Brideshead Revisited (TV Mini Series)

Brideshead Revisited (1981)

Diana Quick: Julia Mottram

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Quotes 

• [Lord Marchmain is dying. The priest has called to adminster the Last Rites but Cordelia has sent him away for now, saying "Papa doesn't want him yet"] 

  Julia Mottram : Charles, I see great church trouble ahead.

  Charles Ryder : Can't they even let him *die* in peace?

  Julia Mottram : They mean something so different by "peace".

  Charles Ryder : It would be an outrage. No-one could have made it plainer, in his life, what he thought of religion. If they come to him now when his mind's wandering and he hasn't the strength to resist, and claim him as a death-bed penitent... I've had some respect for their religion up to now, but if they do *that*, then I'll know that what stupid people say is true: that it *is* all superstition and trickery.

• [Lord Marchmain has just died] 

  Charles Ryder : [voiceover]  Thus I come to the broken sentences which were the last words spoken between Julia and me - the last memories. When at last we met alone, it was by stealth, like young lovers.

  [Charles and Julia hug] 

  Julia Mottram : Here on the stairs, a minute to say goodbye.

  Charles Ryder : [wistfully]  So long to say so little.

  Julia Mottram : You knew?

  Charles Ryder : Since this morning. Since before this morning. All this year.

  Julia Mottram : I didn't know till today. Oh, my dear, if you could only understand, then I could bear to part - or bear it better. I'd say my heart were breaking, if I believed in broken hearts. I can't marry you, Charles. I can't be with you ever again.

  Charles Ryder : [flatly]  I know.

  Julia Mottram : How can you know?

  [long pause] 

  Charles Ryder : What will you do?

  Julia Mottram : Just go on. Alone. How can I tell what I shall do? You know the whole of me. You know I'm not one for a life of mourning. I've always been bad. Probably I'll be bad again - punished again. But the worse I am, the more I need God. I can't shut myself out from His mercy. That *is* what it would mean, starting a life with you - without Him. One can only see one step ahead. But I saw today there's one thing unforgivable, like things in the school-room, so bad they're unpunishable, that only Mummy could deal with. The bad thing I was on the point of doing that I'm not quite bad enough to do - to set up a rival God to God. It may be because of Mummy, Nanny, Sebastian, Cordelia, perhaps Bridey and Mrs Muspratt - keeping my name in their prayers. Or it may be a private bargain between me and God. That if I give up this one thing I want so much, how ever bad I am He won't quite despair of me in the end. Now we shall both be alone. And I shall have no way of making you understand.

  Charles Ryder : I don't want to make it easy for you. I hope your heart may break. But I *do* understand.

  [Julia gets up and walks away, leaving Charles staring blankly into empty space]