Do you remember the storm?
The bronze doors banging.
The roses in cellophane.
The man who threw the get together party
and was never seen again.
Do you remember how the sun came out on our last evening
just as it has done today?
So much to remember.
How many days have there been since then
when we haven't seen each other
A hundred.
Not so many.
Two Christmases
to keep up appearances for the sake of the children.
And the three days of good taste
before I followed you to Capri.
Our first summer.
Do you remember how I hung about in Naples and then followed.
How we met by arrangement on the hill path
and how flat it felt.
I went back to the villa and said Papa
Who do you think has arrived at the hotel?
And he said Charles Ryder, I suppose.
And I said Whatever made you think of him?
And he said He seems to have a penchant for my children.
There was a time when you had jaundice and wouldn't let me see you.
And when I had flu you were afraid to come.
A hundred days.
Out of two years and a bit.
Not a day's coldness or mistrust or disappointment.
Never that.
Let's go and change.
How many more do you think?
Another hundred?
A lifetime.
I want to marry you, Charles.
One day, why now?
War, this year, next year, sometime soon.
I want a year or two with you of real peace.
Isn't this peace?
What do you mean by peace if not this?
So much more.
Marriage isn't a thing we can take
when the mood strikes us. There must be a divorce
two divorces.
We must make plans.
Plans, divorce, war
On an evening like this.
Sometimes I feel the past and the future pressing so hard
on either side there doesn't seem room for the present at all.
Yes, Wilcox?
Lord Brideshead's just telephoned, my Lady.
He says not to wait dinner for him please
as he'll be a little late. Thank you, Wilcox.
It seem months since he was last here.
Yes
What does he do in London?
It was often a matter for speculation between us
Giving birth to many fantasies
for Bridey was a mystery.
The talk
of his going into the army
and into parliament and into a monastery
had all come to nothing.
All that he was known with certainty to have done
and this because in a season of scant news
it had formed the subject of a newspaper article
entitled "Peer's Unusual Hobby"
was to form a collection of match boxes.
Hello Bridey.
Oh Bridey, we're almost finished.
Well, well, only you two.
I hoped to find Rex here.
How are you?
What's the news?
As a matter of fact I do have some news
but it can wait.
Tell us now.
How's the painting Charles?
Which painting?
Whatever you have on the stocks.
Well, I've begun a picture of Julia
but the light was difficult all day today.
Julia?
Haven't you done her before?
I suppose it's a change from architecture and much more difficult.
The world is full of different subjects.
Very true, Bridey.
If I were a painter
I should choose a different subject every time.
Really?
What sort of subjects?
Oh I don't know really
subjects with plenty of action in them like
Macbeth, perhaps.
By the way, I've been meaning to ask you
What happened to mother's jewels?
Cordelia and I had most of her things.
This was hers.
And this.
The rest went to the bank.
Aren't there some rather famous rubies
someone was telling me?
Yes, a necklace. Mummy often used to wear it
don't you remember?
Why, anyway?
I just thought I'd like to take a look at them some day.
I say Papa isn't going to pop them, is he?
He's not in debt again?
No, no nothing like that.
Come on Bridey, don't be so mysterious. Out with it.
Well, you have only to wait until Monday
to see it in black and white in the newspapers.
I am engaged to be married.
I hope you're pleased.
Bridey! How very exciting!
Who to?
Oh, no one you know. Is she pretty?
I don't think you would exactly call her pretty.
Comely is the word I think of in her connection.
She's a big woman.
Fat?
No, big.
She's called Mrs. Muspratt.
Her Christian name is Beryl.
I've known her for quite a long time
But until last year she had a husband
now she's a widow.
Why do you laugh?
I'm sorry. It's not in the least funny.
It's just so unexpected.
Is she
Is she about your own age?
Just about, I believe.
She has three children
the eldest boy has just gone to Ampleforth.
She is not at all well off.
Where did you find her?
Her late husband, Admiral Muspratt
collected matchboxes.
You're not marrying her for her matchboxes?
No, the whole collection went to the Falmouth Town Library.
I have great affection for her.
In spite of all her difficulties
she's a very cheerful woman
very fond of acting.
She is a member of the Catholic Player's Guild.
Does Papa know?
I had a letter from him this morning giving me his approval.
He's been urging me for some time to marry.
Well
Congratulations, Bridey.
Yes.
Congratulations.
Thank you. Thank you.
I think I'm very fortunate.
