I quite admire Branson for this, I have to say. He’s got his point to make; he doesn’t think Ireland should be dragged into a European war, he doesn’t feel they owe it to the British, and rather than just twist his ankle he feels he should make a statement that would certainly end up with a prison sentence. That, for me, marks him out as more than just a moaner; he is a doer, and a proactive rebel, which I like.
Sybil, I think, represents the other view. In fact, historically, in this period, the suffragette movement split into two. The main body said suffragettes should cooperate with the war effort and resume their fight at the end of the war, something for which, obviously, the Government was very appreciative, and that was, in their account, one of the reasons that women were given the vote in 1919. But some suffragettes, the militant ones, said, ‘No, this is our chance, and now we must deliver.’ It was rather like some unions who wanted to strike at the beginning of both wars, because the country was vulnerable. I personally find it rather heartening that, in 1914 and 1939, the trouble-makers were in the minority. The majority of workers, who I’m perfectly sure had legitimate complaints, were prepared, for the good of the country, to put them to one side until the war was settled. I like them for that, and I like Sybil for making the same choice here, which she emphatically does. So she and Branson are not on the same side over the war.
15 INT. KITCHEN PASSAGE. DOWNTON. NIGHT.
Lang drops a shirt, then socks. Picking them up defeats him.
MRS PATMORE: Cheer up. It’s not as bad as that.
LANG: I’m fine. I’m just finishing off.
But still he does not move. She walks up to him.
MRS PATMORE: What’s the matter, Mr Lang? Tell me. I won’t bite.
LANG: I sometimes feel I’m the only one who knows what’s going on over there. You all wander round ironing clothes and cleaning boots and choosing what’s for dinner, while over the Channel men are killed and maimed and blown to pieces.
MRS PATMORE: We know more than you think. The war hasn’t left us alone; it hasn’t left me alone, however it may look.
LANG: Have you any idea how scared they are? How scared they all are?
MRS PATMORE: I lost my nephew, my sister’s boy. He was shot…
She makes the decision to take someone into her confidence.
MRS PATMORE (CONT’D): For cowardice. That’s what they said, but I knew him and he’d never have done such a thing if he hadn’t been half out of his mind with fear.
LANG: Don’t blame him. It was him, but it could have been me. It could have been any of us.*
* There was a largely unspoken but universal complicity not to let the people at home really know what was going on at the front and what the war was actually like. They would never talk about it. They would come home, and have dinner at The Ritz, and go to the Embassy to dance, and they’d never say, ‘Yes, a man’s leg was blown off in front of me, and my friend died in the ditch but it was a whole night before we could get him out,’ and so on. As a result, I think people at home had rather a romanticised vision for quite long into the war as to what was actually going on. That changed gradually, but there’s no doubt these men were a very brave generation. They swallowed it, and there were many, many men who fought in the First World War who would never talk about it, ever, and in my childhood and youth I met several. I’m sure some of them, a great many of them, paid with their nerves. But it is their bravery that strikes me. Lang is unusual, because he doesn’t conceal the horrors that he has lived through. This is a sign of his shell shock and, of course, it renders him uncomfortable to be with. Unfortunately for her, Mrs Patmore makes the mistake of confiding in him about her nephew. But I feel that, if such a thing had happened, it would never be very far from her frontal lobe, so we can understand why she tells him.
16 EXT. KITCHEN COURTYARD. DOWNTON. DAY.
Thomas is with O’Brien.
THOMAS: Suppose I don’t want to come back?
O’BRIEN: To be in charge? Telling Mr Carson what to do?
THOMAS: Why? What’s in it for you?
O’BRIEN: Charming. I bet you say that to all the girls… All right. It’s to stop Mrs Crawley bossing her ladyship about. She behaves as if she owns the place.
THOMAS: You’ve changed your tune. When I were last here you’d have given money to see her ladyship eat dirt.
O’BRIEN: Well, like you say, I’ve changed my tune. People do.
