Original subtitles

Coo-ee! Linda!

Madame! Monsieur.

If you insist on going back to the Gare du Nord,

let me drive you there at least.

I think you'll find it quicker than walking.

Linda!

Linda?

Shush!

It's a shame.

What's a shame? Hmm?

That you have to go before lunch.

My favourite brasserie is on the next street.

One may as well go for lunch if it's on the way, I suppose.

Ah! Ah!

Leave it. It was a terrible hat.

Shush!

Please stop screaming. You're embarrassing me!

Come here.

What's all that about? Ssh!

Now, madame, before I never see you again, tell me the story.

What story?

Mm-mm, who left you to cry on that little suitcase of yours?

I left him...

..my second husband, and I...

..I've left him forever because he's fallen in love with another woman.

My dear, what a curious reason for leaving your second husband.

Well, it was made so much worse by her being a welfare worker.

Why is that worse? Because she's such a good person.

Merci.

Surely with your experience of husbands, you must have noticed

falling in love with other people is one of the things they do, hmm?

Wives fall in love with other people too.

Oui.

How many husbands have you had?

Only two!

Combien? In England, I am considered a beauty!

Oui...

Linda was experiencing an overwhelming physical sensation

like nothing she'd known before.

I have certainly never seen anyone so lovely climbing down a drainpipe.

She asked herself how, after only five minutes of acquaintance,

she could yearn so desperately to be in bed with this man.

Ah, it would be impossible to be very unhappy here.

Come and see my apartment.

Oh, monsieur!

Eh?

Yes, well... I admit that I have made great mistakes

but I see no reason for sliding down the hill altogether.

Can you please just take me to the station?

Oui, bien sur, but I fear you have missed the last train for London.

Then, can... can you please take me back to the hotel

and I will catch the first London train tomorrow?

To the hotel? Oui.

Tres bien. Merci.

By all means.

She could see this man was certain of the outcome

and so was she.

Perfectly certain.

Do you want to dance?

No, I want to keep chatting and chatting and chatting.

Chatting? Oui.

I adore chatting. It's one of my favourite things to do.

Tell me a story.

I once read a story about two English ladies seeing

the ghost of Marie Antoinette sitting on a park bench.

No? Yes, they saw her.

A ghost story made up by some old, er, English virgins,

no, that's not interesting.

All right, thank you very much!

You tell me one then. Tres bien, and this is a true story.

Right.

My grandmother, she was very beautiful

and she had many lovers her whole life.

Just before she died, she was in Venice with my mother,

floating up some canal in a gondola,

when they saw an exquisite little palazzo of pink marble.

Mmm. An old servant showed them into a salon with three windows

looking over the canal, but my grandmother was strangely moved.

At last, she said,

"If in the third drawer of that bureau, there is a filigree box..."

Right.

"containing a small gold key, this house belongs to me."

Si, absolument. And there it was.

One of my grandmother's lovers had given it to her years before

and she had forgotten all about it.

Oh, what fascinating lives you foreigners do lead!

How badly your hair is done.

Oh!

You don't like my clothes? No.

Or my hair? No.

And you think I'm bad at stories.

Oh, oui. Oui, madame.

So it's a very good thing I'm going back to London tomorrow.

Oh, yes, I had forgotten.

What a pity.

Be My Husband by Nina Simone

She told herself again and again that tomorrow after this,

she WOULD go back to London.

But she had no intention of going back and she knew it.

Ah, thought I'd married a bolter after all.

Alfred, no, it's a terrible emergency!

Linda didn't come home and I haven't seen her in so long

and I was so mean to her when we argued and...

It wasn't actually anything about her, it was all about me, and

now something awful's happened to her and I might never see her again!

Oh, God! Doesn't she have a habit of falling on her feet?

No, we're best friends.

Alfred, she would have called me if she were all right.

Oh, poor Linda, she really is such an innocent.

Do you always laugh when you make love?

Don't most women? Ah, non, they do not.

More often they cry.

Hmm...

How extraordinary.

Don't they enjoy it?

While we're on the subject of your private life... Mmm.

..could one know your name? Haven't you discovered that?

Extraordinaire!

Well, my name is Fabrice Sauveterre.

I'm happy to tell you that I'm a very rich duke.

A most agreeable thing to be, even in these days.

And are you married?

Non. Why not?

My fiancee died.

Oh, how sad.

What was she like?

Very kind.

