Downton Abbey

by Julian Fellowes

  BRANSON: Don’t count your chickens. If I don’t get them one way, I’ll get them another.

  SYBIL: Why do you have to be so angry all the time? I know we weren’t exactly at our best in Ireland —

  BRANSON: Not at your best? Not at your best!

  He takes a moment to recover his equilibrium.

  BRANSON (CONT’D): I lost a cousin in the Easter Rising last year.

  SYBIL: You never said.

  BRANSON: Well, I’m saying it now. Shall I tell you what happened? He played no part in the fighting, my cousin Bill. He thought the Volunteers were fools. But he was walking down North King Street one day and an English soldier saw him and shot him dead. Just like that. They’d orders to take no prisoners, you see.

  SYBIL: How terrible.

  BRANSON: His brother went down to look for him that night and he found the body in a pile, in a yard behind the local dispensary. When they asked why he was killed, the officer said ‘because he was probably a rebel’. So don’t say you were ‘not at your best’!

  ROBERT: Sorry to keep you waiting, but we’re going to have to step on it.*

  He walks across the gravel and climbs in. Branson closes the door. The car drives away.

  * I was in the voting lobby in the House of Lords when one of the peers (a very senior doctor) leaned over and said that, actually, this terminology, ‘pansystolic murmur’, wasn’t reached until later in the century. The condition existed, and it was recognised, but it would not have been described in that way. So this is what they call a genuine mistake. Of course, there are no new medical conditions, or very few; it is only their discovery and nomenclature that is new. But my doctor friend, who originally provided the condition, was correct: it would have kept him out of the Army, even though the terminology would have been different.

  * I was sad about the trimming here. The incident in North King Street in Dublin, when people were shot for just walking along, is completely true, and the bodies were indeed piled up behind the local dispensary. These are the kind of details that most people don’t know, but which nevertheless stand up to inspection. And the reply, that he was ‘probably a rebel’, is also true.

  My own connection in this is a family one. My great-grandmother’s uncle, in other words my great-great-grandmother’s brother, was a man called Lord Hemphill who was Solicitor General for Ireland. He was also a supporter of Parnell and passionately pro home rule. In fact, when his sister married my great-great-grandfather, the latter was disinherited, because his family was equally passionately anti home rule. So it was quite a hot topic for us, even in my childhood, and as a result we were firmly taught as children that this was when the British missed their chance to move into the future, in partnership with a newly conceived Ireland, which should have been given dominion status and full home rule in the 1880s. We were told that it was a great mistake that to some extent we’re still paying for. This was unusual, because the kind of family I come from is not generally pro Irish independence and pro Dublin – or they weren’t then. When I was young, most people like us were always against the IRA, and, of course, I am against terrorism – I think attacks on innocent people are a terrible thing – but I do understand the impulse for independence. I do understand that our tenure in Ireland, and our insistence on the Protestant religion, and all the rest of that stuff, was nonsense. So, in a way, I did grow up on the other side of the fence from the side that most people might expect.

  35 INT. LIBRARY. DOWNTON. DAY.

  Edith is taking book orders.

  EDITH: I’m not sure about Marryat. I know we’ve got lots of G. A. Henty. And I haven’t forgotten about your tobacco, Captain Ames. Just as soon as I can get into the village.

  36 EXT. DOWNTON. DAY.

  Nearby, Ethel tidies the rug over the knees of Major Bryant.

  ETHEL: There. Now, you’re sure you’re quite comfortable?

  BRYANT: I’m not sure at all. I think a bit of it might have come loose.

  She smiles and tucks it in more tightly around his thighs.

  ETHEL: Is that better?

  BRYANT: Much. But I may need some more tucking, very soon.

  ETHEL: Well, no one tucks better than I do.

  MRS HUGHES (V.O.): Ethel!

  The maid looks up and sees the housekeeper glaring at her.

  MRS HUGHES: Go back inside, please. There are still more bedrooms to be done.

  Ethel scurries away. Bryant looks after her with a smile. Mrs Hughes meets his look, but she does not smile back.

  37 INT. DRAWING ROOM. DOWER HOUSE. DAY.

  Violet is alone with Mary.