THOMAS: Not without a reason.
O’BRIEN: I’ve got my reasons.
THOMAS: You’ve also got her ladyship wrapped round your little finger.
O’BRIEN: Maybe. That’s my business. But I’ll not hurt her, and I’ll not let anyone else hurt her, neither. That’s all I’ve got to say.†
THOMAS: You’re a queer one, and no mistake.
O’BRIEN: So will you come if I can fix it?
THOMAS: Why not? I like the idea of giving orders to old Carson.
† Here we have O’Brien’s explicit reason, in as much as she’s ever explicit, for why she is now protective of Cora. She caused the accident that killed Cora’s baby, and while no one’s ever going to know that apart from Thomas, she does now feel she owes her employer something. Again, it’s all to do with my habit of shifting characters. Just when you think they’re all bad, they’re not quite, so you have to adjust your opinion. Which is what I like.
17 INT. LIBRARY. DOWNTON. EVE.
The family listen to Clarkson and Isobel.
VIOLET: I go away for five minutes and everything’s settled!
ROBERT: Nothing’s settled! For a start, which rooms will we live in?
ISOBEL: The small library. And the boudoir.
CORA: If Cousin Isobel can find somewhere else for the ‘intermediaries’.
VIOLET: There’s always the boot room. I’m sure you’ll have use of that!
ROBERT: And where are we supposed to eat?
ISOBEL: You can share the dining room with those officers —
ROBERT: No.
ISOBEL: We all have to make sacrifices —
ROBERT: No!*
CLARKSON: Then we’ll have tables set up in the great hall for the mobile officers and for the nurses. And Lady Grantham, I know you’ll be happy about one decision. Lady Grantham asked that the house management might be put into the hands of Corporal Barrow… Your former footman. Thomas.
ROBERT: Thomas? In charge of Downton?
CORA: No, that’s what I thought at first. But he isn’t a footman now. He’s a soldier. He’s worked in medicine.
CLARKSON: The point is, someone has to run the place who’s had medical training —
ISOBEL: But I really feel —
ROBERT: The men won’t accept the authority of a corporal.
CLARKSON: I’ve thought of that. I told my commanding officer that Lady Grantham had asked for Corporal Barrow and he’s prepared to have him raised to the rank of acting sergeant.
ROBERT: But can you spare him?
CLARKSON: We can. I have gone to some trouble to do so. ‘Sergeant’ Barrow will manage the daily running of Downton and I shall be in overall charge.
ROBERT: But you have the hospital. Aren’t we missing a tier? Surely there should be someone here permanently who is under you, but over Thomas?†
Isobel would volunteer herself, but –
CLARKSON: That’s correct. And I will make a decision before long. Until then, I do assure you, Corporal Barrow is very efficient.
VIOLET: I say good. If someone’s to manage things let it be our creature.
ISOBEL: Why? Are you planning to divide his loyalties?
VIOLET: I wouldn’t say I was planning it.
* Isobel is trying to fight for the boudoir, which becomes the first tug of war between her and Cora. I wanted the family to have the use of the small library, because at Highclere the large library and the small library are only separated by a columned arch. So I knew that if we allocated that room to them, partitioned off with a screen, then they wouldn�
��t actually be very disconnected from the public occupancy of the house, which would be better for the drama. In these arrangements, certainly when it comes to the use of the dining room, Isobel and Clarkson run up against Robert, and in this I was keen to demonstrate a cultural detail, that the whole set-up of a country house to a large extent turns on eating. Robert feels that if he cannot even lunch and dine alone with his family, then this will be a real dent in his life. He wouldn’t, obviously, put any of this into words, but nevertheless he fights his corner, and for the first time Isobel finds herself seriously challenged. Happily, Clarkson is less combative. He does not see the matter as a test of strength, as Isobel does. So he is able to come up with an acceptable solution.
