by the lakes or in a corner of the walled rose gardens; if it was winter in her sitting-room on the first floor.
This room was all her own; she had taken it for herself and changed it so that, entering, one seemed to be in another house. She had lowered the ceiling, and the elaborate cornice which, in one form or another, graced every room, was lost to view; the walls, once panelled in brocade, were stripped and washed blue and spotted with innumerable little water-colours of fond association; the air was sweet with the fresh scent of flowers and musty pot-pourri; her library in soft leather covers, well-read works of poetry and piety, filled a small rosewood bookcase; the chimney-piece was covered with small personal treasures--an ivory Madonna, a plaster St. Joseph, posthumous miniatures of her three soldier brothers. When Sebastian and I lived alone at Brideshead during that brilliant August we had kept out of his mother's room.
SHE SENDS A CHILL DOWN MY SPINE
