Because Charles is a burgeoning artist, he is in constant awe of the architecture and interior design of Brideshead Castle. Charles briefly meets Sebastian’s sister Julia, but is largely alone with Sebastian for the duration of the vacation, getting quietly drunk every evening on the estate’s astounding wine collection. Charles and Sebastian spend the first summer away from Oxford together, at Brideshead. He also remains in close contact with his father, which Lady Marchmain seems to read as betrayal. First of all, he struggles with the Catholicism his mother has so intently forced on her family. It soon becomes clear that Sebastian has major family issues. Sebastian has three siblings: a stuffy and religious older brother, the Earl of Brideshead (simply called "Brideshead" or "Bridey") a sister Julia who is a clever and self-indulgent beauty and a younger sister Cordelia. Lady Marchmain, a very devout Catholic, refuses to get a divorce and lives at the family’s large and ornate country estate, Brideshead, as well as their home in London, called Marchmain House. Lord Marchmain lives in Italy with his mistress Cara. Sebastian’s parents, Lord and Lady Marchmain, are separated. Anthony takes Charles aside and tells him all about Sebastian and his family. Among Sebastian’s unorthodox friends is Anthony Blanche, a flamboyantly gay international playboy. The two boys quickly become the best of friends, much to Jasper’s exasperation (since Sebastian hangs out with "the wrong crowd" – partiers and not scholars). Charles soon makes the acquaintance of Sebastian Flyte, an extremely wealthy, quirky, beautiful young man who obeys his every impulse, shirks his duties, charms the pants off everyone, carries around a teddy bear named Aloysius, parties like a rock star, and makes his first introduction to Charles by leaning his head into our narrator’s first-floor dorm room window and puking up several bottles of wine. Charles himself is from a wealthy family that includes his caustic father and older cousin Jasper, who advises him on what to study, where to eat, and whom to avoid in his early days at the University. It all starts at the beginning of Charles’s first year at Oxford University in 1922. Over the course of a flashback, Charles recounts his long and complicated history with the estate and the Flyte family that owns it. His troops have just arrived at their new camp, a large and beautiful estate called Brideshead Castle. The novel's narration begins in the first person with Captain Charles Ryder of the British Army (which he disdains) in the early 1940s.
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