Downton Abbey by Julian Fellowes

Author:Julian Fellowes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2013-10-13T16:00:00+00:00

49 INT. LAVINIA’S BEDROOM. DOWNTON. NIGHT.

Lavinia is sitting up in bed, in tears. She looks up when Mary comes in. She tries to cover for herself.

MARY: Lavinia?

LAVINIA: You’re back. How did you get on?

MARY: All right, I think. How about you?

LAVINIA: Matthew’s told me to go home. He says he won’t see me again. He feels he has to ‘set me free’, as he put it. I’ve tried to tell him I don’t care, but he won’t listen.

MARY: Then you must keep telling him.

LAVINIA: Yes, but you see, it isn’t just not walking… Today he told me we could never be lovers, because all that’s gone as well. I didn’t realise. It’s probably obvious to anyone with a brain, but I didn’t realise.

MARY: No. No. Nor did I.

LAVINIA: And he feels it would be a crime to tie me down — to tie down any woman — to the life of a childless nun. He thinks I’d hate him in the end.

She breaks off. Mary is quite still and silent.

LAVINIA (CONT’D): I’m sorry if I’ve shocked you. But there’s no one else I could talk to about it, and when you came in —

MARY: I’m not shocked. I’m just stunned, and desperately sad. Are you sure it wouldn’t make a difference?

LAVINIA: Not to me. I’ll die if I can’t be with him.

MARY: No, I see that. I do see.*

* Mary is obliged to comfort Lavinia, which is quite deliberate. As I have said elsewhere, it was important to me that Mary should not have any excuse to dislike Lavinia, and nor should the public. Maybe she isn’t as interesting a woman as Mary. We never feel that Matthew is wrong to be more in love with Mary (which he always is), but Lavinia is a kind and generous woman who really loves him, and that makes it all more complicated.

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