Downton Abbey, Series 3 Scripts (Official) Read online

  COPYRIGHT

  HarperCollinsPublishers

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  First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2014

  FIRST EDITION

  Text © Julian Fellowes 2014

  Cover photographs © Nick Wall 2014

  Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2014

  A Carnival Films/Masterpiece Co-production

  Downton Abbey Series 1–4 and all scripts © 2009 to 2014 Carnival Film & Television Limited. Downton Abbey logo © 2010 Carnival Film & Television Limited. Downton Abbey and the Downton Abbey device are trademarks of Carnival Film & Television Limited. Carnival logo © 2005 Carnival Film & Television Limited.

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  Julian Fellowes asserts the moral right to

  be identified as the author of this work

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  Source ISBN: 9780007481545

  Ebook Edition © November 2014 ISBN: 9780007481125

  Version: 2014-11-05

  DEDICATION

  To Emma and Peregrine,

  my fellow travellers on this extraordinary journey.

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Foreword

  Episode One

  Episode Two

  Episode Three

  Episode Four

  Episode Five

  Episode Six

  Episode Seven

  Episode Eight

  Christmas Special

  Picture Section

  Cast List

  Production Credits

  Acknowledgements

  About the Publisher

  NOTE: highlighted material indicates sections of text that were cut or partially cut from the original script to make the final edited version.

  FOREWORD

  At the end of the second series, we left our characters facing the new decade and the new postwar world. Matthew may have (finally) proposed, but little else was settled about the future of the Crawley family. As a matter of fact, I have always been interested in the 1920s, and now we were finally there. It strikes me as a curious, almost nebulous, time, an impression that was strengthened by the accounts of my great-aunts, whom I knew well as a young man and who had vivid memories of the era. My eldest great-aunt, Isie, had been born in 1880 and so this was the decade of her forties. Her husband had died of wounds in the last days of the war and, with an infant son, she had essentially to negotiate those years alone. According to her, at the very beginning nobody was quite sure what had really changed, and what would go back to the way it had been before the war. As time went on, it became increasingly clear that fundamental change had occurred and nothing would ever be the same again, but it took a little while for this to sink in, and it was that very uncertainty that attracted me to the period as a background to a family drama.

  There were milestones, markers, along the way. When Lloyd George suddenly ended agricultural relief, without warning, in 1922, he struck a blow against the landowners, many of whom had been in debt since the agricultural depression of the last decades of the nineteenth century, and had taken out loans and mortgages, thinking and hoping, Micawber-like, that something would turn up. But of course for the majority nothing turned up. There was also an anomaly, which I am sure was deliberate, that selling land was still regarded as a capital gain, on which, in those days, there was no tax. So your option was either to lumber on with an erratic farming income, subject to heavy income tax, or to cash in your chips for a tax-free lump sum. Inevitably, and I believe as Lloyd George intended, something like a third of England was sold between the wars.

  Counterbalancing that, and creating the baffling illusion of continuity, the new rich – and there were many – continued to spend their fortunes in the old way. I don’t mean these were war profiteers in a pejorative sense, but wars do certainly make fortunes and, besides them, there were industrialists and manufacturers and, perhaps most prominently in this company, the powerful newspaper magnates, all of whom aped the Victorian model and purchased great houses and great estates on which to lavish their newly gotten gains. So, there was this slightly bewildering contradiction of old families going under all over the place, but huge palaces, in the ownership of Lord Rothermere or Lord Beaverbrook and their kind, being run with an extravagance scarcely seen since the 1890s.

  Being rich in a new way was something being developed by the Americans, and it would not really reach these shores until after the Second World War. The Americans never felt the European imperative to separate themselves from the source of their money, and would cheerfully go into the bank or the office every morning, long after they had taken the reins of New York Society. They had their palaces, too, of course, at Newport or on Long Island, but they felt no need to imitate farmers with profitless estates. Their model is much more recognisable to the present generation when, now, riches are more likely to be devoted to helicopters, Manhattan apartments and houses in the South of France than to the purchase of 20,000 acres of the North Riding. But in the 1920s you had this strange contrast: the new rich creating the illusion that the old way of life would continue, while many of the old rich were chucking in the towel.

  Then this was also an era of tremendous social change, not just because of organised labour or women’s rights or the rise of the Labour Party, but also because of the cinema and sports cars and aeroplanes and all the other tell-tale signs of the fast-moving twentieth century. My own Great-Uncle Peregrine was a Commodore in the Navy, a man as straight as a ruled line who found himself unable to resist the fascination of flight. By the end of the war he had become a pioneer flyer in the Royal Naval Air Service, and afterwards he became one of the first Air Equerries to King George V. Later, in 1933, he would lead the Houston Everest Flight when they flew over Everest in an effort to win public support for government investment in air power, because Germany was so far ahead in the race – one of the many steps that led to the second war and ultimately to the modern world. His journey, from a country Victorian boyhood to fighting a deadly air battle with the Nazis, gives some impression of the speed of change that generation had to live through.

  That was the 1920s, the bridge between the old world and the new, and that is what we explore in this, the third series of Downton Abbey.

