When I left Sebastian in Morocco,
I had intended to return directly to Paris,
but the business of his allowance
meant that I had to travel to London to see Bridey.
We met in the library of Marchmain House.
Do you consider there is anything vicious
about my brother's connection with this German?
No.
I'm sure not.
It's simply a case of two waifs coming together.
You say he's a criminal?
Criminal type.
He's been in a military prison,
and he was dishonorably discharged.
And the doctor says Sebastian is killing himself with drink.
Weakening himself.
He hasn't DTs or cirrhosis.
He's not insane?
Certainly not.
He's found a companion he happens to like
and a place that he happens to like living in.
Then he must have his allowance, as you suggest.
The thing's quite clear.
Would you like to paint this house?
My father wants it done
for a record to be kept at Brideshead.
One picture of the front,
one of the back from the park,
one of the staircase,
one of the large drawing room-
four small oils.
I don't know any painters.
Julia says you specialize in architecture.
Yes.
I should like to very much.
You know they're pulling it down.
My father's selling it.
They're going to put up a block of flats here.
They're keeping the name.
We can't stop them, apparently.
What a very sad thing.
Well, of course I'm sorry,
but do you think it good architecturally?
It's one of the most beautiful houses I know.
Can't see it.
I've always thought it rather ugly.
Perhaps your pictures will make me see it differently.
I began in the long drawing room,
for they were anxious to shift the furniture
which had stood there since it was built.
I set out the perspective in pencil
but held back from the painting
like a diver on the water's edge.
Once in, I found myself buoyed and exhilarated.
I was normally a slow and deliberate painter.
That afternoon and all next day and the day after,
I worked fast.
I could do nothing wrong.
At the end of each passage, I paused, tense,
afraid to start the next,
fearing, like a gambler, that luck must turn
and the pile be lost.
But bit by bit, minute by minute,
the thing came into being.
There were no difficulties.
The intricate multiplicity of light and color
became a whole.
Each brush stroke, as soon as it was complete,
seemed to have been there always.
May I stay here and watch?
Yes,
so long as you don't talk.
This was my first commission.
I had to work against time, for the contractors
were only waiting for the final signature
to start their work of destruction.
In spite or perhaps because of that,
for it is my vice to spend too long on a canvas,
never content to leave well alone,
those four paintings of Marchmain House
are particular favorites of mine,
and it was their success both with myself and others
that confirmed me in what has since been my career.
Must be lovely to be able to do that.
It is.
Oh, I'm tired.
I bet you are.
Is it finished?
Practically.
I shall have to go over it again in the morning.
Do you know it's almost dinnertime?
There's no one here to cook anything now.
I only came up today.
I didn't realize how far the decay had gone.
You wouldn't take me out to dinner, would you?
All right.
Oh, thank youl
I'll go and get changed.
We let ourselves out by a side door
and walked to the Ritz Grill.
You've seen Sebastian?
Yes, I have.
He won't come home even now.
I didn't realize you understood so much.
Well, I love him more than anyone.
It's sad about Marchers, isn't it?
Very sad.
Do you know they're going to build a block of flats
and that Rex wants to take
what he calls a "penthouse" at the top?
Isn't that like him?
Poor Julia, that was too much for her.
He couldn't understand it at all.
He thought that she'd like to keep up with the old home.
Things have all come to an end very quickly, haven't they?
Apparently, Papa has been terribly in debt
for a long time,
and selling Marchers has put him straight again.
But what's going to happen to you?
What indeed?
There are all kinds of suggestions.
Aunt Fanny Roscommon wants me to live with her,
and then Rex and Julia talk
of taking over half of Brideshead and living there.
But won't your father come back?
We thought he might, but no.
They closed the chapel at Brideshead.
Did they?
Bridey and the bishop.
Mummy's requiem was the last mass said there.
After she was buried, the priest came in.
I was there alone.
I don't think he saw me.
He took up the altar stone and put it in his bag.
Then he burnt the wads of wool with the holy oil on them
and threw the ash outside.
He emptied the holy water stoup,
blew out the lamp in the sanctuary,
and left the tabernacle open and empty,
as though from now on, it was always to be Good Friday.
I suppose none of this makes any sense to you, Charles.
Poor agnostic.
I stayed there till he was gone.
Then suddenly there wasn't any chapel there anymore,
just an oddly decorated room.
