Downton Abbey Script Book Season 1 (19 page)

MATTHEW: Apparently. I didn't seem to have much option.

ISOBEL: I'm afraid it's my fault. She asked what your interests were, and I just blurted it all out. I hope you're not annoyed.

MATTHEW: Not at all. Why should I be?

ISOBEL: No reason.

But she knows more than her son about Edith's intentions.

It's early and Anna is carrying riding boots, a riding habit, a top hat and veil. She sees Gwen.

ANNA: Ah. Open the door of the Blue Room, can you? I'm going to lay it out in there. Then when she gets up it's ready.

Gwen has opened the door of a bedroom and they go in.

This is a handsome, spare bedroom. Anna chatters on as she spreads the things out on the bed.

ANNA: I couldn't find her breeches anywhere. So I asked Mr Bates and he looked among his lordship's riding clothes. There they were.

Still Gwen is silent. The garments are laid out.

ANNA (CONT'D): I only hope to God I've got everything. Hat, I'll do here. Gloves and crop are in the hall.

There is the sound of a sob and she turns. Gwen is crying.

ANNA (CONT'D): Gwen? Whatever's the matter?

Gwen just shakes her head, crying in good earnest now.

ANNA (CONT'D): Come on. You can tell me. Has someone been teasing you?

Gwen shakes her head but still cries. There is a step in the passage and Bates looks round the door. He is carrying a tweed suit on his arm. He sees the source of the crying.

BATES: What's up?

ANNA: She's upset.

GWEN: Oh, I'm just being silly. You should get that brushed.

BATES: He won't be up for another half an hour. Now, what is it?

GWEN: I suppose I've just realised that it's not going to happen.

BATES: What isn't?

GWEN: Oh, none of it. I'm not going to be a secretary. I'm not going to leave service. I doubt I leave
here
before I'm sixty.

ANNA: What's all this?

GWEN: You saw their faces, and they're right. Oh, look at me. Can you see me in an office? Sitting in the boardroom, taking down dictation?

ANNA: Why shouldn't you?

Gwen is not crying now. Instead, she is in despair.

GWEN: Because I'm the daughter of a farmhand and I'm lucky to be a maid. I was born with nothing, and I'll die with nothing.

BATES: Don't talk like that.

GWEN: Why not?

BATES: Because it's not true. Because you can change your life if you want to.

GWEN: Really?

BATES: Yes. Sometimes you have to be hard on yourself, but you can change it completely. I know.

He winces slightly, as if at a sudden stab of pain.

ANNA: Mr Bates? Are you all right?

BATES: Take her upstairs. Dry her off.

They emerge. Anna and Gwen go one way and Bates heads for the backstairs. He rests for a moment, breathing deeply, then he lands heavily on the landing and cries out in pain.

MRS HUGHES (V.O.): Mr Bates? What's the matter?

She is coming up at the same time and is only now in sight.

BATES: Nothing. Not a thing. I'm fine.

MRS HUGHES: Let me help you down to the next landing.

BATES: I am perfectly all right, thank you, Mrs Hughes.

MRS HUGHES: Are you sure? You're as white as a sheet.

BATES: That's my wonderful complexion, inherited from my Irish mother.

With a forced chuckle, he goes on down.

Trays are rushed in by Thomas and William. Daisy snatches off the dirty glasses and replaces them with waiting clean ones. Mrs Patmore ladles stirrup cup from a steaming tureen and kitchen maids cut up fruit cake as fast as they can.

MRS PATMORE: Take it, take it! Don't dawdle!

The footmen hurry away from the mad, frantic workplace.

As the laden footmen glide smoothly out of the front door, Robert, Cora and Sybil walk among the riders chatting. Thomas and William, supervised by Carson, carry the trays of stirrup cup and cake for riders and followers. Mary, looking superb in a habit that fits like a glove, stares at the crowd. The head groom, Lynch, is mounted beside her.

LYNCH: Can you see them, m'lady?

MARY: Not yet. Oh, wait a minute. Here's Mr Napier.

A pleasant-looking man, Evelyn Napier, comes trotting over.

MARY (CONT'D): I was beginning to give up on you. We're moving off.

EVELYN: We were fools not to accept your mother's invitation and send the horses down early. As it is, my groom only got here an hour or two ago, and my mount's as jumpy as a deb at her first ball.

MARY: What about Mr Pamuk? I gather if he takes a tumble, you'll be endangering world peace.

EVELYN: Not only that. His father's a bigwig at the Ottoman Court, so if I don't get him home safe and sound I know I'll be beheaded by proxy.

MARY: Isn't it a risk to take him hunting?

EVELYN: Don't worry about Kemal. He knows what he's doing on a horse.

MARY: Where is he?

EVELYN: Fussing. He's rather a dandy. You should have heard him ask about the clothes for what he persists in calling a ‘noble house.'

