Original subtitles

- [upbeat instrumental music]

- Oh, Miss Elizabeth.

I'm probably gonna be in your way.

- Oh, I'm so happy.

- Miss Elizabeth, I'm trying to pack for you.

You'll squash them blouses.

- I've got something to show you, Rose.

- Robert is packing warm things for Lady Marjorie.

She says Lymes are very drafty so I thought I'd--

- Did you say pack?

- Yes, Miss Lizzy.

- Oh dear, I should have told you.

I'm not going.

- Not going?

Does Lady Marjorie know?

Mr. Hudson?

- Well, nobody knows yet.

You see, I only made up my mind this morning

to stay in London for the weekend.

You see Rose dear, I've been invited to a small

exclusive party in Bloomsbury.

- And what would a properly brought up young lady

like you be doing in a place like Bloomsbury?

- A friend of mine has lodgings there.

Someone I admire very much.

That's where I'm going.

Oh, stop looking so shocked, Rose.

And you can stop packing, too,

and help me to untie this infuriating knot.

Then I can show you what I brought to wear

at the party.

- I'll fetch the scissors.

- Certainly not.

One must never cut string.

You always untie it.

Didn't your mother teach you that?

- Nanny taught me.

We didn't get that many parcels to practice on, Miss.

- No, I suppose not.

How unfair the world is.

Oh, dear.

No, one cannot waste time on these stupid conventions.

Would you fetch me the scissors, Rose?

Snip, snip and it's done.

I suppose one unties because one should not

appear grievous to know what's inside.

It's like bread and butter before cake

and always leaving something on one's plate.

One must never appear to be in need, must one?

- I suppose not, Miss Lizzy.

- It's like kissing a gentleman and not just

waiting to be kissed.

- Miss Elizabeth.

- Sorry, Rose.

Just cut it.

There now, off with this string.

Away with the paper wrappings.

Aren't you going mad with curiosity, Rose?

- You mind your fingernails, Miss Lizzy.

- Abracadabra, hocus pocus, et cetera.

Shut your eyes, Rose.

I'll tell you when to open them.

Now.

Isn't it beautiful?

- Yes, Miss.

- It's from limited, Rose.

- Well, if that don't surprise me at all.

I better get on with your unpacking.

- You don't like it.

- Well, it's a bit bright, Miss.

- It's color, Rose.

Nothing has to be dreary and dingy.

The world is beautiful if only we let it be.

Well look at it more careful.

- Hmm, well, material is quite nice.

- They are, I knew you'd like it.

Your eyes were closed, that's all.

All our eyes must be open, Rose.

All eyes shall be open one day.

- What is it?

- Well, it's a jumper.

- Oh.

- Women wear them in the East.

- Oh.

- And I'm going east on Saturday evening

towards Bloomsbury, so I must dress as the natives do.

Now I must try it on.

Would you unlace me, Rose?

Undo me.

Horrible whalebones.

What is the use of having a body

if it's to be all twisted out of shape?

- Yeah, you can't wear that downstairs.

Lady Marjorie would have a seizure.

- This time next week I shall be 21.

Things are going to change.

Come along, Rosie, my faithful handmaiden.

Help me into my raiment of gold and silk.

- What's the use of having a body, she says,

if it's to be twisted all out of shape.

- Oh, come bodies, is it now?

We all know what that means.

- I'm sure I don't know what you mean, Mrs. Bridges.

We should never mention it.

- The colenel's lady and Judy O'Grady.

- Mrs. Bridges, I won't have you talk about

Miss Lizzy like that.

She's as pure as the driven snow.

- It's my belief she's got a young gentleman.

- That's right.

I've heard her sing it up and down the stairs.

That means she's in love.

- Rubbish.

If she was, we'd all know about it.

At least where as I would 'cause she would've told me.

It's malicious lies.

- And what is malicious lies, Rose?

Nothing, Mr. Hudson.

We were just talkin'.

- Miss Elizabeth's new garment, what she's bought.

Arab, a none too modest.

- You wall know my rules.

I will not have gossip about members of the family.

- We was just sayin' that Miss Elizabeth

is on her way to becoming a new woman, that's all.

- I'd like to be made a new woman.

- Nobody asked for your opinion, Doris.

- A new woman's right.

You want to see the young madam open up

and down them stairs?

Stays?

Not a bone inside except her own?

- Edward, I won't have talk like that.

-[Doris] What would you know about stays anyway?

- You'd be surprised, Doris.

- Edward!

- Might I be excused from present company, please?

I wish I hadn't opened my mouth.

I feel quite unwell.

- Oh, I don't know.

Nothing but trouble.

New woman.

I have no time for people who want to change things.

Nothing wrong with them as they are.

Isn't that so, Mr. Hudson?

- Oh, quite so, Mrs. Bridges.

If the Almighty and his infinite wisdom

has seen fit to ordain the world just so,

how can we poor creatures be we high or low

seek to change it?

Consider the words of the hymn that we all joined in

only last Sunday.

♪ The rich man in his castle

♪ The poor man at his gate

♪ God made them high or lowly

♪ And all of this

- What's the matter with you?