I can't tell you what it felt like.
You've never been to Tenebrae, I suppose?
No.
Well, if you had,
you would know how the Jews feel about their temple.
Quomodo sedet sola civitas.
It's a most beautiful chant.
You ought to go there once just to hear it.
Are you still trying to convert me, Cordelia?
No. That's all over too.
Do you know what Papa said when he became a Catholic?
Mummy told me once.
He said, "You have brought back my family"
to the faith of their ancestors."
Pompous, you know.
Takes people in different ways.
Anyhow, the family haven't been very constant, have they?
There's him gone,
Sebastian gone,
Julia gone.
But God won't let them go for long, you know.
I wonder if you remember the story that Mummy read us
the evening Sebastian first got drunk.
I mean, that bad evening.
- Father Brown? - Yes.
He said something like,
"I caught him, the thief,
"with an unseen hook and an invisible line
"which is long enough to let him wander
"to the ends of the world
and still bring him back with a twitch upon the thread."
First time I've ever been taken out to dinner alone
at a restaurant.
Do you know what Julia said
when she heard about Marchmain being sold?
She said, "Poor Cordelia"
won't have her coming-out ball here after all."
it's a thing we used to talk about,
like me being her bridesmaid.
That didn't come off either.
When Julia had her ball, I was allowed down for an hour
to sit in the corner with Aunt Fanny,
and she said to me,
"In six years' time, you'll have all this."
I hope I've got a vocation.
I don't know what that means.
It means you can be a nun.
If you haven't a vocation, it's no good,
however much you want to be.
And if you have a vocation, you can't get away from it,
however much you hate it.
Bridey thinks he has a vocation and hasn't.
I used to think Sebastian had and hated it,
but I don't know now.
Everything's changed so much suddenly.
You'll fall in love.
Oh, I pray not.
I say, do you think I could have another one
of those scrumptious meringues?
My theme is memory,
that winged host that soared about me
one gray morning of wartime.
These memories, which are my life,
for we possess nothing certainly except the past,
were always with me.
For nearly ten dead years
after that evening with Cordelia,
I was borne along a road
outwardly full of change and incident.
But never during that time, except sometimes in my painting,
did I come alive as I had been
during the time of my friendship with Sebastian.
I became an architectural painter.
But as the years passed,
I began to mourn the loss of something I had known
in the drawing room of Marchmain House,
the intensity and singleness
and the belief that it was not all done by hand.
In a word, the inspiration.
In quest of this fading light, I went abroad,
traveling by slow but not easy stages
through Mexico and Central America.
There, in great labor, sickness, and occasionally in some danger,
I made the first drawings for Ryder's Latin America.
I was in no great pains to keep in touch with England.
I followed local advice for my itinerary
and had no settled route
so that much of my mail never reached me
and the rest accumulated
until there was more than could be read at one sitting.
But despite this isolation
and this long sojourn in a strange world,
I remained unchanged,
still a small part of myself pretending to be whole.
I discarded the experiences of those two years
with my tropical kit
and returned to New York, as I had set out.
Richiel.
I had a suite booked.
The name is Ryder.
Yes, sir.
Has my wife arrived yet?
646 and 647, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Ryder.
Your wife has checked in, sir.
Would you care to sign the register, please?
Your wife went out earlier, sir.
She said to say that she'd be back after lunch.
Thank you.
646. Thank you, sir.
Any messages?
- No, sir. - Thank you.
- Thank you very much. - Thank you, sir.
- Good night. - Good night.
I don't believe you read my letters.
Well, some of them went astray.
I remember distinctly your telling me
that the daffodils in the orchard were a dream
and that the new nursery maid was a jewel,
but frankly I cannot remember you telling me
that your new baby was called Caroline.
Why did you call it that?
After Charles, of course.
Ah.
I made Bertha Van Halt godmother.
I thought she was safe for a good present.
What do you think she gave?
Bertha Van Halt is a well-known trap.
What?
A 15-shilling book token.
Now that John-John has a companion, I think-
- Who?
Your son, darling.
You haven't forgotten him too?
Why do you call him that?
It's the name he invented for himself.
Don't you think it's sweet?
Now that John-John has a companion,
I think we'd better not have any more for some time,
don't you?
Just as you like.
John-John talks about you such a lot.
He prays every night for your safe return.
I hope you admire my self-restraint.