Kinder than me?

Much kinder. Mmm.

Very correct.

More correct than me?

You, madame, are not correct at all.

Hmm.

She was a very virtuous woman.

Do you mean to say you never went to bed with her? Never.

Never would have crossed my mind in a thousand years. Goodness!

In England, we always do.

Ah, my dear, the animal side of the English is well-known.

They are a drunken and incontinent race.

Well, they say it's foreigners who are all those things. Are they?

French women are the most virtuous in the world. Ah, non. Ah, si.

I must tell you that my mother and one of my aunts

and one of my sisters and my cousin are virtuous women,

so virtue is not unknown in my family.

And anyway, Fabrice, what about your grandmother and all those lovers?

Oh, yes, I admit, she was a great sinner!

But she was also a very great lady.

You can't be virtuous and a sinner, I'm afraid.

Alfred, everything's always one thing or the other with you!

You do? Where?

When? What time?

No, no, no, no, Alfred can stay with the baby.

No, he won't mind in the least.

Oh, dear God, David, do you think she's all right?

Tres chic.

Merveilleuse!

We take it all, allez.

You can't do that! Oui.

What would my mother say?

Oh, no, wait, it's perfect.

Even the swimming suit which you won't be able to wear,

of course, because the beaches will be battlegrounds, but we take it.

I prefer to sunbathe naked anyway.

Linda wondered if she was teetering on the edge

of being a kept woman...

..and decided she may as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb!

She was possessed by a calm and happy fatalism.

The whole world was waiting for the war to begin,

but this curious feeling did not disturb her in the least.

She moved into an apartment provided for her by Fabrice

and occupied the weeks since she met him shopping,

lying in the sun and waiting for him to come and visit her...

Madame, voulez un masque? Bonjour, ca va?

We'll soon be at war, madame.

Bonjour.

..which he did every evening at seven.

Well, you DO look pretty!

Oh! Goodness!

Merlin... Davy...

..Fanny!

God, Linda, darling, thank God you're still alive!

Well, of course I'm still alive.

I've never seen anyone more alive in my life.

Oh. Hello, darling. Hello.

Are you in disguise? Oh, the spectacles?

I've got to wear them when I go abroad.

I've got such kind eyes, you see, beggars and things cluster round,

annoy me.

You don't seem very pleased to see us.

How did you find out?

Do Ma and Fa know? No, no, they still think you're with Christian.

Oh, good.

You gave us a fright.

Another time, you might send a postcard.

So wonderfully old-fashioned, the parcels, the shopping, the flowers.

What an interest you are in one's life!

Davy, don't tease!

The flat is a terrible joke.

I bet she's got a glass bath.

Yes.

I wouldn't be surprised if she's got little goldfish

swimming along the sides of it. You've looked!

The way Frenchmen keep their mistresses

always follows such a stereotypical plan.

There are a couple of things that raise the level, though.

That Gauguin, a couple of Cezannes.

Bit chintzy but, you know...

I suppose your protector is very rich, is he? Yes, he is.

Then might one ask for a tiny cup of tea?

Well, come on then, enlighten us.

Who is this unimaginative Frenchman?

His name is Duc de Sauveterre.

Fabrice de Sauveterre?

Yes. You know him?

One forgets, under that look of great sophistication,

what a little provincial you really are.

Of course we know him and all about him.

And what's more, so does everyone else except you.

Fabrice de Sauveterre is undoubtedly one of the most

wicked men in Europe!

Ha!

Do you remember in Venice one used to see him out at work on that

gondola, one after another, bowling the ladies over like rabbits!

Fabrice de Sauveterre! Wow!

Please remember that you are drinking his tea at the moment.

I know my pancreas will pay for this,

but one's not in Paris every day.

I think Fabrice has been shot at more than any bachelor alive!

Oh, do shut up!

Come on, Mer, it's time the little lady got into her negligee.

Goodbye, Linda. We're off to meet our intellectual friends.

Do give our love to Fabrice.

I'll see you later, Fanny, dear.

Oh, darling!

Oh, no, gosh! Oh, no, I forgot to call and tell you I was all right!

I'm so sorry.

Darling, I haven't slept for days.

That's not important now.

Let's just get you safe and home and please, do not be scared.

Fanny, no, come and sit down, let me explain.

Um... I don't want to be rescued.

I...

Oh, Fanny, I have been forced to the conclusion that all Englishmen...