- Mr. Hudson's being appalling.

♪ All things bright and beautiful

♪ all creatures great and small

♪ All things wise and wonderful

♪ The Lord God made them all

- You're with us down here now, Rose.

Not up there with them.

- Is Elizabeth lunching with us today?

- So she told Hudson.

- Good.

- I think I heard her come in a few minutes ago.

Thump, thump up the stairs three at a time.

She's too much energy.

- Life and time will soon cure that.

- The Scott Kerry boy will be in line for the weekend.

I hope she behaves herself.

- I think we better train him to hold his breath

because I'm afraid one puff of wind would

blow the Scott Kerry boy right over.

- Well, the fact that we're having to scrape

the barrel for Elizabeth is nobody's fault but her own.

She was born clever but without the wit

to disguise it, poor child.

London's full of young men who turn pale

when she approaches.

- Really? Why?

- She will lecture them about the poor and the needy.

And she oughta be listening to what they have to say.

- She'll learn in time.

- It is time that worries me.

She'll be 21 next week.

She'll probably die an old maid.

- I don't think there's much chance of that.

-[Marjorie] Well, Richard,

she doesn't know how to attract,

how to walk into a room and make heads turn.

Oh my god.

- Is it all right to wear this for lunch?

-[Marjorie] Well what on earth is it?

- Well, I'm trying it on.

It's for a party I've been asked to.

- A costume ball, what fun.

- It's not supposed to be fancy dress, Father.

It's the very latest thing.

- What party?

- Mother, I know it's all rather last minute

and I do realize that somewhat you're mad of me,

but this friend of mine, Henrietta Winchmore,

who goes to the lectures and--

- Fabian society?

- Yes, well, there's a group of them.

All very clever and interesting,

and they've asked me to go to somebody's house

on Saturday evening for a party.

- But we're traveling up to Lyme for

the weekend on Friday.

- Well, you see, I'm not going with you.

I'd rather go to this party.

- No, it's out of the question, darling.

Mark Scott Kerry's been invited especially for you.

- Well, I've never met Mr. Scott what's-his-name,

and even if I did, I'd probably wouldn't like

him very much.

I've got friends of my own.

- Who are they?

What sort of people?

- Oh, they're all very intelligent people, Mother,

who talk about things that matter.

- Oh, I say.

- Well, I feel elated and happy when I'm with them.

I'm very honored to be asked into their circle.

Oh, they're poets mostly and painters

and people who write books.

-[Marjorie] They're not of your world, darling.

- It's the world I want, Mother.

Please, I beg you.

Telegraph to the Morton's at Lyme to say I'm not coming.

They won't miss me.

There are plenty of girls up there for Mr. Scott thing

to bore to death.

I'm sorry, that was unkind.

Oh, please, let me stay in London, just this once?

- Oh, Richard, what am I to do?

Well, you're her father.

- Well, she's old enough to choose her own friends.

-[Marjorie] What if they're unsuitable?

- I'm sure that's up to Elizabeth to decide.

- Well?

- Well, I think I'd better send a telegram.

-[Hudson] Luncheon is served, my lady.

- Oh, Hudson, Miss Elizabeth will not be

traveling up to Lyme with us on Friday after all.

She's remaining in London.

- Very good, sir.

- I am an anarchist,

but don't be frightened of me.

I'm quite bumless.

- You can feed him through the bars with buns and whiskey.

- Oh, save me from nut sandwiches and unfermented wine.

- Mr. Burnachore is living proof that a tea total,

vegetarian diet produces the perfect mind.

- And bicycling the perfect body.

The Webbs frequently bicycle 40 miles.

- Ah, you're great socialists,

masochists you are.

- Whose harem have you robbed of that little odd-el-isk?

- Henrietta Newer.

Soup kitchen somewhere in the slums.

She was a mousy-looking thing when I met her before.

- Now look at her.

You have this effect upon people, my dear Evelyn.

- She's good material.

Tougher than she looks.

- One for the bat of caves?

- We'll see.

She's very young.

- A new fight ready for action and unsullied pain.

- Now don't you corrupt her, Perdita, my dear.

- Me?

A bright little candle like that will be

chased by all kinds of moths.

Now where have you put the whiskey?

- Poetry is as natural as eating or making love.

It's life, it's a spirit of gloriousness in things.

Do you read poetry, Elizabeth?

- Oh, yes.

I admire your poems enormously,

though I don't always understand them.

- Well, my poetry's not to be understood by the brain.

Just let it flow over you,

like the great spewmy waves over the body

of the naked swimmer.

- Poetry is derivative.

We drink in the lessons of Milton and Swinburne

with our mother's milk.

- Tolstoy's a fraud!

- If I thought Tolstoy was not sincere,

then nothing would matter anymore.

- Dead, my friends.

They're all dead.

It is we who are alive.

We must lead.

We must live for ah.

I myself live for ah, especially in the evening.

-[Henrietta] In the ideal state only the mentally

and physically perfect should be allowed to procreate.

- Oh, nonsense, Henrietta.

My father was a dull professor of physics.

Married to the seventh dull daughter of

an even duller dosset baron.

And look at me.

Brilliant.