Bridey, when are we going to meet her?
I do think you might have brought her down with you.
Bridey
you sly, smug old brute why didn't you bring her here?
Oh, I couldn't do that, you know.
Why couldn't you?
I'm dying to meet her.
Let's ring her up and ask her.
She'll think us most peculiar
leaving her alone at a time like this.
She has the children.
Besides
you are peculiar, aren't you?
What can you mean?
I could hardly ask her here, as things are.
It wouldn't be suitable.
After all, I'm only a lodger here.
This is Rex's house at the moment, so far as it's anybody's.
What goes on here is his business. But I couldn't bring Beryl here.
I simply don't understand.
Of course
Rex and I want her to come.
Oh yes, I don't doubt that.
But the difficulty is quite otherwise.
You must understand that Beryl is a woman
Of strict Catholic principles
fortified by the prejudices of the middle classes.
I couldn't possibly bring her here.
It's a matter of indifference whether you choose to live in sin
With Rex or Charles or both
I have always avoided inquiry into the details of your ménage
but, in no case would Beryl consent to be your guest.
Why you pompous ass?
I may have given the impression that this
was a marriage of convenience.
I cannot speak for Beryl.
No doubt the security of my position
has some influence on her.
Indeed, she has said as much.
But for myself, let me emphasis
I am ardently attracted.
Bridey
what a bloody offensive thing to say to Julia.
There was nothing she should object to.
I was merely stating a fact well known to her.
Aren't you cold?
My darling, what is it?
Why do you mind?
What does it matter what the old booby says?
I don't.
It doesn't.
It's just the shock.
Don't laugh at me.
How dare he speak to you like that?
The cold-blooded old humbug
No, it's not that.
He's quite right.
They know all about it, Bridey and his widow.
They bought it for a penny at the church door.
You can get anything there for a penny in black and white
and nobody to see you pay. Just take your tract.
There you’ve got it.
All in one word, too
one little, flat, deadly word that covers a lifetime.
Living in sin
not just doing wrong, as I did when I went to America
doing wrong, knowing it is wrong
stopping it, forgetting it.
That's not what they mean. That's not Bridey's pennyworth.
He means just what it says.
Living in sin, every hour
every day, year in year out.
Always the same.
Like an idiot child, carefully nursed
guarded from the world.
Poor Julia they say, 'she can't go out. "
She's got to take care of her little sin.
A pity it ever lived they say
But it's so strong
Children like that always are.
Julia's so good to her little, mad sin.
All those years when I was trying
to be a good wife
in the cigar smoke.
When I was trying
To bear his child
Torn in pieces by something already dead
putting him away, forgetting him, finding you
the past two years with you
All the future with you or without you
War coming
World ending
sin.
It's a word from so long ago.
From Nanny Hawkins stitching by the hearth
and the nightlight burning before the Sacred Heart.
Me and Cordelia with the catechism, in Mummy's room
before lunch, on Sundays.
Mummy carrying my sin with her to church.
Bowed under it.
Mummy dying with my sin eating at her
more cruelly than her own deadly illness.
Mummy dying with it
Christ dying with it
nailed hand and foot.
High among the crowds and the soldiers.
No comfort except a sponge of vinegar
and the kind words of a thief
hanging forever
over the bed in the night nursery.
There's no way back.
The gate's barred.
All the saints and angels posted along the wall.
Thrown away, scrapped, rotting down.
Nameless and dead.
Like the baby they wrapped up
and took away before I had a chance to see her.
Well, Bridey is one for bombshells, isn't he?
Considering that I've just recovered from a fit of hysteria
I don't call that at all bad.
Most hysterical women look as if they've got a bad cold.
Come on.
We're not going down again?
Of course.
We can't leave Bridey alone on his engagement night.
Can't we?
I'm sorry about that appalling scene, Charles.
I can't explain it.
Was it nice out?
If I'd known you were going I'd have come too.
Rather cold.
I hope it's not going to be inconvenient for Rex
moving out of here.
You see, Barton Street is much too small for us
and the three children.
Besides, Beryl likes the country.
In his letter
Papa proposed making over the whole estate right away.
I'm sure he'll be sorry to leave.
Oh, don't worry. Rex'll find another bargain somewhere.
Trust him.
Beryl has some furniture of her own she's very attached to.
I don't think it would go very well here.
You know, oak dressers and coffin stools and things.
I thought you could put it in Mother's room.
Yes, that would be the place for it
of course nobody has used that room for years.
