Downton Abbey

by Julian Fellowes

  CARLISLE: And you’ll be too busy with our new life, won’t you?

  MARY: Look, I know you’re used to having your own way —

  CARLISLE: Yes, I am. And I’ll say something now I hope I won’t have to repeat. If you think you can jilt me, or in some way set me aside, I tell you now you have given me the power to destroy you and don’t think I won’t use it. I want to be a good husband and for you to be happy. But don’t ever cross me. Do you understand? Never. Absolutely never.*

  * When Carlisle reveals his nasty side, I don’t believe it comes as a great surprise. We’ve always known there was something pretty rough about him underneath, and he was never going to be pushed around by Mary. Unfortunately for her, by telling him her secret Mary has empowered him. Even if she told him to publish, it wouldn’t quite restore the power balance between them to the position they were in before, because Mary is a different person in his eyes, and her own. These things – romances, scandals – change you. I suppose that’s what I’m writing about here.

  58 INT. HALL. DOWNTON. NIGHT.

  Cora stalks out of the dining room. Mary and Carlisle are still in the hall, Mary still stunned by Carlisle’s words.

  CORA: I expect you love birds would like to be alone. I don’t think there’s anyone in the smoking room.

  She moves on as the ‘love birds’ stare at each other.

  END OF ACT FOUR

  ACT FIVE

  59 INT. DRAWING ROOM. DOWNTON. DAY.

  Edith comes in, but Gordon’s bed is stripped, his table cleared. Sybil is there.

  EDITH: What’s happened to Major Gordon?

  SYBIL: He’s gone.

  EDITH: But he can’t have. When?

  SYBIL: After breakfast. We couldn’t very well stop him. The war’s over… He left this for you.

  She takes an envelope from her pocket and hands it to Edith.

  SYBIL (CONT’D): What does it say?

  EDITH: ‘It was too difficult. I’m sorry. P. Gordon.’

  SYBIL: P for Patrick or P for Peter?

  EDITH: I know what you think, but I don’t accept it. We drove him away. His own family drove our cousin away.

  SYBIL: But you believed in him, whoever he was. And that’s worth something.

  60 INT. HALL. DOWNTON. DAY.

  The entire household has been assembled by Carson. A clock has been placed on a table at the front. The family arrives.

  ROBERT: Are we all ready?

  He turns to the company.

  ROBERT (CONT’D): I think, while the clock strikes, we should all make a silent prayer, to mark the finish of this terrible war, and what that means for each and every one of us. Let us remember the sacrifices that have been made and the men who will never come back, and give them our thanks.

  They have only a moment to wait. The clock starts to strike eleven and we range over all the faces: Carson, Thomas, O’Brien, Matthew, Violet, Robert, Cora, the sisters, the hall boys and kitchen maids, Clarkson, Isobel… Some, like Daisy or Jane or Mrs Patmore, have tears rolling down their cheeks, some murmur their prayers softly, some are silent. It’s over.

  ROBERT (CONT’D): Thank you, everyone. Remember, this is not just the end of a long war, but it is the dawn of a new age. God bless you all.

  Across the hall, Lavinia is struggling with Matthew’s chair.

  BATES: Let me help you with that.

  LAVINIA: Can you get him back to his room? I’ll open the door.

  She runs ahead a little. Bates starts to push, then…

  MATTHEW: My God.

  BATES: Is something wrong, sir?

  MATTHEW: No. Nothing… Bates, if I felt…

  BATES: If you felt what, sir?

  MATTHEW: It doesn’t matter. Not yet. Not until I feel it again.

  With this cryptic uttering, he sits back.*

  * This is really to tell the audience not to give up on Matthew.

  61 EXT. FRONT DOOR. DOWNTON. DAY.

  Robert is there with Carson.

  CARSON: I thought that was very dignified. Very calming. Thank you, m’lord.

  ROBERT: I don’t suppose you’re having any doubts about leaving?

  CARSON: I’m afraid not, m’lord.

  ROBERT: Well, I can’t say I’m not sorry.

  CARSON: I won’t go until we’ve found a proper replacement.

