Brideshead Revisited VI

JUlia is trying to get a divorce but Rex is not keen as he is very busy with his political career. Charles is divorced from Celia. He is at Brideshead and Lord Marchmain is very clearly dying slowly. He is scared of death but he is still reluctant to see a priest or have the last rites. Charles worries as he fears that Julia is being influenced by her childhood as a Catholic and by Bridey, who wants his father to see a priest. He thinks that if Julia gets involved in the family row she will start to return to her Catholic beliefs and she wont want to get a divorce and marry him. Bridey sends for a local priest, an Irishman, who comes to see Marchmain and he tells him that he is not dying and that he does not want to see him. The priest retreats but there is increasing tension between Charles and Julia and Bridey who are now on the same side. He and Julia argue, Charles saying that Lord Marchmain does not want to see a priest and that he is scared of dying so to bring a priest in will only scare him more. However, she Cordelia and Bridey are insistent and when Marchmain becomes unconscious they get the priest in. He anoints Lord Marchmain and the old man moves around and Charles is terrifed that he is going to upset Julia by wiping off the oil.. but instead he makes the sign of the Cross. Julia believes that this is a sign that he is glad to be anointed. A few hours later he dies, peacefully. Charles knows that this is the end of his affair with Julia. She tells him that she can't marry him now, that she has returned, however faintly to her childhood religion.