So brother and sister sat and talked
about the arrangement of the house until bed-time.
An hour ago, I thought
by the fountain, she wept her heart out
for the death of her God.
Now she is discussing whether Beryl's children
Shall take the old smoking room
or the school room for their own.
I was all at sea.
I won't believe that great spout of tears came just
from a few words of Bridey's.
You must have been thinking about it before.
Hardly at all.
Now and then.
more, lately with the Last Trump so near.
Of course, it's a thing psychologists could explain.
A pre-conditioning from childhood
feelings of guilt from the nonsense you were taught in the nursery.
You do know in your heart
that it's all bosh, don't you?
How I wish it was.
Do you know, Sebastian once said almost the same thing to me.
He's gone back to the Church, you know.
Of course, he's never left it as definitely as I did.
I've gone too far.
There's no turning back.
I know that, if that's what you mean by thinking it all bosh.
Let's go out again.
It's like the setting for a comedy.
Scene: A baroque fountain in a nobleman’s grounds.
Act one, sunset.
Act two, moonlight.
Act three, towards dawn.
The characters keep assembling at the fountain for no very clear reason.
Comedy.
Drama
tragedy, farce
What you will.
This is the reconciliation scene.
Was there a quarrel?
Misunderstanding and estrangement in Act Two.
Don't talk in that damned bounderish way.
Why must you see everything second hand?
Why must this be a play?
It's a way I have.
I hate it.
Now do you see how I hate it?
Did that hurt?
Yes.
Did it?
Did I?
Cat on the rooftop.
Beast!
Cat in the moonlight.
Your poor face.
Will there be a mark tomorrow?
I expect so.
Charles, am I going crazy?
What's happened here tonight?
I'm so tired.
So tired
Tired and crazy and good for nothing.
All I can hope to do is put my life in some sort of order.
That's why I want to marry you.
I should like to have a child.
That's one thing I can do
So you're being divorced.
Isn't that rather unnecessary after being happy together
all these years?
We weren't particularly happy, you know.
Weren't you?
Were you not?
I distinctly remember last Christmas seeing you together and thinking
how happy you looked, and wondering why.
You'll find it very disturbing, you know, starting off again.
How old are you, thirty four?
That's no time to be starting. You ought to be settling down.
Have you made any plans?
Yes.
I intend to get married again as soon as the divorce is through.
Well, I do call that a lot of nonsense.
I can understand a man wishing he hadn't married
And trying to get out of it
Though I never felt anything of the kind myself
But to get rid of one wife and take up another immediately
is beyond all reason.
I've seen quite a few divorces in my time.
I've never known one work out so happily
for all concerned.
Almost always
However matey people are at the start
bad blood crops up as soon as they get down to detail.
Mind you, I don't mind saying that there have been times
In the last couple of years when I thought
you were a bit rough on Celia.
Course it's different when it's one's own sister.
I've always thought her a jolly attractive girl.
The sort of girl any chap would be glad to have
artistic too
just down your street.
I must admit.
You're a good picker.
I've always had a soft spot for Julia.
Well, I suppose if Julia insists on a divorce
she must have one.
My God, she couldn't have chosen a worse time.
Things had not gone as smoothly for Rex
as he had planned.
Only war could put his fortunes right
and carry him into power.
A divorce would do him no great harm
but he was like a gambler with a big bank running
He could not look up from the table.
Tell her to
tell her to hang on a bit, Charles, there's a good fellow.
I met the widow at luncheon.
Did you?
Do you know what she said to me?
So you're divorcing one divorced man
and marrying another. It sounds rather complicated
but my dear, she called me my dear about twenty times
I've usually found that every Catholic family
has one lapsed member, and it's often the nicest.
What's she like?
Majestic.
And voluptuous.
Common, of course.
I'll tell you one thing. She's lied to Bridey
about her age. She's a good forty five.
I don't see her providing an heir.
Bridey can't take his eyes off her.
He was gloating on her in the most revolting way all through luncheon.
Was she friendly?
Goodness, yes
In a condescending way.
I think it put her rather at ease to have me there as the black sheep.
She concentrated on me in fact, said rather pointedly
she hoped to see me often in London.
I think Bridey's scruples only extend to her sleeping
under the same roof with me. Apparently I can do her
no serious harm in a hat shop or hairdresser's.
The scruples are all on Bridey's part, anyway.
The widow is madly tough.
Does she boss him?