MARY: I can see him now. A funny little foreigner with a wide, toothy grin and hair reeking of pomade.

EVELYN: I wouldn't quite say that. Here he is now.

Mary looks up and her jaw drops. Riding towards her is one of the handsomest, sexiest men she has ever seen in her life. He stands in his stirrups and doffs his silk hat.
*

KEMAL: Lady Mary Crawley, I presume?

MARY: You presume right.

KEMAL: Sorry to be so dishevelled. We've been on a train since dawn and we had to change in a shed.

MARY: You don't look dishevelled to me.

EVELYN: I think we're going.

The hunt is moving off. Mary turns to the groom.

MARY: Lynch, you don't have to stay with me.

LYNCH: His lordship asked me to.

MARY: It's a waste of your day. Help Mr Napier's man get their things back to the house.

LYNCH: His lordship said …

EVELYN: Don't worry. I'll look after her.

LYNCH: But his lordship—

KEMAL: We'll make it our business to keep her from harm. I promise.

And before Lynch can say another word, they have gone.

Carson, Thomas and William are cleaning silver.

CARSON: You can dress Mr Pamuk, Thomas. Mr Napier's chap will bring the luggage over this morning, so you've time to get sorted out.

THOMAS: Why doesn't he have his own man?

CARSON: Mr Napier's valet was to see to both, but it's a lot to ask when they won't be here before six.

THOMAS: I thought he was supposed to be in England to prevent a war.

CARSON: Not single-handedly.

THOMAS: Even so. He can't be up to much if he doesn't have his own valet.

WILLIAM: It might be different if you're a Turk. I've heard lots of things are different when you're a Turk.

He speaks the comment more innocently than Thomas hears it.

THOMAS: That's a thought.

CARSON: Get into the pattern, Thomas. You're not polishing an apple.

But Thomas's mind is on other possibilities.

The hunt is in full cry, dangerous and glamorous and frightening. Mary gallops along in the crowd, then pulls up as she sees Kemal on the crest of a hill.
*

MARY: I hope the day is living up to your expectations.

KEMAL: It is exceeding them in every way.

The look he gives her is unmistakable.

MARY: Where's Mr Napier?

KEMAL: He's gone over the bridge. Look.

He points to a group including Napier on the road.

KEMAL: And what about you? Will you follow him? Or come over the jump with me?

MARY: Oh, I was never much one for going round by the road.

KEMAL: You believe in living dangerously, then?

MARY: Of course. What did the Frenchman say?
L'audace, toujours l'audace
.

He smiles at this. They are kindred spirits.

KEMAL: Stay by me and we'll take it together.

They set off down to the stream which they clear easily.
†

Matthew and Edith are in the nave of a church.

EDITH: I wish we could talk a little more about you. What was it like? Growing up in Manchester?

But Matthew doesn't even hear her. He's looking around.

MATTHEW: Does it say anything about the Lady Chapel screen?
*

Edith sits and opens the little brochure wearily.

EDITH: The screen dates from the early sixteenth century. The pomegranates commemorate Queen Catherine of Aragon and the fleurs de lys represent the Virgin Mary.

MATTHEW: Two women who had a lot to put up with.

EDITH: The side aisles were added in the fourteenth century by Bishop Richard de Warren.

MATTHEW: Yes, you can see that in the treatment of the stone.

EDITH: It's wonderful to think of all those men and women worshipping together through the centuries, isn't it? Dreaming and hoping, much as we do, I suppose.

Matthew nods absent-mindedly. He is hardly listening.

MATTHEW: Is the screen a Cromwell casualty?

EDITH: I dare say.

MATTHEW: I wonder how Mary's getting on.

No comment could be less to Edith's taste than this.

EDITH: All right, I should think. Why?

MATTHEW: I just wondered. Will she stay with the hunt the whole day?

EDITH: Oh, you know Mary. She likes to be in at the kill.

She doesn't like Mary. Matthew's tone is more ambivalent.

MATTHEW: Where shall we go next?

EDITH: Not home?

MATTHEW: Oh, not yet. We've time for one more at least before we lose the light.

EDITH: I underestimated your enthusiasm.

Sighing, she limps out to the trap, on her tired feet.

The three riders amble down the drive towards the house with its blazing windows, in the fading light.

Napier, spattered in mud, like the others, from head to toe, is removing his second boot with the bootjack in the outer hall, as Mary and Kemal walk away in their stockinged feet into the Great Hall. While the others are talking, Thomas whispers to Carson.

THOMAS: Is that one mine?

Robert and Cora have arrived.

ROBERT: Home is the hunter. Home from the hill. Heavens. You have been in the wars.

Carson has organised a square of drugget to receive the muddy boots and clothes. He waits with Thomas as Napier's valet starts to remove his master's coat and Anna tends to Mary.

MARY: Papa, this is Mr Pamuk. My father, Lord Grantham.

KEMAL: How do you do, my lord?