[laughing]

And 40 times as sensitive as both my parents.

How are you bred, little blackbird?

Oh, ah--

- Ooh, Elizabeth's parents are frightfully normal.

- My father's a Norfolk parson's son.

- And nothing could be duller than that.

- That is where free love comes in.

A true friendship with a man is not possible

without physical intimacy as his beloved and lover.

If a woman has 12 brilliant men in her, then she can--

- Nonsense, child.

If you think you can absorb wisdom like hot soup

merely by sleeping with a genius,

then I should be the wisest woman in Christendom.

[laughing]

Rodin once did my torso,

but all I can remember about him are his strong hands.

- Oh, Rodin.

The Michelangelo of the common man.

- The common man.

A bourgeois cliche like your poetry.

- That's unfair.

- Well, you don't understand it.

You said so yourself.

I will teach it to you.

- He will teach you all about hunger strikes

and why having dirty fingernails is so important.

- And that butterflies aren't much use

when it comes to a fight.

- Oh, what do you do when there's

dart chucking vitriol about?

Do you suppose an umbrella would be of any use?

Oh, protect me, my friend,

from the slings and arrows of the Philistines.

- Protect you?

If you can't look after yourself in the jungle,

it's your luck out.

- She likes to see her cubs sharpening her claws

on each other.

- The tis-da, the test that breeders make

on the young bulls.

Now how brave is this little one?

[laughing]

- You're mad.

We're all a little mad, Elizabeth.

We're special people,

brought together from a wilderness.

We've thrown off the stupid convictions

of our forefathers.

We're not shackled by count or convention.

We can be utterly frank.

We're in the lead, and together we can make a new world.

[speaking in foreign language]

- To the streets!

- Ah, but there are three million destitute

in this country cradled in a gutter,

housed in a slum, slaving in a sweater's den,

and dying in a workhouse infirmary.

Nobody loves them.

They poison society.

You won't get rid of them by giving them soup.

But give them work, give them hospitals, give them boots.

Then they will increase the wealth of the community.

We must fight commercialism not just by words,

but with deeds.

- And yet behind the night waits

for the great unborn.

Somewhere afar, some white, tremendous daybreak.

- Gosh, I forgot.

We can't have the hall tomorrow for

Lawrence's poetry reading.

- Why not?

- The beastly Bible readers have backed it first.

- Well, we'll just have to have it here.

- What?

In this box?

Never!

Cancel it!

I need space.

- Elizabeth, there's a lovely big room in your house.

- Oh, but well--

-[Evelyn] Is that possible, Elizabeth?

-[Lawrence] Well, it's evidently not a welcome suggestion.

- Well, I'd have to ask my, oh well, they're away.

Yes, yes, please come, all of you.

It'll be deviate.

-[Lawrence] Bless you, my child.

You are the true friend of ah.

To commemorate the occasion,

I shall write a piece to My Lady of the Casbah,

something in the style of the Rubaiyat.

It will consist of seven stanzas.

Each one as exquisite and ephemeral and meaningless

as the eyelash of a gnat.

[laughing]

Or the first pale flush of dawn.

It will be inscribed gloriously with a lark swing quill

in red ink on golden vellum.

[laughing]

There will be only one copy.

And you and I will read it together,

a stanza each evening.

And then we shall die, for that is our tragedy.

[laughing]

[clapping]

- Allow me to fill your glass.

-[Elizabeth] Oh, uh, thank you.

- I do find Kirbridge's style so tediously overflowered,

don't you?

I mean, the eyelash of a gnat.

Really, you'll never find any of the major Russian

poets resorting to an allegory like that,

now would you?

- Is anything the matter, Elizabeth?

Is dear Stanley forcing Pushkin down with the wine?

- No, I was just wondering where Lawrence was?

And Evelyn.

Why, they were here a moment ago.

-[Henrietta] I think they must've grown

tired of our company and left us.

- Oh, but I must say goodbye and thank them.

-[Henrietta] Well, we'll see them again,

tomorrow afternoon at your house.

- Oh, yes, of course I will.

- Better not disturb them now.

I expect they're communing with nature.

- Oh.

- Perhaps you'd rather stop discussing Kirbridge

and talk about the major poets.

- On the contrary, you see, I don't agree with you.

I think Lawrence Kirbridge writes

and talks quite beautifully.

[bells tolling]

[door slamming]

[bells tolling]

- What's the time, Rose?

- Almost 11 o'clock.

The church bells have started ringing.

- Oh, let them ring.

- What time did you return home last night, Miss Elizabeth?

- I didn't return home last night, Rose.

I returned home this morning at half past three.

- Miss Elizabeth, your night dress.

- It's in the drawer.

- But--

- I've decided never to wear anything in bed again.

From now on I'm going to dedicate my life to the truth

and to freedom for all mankind.

Well, without our clothes we're all alike.

Rich and poor, nobleman and peasant.

In our naked state we're all equal, Rose.

Do you hear me?

Equal, equal, equal.

We're all equal.

And free.

[gasping]

Good morning, Father.

Morning, Mother.

Yes, I had a wonderful evening, thank you.

Such fascinating people.