  ROBERT: Whoever we find won’t replace you.

  62 INT. HALL. DOWNTON. DAY.

  Edith crosses the hall and rushes out through the front door. Mary is on the stairs. Robert comes out of the library.

  ROBERT: Have they told you Major Gordon’s gone? Packed up his duds and left, first thing this morning.

  MARY: No wonder Edith looked so upset.

  ROBERT: I suppose he was the other chap.

  MARY: Papa, he was just a fraud. A common or garden fraud.

  ROBERT: I wish I could be as sure of anything as you are of everything.

  MARY: Mr Murray will find the proof. You’ll see.

  ROBERT: I hope so… What puzzles me is why would anyone put themselves through all that?

  MARY: To be Earl of Grantham, of course.

  ROBERT: They should try it from the inside.

  63 EXT. FOLLY. DOWNTON. DAY.

  In the gardens Edith sits weeping, holding the letter.

  64 INT. SERVANTS’ HALL. DOWNTON. DAY.

  Daisy is laying the table for lunch.

  JANE: Knowing it’s over somehow makes me think of Harry all the more. I s’pose it’s the same with William.

  DAISY: I suppose it is, yes.

  MRS PATMORE: We all think of William, bless him.

  To her dismay, Daisy finds she is crying. She hurries out.

  JANE: You know there’d be none of this if she hadn’t loved him?

  MRS PATMORE: Of course I do. But I wish she did.

  Carson enters.

  CARSON: Mr Bates. Telegram for you.

  He hands it over and Bates opens it. He reads it, then walks out of the room, giving it to Anna as he goes. She looks down.

  THOMAS: What was that about?

  ANNA: His wife’s dead. Someone found her early this morning.

  64A INT. VERA BATES’S HOUSE. DAY.

  Vera Bates lies dead on the floor.*

  * And now, as a last bonne bouche, we kill off Vera Bates, and end with her lying stretched out, dead, on the kitchen floor. Initially, I wasn’t sure about this idea as an episode finish, but I think it works. At the time, I thought we should have ended on Anna’s line, with a lingering shot of her and Bates, as they absorbed the information that would probably ruin their lives. But the consensus went against me, and the general vote was for having Vera lying on the floor, dead. Looking back, I think I was wrong and they were right.

  END OF EPISODE SIX

  ACT ONE*

  1 EXT. DOWNTON. DAY.

  1919. An army lorry is driving away from the front of the house. Edith watches from the doorway.

  * We began the series in 1916, because we felt we could say what we wanted to say about the war in the first six episodes, and we definitely wanted to use the end of the series and the Christmas Special to take the audience into the post-war world. I suspect that many in the audience had assumed that when we got to the end of the war that would be the end of the series, but not so.

  We knew we wanted to explore the changes and adjustments that these families were going to have to go through, a theme which became the subtext for the rest of the series and beyond. That was the thinking, so we wanted to have two episodes after the Armistice had happened, and then a break before the Christmas Special. One always has to remember, though, that in America there is no break between the series and the Special. It is simply the final episode of the Season, so it needs to be constructed to play either as the end of a series, or as a stand-alone, which is a bit complicated, though one must never make one’s work sound more demanding than it is.

  2 INT. HALL. DOWNTON. DAY.

  Mrs Hughes joins Edith.

 
EDITH: That’s the last of the equipment gone.

  MRS HUGHES: Which means the drawing room can go back to normal.

  EDITH: I’ll help.

  MRS HUGHES: Oh, there’s no need for that, m’lady. We can manage.

  Edith smiles. She is rather sorry they can manage.

  MRS HUGHES (CONT’D): So there’s only Captain Crawley left. Captain Crawley. Mr Crawley. What do we call him now?

  EDITH: Mr, I think. It’s not quite right to go on with army titles when you’re not a regular.†

  MRS HUGHES: So, when will he be going home?

