Downton Abbey

by Julian Fellowes

  9 INT. HALL. DOWNTON. CHRISTMAS NIGHT.

  The company are playing ‘the game’. Mary is miming reading.

  EDITH: You’re reading.

  MARY: For heaven’s sake, yes, I’m reading because it’s a book title.

  ROBERT: No talking.

  MARY: I know, but honestly.

  She holds up five fingers.

  ALL: Five words.

  She holds up four fingers.

  ALL: Fourth word.

  ISOBEL: Two syllables.

  ALL: First syllable.

  Violet is next to Carlisle, as the guessing continues.

  CARLISLE: Do you always play charades on Christmas night?

  VIOLET: This isn’t charades. This is the game.

  CARLISLE: What’s the difference?

  VIOLET: In charades you speak, in the game you are silent. You mime.

  CARLISLE: Do you enjoy these games? In which the player must appear ridiculous?

  VIOLET: Sir Richard, life is a game in which the player must appear ridiculous.

  CARLISLE: Not my life.

  ISOBEL: Fall… Past… Oh, fell! Wild, fell! The Tenant of Wildfell Hall!

  There is a burst of applause.

  CORA: Richard, your turn. Come on.

  VIOLET: How soon your maxim will be tested.

  Mary joins Matthew on a sofa.

  MATTHEW: Well done. Who wrote it?

  MARY: Anne Brontë. The one people forget.

  MATTHEW: I forget all of them.

  She laughs, which the others notice, including Carlisle.

  CARLISLE: Mary! Concentrate!*

  * The game was always played in the Fellowes household after dinner on Christmas Day. It was the only game my father participated in throughout the year, and usually someone would lose their temper. All my life, I have struggled with the fact that television has rechristened ‘the game’ as ‘charades’, whereas charades is quite a different activity. For charades, you make up little playlets and you speak lines. In the first playlet, you say the first syllable of a four-syllable word and in the last one, the fifth playlet, you have to say the whole word, so the last act is always full of masses of long words. But of course, unlike the game, it requires writing and rehearsal and in Victorian house parties people would spend the whole day preparing their charade. Alas, nobody has time for that now, so charades on the whole has been abandoned by this generation. Still, the distinction remains important to me, so I make Violet say, ‘This isn’t charades, this is the game.’ Inevitably, in the edit, they asked if we really needed it, and we probably didn’t, really, but I defended the line fiercely and it stayed in. I was very sorry when we cut ‘Anne Brontë. The one people forget,’ explaining who wrote The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. I always rather feel for Anne Brontë, which is why I chose her book. But, of the two, preserving Violet’s corrections was more important.

  Naturally, Richard Carlisle doesn’t suffer from the upper-class fantasy that the answer to everything is childhood and the recreation of childhood; the nickname culture and the playing of things one used to play, and the eating of things one used to eat, and all the jolly things one did years ago in the schoolroom, which has always been a security blanket for the posh in this country. The upper classes themselves believe it preserves an innocence at the core of their sensibilities. I don’t believe that’s true, but I believe that they believe it. However, Carlisle doesn’t need to fantasise about his childhood or anything else. He’s come up the hard way.

  10 INT. BATES’S CELL. YORK PRISON. CHRISTMAS NIGHT.

  Bates is on his bed, holding a photograph of Anna. Somewhere, a man is singing ‘Silent Night’. There are other noises, ugly and loud, but the voice carries through. His eyes are full.*

  * It was a hard year for Brendan Coyle, because in a way he was cut out of the series, which for him became ‘Bates in Prison’, and apart from Joanne Froggatt, who plays Anna, he had almost no interaction with the rest of the running cast. The cell was a set, but when he went out for some exercise we were in a real prison. I think it was quite isolating for him, but he came through it and sustained the energy, which is what matters. For Jo Froggatt it was a tough season in the opposite way. She was in almost every scene in Bates’s story, but she also had all her other stuff to do, both at Highclere and at Ealing Studios.

  11 INT. ROBERT’S DRESSING ROOM. DOWNTON. BOXING DAY.

  It is morning. Carson is dressing Robert.

  ROBERT: Christmas over for another year.