Not yet, much.
He's in an amorous stupor, poor beast and doesn't know where he is.
She's just a good-hearted woman who wants a good home
for her children and isn't going to let anything stand in her way.
A telephone message, my Lady, from Lady Cordelia.
Lady Cordelia? How marvelous.
Where is she?
In London, my Lady.
Wilcox, how lovely.
Is she coming home?
Just starting for the station. She'll be here after dinner.
Thank you.
I haven't seen her since I took her to dinner at the Ritz
and she talked about becoming a nun.
It must be twelve years!
She was an enchanting child.
She's had an odd life.
First the convent
and when that was no good, the war in Spain.
Then staying on when the war was over and helping in the camps.
She's grown up quite plain, you know.
Does she know about us?
Yes.
She wrote me a sweet letter.
It hurt to think of Cordelia
growing up quite plain.
To think at all that.
Burning love
spending itself on serum injections
and delousing powder.
When she arrived
tired from her journey
rather shabby
moving in the manner of one who has no interest in pleasing
I thought her an ugly woman.
It was odd, I thought
how the same ingredients, differently dispersed
could produce Brideshead, Sebastian, Julia and her.
It's wonderful to be home.
My job's over in Spain.
The authorities were very polite
thanked me for all I'd done
gave me a medal
and sent me packing.
Mind you, it looks as though there'll be plenty
of the same sort of work over here soon.
Rex seems pretty certain.
He's made up his mind there's going to be a war.
I wonder what Papa will do?
Where is Rex? Is he coming down?
No. The lawyers insisted on a formal separation
so he's moved back to London. I'm only staying until
Bridey is installed with the widow and her children.
He wrote to me and said if I was homeless
I could stay here after they've moved in.
I don't know though
Mrs. Muspratt and the three boys.
Maybe I'll get myself a flat in London.
Hello Nanny.
I knew you'd be up.
Mr. Wilcox sent to tell me you were coming.
I brought you some lace.
That is nice, dear.
Just like her poor Ladyship used to wear at Mass.
Though why they made it black? I never did understand
seeing lace is white naturally.
Well, that'll be very welcome I'm sure.
May we turn the wireless off Nanny?
Why of course. I didn't notice it was on
in the pleasure of seeing you.
Isn't it splendid about Julia and Charles getting married?
Well I hope it's all for the best.
Brideshead has certainly taken long enough to make up his mind.
I've hunted all through Debrett and I couldn't find any mention
of Mrs. Muspratt's connections.
She caught him, I daresay.
What have you done to your hair?
Oh I know, it's terrible.
I must get all that put right now I'm back.
Darling nanny.
I saw Sebastian last month.
What a time he's been gone. Was he quite well?
Not very. That's why I went.
It's quite near you know, from Spain to Tunis.
He's with the monks there.
Oh, well I hope they look after him properly.
I expect they find him a regular handful.
He always sends to me at Christmas.
Though it's not the same as having him home.
He's got a beard now and he's very religious.
That I won't believe, not even if I see it.
He was always a little heathen.
Brideshead was one for Church, not Sebastian.
And a beard!
Only fancy
Such a nice, fair skin as he had
Always looked clean, though he'd not been
near water all day.
While Brideshead there was no doing anything with.
Cordelia!
What?
Come and tell me about Sebastian.
Not now, Charles.
It's a long story. Tomorrow.
Goodnight.
I had not forgotten Sebastian.
He was with me daily in Julia
or perhaps it was Julia I had known in him
in those distant Arcadian days.
Every stone of the house had a memory of him
And hearing him spoken of by Cordelia
As someone she had seen a month ago
my lost friend filled my thoughts.
I heard he was dying.
A journalist in Burgos told me
who'd just arrived from North Africa.
A down and out called Flyte
who people said was an English Lord
Has been found starving
And taken in to a monastery
near Carthage.
That was how the story reached me.
I knew it couldn't quite be true
however little we did for Sebastian
he at least got his money sent to him.
But I started off at once.
It was quite easy to find him.
I just went to the consulate.
Apparently he'd turned up in Tunis one day
and applied to be taken on as a missionary lay brother.
The fathers took one look at him and turned him down.
Then he started drinking again.
He lived in a little hotel on the edge of the Arab Quarter.
I went to see the place later.
It was a bar with a few rooms over it
Smelling of hot oil and garlic and stale wine.
He stayed there a month drinking Greek absinthe.
They loved him there.