  EDITH: The trouble is, Crawley House is all stairs…

  † I do not question the decision to cut this exchange, but I regret losing the information about military titles, because I think it’s something that many people don’t know. In the First World War the officer class originally came from the upper or the upper-middle classes, as they always had done. But a lot of these men were killed, and by halfway through the war promotion from the ranks had become more normal. It was quite a tough job for those new officers, because they needed to convince their own men that they were indeed real officers. They had that extra burden to negotiate. They weren’t members of the club; they’d come from a different background. So they were caught in a kind of limbo.

  As I have said before now, these men became an English type, celebrated in the plays of Terence Rattigan – viz. the character of the Major in Separate Tables. Field Marshal Haig, in particular, tried to help them after the war, but in the end they just had to muddle through and make the best of it. They were, in a way, casualties of war. The sea had receded and left them stranded on the beach. It wasn’t very dissimilar from the Eurasians in India, who were, I think, very badly treated when the British left. They’d had a key role to play, running the railways, managing the nation’s transport, but then, suddenly, the new India wasn’t interested in them, and nor were we. The fate of the ex-officers, promoted from the ranks, was much the same, played out in a minor key. I sympathise with and pity both groups, and I admire what was, in many cases, tremendous gallantry against the odds.

  3 INT. DRAWING ROOM. DOWNTON. DAY.

  Cora is reading when Robert looks in.

  ROBERT: I’m walking down to the village. I want to have a word with Travis.

  CORA: You know that Richard will be here any moment.

  ROBERT: That’s why I’m telling you. Give him my excuses. I’ll see him at dinner.

  CORA: Is there any news on the Bates situation?

  ROBERT: Not that I’m aware of.

  CORA: So you still want to keep him on?

  ROBERT: Cora, Bates’s wife has committed suicide. It’s very sad, of course, but not, when I last looked, a reason to sack him.‡

  His manner’s curt to say the least. Cora changes the subject.

  CORA: They’ve taken the rest of the beds.

  ROBERT: So that’s the finish of it.

  CORA: Not quite. We still have Matthew. And I wanted to ask you, isn’t it time he went home?

  ROBERT: I see. You want to throw him out.

  CORA: Robert, I want him to learn to be as independent as he can. And I want Mary to get on with her life. What’s wrong with that?

  Her words make him look at her more carefully.

  ROBERT: Is there something you’re not telling me?

  CORA: What do you mean?

  ROBERT: About Mary. And Matthew. Some element you haven’t told me?

  CORA: Of course not. You’re being silly.

  ROBERT: If thinking that trying to protect Mary with a ring of steel is silly, then yes, I am very silly.

  He goes, leaving Cora to digest his words.*

  ‡ At the beginning of every episode, we remind the audience of various strands we intend to advance that week with a couple of references. It’s a standard technique, really, but the great thing is never to assume that they will remember every detail of an earlier episode, because they won’t.

  * In the Downton way, Robert and Cora both have a point in their disagreement about sending Matthew home. As we know, Cora does not want her daughter to be desperately in love with a man who is incapable of fathering any children or living a normal life. In one way, she is not being fair, but in another, how many mothers out there would criticise her for it? Robert, meanwhile, feels there is something dishonourable in dumping Matthew. He is very fond of him, and, of course, vastly prefers him to Richard Carlisle, who is the very antithesis of everything he admires.

  But, for me, by taking that position, Robert is making a classic mistake of his own class. In fact, their resentment of new people joining the club is illogical and self-defeating. The English aristocracy survived for as long as it did as an important and politically powerful class because there was a way for new people to join, as opposed to some of the tighter nobilities on the continent of Europe, where the doors were shut, particularly after the monarchies fell. As a result, they became weaker and weaker, and more and more irrelevant. I stand in a completely different position from Robert in this context, not just about Carlisle, but about the phenomenon of the New Man, which I think was a very important element of the Twenties and Thirties, and bought the aristocracy extra time. For me, the greatest threat to the survival of the aristocracy today is that they have locked the gates, and no one new may now join.

  4 INT. LIBRARY. DOWNTON. DAY.

  Matthew sits in his wheelchair. Lavinia is with him while Edith is sorting books. Carson has brought in the tea.

  MATTHEW: You shouldn’t be doing that.