..are hopeless lovers.

Not at all. Alfred is wonderful.

Yes, of course.

Twice in my life I have mistaken something else for love.

It's like seeing somebody in the street you think is a friend

and you smile and wave and run after them, but it's not the friend...

It's not even very like them.

And then, a few minutes later, the real friend appears and...

What happened to saving the world, Linda?

Because I must say, you got very easily distracted.

I thought that you were renouncing men forever?

I know, but I've never felt anything like this before.

Yes, you have.

Linda, you might have called.

It's been heaven to see you, darling, but...

..Fabrice is going to be here any minute.

Could we chat all about it at lunch tomorrow?

Oh...

Yes, of course.

Darling, I'm sorry.

I love you, Fanny.

Merlin was just here with Fanny and Uncle Davey.

They say they know you.

Merlin, bien sur.

Oh...

Never let me go back to them!

But, my darling, you love them.

Fran, Fanny, Jassy, Matt.

You're Fa's little favourite.

Fa is exactly the reason why we all ran away.

He is so loathed abroad.

Matt and Jassy and I were all hellbent on going there,

and then, of course, it was enchanting

and full of people who don't look and think like us.

Full of you.

Please never let me leave you or Paris as long as I live.

The war is coming. You will have to soon.

Couldn't I stay?

You may stay here for a time, but when I ask you to leave, you must.

Even if you see no reason for doing so.

All right.

Bien.

Bien.

Bon. Where will you go?

Home to the English lord who loathes abroad?

No. No.

No, I shall go to my little house in Chelsea.

And wait for you.

Ah, oui?

It might be months or years.

I shall wait.

I shall wait.

Sorry.

Davey and Merlin stayed up too late.

I'm beginning to become aware of the cruel pangs of dyspepsia.

I'm suffering from an ordinary, straightforward hangover,

and so is Davey.

His eyes are not at all kind today.

Not for a few days. I returned from Biarritz.

You have seen Fabrice at all?

Well, I see him quite often in Madame de Sauveterre's.

And when does the beautiful Jacqueline return?

Oh, she's still in England.

She misses him dearly, but they talk every day on the phone.

Who would have thought Fabrice of all people would be so faithful?

I know!

My darling, thank goodness I came.

Now, tell me, where does he live?

Erm, with... with his mother somewhere.

I don't know.

Excuse me, sir. Madame. I'm looking for the Duke de Sauveterre's

mother's apartment. Can you help? This is most urgent. Absolument.

We'd better go in and find Davey and Merlin. Let's go.

What? No! Can we just forget that we ever heard this?

Don't be absurd. You have to break it off with this man.

But I've never been happier in my life.

We're all going to die soon anyway.

Poor Merlin has the wrong kind.

Wrong kind of what?

Pill to take when the Germans come.

He's got the sort you give to dogs.

You really should go to my doctor.

You take the white one first, then you take the black one.

I must say, Linda's finally fulfilled the promise of her youth.

Her reward for getting older is a magical, haunting sadness

of which she is unaware, but which speaks straight to the heart

and is the completion of her beauty.

She's living as a high class prostitute,

and damn the consequences.

Well, she's just his bit on the side. She's sunk so low.

She thinks she's happy now, but she's going to end up miserable.

One has to live in the world as it is,

because society really makes things beastly

for those who disobey the rules.

Fanny, you really are most dreadfully conventional.

We can't all experience the same sort of domestic bliss

that you and...

You and...

Alfred. Alfred.

..Alfred have achieved.

Some of us must protect bohemia, irreverence.

Good on her.

The baby missed you terribly.

What about you?

What do you mean?

You go to work. Sometimes he doesn't see you for days at a time.

Don't you worry he misses you when you go to work?

I work, yes, to provide for my family.

Oh, to provide for people.

To go off every day, read books, write about them,

and then talk to other clever people about them.

You're not making any sense.

I have to endure this endless drudgery of housekeeping,

then getting overlooked at your intellectual dinner parties.

The boring and repetitive conversation of small children,

their absolute incapacity to amuse themselves,

the sudden terrifying illnesses.

Your not infrequent bouts of moodiness,

your invariable complaints at meals about the pudding...

Where has all this come from? Are you happy? What do you mean?

Well, isn't that the point, to be happy?

To be in love and to be one's best self,

and then to be really marvellously happy?

Well, when I married you, this seemed to be the life you wanted.