  CARSON: M’lord, I wonder… If Mr Bates should not come back —

  ROBERT: I am not replacing Bates.

  But he regrets snapping Carson’s head off.

  ROBERT (CONT’D): What were you going to say?

  CARSON: Only that I know that Thomas is keen to be promoted. I think we must all concede he’s earned the right to stay, and you don’t, I trust, feel you need a new butler.

  ROBERT: The trouble is, being dressed and undressed is an intimate business. We’ve forgiven Thomas his early sins, I know, but I cannot imagine I would ever quite feel the trust.

  CARSON: Say no more, m’lord. I’m sure Mr Bates will be home soon, which will settle the matter.

  12 INT. KITCHEN. DOWNTON. BOXING DAY.

  Daisy is arranging a cake (which is uncut) and sandwiches.

  SHORE (V.O.): Did you make all that?

  Daisy looks round. Shore is watching her.

  DAISY: Yes. Why?

  SHORE: And you’re still only the kitchen maid?

  DAISY: I don’t know what I am.

  SHORE: You could be a sous chef at least, in London.

  DAISY: I don’t know what a soojeff is.

  SHORE: Or a cook? Maybe not in a house like this, but you wouldn’t have to go far down the ladder before they’d snap you up.

  Just then, Mrs Patmore appears.

  MRS PATMORE: Daisy, find Thomas and tell him the tea’s ready to go up. Then we should get started on the mixture for the cheese soufflés.

  SHORE: Does Daisy cook the soufflés, too?

  MRS PATMORE: What’s it to you?

  Shore does not answer, but she catches Daisy’s eye.*

  * Shore is a type who would become much more common as the century wore on: people who no longer accepted the boundaries of the old system. Just because they had been born to a certain position, why should they give in to it? Why should they live it? With Shore, it all feeds into her desire to be Lady Hepworth, which is where she plans to end up, but I sympathise with her.

  One of the first things about achievement, if you want to achieve, is never to see a glass wall separating you from those who have gained what you want. I always say this to young writers or young actors. I tell them that when they’re sitting in the dentist’s waiting room looking at pictures of the Oscars ceremony in a thumbed version of Hello!, they should never forget that the men and women in those photographs are people just like them, and in many cases have come from very unpromising beginnings. I am old enough now not to think everyone has to be ambitious, but if you are, then you should get out of your own way and start believing that whatever you want is possible. At any rate, that is what Shore believes.

  13 INT. CARSON’S PANTRY. DOWNTON. BOXING DAY.

  Mrs Hughes is with Carson. She holds a letter.

  CARSON: Not this again. I thought we’d seen the end of it.

  MRS HUGHES: I know.

  CARSON: What’s the good of chasing over here for a glimpse of the child, if they haven’t changed their terms?

  MRS HUGHES: I agree. But I don’t think I can refuse without Ethel’s permission. I’ll see if she can look in.

  CARSON: She won’t want to meet them.

  MRS HUGHES: I’m sure, but I feel I must ask.*

  * For the Special, we shot the whole of the end of the Ethel story, with the Bryants being given the baby and all of it, but we took it out and in the end we staged the final act in the third series. The problem was that we couldn’t make the child behave for this version
. He was a nice little boy, but with children it’s always pretty unpredictable. As I’ve mentioned before, actors hate working with them because when the child gets it right, that’s the take they’ll use, so you, the actor, have got to be good in all the takes. We had a different boy in the third series who was absolutely marvellous and heartbreaking. But the situation was unusual. So we shot the whole thing for the Special, and then we cut it out completely and got all the actors back the following year to do it again.

  14 INT. LIBRARY. DOWNTON. BOXING DAY.

  Robert looks up. Anna has come in.

  ANNA: May I have a word, m’lord?

  He nods and waits.

  ANNA (CONT’D): I’ve had a letter saying I can visit Mr Bates on Monday afternoon. I’m sorry if it’s not convenient, but it’s their time or no time. I’ve told Mrs Hughes, but I thought you should know.

  ROBERT: Please give him our best wishes.

  ANNA: It means a great deal to him that you believe he’s innocent, m’lord. I know, because he writes about it.

  ROBERT: I look forward to the day when we can open the champagne.