  CARSON: Let us hope the end of the war brings the return of the footman, Mr Crawley.

  LAVINIA: Do you think they will return?

  CARSON: I certainly hope so.

  MATTHEW: I’m sure Sir Richard can buy you a dozen when you get to Haxby.*

  Mary comes in.

  MARY: Carson, do you know if Branson’s left for the station?

  CARSON: I think so, m’lady, but I can go and check. Or I can get Mr Pratt to take you in the other motor —

  MARY: Don’t bother. It doesn’t matter.

  Carson leaves. Mary pours herself a cup of tea.

  MARY (CONT’D): What’s the betting he’s missed the train? Edith, what are you doing?

  EDITH: Trying to sort out the books. The novels have got into such a mess.

  MARY: I should have thought you’d be glad of the chance to put your feet up.

  EDITH: You’d think so, wouldn’t you?

  * There were people at all levels of society who wanted everything to go back to the way it was. But there was also a different group who thought things revert to the way they used to be, not necessarily because they wanted it, but because that was what was going to happen.

  This was the anomaly, if that’s the right word, of the 1920s, which I wanted to explore. I remember talking to a great-aunt about it. She was in her forties by the time the Twenties began, and so grown up, but not old. She said that the thing was, at the very beginning, it was quite difficult to see what had changed, or whether it was all going to go back to how it had been, because various elements, like footmen and butlers, did reappear. Not in every house – some families were strapped for cash after the loss of the agricultural subsidies and when income tax went up – but, nevertheless, on a lot of estates, the young men returned and went back into service, and it was only later in the decade that you started to realise that in fact things had changed, not only for economic reasons, but because there’d been a shift in thinking.

  The American song ‘How You Gonna Keep ’em Down on the Farm After They’ve Seen Paree?’ really exemplified a lot of what was going on. These men had travelled, they’d been all over Europe. Before the war they might never even have left their own county, but now they’d been everywhere. Then the movies and the radio and modern music were all telling people that there was a world out there, and maybe you don’t want to be the village cobbler, maybe you’ve got something else in you. That attitude really took root after the
First World War, and it was never controlled again. In the end, these strands would all build into the modern philosophy: you can be what you want, you can do what you like. Of course, such things don’t happen overnight, but this was the beginning of the ‘Me Generation’, as we call it now.

  5 EXT. PARK. DOWNTON. DAY.

  Robert is strolling through the park. He stops for a moment and looks at the house that dominates his life. He sighs, but then, ahead of him, he sees Jane. She has dropped her bag and some apples are rolling about. He walks over.

  ROBERT: Let me.

  JANE: Oh, no, m’lord. I can manage… The handle broke.

  Robert pays no attention and collects some itinerant fruit.

  ROBERT: Aren’t we feeding you?

  JANE: They’re from my mother’s apple store. She always loads me up.

  ROBERT: How’s your boy doing? Uh, Freddie?

  She is flattered he has remembered the name.

  JANE: Yes, Freddie. He’s doing very well.

  ROBERT: I wrote to the headmaster of Ripon Grammar. I said to look out for him.

  JANE: That’s — that’s so kind, m’lord.

  ROBERT: I hope it works. I don’t really see why it should, but you never know.

  He looks at her. For a moment, it seems he might kiss her.*

  ROBERT (CONT’D): I suppose you miss your husband very much?

  JANE: Of course. But I have Freddie, and when you think of what some families have gone through…

  ROBERT: I know. Almost thirty dead on this estate alone. And the Elcots down at Longway lost three out of four sons; Mrs Carter’s only boy was killed a month before the end of the war. Poor William. And then there’s Matthew…

  He sighs.†

  ROBERT (CONT’D): Do you ever wonder what it was all for?

  There is the noise of a car arriving. In front of the house, Branson holds the door of the car for Sir Richard Carlisle.

  JANE: I’d better go in, m’lord.

  She hurries away towards the kitchen court. He watches her before turning away and walking over to Carlisle.

  CARLISLE: The train was late.

  ROBERT: Welcome to the new world.

  CARLISLE: When a war is over, the first emotion is relief, the second disappointment.