  VIOLET: Rosamund’s going to find out. She knows some of those feeble-minded cretins on the Liberal front bench.*

  MARY: Poor Lavinia. I feel sorry for her.

  VIOLET: She’s an obstacle to your happiness, dear, and must be removed. When it’s done you can feel as sorry as you wish.

  MARY: But even if Matthew does break it off with her, why should he propose to me again?

  VIOLET: With your permission, dear, I’ll take my fences one at a time.

  * I always like giving Violet’s opinions on the Liberals, who were entering their last few years as major players. Violet’s hatred of Lloyd George is emblematic of that class’s hatred of him. In fact, when under Lord Rosebery the Liberals had started death duties; Liberalism had come out as an enemy of property. What they didn’t realise, although people said it at the time, was essentially that they had signed their own death warrants, because the socialists were much more convincing as enemies of property, and enemies of hereditary and traditional rights. By alienating the benevolent privileged, the Liberals had lost their appeal and their core support. Within five years of this change of direction, they would lose the election in 1922 and never regain power.

  In the event, Maggie Smith called them idiots instead of cretins, but this may have been her instinctive good taste, as ‘cretin’ is now really a medical term and so perhaps inappropriate as a term of insult.

  38 INT. ANNA AND ETHEL’S BEDROOM. DOWNTON. NIGHT.

  Ethel is in bed. Anna stands before the mirror.

  ETHEL: Any plans for your afternoon off?

  Anna smiles, but says nothing.

  ETHEL (CONT’D): Major Bryant wants me to go to the pictures in York with him, when he’s allowed out. But you’ll say that’s stupid.

  ANNA: Not stupid. Insane.

  ETHEL: He really likes me, though. He says he wants to get to know me better.

  ANNA: Has he told you how he’s planning to achieve it?

  ETHEL: Spoil sport… What are you up to?

  ANNA: Just practising with these for Lady Mary. I promised her I would.

  She is applying the Marcel waving tongs to her own hair.

  39 EXT. THE RED LION. KIRKBYMOORSIDE. DAY.

  A bus stops in the village street and Anna climbs down, with a new, attractive hairstyle. She walks towards the pub.

  40 INT. THE RED LION. KIRKBYMOORSIDE. DAY.

  John Bates is serving a customer behind the bar.

  BATES: That’s one and eight, altogether.

  ANNA (V.O.): Might I have a glass of cider?

  Bates looks up and there she is. The love of his life.

  BATES: I don’t know if I’ve dreaded this moment or longed for it.

  ANNA: Well, either way, it’s happened.

  41 INT. DRAWING ROOM. DOWER HOUSE. DAY.

  Mary is with Violet and Rosamund.

  ROSAMUND: I’m glad I’m in time for tomorrow’s state visit. I gather Lavinia will be there. We must seize the opportunity to challenge her.

  MARY: I don’t really see on what basis.

  ROSAMUND: She stole secrets from her uncle, Jonathan Swire, and gave them to Carlisle to publish. Swire told me.

  MARY: And the papers showed that half the Cabinet were trying to get rich by buying shares before a government contract was announced. Would you rather we were kept in ignorance?

  ROSAMUND: It wasn’t Lavinia’
s business to make it public. Without her, the Marconi Scandal would never have happened.*

  MARY: The politicians broke the law. Lavinia did nothing wrong.

  ROSAMUND: She drags the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s honour through the mud, and you say it’s nothing!

  MARY: It was only Lloyd George.

  VIOLET: But why did she betray her uncle to Sir Richard in the first place?

  ROSAMUND: Because they were lovers.

  It rather annoys Violet to have her punchline stolen.

  VIOLET: Exactly.

  ROSAMUND: And now it’s down to you to save Matthew from the clutches of a scheming harlot!

  VIOLET: Really, Rosamund. There’s no need to be so gleeful. You sound like Robespierre, lopping off the head of Marie Antoinette.

  * I wanted something real for Lavinia and Carlisle to have been involved in, rather than a fictional story. I’m sure many of the audience thought the Marconi Scandal of 1912 was completely made up, but it wasn’t. There was absolutely no doubt that Asquith, the Prime Minister, Lloyd George and several senior figures in the Government were completely guilty of what would now be called insider trading, which, even if it wasn’t illegal as it is today, was certainly absolutely improper. Yet they survived it, which seems almost shocking. If there was a similar scandal now – and we think people survive anything these days – I don’t know if they would really have got away with it, a straight piece of profiteering from secret government policy.