I'm sorry to be a bit late down,

but I slept in this morning owing to an excess

of rum punch and intellectual conversation.

By the way, there was a most charming young man there.

A poet.

Such exciting eyes and a voice like a caress.

When he looked at me and spoke these beautiful

sonnets he's composed,

I felt as though I were almost undressed.

Oh, I'm sorry, Mother, but you wouldn't understand.

I don't mean literally undressed.

I mean, I felt somehow as if he were penetrating

right through me, possessing me.

I was seized and flung across the saddle

of his white charger,

and we galloped across the desert to the sunset

of my maidenhood.

-[Hudson] You rang, Miss Elizabeth.

- Oh, my heart.

Hudson, you made me jump.

- I beg pardon, Miss.

- It's quite all right.

I was just memorizing some passages from a book,

from a book I've been reading.

-[Hudson] Were you requiring something, Miss?

- Yes, Hudson.

It was simply to say that I've invited some people

to call this afternoon for tea.

We'll have it in here.

- Very good, Miss.

And how many visitors will there be, Miss?

- Six.

Or possibly seven or even eight.

I'm not quite sure.

- Very good, Miss Elizabeth.

- And luncheon, Miss?

- Oh, I'm not very hungry today.

- I think Mrs. Bridges has prepared some

veal cutlets for you,

and Edward has laid for one in the dining room.

- Oh, well, then I'll have to, won't I?

- You can fetch in the brussel sprouts now, Doris.

And the Yorkshire pudding.

- Yes, Mrs. Bridges.

- There will be tea in the morning room

for eight today, Edward.

- Eight?

Who's coming then?

All those beggars down in Wine Chapel?

-[Hudson] None of your business who's coming.

- Well, I wouldn't put it past her.

- Much more of your cheek, young man,

and you'll find yourself down there cuing up

for a bowl of soup, and glad of it.

- You will serve tea as it is normally served, Edward,

and Rose will assist you.

Just because the master and her ladyship are away,

there will be no falling off from the watch in this house.

- You'll be taking the afternoon off, Mr. Hudson?

- Oh, not today, Mrs. Bridges.

I had contemplated a wee stroll beside the rough and roll.

However, with Miss Elizabeth entertaining her friends,

I shall remain on hand just to be on the safe side.

-[Mrs. Bridges] Quite right, Mr. Hudson.

- The Yorkshire's nicely browned, Mrs. Bridges.

- Where's Rose?

-[Edward] She's up doing Miss Elizabeth's room.

-[Mrs. Bridges] Tidying up after her.

- At this hour?

-[Edward] Well, she stuck in bed till around 11.

- I'm sorry, Mr. Hudson.

I couldn't get in to do Miss Lizzy's room

till she was up and dressed and that.

- Very well, Rose.

- When the hounds of spring are on winter's tresses,

the mother of months and meadow a plain,

fills the shadows and windy places,

the lisp of leaves and ripple of rain,

and the brown bright nightingale,

amorous is half assuaged for it ellus,

for the Thracian ships and the foreign faces,

the tongueless vigil of all the pain

come with bows bent and with emptying of quivers,

maiden most perfect, lady of light,

with the noise of winds and many rivers

with the clamor of waters.

- Shall I serve tea now, Miss?

-[Lawrence] Thine on my sandals, oh though most gifted.

- Is it a long poem?

- Very.

- Yes, Mr. Hudson.

- Very good, Miss.

- The faint east quickens,

the one west shivers,

on the feet of the day and the feet of the night.

Where shall we find her?

Where shall we send her?

From her hands and her knees and king,

though the man's heart what is fire

and could spring to her,

fire of the strength of the streams

that spring for the stars and the winds

are unto her as rain ought.

The songs of the harp player,

of the risen stars and the fallen cling to her,

and the southwest wind and the west wind sing.

The winter's rains and ruins are over,

and all the season of snows and sins,

the days dividing lover and lover,

the light that loses, the night that wins,

and time remembered is grief forgotten,

and frost is lain and flowers begotten,

and in green underwood and cover,

blossom by blossom.

- Could we have some more sandwiches please, Hudson?

- And were do I get a dozen loaves on a Sunday evening?

Has anyone thought of that?

Not that I don't like to see young people

with good, healthy appetites.

- Hmm, the way some of them are gobbling it down,

you wouldn't think they'd had a square meal for a week.

- Or a bath, for a month.

God, some of them, oh.

- Hey.

- What are they like?

- Something out of the zoo if you ask me.

- There's one there that looks like a mangy old parrot.

- Oh, though the boy what's reading the poems

is quite romantic.

- Oh, can I go out and have a peek?

- No, Doris, you cannot.

And just look at the way you've cut that bread.

You're not making crumbs for the birds, you know.

- What were they reading about?

- Arms folding 'round bodies and knees and clinging.

- Oh, give over, Edward.

- All right.

- I suppose they're all people Miss Elizabeth's found

in the east end.

She can't resist stray dogs, never could.

Look at Sarah.

- Oh, no Mrs. Bridges.

No walking grass person would come into this

house dressed like that.

They'd have more respect.

They're all socialists if you ask me.