  Julian Fellowes

  ACT ONE

  1A EXT. CHURCH. DOWNTON VILLAGE. DAY.

  Daisy pushes a bicycle towards the church.

  1B INT. CHURCH. DOWNTON VILLAGE. DAY.

  At first this seems to be a simple wedding, with the young couple in day dress and only a few guests sitting in the front pews. Then the sheet tucked into the bride’s belt and the three mothers fussing with the four little bridesmaids and the general murmur all round tell us it is only a rehearsal. An immensely important prelate stands by the altar, while Mr Travis fusses about. Mary t
urns to the first little girl behind her.

  MARY: Are you going to be as naughty as this on the day?

  BRIDESMAID: I’m going to be a great deal naughtier.1

  Mary raises her eyebrows to a hovering mother.

  MOTHER: No, she isn’t. Arabella, why do you say such things?

  Matthew whispers to Mary.

  MATTHEW: I bet she is.

  They laugh.

  MATTHEW (CONT’D): Is there any news of Sybil?

  MARY: She’s still not coming. She insists they can’t afford it.

  MATTHEW: That’s Branson talking.2

  ARCHBISHOP OF YORK: Mr Travis? Can we move forward?3

  The Reverend Mr Travis is getting increasingly flustered.

  TRAVIS: If I could just ask you to come down the aisle again? Can we get the troops organised?

  The mothers and children shuffle to the door of the church. Now we see Robert, Cora and Edith in the front row.

  ROBERT: That means me.

  CORA: It seems rather hard on poor old Travis when he’s doing all the work but the Archbishop gets the glory. We’ll have to ask him to dine.

  Robert stands to walk with Mary to the starting place. But the pair of them remain for a moment with the others.

  MARY: Papa was the one who wanted a Prince of the Church. I would have settled for Travis.

  They move off.

  MARY (CONT’D): Is there really no way to get Sybil over? It seems ridiculous.

  ROBERT: On the contrary; it’s a relief. Branson is still an object of fascination for the county. We’ll ask him here when we can prepare the servants and manage it gently.

  Across the aisle, Matthew is with Isobel. They have heard Robert’s speech, but they lower their voices.

  ISOBEL: He’s making a problem where none exists. Nobody could care less if Branson were at the wedding or not.

  MATTHEW: You must think country life more exciting than it is, if you imagine people don’t care when an earl’s daughter runs off with a chauffeur.

  ISOBEL: Well, the fact remains she has run off with a chauffeur and they have to get used to it.4

  MATTHEW: Well, I agree with that.

  ARCHBISHOP OF YORK: Mr Travis, are we ready?

  TRAVIS: Any moment, your grace. Any moment.

  Edith has been left alone with her mother.

  EDITH: Branson might be hard to explain to Grandmama when she gets here.

  CORA: My dear mother knows all about him. Remember, Edith, our blood is much less blue than the Crawleys’. Your father may be against Branson coming back to Downton, but I’m not.

  Mary and Robert are at the end of the aisle.

  MARY: So I can’t send her the tickets?

  ROBERT: No. I have already forbidden your mother from doing just that. The fact is, the cost of the journey has settled the matter comfortably, without any need for a row. Please leave it alone.

  TRAVIS: Can we? Please?

  Mary takes Robert’s arm. Travis nods to the organist who starts to play The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba by Handel. Robert, Mary and the fractious children come down the aisle, Mary still trailing a sheet from her waist.5

  The Archbishop steps forward with aplomb.

  1C EXT. DOWNTON. DAY.

  Daisy rides a bicycle towards Downton.

  2 INT. SERVANTS’ HALL. DOWNTON. DAY.

  The servants are at luncheon. Carson presides.

  O’BRIEN: When will they be back?

  CARSON: Before nightfall, I think.

  O’BRIEN: I see. And am I supposed to dress every human in the house again?

  CARSON: Mrs Hughes is not often away, Miss O’Brien. Nor Anna. It is ungenerous to grudge it when they are.

  Mrs Patmore has come in, followed by Daisy.

  CARSON (CONT’D): That treacle tart just hit the spot. Thank you, Mrs Patmore.

  MRS PATMORE: So Mrs Hughes and Anna are getting the place ready to let?

  CARSON: That is the plan.

  THOMAS: I’m surprised Anna held onto that house. I thought they confiscated the profits of murder.

  CARSON: Mr Bates had the wisdom to transfer it to her before the trial.

  THOMAS: I don’t think I’d have allowed it, Mr Carson.

  CARSON: Then we must all be grateful you were not the presiding judge.

  THOMAS: I still think it’s funny. Given that he’s a convicted murderer.

  CARSON: May I remind you, Mr Barrow, that in this house Mr Bates is a wronged man seeking justice. If you have any problems with that definition, I suggest you eat in the yard.

  3 INT. DRAWING ROOM. DOWER HOUSE. DAY.

  Violet and Isobel are with Cora.

  ISOBEL: I suppose you agree with Robert.

  VIOLET: Then not for the first time, you suppose wrongly. The family must never be a topic of conversation.

  CORA: I’m afraid Sybil’s already made the Crawleys a permanent topic.