Isobel has never had a sufficiently moral reason to fight the family before, but she does actually disagree with them about all sorts of things. They’ve been nice to her, and until now she hasn’t wanted to pick a fight. But a fight has come, and so she is subconsciously rechannelling all her feelings about this silly, spoiled, over-privileged family, whereas Clarkson is in a completely different position. He has a good relationship with the Crawleys, on the whole. There are many local doctors who have less cooperative great families to deal with, and he considers himself reasonably lucky, so he is not about to make trouble. In other words, they each have a different agenda.
† Cora thinks that by suggesting Thomas she is doing this for herself, but of course, in fact, she is being used by O’Brien. I am always interested in the techniques of clever manipulators.
END OF ACT ONE
ACT TWO
18 INT. ROBERT’S DRESSING ROOM. DOWNTON. NIGHT.
Robert’s cufflinks are inserted by Lang. Carson is with them.
CARSON: William has asked to stay here, m’lord. Just for a night. On his way to active duty in France.
This flusters Lang, who is having difficulty with the link.
ROBERT: Good. I should like to see him.
CARSON: I don’t suppose there’s any way we can keep him from harm? Him being an only child, and all. We’d hate for anything to happen.
This puts the lid on it for Lang, who is shaking even more.
ROBERT: Thank you, Lang. I can do the rest.
The nervous valet gathers up some linen and drops it.
LANG: Very sorry, m’lord.
He scrambles out. Robert exchanges a glance with Carson.
CARSON: To get back to the notion of Thomas as the manager of Downton —
ROBERT: He won’t be a manager in that sense. But her ladyship fixed it all with Clarkson, and she was so pleased I didn’t know what to say.
CARSON: ‘I cannot have him working here because he is a thief’?
ROBERT: You know she’s ignorant of Thomas’s crimes. We agreed at the time that would be best… And anyway, is it honourable in us to hold Thomas’s sins against him when he has been wounded in the service of the King?*
Carson almost emits a hurrumph.
CARSON: And who is to be in charge over Thomas?
ROBERT: You mean under Doctor Clarkson? Well, we asked today, but he hasn’t decided.
CARSON: So we just make it up as we go along?
ROBERT: Unless you’ve got a better idea.
* Thomas as House Manager is pretty hard for all of them to swallow, and here Robert and Carson discuss the facts about him that Cora does not know. In my morality, Robert has got himself into this fix by feeling that he needs to treat Cora as the little woman who can’t be trusted. I think he is being paid out for infantilising her, just as he is later paid out for infantilising Mary. When anyone infantilises those around them in order to remain in control of events, it is, in my experience, usually a bad idea.
19 INT. MRS HUGHES’S ROOM/SERVANTS’ HALL. DOWNTON. NIGHT.
Mrs Hughes is with Carson.
MRS HUGHES: It’s all very well to talk about ‘division of labour’, Mr Carson, but how will it work? The nurses may do some of the cleaning, but not the basics, and who is to organise the extra loads for the laundry maids, if not me? And where do the nurses go when they’re off duty?
CARSON: I thought about the housemaids’ sitting room. Nobody uses it now.
MRS HUGHES: They can’t climb four flights of stairs every time they want a cup of tea. You’re not thinking, Mr Carson. Nobody’s thinking.
Anna appears at the door.
ANNA: Dinner’s ready.*
They go to the servants’ hall. The others stand and they all sit as a hall boy brings the food to Carson’s left.
O’BRIEN: Are you still here, Mr Branson?
CARSON: Stay and have something to eat.†
ETHEL: Mr Branson’s been telling us the news from Russia.
CARSON: What news is that?
BRANSON: Kerensky’s been made Prime Minister, but he won’t go far enough for me. Have you read Lenin’s April Theses? He denounces the bourgeoisie along with the Tsar. He wants a people’s revolution, and that’s what I’m waiting for. It won’t be long now.
CARSON: And what’s happened to the Tsar?
BRANSON: Imprisoned. In the Alexander Palace. With all his family.
MRS PATMORE: Oh, what a dreadful thing.
BRANSON: They won’t hurt them. Why would they?