  42 INT. THE RED LION. KIRKBYMOORSIDE. DAY.

  Bates and Anna are sitting at a table.

  BATES: It was me. I knew you used to go to the village on a Wednesday and I so longed for a glimpse of you.

  ANNA: But why are you up here at all? And why didn’t you tell me?

  BATES: Because I want to get things settled first. You see, I’ve discovered that Vera’s been… unfaithful to me. I’ve got proof.

  ANNA: We can’t criticise her for that.

  BATES: No. But it means I can divorce her. I’ve had to leave the house to prove that it has broken the marriage. So I came up here, to be nearer you.

  ANNA: But what if she fights it?

  BATES: She can’t. For her to divorce me, she’d need something beyond adultery, cruelty or suchlike. But for a husband, adultery is enough.

  ANNA: That’s not very fair to women.

  BATES: I don’t care about fairness, I care about you. The point is, I can get rid of her. If she goes quietly, I will give her money and plenty of it. If not, she leaves empty-handed.

  ANNA: And when will this be?

  BATES: I need to get her to accept it, first. She’s made threats about selling stuff to the papers.

  ANNA: What stuff?

  BATES: Don’t worry. They won’t offer what I will… You’ve changed your hair.

  ANNA: I was trying out Lady Mary’s new curling iron. What do you think?

  BATES: I think I would love you, however, whatever, whenever.

  ANNA: We don’t have to wait, you know. If you want me to throw up everything and come with you, I will. Gladly.

  BATES: I can’t marry you yet, not legally, and I won’t break the law.

  ANNA: It’s not against the law to take a mistress, Mr Bates.

  Moved by this, he holds her hand. But he shakes his head.

  BATES: That’s not right for you. I know you, Anna Smith, and I love you, and that is not the right path for you. But it won’t be long now.*

  * The injustice of the divorce laws at that time is interesting. A man could divorce a woman for adultery, but a woman could not divorce a man for adultery. It had to be adultery and cruelty, or at any rate adultery and something else, which seems so unfair, and here Anna is allowed to point this out. The enormity of Anna’s offering to become Bates’s mistress they both played very well. It is always quite hard when a character has to do something in a play or in a film that in the context of the time was enormous, but in our own day would not be considered even unusual. You wonder if the audience is going to get it, but I think they did.

  I remember in Gosford Park, there was a moment when the maid, Elsie (played by Emily Watson), who was waiting at table, suddenly defended Sir William to his wife, in front of all their guests. Then she realises what she’s done, as the whole table falls silent and one of the men starts giggling, so she runs out of the dining room knowing she has lost her job, which she has. At the time, the producers were nervous as to whether the audience would understand that she shouldn’t have spoken while serving at dinner. They wanted the butler to instruct her not to talk, and other hopeless suggestions, which Robert Altman, the director, ignored. But in the end, it seemed to work in the cinema. Similarly, here, I hope we understand that for a completely respectable young woman to offer to become someone’s mistress and live in sin was an enormous thing, an enormous gift. Equally, it’s something that Bates cannot accept, because he knows that’s not who she is, and he loves her. For Anna to be happy, he has to marry her – a morality we no longer subscribe to as a society.

  43 EXT. KITCHEN COURTYARD. DOWNTON. DAY.

  O’Brien is watching Branson as he tinkers with the car.

  O’BRIEN: So you’re not going to war, then?

  BRANSON: Apparently not… Is it true about Mr Crawley bringing a famous general here?

  O’BRIEN: Captain Crawley, but yes. Why?

  BRANSON: No reason…

  44 INT. SMALL LIBRARY. DOWNTON. NIGHT.

  Carson’s with Robert, Cora, Isobel, Mary, Edith and Clarkson.

  ROBERT: If they arrive at five we’ll walk him round the wards, then show him the recovering men at play. And after that, a fairly grand dinner. I’ll tell them to bring mess kit.

  CARSON: That is my challenge, m’lord. How to make the dinner sufficiently grand with no footmen in the house.

  ROBERT: Plenty of people give dinners without footmen.