He's still loved you see.
Whatever he does, whatever condition he's in.
It's a thing about him he'll never lose.
They thought very ill of his family for leaving him like that.
It wouldn't happen with their people, they said.
And I daresay they're right.
Anyway, that was later.
After the consulate
I went straight to the monastery and I saw the Superior.
He told me his part of the story.
So I sent him away.
He kept coming back
two or three times a week
always drunk
until I gave orders to the porter to keep him out.
He must have been a terrible nuisance to you.
I don't know what I can do to help him
except pray.
Finally, we found him unconscious outside the main gate
he had fallen down and had lain there all night.
At first we thought that he was merely drunk again
then we realised that he was very ill
so we took him to the Infirmary.
He's been there ever since.
They'd given him a room to himself
just off the cloisters.
He looked terrible.
Any age.
At first he couldn't talk much
But I stayed a fortnight with him
until he was over the worst of his illness.
Then he told me what had been happening to him.
It was mostly about Kurt, his German friend.
Well you've met him, so you know all about that.
Sounds gruesome.
He said they went to Greece
And Kurt had got arrested after some brawl
and sent back to Germany.
It was a time when they were rounding up all their nationals
from all parts of the world, to make them into Nazis.
Sebastian followed.
For a year he couldn't find any trace of him.
Then in the end he ran him to earth dressed as a storm trooper
in a provincial town.
At first he wouldn't have anything to do with Sebastian
spouting all that official jargon about the rebirth of his country.
But it was only skin deep with him.
Six years of Sebastian had taught him more
than a year of Hitler.
Eventually Kurt chucked it and admitted he hated Germany
and wanted to get out.
I don't know how much it was simple the call of the easy life
sponging on Sebastian.
He said it wasn't entirely that
but Kurt had just begun to grow up.
Maybe he's right.
Anyway, it didn't work.
Kurt always got into trouble whatever he did.
Finally they caught him and they put him in a concentration camp.
Sebastian couldn't get near him.
He didn't even know what camp he was in.
So he hung about in Germany for another year
Drinking again.
Until one day in his cups
He took up with a man who'd just been out of the camp
Where Kurt had been
And learned that he had hanged himself in his hut
in the first week.
So that was the end of Europe for Sebastian.
He went back to North Africa
where he had been happy.
I once had a governess who jumped off this bridge and drowned herself.
I know.
How could you know?
It was the first thing I ever heard about you
before I ever met you.
How very odd.
Have you told Julia this about Sebastian?
The substance of it.
Not quite as I told you.
She never really loved him
You know, as we do.
Poor old Sebastian.
It's quite pitiful.
How will it end?
I think I can tell you exactly, Charles.
I've seen others like him.
And I believe they are very near and dear to God.
They'll let him stay there
living half in and half out of the community.
He'll be a great favorite with the old fathers
and something of a joke with the novices.
There's usually a few odd hangers on in a religious house.
You know
People who don't quite fit in to either the world
or the monastic rule.
I suppose I'm something of that sort myself
but as I don't happen to drink I'm more employable.
He'll disappear for two or three days every month
Or so and they'll all nod and smile and say
Old Sebastian on a spree again.
Then one day, after one of his drinking bouts
he'll be picked up at the gate dying
and show by the mere flicker of his eyelids
that he is conscious when they give him the last sacraments.
Not such a bad way of getting through one's life.
It's not what one would have foretold.
I suppose he doesn't suffer?
Oh yes, I think he does.
One has no idea what the suffering may be
to be as maimed as he is.
No dignity.
No power of will.
No one is truly holy without suffering.
Holy?
Yes.
That's what you've got to understand about Sebastian.
He's in a very beautiful place, you know
White cloisters, a bell tower
Rows of green vegetables and a monk watering them when the sun is low.
You knew I wouldn't understand.
You and Julia.
Tell me Charles
When you first met me last night
Did you think, Poor Cordelia, such an engaging child
grown into a plain and pious spinster, full of good works?
Did you think
thwarted?
Yes, I did.
But now I'm not so sure.
It's funny you know
That's exactly the word that I thought for you and Julia
when I saw you up in the nursery with Nanny.
Thwarted passion' I thought.
My divorce case
or rather my wife's
was due to be heard at about the same time as Bridey was married.
But he was to have no triumphal return.
Lord Marchmain
with a taste for the dramatically inopportune
declared his intention in view of the international situation
of returning to England
and passing his declining years in his old home.