Well, this life was the only option. What?

Happily married or unhappily married.

That's it, that's the choice if you're a woman.

Or I suppose you could be a bolter.

At least bolters get to see the world.

Are you losing your mind, Fanny? Yes!

Yes, Alfred. Yes.

Yes.

Joyeux anniversaire, madame.

Wow.

No!

Not a French bulldog!

Hello.

Plon-Plon.

Plon-Plon? Oui, Plon-Plon.

PHONE RINGS

Non, pour moi.

Pour moi.

My hat.

And my French bulldog.

Bien. The thing I feared would happen has happened.

We must move very quickly.

Linda did not fully understand that she was leaving

her happy life behind her forever.

None of us fully understood.

At least you won't have to suffer my complaints about the pudding.

Maybe the puddings will be better in France.

Linda had gone back to Cheney Walk to wait,

as she promised she would, for a sign of Fabrice.

Month after endless month she waited.

But no sign came.

I was very little in touch with Linda during that time.

I had wanted to call her often, but I hadn't quite known what to say.

Darling, I'm in agony waiting for a sign of him.

She finally asked me to come and see her.

She was desperate about Fabrice,

who hadn't called or written to her since Paris.

Franny, darling.

'Allo, 'allo.

I have been waiting for you so long.

How nice, then.

Can I come and see you now?

I have a taxi outside, I shall be with you in two minutes.

Oui.

Did you come to join General de Gaulle?

Oui.

I shall see him, of course.

But I came on a private mission.

I came to tell you I love you.

You...

You never said that to me in Paris.

I had said it so often in my life.

I never said it to you because...

..from the first moment...

..I knew this was as real as the others were false.

It was like recognising somebody.

Just...

I can't explain it, I'm sorry.

I suppose religious people sometimes feel like this.

Darling Linda, everything's going to be all right.

I promise.

I figured it all out on the train.

Obviously men are a bit useless.

They'll never understand us,

and they'll never think that they have to.

Luckily they're probably about to get shot or bombed or something.

And then you can come and live with me,

and we'll chat and we'll have baths,

and we'll be our best selves like we used to.

I am beginning to think this war's such a wonderful opportunity

for women like us. Bonjour, madame.

Ooh.

Finally, the brilliant Fanny I've heard so much about.

It's Fabrice.

Hello. My dear, tell me everything about your life.

Will you please be so good as to start with the Hans Cupboard?

Hons' Cupboard. Hons' Cupboard.

S'il vous plait.

He's wonderful!

Isn't he?

Wonderful.

And he loves to chat!

He actually listens.

And he doesn't bore on about making money or politics.

In books, girls like you will always end up dead, Linda.

I was so worried.

Hello.

But you're not Madame Bovary or Anna Karenina. No.

Life isn't books.

In fact, you are the most incredibly alive person I've ever met.

Oh, well, you know, Fanny, I mean...

..someone should write a book about me.

And give it the most tremendously happy ending.

That's a good idea.

Rue St Vincent by Yves Montand

You shouldn't have.

I love Paris.

Are you all right? Should we get out?

I think it's a siren.

Oh, no. No!

Bloody Germans.

The cloud of war that seemed so little at first grew and grew

until it became a thick grey blanket smothering the horizon.

That funny face you make when you tie your tie.

Do you think we shall ever live together again?

Of course we shall.

For years and years, until I'm 90.

I have a very faithful nature.

But you weren't very faithful to Jacqueline.

You know about her?

Mm-hm.

She was lovely.

I was immensely faithful to her, and it lasted five years.

It always does with me, but...

..as I love you ten times more than the others,

that will bring me to 90,

and by then, mon Dieu, it will have become such a habit.

And when shall I see you again?

I'll be back and forth.

I thought I heard a car.

Oui.

I must go.

Madame.

Au revoir.

The bad news got worse.

The cloud was now a great horror of steel

rolling over France towards England.

We all took refuge at Alconleigh without Linda,

who hadn't been back there for two years now,

and whose return was much longed for.

The more the merrier. It is so lovely...

Prepared for the invasion? Ready to slay some Huns?

..Louisa's children. It's like the old days.

The bombs were dropping thick and fast on London now.

And Sadie begged me to try to fetch Linda, who was worrying us all

by refusing to leave Cheney Walk,

even for a breath of air, in case Fabrice called again.

Gosh. Hello, Moira.

Goodness, you've grown up.