Restraint?
I'm not asking any awkward questions.
I may say I've been tormented by visions
of voluptuous half-castes ever since you went away.
I determined not to ask...
And I haven't.
That suits me.
Shall I put my face to bed?
No, not just yet.
I don't believe you've changed at all, Charles.
No, I'm afraid not.
Do you want to change?
It's the only evidence of life.
But you might change so that you didn't love me anymore.
There is that risk.
- Charles? - Hmm?
You haven't stopped loving me?
You said yourself I hadn't changed.
Well, I'm beginning to think you have.
I haven't.
No.
No, I can see that.
Were you at all frightened at meeting me today?
Not the least.
You didn't wonder if I should have fallen in love
with someone else in the meantime?
No.
Have you?
You know I haven't.
Have you?
No.
I'm not in love.
Bloody central heating.
Lights out?
Mm.
The garden's come on a lot.
The box hedges you planted grew five inches last year.
Of course, darling,
I can see your new pictures are perfectly brilliant
and really rather beautiful in a sinister sort of way,
but somehow I don't feel they're quite you.
We've got a first-class cook at the moment.
You'll be really impressed.
Just like old times.
I'm not worrying anymore, Charles.
Good.
I was so terribly afraid
that two years might have made a difference.
Now I know we can start again exactly where we left off.
When?
What?
When we left off what?
When you went away, of course.
You're not thinking of something else
a little time before?
Oh, Charles, that's old history.
It was nothing.
It was never anything.
It's all over and forgotten.
I just wanted to know.
So we're back where we were the day I went abroad.
Is that it?
So we started that day
exactly where we left off two years before:
With my wife in tears.
Hello.
Hello?
In the dressing room, please.
Charles, I'm just arranging our little party this evening.
Julia?
Celia.
Celia Ryder.
Oh, it's lovely to find you on board.
What have you been up to?
Oh, come and have a cocktail this evening
and tell me all about it.
Good. See you then.
Julia who?
Mottram.
I haven't seen her for year- Hello?
Operator, could you get me...
I had not seen Julia
since the private view of my first exhibition
where the four canvases of Marchmain House, lent by Bridey,
had hung together, attracting much attention.
Those pictures were my last contact with the Flytes.
Our lives, so close for a year or two,
had drawn apart.
Sebastian, I knew, was still abroad.
Rex and Julia, I sometimes heard it said,
were unhappy together.
Rex was not prospering quite as well as had been expected.
I saw their faces now and again, peeping from the Tatler,
but they and I had fallen apart into separate worlds.
Can I get you anything, sir?
A whiskey soda, no ice.
I'm sorry, sir. All the soda's iced.
- Is the water iced? - Oh, yes, sir.
That'll do.
Charles.
Hello.
I heard you were here. Celia telephoned to me.
It's delightful.
Will you join me for a drink?
Thank you.
What are you doing?
Waiting. My maid's unpacking.
She's been so disagreeable ever since we left England.
She's complaining now about the cabin.
I can't think why.
It seems the lap of luxury to me.
He brought two jugs,
one of iced water, the other of boiling water.
I mixed them to the right temperature.
I'll remember that's how you take it, sir.
Thank you.
What can I get for you, madam?
Oh, a hot chocolate.
Very good, madam.
I never see you now.
I never see anyone I like.
I can't think why.
What have you been doing in America?
Don't you know?
I'll tell you about it sometime.
I've been a mug.
I thought I was in love with someone,
but it didn't quite work out that way.
What about you, Charles?
What have you been up to?
Oh, I've just been painting,
trying different styles.
I'm just back from a trip.
Where have you been?
Mexico, Central America,
quite a way from anywhere.
I felt I needed a change of scene.
I was getting stale.
It sounds thrilling.
I'm longing to see the pictures.
Celia wanted me to unpack them and stick them around the cabin
for her cocktail party, but I couldn't do that.
No.
Is Celia as pretty as ever?
I always thought she had the most delicious looks
of any girl in our year.
She hasn't changed.
You have, Charles,
so lean and grim,
not at all the pretty boy Sebastian brought home with him.
Harder too.
And you're softer?
Yes, I think so.
I'm more patient now.
And sadder too.
Oh, yes, much sadder.
Facing into the room, please.
My wife was in exuberant spirits
when, two hours later, I returned to the cabin.
