‘Well, you’ve very considerably increased my work,’ said Father Mowbray.

‘Poor Rex,’ said Lady Marchmain. ‘You know, I think it makes him rather lovable. You must treat him like an idiot child, Father Mowbray.’

So the instruction was continued, and Father Mowbray at length consented to receive Rex a week before his wedding.

‘You’d think they’d be all over themselves to have me in,’ Rex complained. ‘I can be a lot of help to them one way and another; instead they’re like the chaps who issue cards for a casino. What’s more,’ he added, ‘Cordelia’s got me so muddled I don’t know what’s in the catechism and what she’s invented.’

Thus things stood three weeks before the wedding; the cards had gone out, presents were coming in fast, the bridesmaids were delighted with their dresses. Then came what Julia called ‘Bridey’s bombshell’.

With characteristic ruthlessness he tossed his load of explosive without warning into what, till then, had been a happy family party. The library at Marchmain House was being devoted to wedding presents; Lady Marchmain, Julia, Cordelia, and Rex were busy unpacking and listing them. Brideshead came in and watched them for a moment.

‘Chinky vases from Aunt Betty,’ said Cordelia. ‘Old stuff. I remember them on the stairs at Buckborne.’

‘What’s all this?’ asked Brideshead.

‘Mr, Mrs, and Miss Pendle-Garthwaite, one early morning tea set. Goode’s, thirty shillings, jolly mean.’

‘You’d better pack all that stuff up again.’

‘Bridey, what do you mean?’

‘Only that the wedding’s off.’

‘Bridey.’

‘I thought I’d better make some inquiries about my prospective brother-in-law, as no one else seemed interested,’ said Brideshead. ‘I got the final answer tonight. He was married in Montreal in 1915 to a Miss Sarah Evangeline Cutler, who is still living there.’

‘Rex, is this true?’

Rex stood with a jade dragon in his hand looking at it critically; then he set it carefully on its ebony stand and smiled openly and innocently at them all.

‘Sure it’s true,’ he said. ‘What about it? What are you all looking so het up about? She isn’t a thing to me. She never meant any good. I was only a kid, anyhow. The sort of mistake anyone might make. I got my divorce back in 1919. I didn’t even know where she was living till Bridey here told me. What’s all the rumpus?’

‘You might have told me,’ said Julia.

‘You never asked. Honest, I’ve not given her a thought in years.’

His sincerity was so plain that they had to sit down and talk about it calmly.

‘Don’t you realize, you poor sweet oaf,’ said Julia, ‘that you can’t get married as a Catholic when you’ve another wife alive?’

‘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.’