She's in the bathroom being sick.

Oh, dear.

What's the puppy's name?

Plon-Plon, I think.

Is that French?

Daddy says the French are terrible.

I expect he does.

Moira's going to America this afternoon.

She's come to say goodbye.

I am her mother after all.

Daddy says we ought to fight with the Germans, not against them.

Hm. Daddy doesn't seem to be fighting very much with anybody,

or against anybody, or at all, as far as I can see.

Can you just stop playing with the puppy for a minute

and just listen carefully to what I'm saying?

I want you to know...

..that I don't approve of you running away like this from England,

just as soon as it's in trouble.

I think it most dreadfully wrong.

I have to do as I'm told, don't I?

But you'd much rather stay, wouldn't you?

Oh, I don't think so. There are air raids.

I'm in such a temper.

What do your children think of air raids, Fanny?

I have to say, they simply long for them.

Oh, that's a relief.

I thought perhaps it was the whole generation.

Of course, it's not Moira's fault entirely.

Pixie and Tony are frightened to death. They're using her to escape.

You're only allowed on those boats to America

if you've got a child in tow, you know?

Fabrice bought this for me.

I was going to give it to Moira.

Oh, but I can't bear to waste anything so pretty

on the little coward.

I think I'll give her that dreadful sports wristwatch

I got when I married Tony instead.

Why are you always so beastly to Moira?

Oh.

This baby won't be in the least like Moira.

You'll see.

I thought you weren't supposed to have another one.

Doctors, what do they know? Of course I can.

I'm simply longing for it.

Oh, God.

This is ridiculous.

Sadie and Matthew want you home, Linda.

Come back to Alconleigh. You're ill.

No.

I'm having another one, too, and so is Louisa.

Oh, I do call that nice.

They can be Hons together.

He knows to find me here.

You'll be killed, Linda!

And then he won't know where to find you!

Or do you want to actually die for love?

Maybe you think that's romantic or something.

There are seven million people in London, Fanny.

Do you really imagine they're all killed every night?

Fetch me a glass of water, please.

Can you just open the door, Linda?

Not if you're going to try and make me leave.

Why have I spent my whole life worrying about you?

You are so incredibly selfish!

I do know I've been beastly to Moira.

I think it was always in the back of my mind

that I'd have to leave Tony sooner or later.

I didn't want to get too fond of Moira.

Or make her too fond of me.

She might become an anchor.

And I didn't dare let myself get anchored to the Kroesigs.

Fanny...

..sometimes I don't think we're born women at all.

It's like...

..your wings get clipped.

And then everyone's so surprised when you don't know how to fly.

Fanny.

So I went back to Alconleigh alone

to wait out the months in the freezing countryside.

It was a time made infinitely more difficult

by the surprise arrival of my mother.

It was with incredible adventures that we escaped the Riviera.

Thank God for Juan here,

my ruffian Spaniard,

without whom I'd never have got out

of that ghastly prison camp in Spain.

He's morose but ravishing, don't you think?

He's sitting right next to you. Don't worry about that, darling,

he doesn't understand a word of English.

Oh, that's good. Because I must tell you, Bolter,

I can't have a lot of Dagos staying in the house.

You can stay as long as you like, of course,

but I really do draw the line at...

..Juan.

Can't turn him out to starve, darling.

One must have human feeling.

Not towards Dagos.

You sure he can't understand us?

He looks very unhappy.

Oh, quite sure. And I speak no Spanish.

We are incapable of verbal exchange.

Why are you with him, then? Because we're engaged.

I thought you were still married to the Major?

Do you know, I honestly can't remember.

FANNY CHOKES

You all right, darling?

I just don't really approve of people getting engaged

when they're married. No, I know.

It's always good to line yourself up with the next one

before you've got rid of the one before, don't you think?

That's more Linda's philosophy.

Is he all right?

The food, Sadie, it's the food. The food is poisonous.

That's very rude, given you've only just arrived.

Somebody had to say it.

I know it's the war, Sadie, but I was sick for hours last night.

The day before, Emily had frightful diarrhoea.

Fanny has that great big spot on her nose.

Bolter's entirely right, we're all being poisoned.

Bolter, please be more ration conscious!

Darling, I'm going up to London next week to get my wiggy washed

and I'll bring back a big huge slab of it, I swear.

Don't pity me, Fanny.

I've had five months of perfect, unalloyed happiness.

