Mrs. Bertram Character Analysis

Sarah’s mother. Mrs. Bertram didn’t regularly visit Sarah and Henry, as she’s convinced that Henry doesn’t like her. Mrs. Bertram regularly finds excuses to ask Henry for money and even asks Bendrix for a few pounds after meeting him for the first time at Sarah’s funeral. At lunch with Bendrix after the funeral, Mrs. Bertram reveals that she had had Sarah baptized as a Catholic when she was just a toddler out of spite for Sarah’s father, who didn’t like Catholicism and didn’t want Sarah baptized. Mrs. Bertram says she always hoped that the baptism would “take,” and Sarah would become a Catholic one day. She resents that Sarah was not given a Catholic burial but blames Henry for this, not knowing it was actually Bendrix who convinced Henry that Sarah would have wanted a more secular funeral. Mrs. Bertram asks Bendrix not to tell Henry or anyone else about Sarah’s baptism, but she soon decides to tell Henry herself. Upon learning of Sarah’s baptism into the Catholic Church, Henry considers the strange coincidence of Sarah showing interest in Catholicism as an adult without even knowing that she had been baptized.