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of the pillars which supported it – that is, when he wasn’t wickedly caricaturing the droning parson, or Miss Phillimore, the organist, nodding on her bench.
    Later, especially in Greece and Italy, he’d been ravished by the relics of classical antiquity and the splendours of the Renaissance. And later still, escorting his mother on a visit to her family in Chicago, where he was left breathless by both the modern skyscrapers of Sullivan, and the low-pitched prairie houses
with their flowing interior spaces of Frank Lloyd Wright.
    â€œI can get you an introduction to a man I know,” said his friend, and from then on, it had been a settled thing in his mind, inconceivable that anything else should be open to him. Somehow he would do it, even the long, daunting period of training required by the Royal Institute of British Architects. As it turned out, this now looked unnecessary. The man his friend knew was an architect with a growing reputation, who himself was largely self-taught, having dropped out of architectural school after two years. Jones introduced Sebastian to Arthur Wagstaffe, a big, shambling, pragmatic man who was gaining a name for himself for sensible, no-nonsense, value-for-money buildings. Plainer than the usual Baroque revival which was the thing of the moment, but beautiful because they were so honest.
    He had listened to what Sebastian had to say, looked carefully at the exquisite drawings in his portfolio – and laughed. “Don’t let yourself get carried away with funny ideas about concert halls and cathedrals. Don’t forget, architecture’s about drains as well. What are your mathematics like?”
    Not his strong point, Sebastian had been forced to admit, abashed.
    â€œWell, they were never mine either, but you’ll learn as you go.”
    Sebastian had gone away with his heart on fire, his head full of talk of draughtsmanship, the need to gain knowledge of practical applications, calculations – and the offer of a job as a paying pupil in the New Year, when the man he was due to replace had left. He sometimes had the feeling that it had been too easy, but as yet he’d managed to tell no one, not even Louisa, since he believed his family had the right to be the first to know. Sylvia he could envisage having hysterics at the very idea, though his mother might well accept it as simply one of the crazes young men were apt to take up and then abandon. His grandmother, on the other hand, would certainly be seriously displeased, and would no doubt see it as a betrayal of his obligations. Without exception, they would all be astonished. Not one of them, he thought, would entirely believe he was serious.
    As for his father – the decision was sure to raise a furore, notwithstanding that architecture was a perfectly respectable profession, and there was nothing about it to be ashamed of. It
wasn’t as though he would be condemned to scraping a miserable living in a garret as an artist, dammit – but he knew his father would never be persuaded to see it like that, much less to stump up the money he would need to pay for his pupillage. Sebastian certainly didn’t have the money to fund himself. He just about got by as it was – and he still owed a hundred pounds on his new car.
    He smoked a cigarette, buried his head in his hands, and it wasn’t until the sun was high in the sky above the brow of the hill that he realised it was nearly lunch time. Calling the dogs to heel, he made his way back to the house.
    Â 
    He turned into the stable yard just in time to encounter a very small boy pedalling up towards the back entrance on a bicycle much too large for him. Red-faced and panting with the effort, the lad clutched a letter in one hand, which proved to be for Sebastian himself, from Louisa, with ‘Urgent’ scribbled across the corner.
    Having read it, he turned to the waiting boy, whose fascinated eyes were now glued to the Ascot