  VIOLET: All the more reason. If we can show the county he can behave normally, they will soon lose interest in him. And I shall make sure he behaves normally because I shall hold his hand on the radiator until he does.

  ISOBEL: Well, I don’t know this young man aside from ‘Good morning’ and ‘Goodnight’, but he strikes me as a very interesting addition to the family.

  VIOLET: Oh, here we go.

  ISOBEL: And why should he be ‘normal’, as you call it? I say he should come here and fight his corner. I like a man with strong beliefs. I think I’ll send them the money.

  CORA: Please don’t. Robert’s expressly forbidden it. He’d be furious.

  4 EXT. A DUBLIN MARKET. DAY.

  A trader hands Sybil some change. She is with Branson.

  TRADER: Thank you, Mrs Branson.

  She takes the money and a bag. They turn and walk away.

  SYBIL: But why not if we travel cheaply? We’d stay free when we get there.

  BRANSON: It’s bad enough that we live on your allowance, without wasting it on a jaunt.

  SYBIL: It’s not a jaunt. It’s Mary’s wedding.

  BRANSON: But we’re going to have a baby now. And I’m only earning a pittance…

  SYBIL: What you write is important. Whether they pay you for it is not.

  BRANSON: It’s important enough to me.

  He sighs at his own failure to provide.

  BRANSON (CONT’D): Why don’t you go alone? We could just about manage that.

  SYBIL: Oh, no. Not without you. When I go back to Downton, it’s as a couple — a happy couple, or not at all.

  5 INT. HALL. DOWNTON. NIGHT.

  Robert is on the telephone.

  ROBERT: But it can’t be as bad… Look, I’ll come and see you… Tomorrow. No, I insist… Right… Goodbye.

  He replaces the receiver as Mary comes out of the library.

  MARY: Papa? What’s the matter?

  ROBERT: Nothing’s the matter. What should be the matter?

  6 INT. SERVANTS’ HALL. DOWNTON. NIGHT.

  It is after dinner. Mrs Hughes and Anna have just arrived.

  CARSON: How was London?

  ANNA: We got it all done, but I couldn’t have managed without my helper.

  MRS PATMORE: Have you eaten?

  MRS HUGHES: We had a bite on the train.

  MRS PATMORE: Well, sit down anyway, and have a cup of tea.

  Daisy sighs and leaves with Anna, who is taking off her coat.

  MRS HUGHES: I’ll start on the final lists for the wedding tomorrow morning.

  CARSON: I’ve got the last of the wine deliveries coming on Tuesday.

  MRS HUGHES: How will you manage without a footman?

  CARSON: I agree. But I haven’t time to find one now.

  O’BRIEN: I’ve had a letter from my sister, asking after a job for her son and —

  CARSON: Miss O’Brien, we are about to host a Society wedding. I have no time for training young hobbledehoys.6

  The bell rings.

  CARSON (CONT’D): Her ladyship’s ringing.

  O’Brie
n gets up.

  7 INT. CORA’S BEDROOM. DOWNTON. NIGHT.

  O’Brien is plaiting Cora’s hair.

  CORA: Well, I don’t see why not. I’ll ask his lordship when —

  She is interrupted by Robert opening the door.

  CORA (CONT’D): There you are, so I’ll ask you now.

  ROBERT: Ask me what?

  CORA: Carson’s in need of a footman and O’Brien has a candidate.

  O’BRIEN: Alfred. Alfred Nugent, m’lord. He’s a good worker.

  CORA: I think it sounds perfect. Robert?

  ROBERT: Whatever you say. My dear, I have to go up to London tomorrow. I’m catching the early train.

  CORA: That’s very sudden. Do you want them to open the house?

  ROBERT: No. I’ll come straight back.

  CORA: What are you going for?

  ROBERT: It’s nothing to bother you with.

  8 INT. MRS HUGHES’S SITTING ROOM. DOWNTON. DAY.

  A shiny vacuum cleaner is taken out of its box.

  MRS HUGHES: There. You plug it in and switch it on and it sucks all the dirt out of the carpet and off the floor.

  ANNA: I’m not sure I like the sound of it now we’ve finally got one. Suppose it sucks everything else up, too?

  MRS HUGHES: All I know is Mrs Gannon, at Easton Grange, says it gets the work done in half the time. Anyway I’ve paid for it now, so let’s give it a try.

  Anna looks at the machine as if it were her enemy.7

  MRS HUGHES (CONT’D): What are you going to do with that address book we found?

  ANNA: Well, first I’ll copy all the entries out for Mr Bates —

  They are interrupted by the irate figure of Carson.

  CARSON: You’ll never guess what Miss O’Brien’s done now —

  MRS HUGHES: Thank you, Anna.

  Anna lifts the vacuum cleaner and leaves. Carson stares.

  CARSON: What in God’s name was that?

  MRS HUGHES: The new vacuum cleaner.

  CARSON: It looks like something for unclogging the drains.

  MRS HUGHES: I’m sure it has many uses, but I doubt you will be training yourself in any of them.

  CARSON: I will not.

  MRS HUGHES: Can we return to the matter on hand. What has Miss O’Brien done?