- I don't know what makes Miss Elizabeth

mix with that sort of people.

I don't, really.

- Tainted blood.

I'll not forget the night her Aunt Ellena danced

naked on the lawn at Southwald.

Bold as brass.

- Now up you get, Rose.

You too, Edward.

We haven't all day.

- Well, I never used to think Miss Lizzy was like that,

but I'm beginning to wonder.

- Well, you just wonder if you're going

to drop those plates, my girl.

Off you get now.

- Always clinging, folded 'round bodies.

Was she stark naked, Mrs. Bridges?

- Now you just go and wash your mouth out, Doris.

And then get on with doing the dirty things.

-[Doris] Yes, Mrs. Bridges.

- Oh, I don't know.

The wickedness there is in the world.

- Self-supporting communities of persons

indifferent to material possessions.

Isn't that our aim?

I mean, I feel degraded even stepping inside

this mausoleum, this monument to extortion and oppression.

It should be pulled down and cooked on the dust heap

along with its inhabitants.

-[Henrietta] Oh, how can you be so ungrateful

after Elizabeth has invited us here

and given us such wonderful eats and everything?

I bet if your father was a conservative member

of parliament, you wouldn't have the courage

to ask us to the house.

- If my father was that, I'd be too ashamed

to show my face in this country.

-[Henrietta] I think Elizabeth is jolly brave and noble.

And anyway, her parents are very nice

and support all sorts of charities.

-[Man] They also support the forces of evil!

- I think it's jolly decent to have us

here like this.

It just shows how emancipated she is, doesn't it, Evelyn?

- Contributions to the cause are always welcome.

- The full streams feed on flower of rushes.

I love that line.

- Swim then at his most message.

- Well, you make it all come alive somehow.

Oh, Rose, this is Mr. Kirbridge, a poet.

- Pleased to meet you, sir.

- Rose?

Is it really Rose?

- Yes, sir.

- No thank you.

But I am deeply, almost profoundly grateful.

You give me sweet hope of spring.

[kiss smacking]

- Thank you very much indeed, sir.

Oh!

[dishes clattering]

- We must make poetry together, my little one.

- Oh, I couldn't possibly.

I'd be hopeless.

I've got no ear.

- I didn't mean with our ears.

An obscene part of the body, the best of time.

No, in your father's mansion there are many bedrooms

in this part?

- Uh, what about Evelyn?

- Evelyn?

Oh, it's purely just a ritual act.

Just pay for my bread and butter.

Oh.

Spare your blushes, gentle maiden.

I am only teasing.

I'm incorrigibly irreverent about all sorts

of serious things like sex or socialism.

Do you know I've even been known to make a joke

about Mr. H. G. Wells?

How old are you, my little fledgling?

- 21 tomorrow.

Tomorrow 21.

Evelyn, our little fledgling here is 21 tomorrow.

Do you think she'll leave the home in sorrow?

- We shall have to think of something very special.

- Chalk on the dust heap?

Along with all its inhabitants.

That's what he said?

Stuck up little swine.

He nearly had the lot in his mug, I can tell ya.

- They're all mad out there if you ask me.

And the place looks like a pig sty.

We're gonna be up half the night.

♪ Le deh deh deh den

Voila!

Let us close.

Poor slaves.

So this is the galley where you sweat away

your little lives without light, without hope.

- Do you require anything, sir?

- I require the boom to blow off this prison bar

to let in fresh air.

[speaking in foreign language]

Why stay forever chained to this dark place?

- Fetch Mr. Hudson.

- Tear off the uniform, oh salvage you do.

Oh, boy.

One day, one day all the servant slaves of London,

no, of the whole world will not hike

up into some ivy league you.

The gottos all build graveyard will run red

with the blood of the target.

Then I--

- Excuse me, sir.

- Oh, hello. [laughing]

- Can I help you, sir?

[speaking in foreign language]

Edward.

- Hello, [speaking in foreign language].

Hmm, congratulations.

Vou, monsieur.

Vou, madame.

Vou, mademoiselle.

It is very sad.

Perhaps you are too old.

One cannot teach an old dog new tricks.

Ah, me vou, mademoiselle,

who is young and strong and beautiful.

Why should you slave away all the years

until you are a withered old hag,

scrubbing the floor on your knees.

That what I am question, I am asking you.

- Yes, come along.

-[Evelyn] Eh, where is my Elizabeth?

[Spanish guitar music]

♪ La la la la

- Excuse me, Miss Elizabeth.

There's a foreign gentleman in the servant's hall.

He doesn't seem quite himself.

He's asking for more whiskey.

- Oh lord.

Henrietta, it's Gustave.

He's in the servant's hall.

- Oh no!

[clapping]

- The day of glory has arrived again.

[singing in foreign language]

- Gustave, how could you?

No you don't.

Oh, I'm so sorry.

I do apologize.

He doesn't mean any harm.

Being foreigner, he doesn't understand our ways.

Gustave, come on.

- You see, I am a slave myself.

[laughing]

- Oh well, if anyone needed locking up.

- He needs deporting.

- He needs de-whiskeying.

- I thought there was quite a lot in what he said.