  CARSON: Not people who entertain Sir Herbert Strutt, hero of the Somme.

  ISOBEL: I’m sure he’ll have seen worse things at the front than a dinner with no footmen.

  CORA: Carson only wants to show the General proper respect. We will not criticise him for that.

  CLARKSON: Indeed we will not. But I think Lord Grantham’s plan is a good one, with or without a footman.

  CORA: Matthew writes that Miss Swire is coming down from London for it.

  ISOBEL: Really? He never said so to me.

  CORA: Does he need your permission?

  Isobel pointedly ignores this.

  ISOBEL: I think I should go round with him.

  CLARKSON: You and Lady Grantham will both come with us.

  ISOBEL: But won’t he want to talk about treatments?

  CLARKSON: The treatments and the house.

  45 EXT. THE RED LION. KIRKBYMOORSIDE. DAY.

  Bates and Anna are waiting by the bus stop.

  ANNA: Come back to Downton. They’d love to see you and the new valet’s an odd cove. I doubt he’ll stay.

  BATES: His lordship won’t have me back. We parted on bad terms. And I don’t want to see the others until it’s all resolved. Then I can greet them with an invitation to our wedding.

  He kisses her hand as a pledge, and helps her aboard the bus.

  46 INT. HALL/BEDROOM. DOWNTON. NIGHT.

  Edith crosses the dark hall. A door is open and she looks in to check before shutting it. She hears a whispered ‘Miss!’ and walks over to a bed. An officer is lying there.

  EDITH: It’s Captain Smiley, isn’t it? We haven’t met yet, but I’m Edith Crawley, and tomorrow I can show you where everything is.

  SMILEY: It’s just that I’d like to write a letter. To my parents.

  EDITH: Of course. There’s paper and envelopes in the library.

  SMILEY: No. You see, I’ve not written before because I didn’t want to worry my mother with the different handwriting…

  Edith is bewildered until he takes his left arm out of the bedclothes. He has no hand. Edith looks at him, puzzled.

 
SMILEY (CONT’D): I’m left-handed. How’s that for luck?

  EDITH: I’m surprised your school didn’t force you to use the right.

  SMILEY: My mother wouldn’t let them, but now I wish they had… I’ve asked the others and they say you’re the one to help me.*

  EDITH: Of course I will. I’d be happy to.

  SMILEY: That’s what they said. If you can just find a way to tell her…

  EDITH: We’ll both find a way. Together. I promise.

  * This scene is really about Edith’s redemption, and I was extremely pleased with it. The actor playing Captain Smiley, Tom Feary-Campbell, was left-handed – and he had no left hand. For this role, we were keen to find an actor who was genuinely disabled, so it would not look like computer trickery. Originally, in the script, it was Smiley’s right hand that was missing, because the scene was about writing, but we did all the auditions and Tom was so much the best actor that I just rewrote the scene to be about a man who was left-handed. The bonus of this was that we could have the reference to his not being forced to use his right hand at school, just as a reminder to the audience that this would have been quite ordinary at that time for any left-handed child.

  47 INT. CARSON’S PANTRY. DOWNTON. NIGHT.

  Carson is standing at the silver cupboard. Branson arrives.

  BRANSON: Mr Carson, might I have a word?

  CARSON: I’m busy with this dinner tomorrow night —

  BRANSON: Well, that’s just it. I don’t expect you’ll be using Mr Lang. Not after last time.

  CARSON: I will not.

  BRANSON: So I wondered if I might be any help. I’ve waited at table before.

  CARSON: Do you mean it? I know I’ve no right to ask it of a chauffeur.

  BRANSON: We have to keep up the honour of Downton, don’t we?

  CARSON: I’m very grateful, Mr Branson. I’ll not hide it. Very grateful indeed. You know where to find a livery?

  BRANSON: I do.

  CARSON: And I gather you won’t be leaving us after all?

  BRANSON: Who knows what the future will bring?

  He turns away. His face is a mask of nervous resolve.

  48 INT. MEN’S ATTICS/LANG’S BEDROOM. DOWNTON. NIGHT.

  The passage is dark, but we can hear a man’s voice shouting. Doors open. A befuddled Thomas comes out, then a hall boy appears and finally Mr Carson, in a dressing gown.