ANNA: To make an example?
BRANSON: Give them some credit. This is a new dawn, a new age of government. No one wants to start it with the murder of a bunch of young girls.*
LANG: You don’t know that. Nobody knows who’ll get killed when these things start. Look at her nephew. Shot for cowardice. Who’d have guessed that when he was saying hello to the neighbours? Or kissing his mother goodnight?
DAISY (V.O.): Can you look at the crumble? I think it should come out, but it’s five minutes earlier than you said —
She arrives and stops. Mrs Patmore sobs and runs out.
LANG: I’m sorry. I never thought —
MRS HUGHES: Then you should think, Mr Lang. You’re not the only member of the walking wounded in this house.
* Here we have a section that’s gone. I was rather sad to lose the housemaids’ sitting room four flights up, because I liked the impracticality of it. There were many instances of this in real life. In my own house in Dorset – which is by no means Highclere, but nevertheless had an indoor staff in the old days – there was a servants’ hall for eating, which was on the ground floor and is, in fact, now the kitchen. But the servants’ sitting room was in the attic, up two flights of stairs. Clearly, it was more or less impossible to get there until you had finished your labours for the day. But nobody, neither the family nor whoever first allocated its purpose, would have thought in those terms. At Highclere, they put in a chapel with a family gallery, which also proved too far to be practicable, and it was abandoned and converted into an ironing room, principally for visiting maids and valets, later in the nineteenth century. It’s an interesting room with lockers round it for the clothes of guests, and we have used it a couple of times for luggage – all of which is slightly at odds with its architectural magnificence, a vivid reminder that nobody will travel further to reach a room than it is worth.
† It is true that the chauffeur didn’t eat with the other servants, but I cheat a bit with Branson, because I want him there, and I always feel that, if I cheat, then someone must make a point of it. So we have O’Brien complaining about him, or Carson inviting him, because we cannot have Branson simply sitting down to eat as of right. On the whole, chauffeurs lived in the former coachmen’s lodgings, usually either a flat or a cottage near the stables. The thinking was that a coachman had to be near his horses and the chauffeur would want to be near his cars, since both were considered to be in need of constant care and grooming. From this, it became the custom for the chauffeur to live in a separate place. They didn’t mind it, because it was far easier to be married and have children as a chauffeur than it was for more or less any living-in servant. You do get instances of the married butler, but a married footman, for instance, was very rare. It di
dn’t matter terribly, because it was a young man’s job. But with a lot of the positions, most of all for the women, it was extremely difficult to combine marriage and work. So, while some things were a source of irritation, like the housekeeper having the keys to the store cupboard, for the chauffeur to live separately was not one of them. It was, to some degree, liberation.
* This talk about the Russian Revolution is very Downton-esque, in that they don’t have any privileged information. They discuss big events, but only from what they’ve learned in the newspaper, which I think is more real than having Kerensky arrive for lunch. Branson represents what was the general opinion at that time among the soft Left – that is, not revolutionary communists and terrorists, but the ordinary, intellectual, thinking Left – that the revolution in Russia was, on the whole, a good thing that would lift the yoke from an oppressed population. He ridicules the idea that the imperial family was in any kind of danger, and this was quite usual. In fact, though it seems heartless to say it, many people would have understood the execution of the Tsar, to a degree, but it was the murder of his wife and children that proved a wake-up call. As Lang says, quite correctly, nobody knows who’ll get killed when these things start.
20 INT. HALL. DOWNTON. DAY.
A figure with a suitcase, webbing and backpack comes through the door. Thomas. A maid glances at him as Carson arrives.
CARSON: Why are you coming in this way?
THOMAS: I’m the manager here now, Mr Carson. Or had you forgotten?
CARSON: No, I had not forgotten. And will you be moving into your old room? Or should we prepare a guest bedroom?
THOMAS: I’ll sleep in my old room, thanks. So, are we ready for the big invasion? ’Cos they’ll be here at teatime.
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