I'm gonna go and change my dress.

- You're going up to bed this instant, my girl.

- Oh, Mrs. Bridges.

- Off you go.

You've seen and heard enough nonsensical things

for one night to last you a whole lifetime.

Edward, go upstairs with her in case.

- Geez.

- Well, in all my bold days, I never seen nothing like it.

That girl will have to go.

[chimes ringing]

[clapping]

♪ Ah sa, ah sa, ah ah sa

[Spanish guitar music]

♪ La la la ya olay

[speaking in foreign language]

-[Richard] Hudson, what on earth is happening?

- Miss Elizabeth is entertaining a few of her friends, sir.

Edward, get the luggage, quickly.

[clapping]

-[Evelyn] Olay!

[clapping]

- Oh, um,

my mother and father.

Mother, may in introduce--

- I hardly think this is the moment for introductions.

Will you please ask your friends to leave?

- Father, why shouldn't I have some friends to a party?

- You call this a party?

It's the most disgraceful exhibition I've ever seen,

turning the house into a cheap music hall,

and on a Sunday, too.

With no thought for your mother

or for the wretched servant who have to

clear up after you.

- But you don't understand.

- No, I do not understand.

- I'm sorry, Evelyn.

I feel so ashamed.

[crying]

There it is, Rose.

The key to my freedom,

the symbol of my independence.

- Yes, Miss Lizzy.

- Oh, Rose, don't be so growly.

'Tis my birthday, after all.

- Yes, Miss Lizzy.

- Well how was I to know they were going

to come back early?

I couldn't tell Lady Cybil's brother was

going to die in Baden Baden, could I have?

- No, Miss Lizzy.

- If I have friends to tea,

I expect my friends to be civil to them

as I am to their boring friends.

- Well with respect, Miss Elizabeth,

I don't think your friends are the sort of people

one would expect to find in Lady Marjorie's house.

- It's my house, too.

I live here.

I've got the key to the front door.

- Well, if you don't know what I mean,

Miss Elizabeth, you're just--

- I'm what?

You were going to say stupid, weren't you?

- Well all right then, Miss Lizzy.

I do think you're being stupid.

- Good.

You must say it if you mean it.

I shan't have you whipped and locked in the cellar

if that's what you're afraid of.

I'm not that cruel.

- I think you are.

- Cruel?

- To your parents, what you should honor and respect,

especially on your 21st birthday.

- Cruel to invite a few of my friends to take tea

and read poetry in my home?

- Well, all I can say, Miss Elizabeth,

is if your idea of a refined tea party

and reading poetry is a lot of common riffraff

laying around on the morning room floor,

and one of them drunk,

barging into the servant's hall,

upsetting all the staff,

not to mention the lady what was leaping around,

dancing on the best furniture.

Well, I don't belong here no more then.

- It's not your place to comment, Rose,

and I won't have it.

Just because I have a few friends who

aren't in smart society

who know how to enjoy life instead of

strutting about like stuffed turkeys

talking about the weather.

There's no need for you to be rude about them

or for my parents to treat them as though they were dirt.

Well, I shall have to go and apologize to them

for the way they were received in this noble house.

- Apologize to them?

I should have thought it was for them to apologize

to your father and me.

- For what?

- For turning this house into a beer garden

during our absence and embarrassing the servants.

- Mother, I am not going to lose the few really

intelligent friends I have simply because

you and father refuse to move with the times.

- Elizabeth, I refuse to be spoken to like that.

You may be 21 years old,

but you're still our daughter and your kind

to show us some respect.

- Oh, I do, Mother.

I always have respected you.

But I respect my friends, too.

And for that reason I shall go 'round

to Evelyn Larkin's lodging this morning

and apologize to her

and to all of them for the ungracious way you

received them last night.

They were under your roof and therefore your guests.

Morning, Father.

- Morning, Elizabeth.

Many happy returns of the day.

Where are you going?

- I'm going upstairs to put on my hat and coat

and then I'm going out.

- Is your mother in the morning room?

- Yes, she is.

- Elizabeth, you can't expect us to be very pleased

after last night's performance.

- I did hope that you would at least understand.

You've always told me to treat this house

as if it were my own.

Oh.

But don't worry, Father.

I should be back for my birthday tea.

- So be a dream, a whisper fancy,

frail, fragmented, fate.

- And foolish.

- Are you endorsing my genius for alliteration

or are you being deliberately,

devastatingly damping, darling?

- Deliberately, devastatingly damping, darling.

I abhor and abominate alliteration.

Now get off my legs, my noble genius.

I want to get up.

- Mmm-mmm. [bells chiming]

Oh, there's to be no peace here this morning, I can see.

- Answer the door.

- Elizabeth.

What a surprise.

- Am I interrupting?

- Oh yes, deliciously.

- Is Evelyn here?

- Yes, she's in bed.

But do come in, she'd love to see you.

Oh, um, on second thought,

I think you better wait a minute.

I'll warn her you're here.

Our wealthy, radical, high-minded child is here.

Are you good to change societies?

She wants to see you.

- She bores me to death.

- Oh, does she?

She enchants me utterly.