There you are. I've had to do everything.
How does it look?
You must go and get dressed.
Where have you been all this time?
Talking to Julia Mottram.
Do you know her?
Oh, of course, you were a friend of the dipso brother.
Goodness, her glamour.
She greatly admires your looks too.
She used to be a girlfriend of Boy's.
Surely not.
He always said so.
Have you considered
how your guests are going to eat this caviar?
Oh, I have.
It's insoluble.
But I suppose there's always this.
Oh, anyway, people always find ways
of eating things at parties.
Do you remember we once ate potted shrimps
with a paper knife?
Did we?
Darling.
It was the night you popped the question.
As I remember it, you popped.
Well, the night we got engaged.
Well, you haven't said
what you think about the arrangements.
It's a cinema actor's dream.
Cinema actors, that's what I want to talk about.
Charles, I've been thinking.
I do believe you're absolutely cut out
to be a set designer for the cinema.
I've invited two very important Americans,
real Hollywood magnates.
Do promise you'll be sensible and talk to them.
Ah, here is Father Christmas.
Oh, dear Lady Celia.
Is everything all right, madam?
We were just in raptures over your swan.
If you'll put on your warmest clothes
and come on an expedition with me to the cold storage,
I could show you a whole Noah's Ark
full of such objects.
The toast for the caviar will be along shortly.
They're keeping it hot.
Toast. Do you hear that, Charles?
Toast!
I do believe you've taken against my swan.
Well, we were just-
- Now, don't be beastly about it in front of the purser.
I think it was sweet of him to think of it.
You know, if Charles had read about it in a description
of a 16th-century banquet in Venice,
he'd have said, "Those were the days to live."
In 16th-century Venice,
it would have been a somewhat different shape.
Hellol How are you?
I'm so glad you could come.
Celia, what a beautiful swanl
isn't it heavenly?
I hate to spoil the fun,
but it looks like we're in for a storm.
Oh, how can you be so beastly?
Anyway, storms don't affect a ship this size, do they?
Well, it might hold us back a bit.
But it won't make us sick?
Well, that depends on how good a sailor you are.
I'm always sick in storms, ever since I was a boy.
I don't believe a word of it.
He's simply being- being sadistic.
I must show you a photograph of the children.
Do you know Charles hasn't even seen Caroline yet?
Really? Oh, how old is she now?
I feel I know you through and through.
Celia's told me so much about you.
There were no friends of mine there,
but I knew about 1/3 of the party
and talked away civilly enough.
But all the time,
I thought only of when Julia would come.
Been waiting to do that for a long time.
Bet you don't know how many drops in a minute.
I do. I've counted.
- I have no idea. - Well, guess.
Oh, come.
A tenner if you get it wrong
and half a dollar if you get it right.
That's fair, isn't it?
Three.
Coo.
You're a sharp chap, aren't you?
You've been counting too, haven't you?
Tell me, how do you work this one out?
I'm an Englishman born and bred.
This is my first time on the Atlantic.
- You flew out. - No.
You came round the world the other way
and crossed the Pacific.
You are a sharp chap and no mistake.
I've made quite a bit out of arguing on that topic.
Well, I better skedaddle.
Toodle-oo.
Still, Julia did not come.
And the noise of 20 people in that tiny room
was the noise of a multitude.
Charles, this is Mr. Kramm of lnternational Films.
So you're Mr. Charles Ryder.
- Yes. - Well, well, well.
Our purser says we're in for some pretty dirty weather.
What do you know about that?
Rather less than the purser.
I'm sorry, Mr. Ryder. I don't quite get you.
I mean I know less about that than...
the purser.
Is that so?
In half an hour
and go on meeting every half hour for days.
I've enjoyed our talk.
I hope it'll be the first of many.
You must promise me to bring
that distinguished-looking husband of yours
to my little do on Tuesday.
Oh, we'd love to. Are you having one too?
Do tell me, how did it feel meeting Celia after two years?
I know that I should feel indecently bridal.
But, then, Celia has never quite got the orange blossom
out of her hair, has she?
Julia never came.
No, she telephoned.
I couldn't quite hear what she said.
There was so much noise going on.
Something about a dress.
It was quite lucky, actually.
There wasn't room for a cat.
It was a lovely party, wasn't it?
Did you hate it very much?
You behaved beautifully, and you looked so distinguished.
