Brideshead Revisited(63)

‘But I haven’t. Didn’t I just tell you we were divorced six years ago.’

‘But you can’t be divorced as a Catholic.’

‘I wasn’t a Catholic and I was divorced. I’ve got the papers somewhere.’

‘But didn’t Father Mowbray explain to you about marriage?’

‘He said I wasn’t to be divorced from you. Well, I don’t want to be. I can’t remember all he told me — sacred monkeys, plenary indulgences, four last things — if I remembered all he told me I shouldn’t have time for anything else. Anyhow, what about your Italian cousin, Francesca? — she married twice.’

‘She had an ‘annulment.’

‘All right then, I’ll get an annulment. What does it cost? Who do I get it from? Has Father Mowbray got one? I only want to do what’s right. Nobody told me.’

It was a long time before Rex could be convinced of the existence of a serious impediment to his marriage. The discussion took them to dinner, lay dormant in the presence of the servants, started again as soon as they were alone, and lasted long after midnight. Up, down, and round the argument circled and swooped like a gull, now out to sea, out of sight, cloud-bound, among irrelevances and repetitions, now right on the patch where the offal floated.

‘What d’you want me to do? Who should I see?’ Rex kept asking. ‘Don’t tell me there isn’t someone who can fix this.’

‘There’s nothing to do, Rex,’ said Brideshead. ‘It simply means your marriage can’t take place. I’m sorry from everyone’s point of view that it’s come so suddenly. You ought to have told us yourself’

‘Look said Rex. ‘Maybe what you say is right; maybe strictly by law I shouldn’t get married in your cathedral. But the cathedral is booked; no one there is asking any questions; the Cardinal knows nothing about it; Father Mowbray knows nothing about it. Nobody except us knows a thing. So why make a lot of trouble? Just stay mum and let the thing go through, as if nothing had happened. Who loses anything by that? Maybe I risk going to hell. Well, I’ll risk it. What’s it got to do with anyone else?’

‘Why not?’ said Julia. ‘I don’t believe these priests know everything. I don’t believe in hell for things like that. I don’t know that I believe in it for anything. Anyway, that’s our look out. We’re not asking you to risk your souls. Just keep away.’

‘Julia, I hate you,’ said Cordelia, and left the room.

‘We’re all tired,’ said Lady Marchmain. ‘If there was anything to say, I’d suggest our discussing it in the morning.’

‘But there’s nothing to discuss,’ said Brideshead, ‘except what’ is the least offensive way we can close the whole incident. Mother and I will decide that. We must put a notice in The Times and the Morning Post; the presents will have to go back. I don’t know what is usual about the bridesmaids’ dresses.’

‘Just a moment,’ said Rex. ‘Just a moment. Maybe you can stop us marrying in your cathedral. All right, to hell, we’ll be married in a Protestant church.’

‘I can stop that, too,’ said Lady Marchmain.

‘But I don’t think you will, mummy,’ said Julia. ‘You see, I’ve been Rex’s mistress for some time now, and I shall go on being, married or not.’

‘Rex, is this true?’

‘No damn it, it’s not,’ said Rex. ‘I wish it were.’

‘I see we shall have to discuss it all again in the morning,’ said Lady Marchmain faintly. ‘I can’t go on any more now.’

And she needed her son’s help up the stairs.



‘What on earth made you tell your mother that?’ I asked, when, years later, Julia described the scene to me.

‘That’s exactly what Rex wanted to know. I suppose because I thought it was true. Not literally — though you must remember I was only twenty, and no one really knows the “facts of life” by being told them — but, of course, I didn’t mean it was true literally. I didn’t know how else to express it. I meant I was much too deep with Rex just to be able to say “the marriage arranged will not now take place”, and leave it at that. I wanted to be made an honest woman. I’ve been wanting it ever since come to think of it.’

‘And then?’

‘And then the talks went on and on. Poor mummy. And priests came into it and aunts came into it. There were all kinds of suggestions — that Rex should go to Canada, that Father Mowbray should go to Rome and see if there were any possible grounds for an annulment; that I should go abroad for a year. In the middle of it Rex just telegraphed to papa: “Julia and I prefer wedding ceremony take place by Protestant rites. Have you any objection?” He answered, “Delighted”, and that settled the matter as far as mummy stopping us legally went. There was a lot of personal appeal after that. I was sent to talk to priests and nuns and aunts. Rex just went on quietly — or fairly quietly — with the plans.

‘Oh, Charles, what a squalid wedding! The Savoy Chapel was the place where divorced couples got married in those days — a poky little place not at all what Rex had intended. I wanted just to slip into a registry office one morning and get the thing over with a couple of charwomen as witnesses, but nothing else would do but Rex had to have bridesmaids and orange blossom and the Wedding March. It was gruesome.