Very few people can say that in the course of long lives, I imagine.

At ease. At ease.

I reckon we'll be able to hold the Germans off for two hours,

possibly three, before we're all killed.

Not bad for such a little squad.

You look like a miller.

Why are you all covered in... dust?

Did you get bombed?

Yes, I did, Fa.

And it's done me no end of good.

Davey went into the business room with Juan

and the Spanish dictionary, and our whole lives have changed forever.

It turns out he was the cook for some cardinal

before the civil war. And he's been out in the woods

with a catapult, pickling and preserving.

And already the store cupboard is Aladdin's cave.

If I were the Bolter, I should definitely marry him.

Well, knowing the Bolter, I've no doubt she will.

You can talk.

At least Linda's doing her bit for the war in Paris.

All you ever do is comfort crying children, Fanny.

Did you get those lovely furs

when you were doing your bit in Paris, Linda?

Isn't it wonderful what you can get there on no money if you're clever?

What sort of war work was it again, Linda?

She was providing comforts for the French army.

Sometimes all night long.

Oh, that's exhausting.

Do stop it!

Oh, poor thing. You can see she misses Christian terribly.

Where is he now? Cairo?

It does seem unfair.

Linda has this glorious time in Paris

and comes back with all these furs.

What do you and I get for sticking our whole lives

with the same dreary old husbands?

Three-quarter length shorn lamb.

Don't be mean about husbands.

Feeling awfully guilty about mine.

Who's going to look after that baby, Fanny?

It's obvious you and I will have to do it.

She'll forget about it the moment it's born.

Psst!

Darling.

Darling, Fanny.

Psst.

What are you doing?

Hiding.

Of course, wild horses wouldn't make me tell Sadie about Linda

and Sauveterre, but I do think when we're all together

Linda might be a tiny bit jolly and I'll keep running off.

We could be great friends, she and I.

Well, there is a selfishness to her.

I sometimes think I was made for another planet altogether

and mistook the way.

Linda and I are greedy, of course, darling,

but it is rotten to find yourself involved with a fellow for life

just because he was the one you met when you were 19.

Yes, but if you have a child with that fellow,

don't you have a certain responsibility to that child?

You can't bolt and keep hold of the child.

Well, then, shouldn't you stay?

Oh, darling Fanny.

Please don't never be greedy.

Don't think you have to be good all the time.

Sometimes being good kills you

just as painfully as being bad can.

Oh, my goodness, they found me! You found me!

You got me! Ow!

We saw you from over there. No, you didn't.

Yeah. I was hiding perfectly.

Oh, my goodness...

Oh, darling.

This letter came from Fabrice, I think. I...

I've been looking and looking, and I can't decipher a single word.

Isn't it torture?

Never mind.

Oh.

One day the telephone bell will ring...

..and he'll be there.

I'm certain of it.

Why does your mother keep winking at me?

And saying things like,

"Let's face it, dear, we're just a couple of fallen women"?

I'm sorry, Fanny, but I can't bear her.

Well, yes, but of everybody, doesn't she seem happiest, though?

Maybe it's not all that terrible to be a bolter in the end.

No, but, Fanny, she's ghastly and ridiculous.

And I'm not a bolter!

No, of course not.

In fact, I've always thought of you as an innocent.

Really?

Mm.

Thank you.

And I've always thought of you as the most daring.

Yes.

Yes, yes.

Because I... I always ran away, and you didn't.

It was the bravest thing in the world to stay put.

And...

..I am lost without you.

I really am.

Fanny, it's... it's not here that's home.

It's always been you.

Oh, and I need to go and be sick.

I'm sorry, darling. I love sitting here chatting with you.

Promise to still be here when I get back!

Oh.

Alfred.

What are you doing here?

I had a day's leave and I've come to see my wife.

Well, I was told I would find her in a cupboard.

Yes.

Here I am.

I'll get out, it's... No.

I'll join you.

What's this?

Oh. It's a diary I used to keep when I was young.

May I?

You spent the whole time ogling Linda?

Do you wish you were Linda?

Because I for one am very pleased you're not.

You see, that's just not helpful.

I have this great need to be thought of as sympathetic and pleasing.

I'm also this selfish person with selfish thoughts and... desires.

Are you saying you want to have an affair?

I know I can be preoccupied. Truth is, I...

..sometimes feel I have to work very hard to prove my value...

No, I don't want to have an affair. I want to have...

