“I remember your telling me,” said Christian, “and I was proud of your confidence, that you loved Adeline. However, I suppose that’s all over now.”
He saw a bitter smile bend Maurice’s lips. “It was always a one-sided affair. Adeline never cared for me. But I’m damned if I can discover what she finds in Fitzturgis. He has always seemed to me a surly brute.”
“I think he’s very much in love.”
“Do Adeline’s parents like him?”
“Well, to tell the truth, I think that Aunt Alayne likes him very much and that Uncle Renny has a few doubts. But you know what Uncle Renny is.”
“Indeed I don’t. I really don’t know what any of you are. I’m an outsider, Nooky.”
“You’ll not be for long. You’ll be very much an insider … with me, anyway. I want to be your friend … if you’ll let me.”
Christian was frank and a little detached, even when he spoke warmly. Maurice was impulsive — eager to be loved — all too ready to be hurt. Now he exclaimed:
“There’s nothing I want so much.”
Christian laughed. “Nothing?”
“Nothing that I can attain.”
They had lighted cigarettes and they smoked in silence for a space. Outside the wide, open doorway (wide enough to have admitted a carriage in former days) a pair of bats, darker than the night, padded the languid air with silent wings.
“How different this is,” said Maurice. “The very smell of the air is different.”
“I should like to see Ireland.”
“You must come and stay with me. You must come when I go back this time. Could you do that?” There was a sudden eagerness in Maurice’s voice. Heretofore he had considered only a visit from his parents, though it was his mother he really wanted. But the flowering into manhood of Christian, the newborn thought — “Here is a brother who may be a friend” — made Maurice reach out toward Christian. There was something in him one could trust, one could lean on, thought Maurice. He did not realize that he wanted someone to lean on, to cling to — but there was the longing. As a child he had been swept away from all that was familiar to him into a strange country, into a strange house, not like a boy sent to boarding school among other boys, but into a great lonely house, with an old man. The gentleness, the affection, he had found there had never quite effaced his feeling of insecurity. All of his childhood he had felt insecure in his father’s affection. Now, in manhood, he had a feeling of resentment, of wariness, toward Piers. But in this tranquil nighttime his heart warmed to Christian.
“You must come and stay with me,” he repeated.
“I’d love to,” said Christian, and added, “It must be nice to have a place of one’s own at your age, to invite whoever you like to come and stay with you.”
“I suppose it is. I hadn’t thought about it.”
Christian was curious about the life of this little-known brother. “Do you often have friends to stay?” he asked.
“I’ve never had anyone — not yet. Except, of course, Adeline and Uncle Finch.”
“But what do you do? I mean you’re not like a chap who paints or writes.”
“I find plenty to do. You know I have cottages and land to look after. I have a congenial neighbour — Pat Crawshay. We go fishing and sailing together.”
“What a life! And you really want me to go and visit you?”
“I most certainly do.”
“Nothing shall stop me,” Christian exclaimed. “I’ll paint Irish scenery — fall in love with an Irish girl and settle down at your gate. It’s just what I’ve been waiting for.”
“And on my part I’d like nothing better…. I say, Nook, have you anything to drink in the studio? I don’t know what’s wrong with me tonight, but I’m dry as hell. Do you think we might have a drink?”
Christian gave him a puzzled look. “But —” he began, then got to his feet. “I don’t keep anything to drink here,” he said. “I’ll fetch something from the house.”
“Never mind, never mind,” Maurice hastened to say. “It doesn’t matter. It’s only that I have this damned thirst.” But he objected no more as his brother left the studio and went into the darkness.
The lights in the house were out, but a rising moon gleamed against one window in the room where little Mary slept. Christian heard a step and made out the figure of Philip in the hall. He had left off the jacket of his pyjamas and his naked torso showed palely against the dark staircase.
“Gosh, isn’t it hot!” he exclaimed, then lowered his voice. “I went to bed but couldn’t sleep. What are you and Maurice doing?”
Christian sensed envy in the boy’s voice. Here was the younger brother left out of things. To reassure him he said, “We shall be coming up soon. Maurice is tired, but he’s sort of restless. He wants a drink.”
“Oh … I guess I’ll come out too. I feel restless and shouldn’t mind a drink.”
“I’m not having any,” Christian said curtly. “Nor you either.”
Philip stroked his smooth diaphragm. “I don’t really want anything,” he said. He followed Christian into the dining room and the light was turned on. “Dad will notice if you take more than a little.”
Christian held up the decanter. “Not a great deal in it,” he said. “Maurice is used to having as much as he wants when he wants it. He’s his own master.”
Philip came close and watched with absorption the doling out of half a glass of whisky.
“I guess it will look pretty mean to Maurice not to take out the decanter,” he said.
“This is enough,” said Christian curtly.
“But we don’t want to look mean, do we?” insisted Philip.
“Damn.” Christian poured back the whisky from the glass, returned the stopper to the decanter and grasped it by the neck. “You’re right,” he said. “We mustn’t look mean, but — it strikes me …”
“What strikes you”
“Nothing.”
“But you were going to say something.”
“Only that you’d better go to bed.”
“I was going to the studio with you.”
“No, no, Philip. Maurice is tired. He will be coming to bed directly.”
There was an elder-brotherly tone in Christian’s voice that offended Philip. They had been pals. Was Maurice coming between them?
“OK,” he said gruffly, and went back into the hall and up the stairs, two steps at a time, in silent barefoot strides.
Maurice was holding the picture Chritian had given him where the light fell on it when Christian re-entered with the decanter.
“I do like this,” Maurice exclaimed. “It is mighty good of you to give it to me. I shall be proud to take it back to Ireland.”
“Oh, it’s not bad.”
“The cloud and the shadow of the cloud on the meadow! I like it immensely.” He appeared rapt by the picture, and when Christian set the decanter in front of him gave it a look of faint surprise. “Oh yes,” he said. “Something more to drink, eh? A good idea.”
He