  15 EXT. DOWER HOUSE. DAY.

  A car pulls up containing Sir Anthony Strallan.

  16 INT. DRAWING ROOM. DOWER HOUSE. DAY.

  Violet is with Edith. Tea has been set out.

  EDITH: What do you mean you’ve invited Anthony Strallan? I thought it was just us.

  VIOLET: I sent him a note. He replied by telegram, so he must be quite eager… Is that him now?

  She goes to the window. Edith joins her.

  VIOLET (CONT’D): Oh, very important. Never used to use a chauffeur. Well, you were so disappointed that he wouldn’t come shooting.

  EDITH: Oh, Granny, why didn’t you warn me? I’m in all the wrong clothes.

  But the door opens, and Strallan comes in.

  STRALLAN: Good afternoon, Lady Grantham. Lady Edith. What a charming surprise. It’s been far too long.

  EDITH: It’s so nice to see you. It’s such a relief to see any of our friends who’ve made it through unscathed.

  She holds out her hand, but he takes it with his left hand.

  STRALLAN: I’m afraid I haven’t quite.

  He pats his right arm, which hangs quite immobile.

  STRALLAN (CONT’D): I took a bullet in the wrong place. It seems to have knocked out my right arm.

  EDITH: But not for ever, surely?

  STRALLAN: Apparently.

  EDITH: But how?

  VIOLET: Edith —

  STRALLAN: No. It’s perfectly all right… You won’t have heard of it, but there’s a spot behind the shoulder called the brachial plexus.

  EDITH: I’ve heard of the brachial plexus.

  STRALLAN: Of course. You’re all medical whizzes now, aren’t you? Well, the upshot is I’m afraid the wretched thing is now no use to man or beast.

  EDITH: Well, now we know why you didn’t want to come shooting.

  STRALLAN: Indeed.

  They laugh together, as if this were somehow amusing.*

  STRALLAN (CONT’D): So, how is everyone? Lady Sybil is married, I hear. Living in Ireland? How was the wedding?

  VIOLET: Quiet. It was in Dublin. They didn’t want a big affair.

  STRALLAN: Did you all get over?

  EDITH: Mary and I did. Papa, Mama and Granny…

  VIOLET: We were all ill. Isn’t it sad?

  STRALLAN: What’s he like?

  VIOLET: He’s political.

  STRALLAN: As long as he’s on the right side.

  He laughs merrily. So do they.

  STRALLAN (CONT’D): So, does he shoot?

  EDITH: I’m sure he does.

  VIOLET: But I don’t think pheasants.*

  * We wanted Strallan, to whom Edith was attracted in the first series, to be wounded in the war so that he would feel he couldn’t possibly saddle a young woman with this – using his word – ‘cripple’, when he’s too old for her, anyway. Edith was so happy nursing sick men in the war that she doesn’t agree with that. But again, it’s a typical Downton plot in that you see both their points of view. Strallan is clearly an honourable man throughout and he is motivated by a moral heart, but Edith knows what would make her happy. Anyway, we obviously had to decide just how he was wounded. We had a lot of stuff to do with him and we didn’t really want something that would require special effects, like a missing arm, because it would have been both expensive and complicated. So I got hold of my doctor/advisor and asked for a serious disability that would not involve the loss of a limb, and this is what he came up with. Annoyingly, once again the true explanation of the condition, the stuff about the brachial plexus, ended up on the cutting-room floor, which undermined the truth of the situation and turned it into a sort of stage convention, but it couldn’t be helped. Let’s hope that when people read it in the script, they’ll get it.

  * I wished to make it clear that, although Robert has given permission, he doesn’t endorse Sybil’s marriage. So, he and Cora and Violet did not go to the wedding. He didn’t forbid the girls and they went to Dublin, meaning there is no major quarrel, but he did not go. Presumably he forbade Cora, as I think left to her own devices she would have wanted to be there. That is all to set up his response to Branson when he makes his appearance in the following series as Robert’s son-in-law. In a way, these references are trailers of coming attractions. I did like the exchange, ‘Does he shoot?’ ‘I’m sure he does.’ ‘But I don’t think pheasants.’

