Cordelia is the youngest of the children of Lord and Lady Marchmain. A devout Catholic, we first meet her at the age of 12, when Charles Ryder and Sebastian Flyte are sunbathing nude on the roof of Brideshead Castle, the family pile. Having inherited her mother's religious devotion, but possessing none of the glamour or good looks of the rest of the family, she nonetheless seems to finish up the happiest of them all.