- That has not escaped me.

The horror of the primped up, semi-educated

children of the rich who wear the newfound socialism,

the latest tap from Paris.

She's no more socialist than the Marcus of Salisbury.

- Or Lord Southwell.

- Exactly.

- All right, well I'll tell her that you've got

nothing more to say to her and I'll send her away.

-[Evelyn] No, bring her in.

- What?

-[Evelyn] Let her see me warm in my lover's bed.

It'll be an education.

- Oh, you exhibitionist.

- Mental.

- Now what is the girl to learn

from seeing you, one bizarre bee,

apart from the promiscuity of poets,

which she already suspects?

- I shall befriend her.

Put her to a test.

- A test?

Of what? Her friendship?

- In a sense, yes.

A test of the strength of her newfound

political conviction.

- Evelyn dear, she's young and tender.

You let her be.

She's not to be harmed.

- Oh, not her body.

Her pride a little.

- Her imperial highness, the sarina of all Bloomsbury,

will see you now.

[humming]

- Come in.

- I came to apologize for what happened

yesterday evening at my house.

My parents were guilty of incivility.

- Now who's to blame them,

entrenched as they are in their beliefs

and their traditions?

-[Elizabeth] But nevertheless--

- Now, no more is to be said about it.

You come and sit on my bed.

- You're so splendidly tolerant, Evelyn.

So forgiving.

- Well, you can't help how you were born.

-[Elizabeth] No, I suppose not.

- Where did you get your socialist ideas from?

Not from your father surely.

- Reading mostly.

I've read German philosophy in Dreslin,

and I don't know, just thinking about things.

- Then you agree with me that our society could--

- Oh yes, I do agree with you.

I think the wealth of the nation is so unfairly

distributed under the capitalist system.

More attention should be paid to the poor and uneducated.

The Tories protect the privileged

and the liberals don't go far enough.

For all that, Mr. Asqueth does his best.

- Then how would you combat it?

- It must be done by new laws,

by the parliamentary system,

by intellectual persuasion.

Fabianism.

- Mmm, but words are not enough.

Deeds are necessary.

- Oh yes, of course.

- I'm going to the Paddington district this afternoon

to collect some pamphlets and would you

like to come with me?

- Oh, yes please.

What could be more suitable for my 21st birthday?

The day of my emancipation.

-[Evelyn] Yes.

[bell chiming]

-[Man] What do you want in here?

Go on, get out of it.

- You stay where you are, boys.

Are you the owner of this establishment?

- I have that honor, miss.

Summers the name, Summers the nature.

-[Evelyn] Yes, well these children have no shoes.

- Yes, so I see, miss.

No be obliged they take their dirty feet

off my clean carpet.

I do apologize, miss.

They're everywhere these days.

- These shoeless children are with me, Mr. Summers.

- With you, miss?

Oh, I do apologize.

I really had no idea.

Well, sit down, children.

-[Elizabeth] You have children's boots upon your shelves.

They should be on these children's feet.

- And so they shall be, miss, at once.

Now then, let me see.

Boots for these children.

Yes, we have their sizes.

Of the best quality, naturally, miss.

- Of the very best quality.

In a good society the children get the best,

not the worst.

They are our future.

- Eh, what about socks, miss?

We do a very good line in start Willem socks.

- And socks too since you have them and they haven't.

- Two pairs of boots each, perhaps, miss?

-[Elizabeth] If you think that is a good idea.

- Oh, I do, I do.

- She's coming.

-[Edward] Oh, miss, really lovely.

-[Hudson] Lovely, congratulations.

- Well, Mrs. Bridges, I think that's better

than the one what you done for Mr. James.

- Well, I really believe it is.

It's not every cook can do that frosted dates

in the like of that.

Only hope she appreciates it.

- Of course she will, Mrs. Bridges.

- If I may say so, miss, I admire your spirit.

You deserve to go to heaven and I'm sure you will.

Well, these little angels will pray

for the kind lady who bought them boots

every night of their lives.

- Go on, boys.

- And will, I have no doubt,

tell their friends that we sell the sturdiest

and yet the coziest boots this side of London.

That'll be four pounds, two shillings,

and 73 farthings, miss.

May God bless you for your kindness

to those poor children.

- But we have no money,

have we, Elizabeth?

- No.

-[Mr. Summers] I beg your pardon?

- Explain to our good friend why we do not

intend to pay.

- You had children's boots upon your shelves

you could not sell.

The children for their part could not buy them.

Now you have fewer boots to trouble you

and the children are properly shod.

Thus, little by little we proceed to the just society.

- Are you going to pay for those boots, miss,

or am I going to send for a policeman?

- No, I am not going to pay for them

and you are going to fetch a policeman to arrest me

so that I can make my protest in a court of law.

-[Mr. Summers] Police?

- What has happened to her?

- She knew tea was at half past four.

There's no point in lighting the candles till she gets in.

- Well, it's past five o'clock.

Is it necessary for Edward and Rose--

- No, wait downstairs, will you?

I'll ring as soon as Miss Elizabeth gets back.

- Yes, my lady.

- No, it really is too much,

that she's of age or not.

[phone ringing]

There.