  16A INT. YORK PRISON. DAY.

  Anna is taken through into the prison.

  17 INT. YORK PRISON. DAY.

  Prisoners are seated at rough tables facing their visitors. Anna sits across from Bates.

  ANNA: Lady Mary’s coming with me. And Mr Matthew. To explain things.

  BATES: I wish you’d stay away.

  ANNA: Would you not come then, if I were on trial for my life?

  She reaches for his hand, but a voice rings out.

  WARDER: No touching!

  She draws it back.

  ANNA: And his lordship will be there.

  BATES: Mr Murray thinks a reference from an earl will go in my favour. I’m not sure such things matter when it comes to murder.

  ANNA: I think it’ll help.

  BATES: Because you want to think so. Anna, you must prepare for the worst.

  She flinches, but she does not speak.

  BATES (CONT’D): I’m not saying it’ll happen, but you must prepare for it. They have a strong case against me. It’s mainly circumstantial, in which lies my hope, but it is strong.*

  ANNA: I know it could happen. I do. But the time to face it is after it has happened, and not before. Grant me that?

  * Bates is trying to warn her that the verdict may be the worst. I have always quite deliberately left a very slight doubt as to whether or not Bates’s account is the whole truth.

  END OF ACT ONE

  ACT TWO

  18 EXT. DOWNTON. NEW YEAR’S EVE. DAY.

  Carson holds the door of the car for Lord Hepworth. He’s a handsome, easy-going fellow. Cora is there with Rosamund.

  HEPWORTH: Lady Grantham. Lady Rosamund.

  CORA: Hello, Lord Hepworth. Welcome.

  HEPWORTH: Thank you.†

  Carson is hovering. Cora looks at him.

  CARSON: Will your man be coming on from the station, m’lord?

  HEPWORTH: I haven’t got one with me. Is that a nuisance? I’m so sorry.

  CARSON: Not at all, m’lord. Thomas will take care of you while you’re here.

  He glances at the footman by the door, who walks forward, a trifle wearily, to start unstrapping the cases and guns.‡

  HEPWORTH: Splendid.

  CORA: Do come in.

  HEPWORTH: Thank you.

  † When Nigel Havers agreed to play Hepworth, we knew we were in luck, because there’s no one in Equity better at acting a cad. Not only do you believe he is entirely self-interested and immoral, but you also think he’s terribly good fun.
So you never wonder that women find him attractive or men enjoy his company, but at the same time his performance lets you know that he is bound to let them down. Nigel’s work has a kind of light-heartedness that almost belongs in a different era, which was perfect for us. But it was quite difficult because he was in a play at the time and he spent half the shoot being driven overnight to get to us, and overnight to get to the play. He was very plucky about it.

  After the war, many people were having to address the fact that the old life was gone. But while some in that situation will make a new life, get a job, find a flat, others simply cannot accept the changes, and among that generation was a tidal wave of chancers who tried, by popping pictures and sponging off old aunts, to keep the show on the road for a few more years – or for as long as they themselves lasted, anyway, frequently leaving their children to mop up the mess. One must have some sympathy. This class had already endured the agricultural collapse of the 1880s, even before the war started, so there had been a long spiral downwards, while they tried everything – from mortgages they could not sustain to American heiresses they could not corner – to stave off ruin. Hepworth is very much part of that, as becomes clear. Of course, unlike Carlisle, Hepworth is the genuine article. He is a real toff and he knows how it all works. He’s got the clothes, he’s got the patter, he’s got the guns and he’s not going to put a foot wrong. It’s only morally that he might be found wanting. Violet understands that. Even Robert has a suspicion.

  ‡ We have often shown how footmen would work as valets for any guests who arrived without one of their own.

  19 INT. DRAWING ROOM. DOWNTON. NEW YEAR’S EVE. NIGHT.

  Cora looks up as Robert comes in with an envelope.

  ROBERT: This came for you in the evening post. It’s from Sybil.

  CORA: We must go up and change.

  But she starts to open the envelope and read the letter.

  ROBERT: So, what do you make of Rosamund’s pal?

  CORA: He seems agreeable enough.

  ROBERT: I suspect he’s in the profession of making himself agreeable.