Be a good wife to you, and a good mother, and a good friend.

It's just hard when you feel all twisted up, and jealous,

and scared, and resentful all the time.

Because I know that I'm a shy person,

but I've got this lion inside of me.

Do you understand?

I'm trying very hard to.

God, I don't know.

I'm so very pleased that you're not dead.

Sorry.

Ooh.

Alfred, you're so...

Oh.

Alfred, you couldn't do that before.

Alfred, your glasses are steamed up. Doesn't matter.

All this tweed.

Spring came with extraordinary beauty,

and we waited impatiently for our babies to be born.

The days and hours dragged by again, like they used to

when we were young girls waiting for our lives to begin.

What's the time, darling?

Guess.

Half past twelve.

Better than that. It's quarter to one.

Do you think if Fa had allowed us to go to school, be clever

and accomplished like Fanny, we'd have been quite

so desperate to escape his clutches?

No. As it is, we're all good for exactly nothing.

And if I hadn't run far away...

..I'd have never met Fabrice,

had my happy ending.

You should be the one to write the love story, Fanny.

The one with the happy ending.

And it'll sell millions of copies, and I'll get filthy rich.

And Alfred will have to suffer the indignity

of me paying for him in restaurants.

If anything should happen to me,

you will look after Plon-Plon, won't you?

Such a comfort to me all this time.

But she spoke idly,

as one who knows she will live forever.

Louisa's baby, her sixth child, was born in May, and we envied her

from the bottom of our hearts for having got it over with.

I have an announcement to make

regarding how we are to respond to the imminent German invasion.

In the...

..inevitable event of my death,

there is one very, very important job to be done.

Davey, I would like you to blow up Juan's store cupboard, Aladdin.

What?

Now, I would ask Juan to do it himself,

but the fact is, though I rather like old Juan now,

once a foreigner, always a foreigner.

Are you seriously asking me to blow up Aladdin?

Matthew, you must be mad.

We can't reward the Germans by feeding them from Aladdin!

Well, in my opinion, and speaking on behalf of my absent siblings,

happiness only begins the day one leaves this icy dark well

of a country and steps foot on foreign soil,

and foreigners are to be adored.

However, in this instance, Fa is right.

We must stop at nothing to defeat the Germans.

Fa...

..show me how to blow up Aladdin.

That's my girl, Linda. That's my girl!

And when you've blown up Aladdin,

I want you to take down the entrenching tool.

Like this, I'll show you.

You'll be well looked after, Linda. Pregnant women always are.

I'll never be able to make them understand about my insides.

I know Germans.

Will you stop talking about your insides for once, Davey?

I've wanted to use this for years. I must say, mine are feeling

frightfully peculiar all of a sudden. Mine too.

Juan's poisoned us!

I always knew he would, all along. He's turned against us.

Don't touch the food, he's poisoned the lot of us.

Don't ruin my knickers!

Funny, I remember feeling just like that every time the babies came.

THEY LAUGH

On the 28th of May, both our babies were born.

Both boys.

The doctors who said that Linda ought never to have another child

were not such idiots after all.

It killed her.

She died, I think, completely happy

and without having suffered very much.

But for us at Alconleigh, for her father and mother,

brothers and sisters, for Davey and for Lord Merlin,

a light went out.

A great deal of joy that could never be replaced.

At the same time as Linda's death,

Fabrice was caught by the Gestapo and subsequently shot.

He was a hero of the Resistance,

and his name has become a legend in France.

I have adopted little Fabrice with the consent of Christian,

his legal father.

His eyes are the same as Linda's, and he's a most beautiful

and enchanting child.

I love him quite as much and perhaps more than I do my own.

Have you any interest in seeing a witch?

I've brought one in my bag, all the way from London.

Witchy-witchy-woo.

Witchy-witchy-woo.

Don't look scared at all.

You don't have to stand here and humour me.

Beautiful child.

Poor Linda.

Poor little thing.

It's desperately sad.

But, Fanny, darling, don't you think it's just as well?

The lives of women like Linda and me aren't so much fun

when one begins to get older.

Well, let's hope that in years to come, these boys' granddaughters

can be more than just a bolter or a sticker, or a Linda or a Fanny,

and decide who they are irrespective of who they marry.

I do think that Linda would've been happy with Fabrice.

He was the love of her life, you know.

Darling, one always thinks that.

Every, every time.

Well, one does.