Who was your red-haired chum?
No chum of mine.
How very peculiar.
Did you say anything to Mr. Kramm
about working in Hollywood?
Of course not.
Oh, Charles, you are such a worry to me.
It's no good
just standing around looking distinguished
and being a martyr for art.
Come on. Let's go to dinner.
We're at the captain's table.
I don't suppose he'll dine down tonight,
but it's polite to be fairly punctual.
I just hope I can find the dining room.
This place is an absolute maze.
We were a gruesome circle at dinner.
Even my wife's high social spirit faltered.
Wherever Celia is,
you'll find she knows all the significant people.
I'm miserable about the party.
My beastly maid totally disappeared
with every frock I have.
She only turned up half an hour ago.
I've made it my aim to reconcile
the so-called anarchists and the so-called communists.
There is no fundamental diversity in their ideologies.
It is a matter of personality, Mr. Ryder,
and what personalities have put asunder,
personalities may unite.
Of course.
But I understood you to say, Lady Celia,
that you were unacquainted with him.
Oh, I meant he was like Captain Foulenough.
Ah, I begin to comprehend.
He impersonated this friend of yours
in order to come to your party.
No, no, Captain Foulenough is simply a comic character
in an English paper.
You know, like your Popeye.
To recapitulate,
an imposter came to your party,
and you admitted him because of a fancied resemblance
to a fictitious character in a cartoon.
Yes, I suppose that was it, really.
Do you not agree, Mr. Ryder?
Yes, yes.
I mean, what are words?
What indeed?
My mind reeled.
After the months of solitude, this was too much.
I felt like Lear on the heath,
like the Duchess of Malfi bayed by madmen.
I summoned cataracts and hurricanes,
and, as if by conjury, the call was immediately answered.
Either I'm a little drunk, or it's getting rough.
This is where I say good night to you all.
Like King Lear.
Only each of us is all three of them.
What can you mean?
Lear, Kent, Fool.
Oh, dear, it's like
that agonizing Foulenough conversation over again.
Don't try and explain.
I'm not sure that I could.
Well, we've set a fine example of British phlegm,
but I think I've taken all I can.
This is making my head ache, and I'm tired anyway.
I'm going to bed.
Are you coming, Julia?
Yes.
Will you be joining in the tombola
this evening, sir?
No, no, thank you.
But if somebody could bring me some more brandy,
it'd be wonderful.
Certainly, sir. I'll get a steward for you.
Charles, is that you?
Yes.
I feel terrible.
I didn't know a ship this size could pitch like this.
Oh, can't you do something?
Can't you get something from the doctor?
I'll call the steward. He'll have something.
Look, why don't I sleep next door?
Then I won't disturb you.
Oh, God.
Excuse me, sir,
but these have come for you and her Ladyship.
What would you like me to do with them, sir?
Oh, over there somewhere.
What news of the storm?
Well, the wind's dropped a little, sir,
but it's still blowing quite hard,
and there's a heavy swell.
Nothing like a heavy swell
for the enjoyment of the passengers.
There weren't many breakfasts wanted this morning.
Just a moment, Steward.
Would you have these delivered to Lady Julia Mottram's cabin?
Certainly, sir.
And, Steward...
Would you ask the barber to call?
Very good, sir.
Thank you. Hello?
Charles, what a deplorable thing to do.
How unlike you.
Don't you like them?
What can I do with roses on a day like this?
Smell them.
They've absolutely no smell at all.
What did you have for breakfast?
Muscat grapes and cantaloupe.
When am I going to see you?
Before lunch?
I'm busy till then with a masseuse.
A masseuse?
Yes, isn't it peculiar?
I've never had one before,
except once when I hurt my shoulder hunting.
What is it about being on a boat
that makes everyone behave like a film star?
I don't.
How about these very embarrassing roses?
I'll see you on deck about 12:30.
Marvelous. You might not recognize me.
What do you mean?
I'm having my beard removed.
How dreadful. It sounds like an operation.
Can I come in?
I thought these might cheer you up.
How sweet people are.
I take it you're not going to get up.
Oh, no.
Mrs. Clark is being so sweet.
Don't bother.
Come in and tell me what's going on sometimes.
Now, now, dear,
the less we're disturbed today, the better.
Charles?
Your beard.
Yes, I know.
What a pity.
I thought it looked so distinguished.