The Story of Brideshead Revisited

VIII

Charles now tells the story of Julia. Much of the information he learns ten or more years after the events.

When Charles first met her, on his first visit to Brideshead, Julia was beginning to worry about her future. Though the brightest star among the debutantes of her year, she could not yet discern whom she might marry. As a Catholic she could not expect to marry one of the young princes; and none of the young men in society attracted her.

After she left Sebastian and Charles at Brideshead, she went to the south of France. Here she first met Rex Mottram. She was attracted by his maturity, his air of exotic chicness, and his easy manipulation of power. When they returned to London he became Julia’s devoted follower, seeing in her the elegant society wife that he needed. It was when Julia happens to see Rex coming out of the house of his lover Mrs Champion that she experiences the power of jealousy. She refuses to see Rex at first, but her mother impresses on her the need for politeness. In the library Rex breaks down her resistance and arouses in her a passion she had never experienced before. She agrees to marry him.

Lady Marchmain insists on a year’s secret engagement, with the lovers only meeting at the family’s London home, Marchmain House. It is when Julia learns that Rex was not working late in his constituency but seeing Mrs Champion at a friend’s house in the country that she turns against her religion, which forbids her to become Rex’s mistress. It is at this point that Rex gets Lord Marchmain to agree to their marriage and his wife is therefore forced to begin preparations for it.

Rex busies himself with screwing as much money out of the lawyers as he can in the marriage settlement. He also wants a grand Catholic wedding, which requires him to become a Catholic himself. So he gets Lady Marchmain to arrange for him to receive instruction. This is a farcical business since he has not got a scrap of religious sense or feeling in his body. He is willing to accept any foolish notion which is presented to him, and Cordelia has some fun filling his mind with idiotic ideas. The priest, Father Mowbray, is baffled by his utter lack of intellectual or religious curiosity.

In any case the Catholic wedding does not go ahead. Bridey checks up on Rex’s past and finds that he has been married before. Rex cannot understand why his divorce from his wife seems to be ignored by the family. He and Julia decide to get married anyway and ask Lord Marchmain for his permission to marry in a Protestant church. He is only too delighted to give it in order to spite his wife.

Ten years later, when Julia tells her story to Charles, she says that Father Mowbray had seen the truth about Rex right away : that he was not a complete man. Vast areas of humanity were missing from his make-up.