If that's Elizabeth I shan't speak to her.

- Yes.

Yes, yes it is.

I see.

Where?

Where are you speaking from?

I see, yes, yes.

I'll come at once.

- What's happened?

- It seems our daughter has been detained by the police,

charged with stealing children's boots

from a shop in Paddington.

I'll be back as soon as possible.

- In other words, she passed her,

her test with flying colors.

- As far as it went, yes.

I waited outside the shop long enough

to see her marched off by a somewhat

confused young constable.

- Well, congratulations.

- I'm afraid her martyrdom ended abruptly

at the police station where the right, honorable member

for Hampstead on Lyme arrived in a handsome cab

and bought his daughter's freedom.

- Yes, which event you no doubt witnessed

from a safe distance with enormous relish.

[chuckles]

As much as a cruel child might witness

the torture of a kitten.

- Oh, what's cruel about allowing a silly,

little society girl the thrill of her first arrest?

She'll dine out in it for years.

- You're full of hate, aren't you, Evelyn?

You hate Elizabeth's class and mine

as profoundly as some people hate Roman Catholics

or cuff mixed.

- Or poverty.

Yes, yes, I do.

- Yes, well, you're not a very tolerant person, are you?

- I've had to fight life every inch of the way.

There's no room for tolerance in a world of privilege.

- Oh, you were born privileged with brains.

- Thank you.

- And with a generous body.

What more do you want?

- Your love.

- You have my love.

- But it isn't exclusive, is it?

- No.

No, it's not exclusive,

any more so than poetry is.

I'm an artist.

I communicate with the whole world.

I love where so ever my heart takes me.

- She's no good to you, Lawry.

She's everything you've been running away from.

Ever since you left Winchester and went up to Cambridge.

- She is young.

- Well she won't darn your socks or wash your shirts.

- She listens to me.

[laughing]

Oh, Evelyn, stop hating.

- Well, stop making me hate.

[door slamming]

-[Marjorie] Go upstairs, Elizabeth.

I want to speak to your father alone.

- I just wanted to say that I regard

what I've done as totally justified,

morally and politically.

- Stealing from shops, Elizabeth,

is not morally justifiable in any circumstances.

As for any political justification

for robbing a tradesman,

I'd remind you and your misguided friends

that a shopkeeper has as much right to his livelihood

as anyone else.

- There's no point in arguing with her, Marjorie.

I compensated the shopkeeper

and managed by the skin of my teeth

to convince the police superintendent that

Elizabeth was indulging in a childish prank,

a dare.

The man was extremely accommodating.

He knew who I was and the incident is closed.

- It was no childish prank, Mother, I can assure you.

There was a social and political point to be made

and I made it without fear of the consequences.

And if people aren't prepared to suffer

for their principles,

there's precious little hope for the world.

- Who says so?

Your friend Miss Larkin, I suppose.

- Yes, Miss Larkin, who's good and clever

and cares about humanity.

- She's a troublemaker, Elizabeth.

A bitter young woman out to destroy society

because she envies other people's advantages.

- Oh, that's what the Tories always say

about people who fight for a better society.

- She's ill-mannered, common,

her family bad influence.

The sooner you give up seeing her,

the better for all of us.

- I shall not give her up.

I need her now all the more.

I've proved myself to her.

I've proved that I too put the common good

above private wealth and privilege.

I'm part of it now.

I'm committed.

- You haven't thought this out, Elizabeth.

There are arguments on both sides.

Can't just talk about these things together quietly,

you and I?

- No, I'm sorry, Father, it's too late.

I've seen enough of the world to know how I feel.

- Oh.

- Oh, I know I'm letting you down.

I realize that you sit in the House of Commons

every day representing the old order of things,

the influence of private wealth and privilege,

the patronage of the many by the few.

And I know that as your daughter I ought to

agree with you blindly, but I can't.

I can't.

- Elizabeth, I will not sit here and listen

to any more of this nonsense.

I forbid you absolutely to see that Larkin woman

or any of her associates ever again.

You're to leave London immediately.

You'll travel to Southward by the first train

tomorrow where you'll remain under your

grandmother's care till you come to your senses.

- No, I refuse to give up Evelyn Larkin,

and I refuse to leave London.

You can't force me, Mother, I'm 21.

You can't force me.

- You will do as your mother says, Elizabeth.

-[Marjorie] Elizabeth, go upstairs and tell Rose to pack

your things for tomorrow.

- Oh.

- Elizabeth.

Where are you going?

Elizabeth!

[door slamming]

- Richard, we were right to speak our minds?

- Perfectly right, my dear.

Unfortunately she's come under stronger influences

that are neither yours or mine.

[bell chiming]

- What do you want?

-[Elizabeth] I've left home, Evelyn.

- Well that's a silly thing to do.

- But it was because of you.

- That's sillier still.

- Ah, may I come and stay?

I'll sleep on the floor anywhere.

- No, I'm sorry, you may not.

-[Elizabeth] Well, is Lawrence in?

I'd like to speak to him.

- No.

Now you run away and find your own lodgings.

You can afford it.

[door slamming]

[upbeat instrumental music]