Original subtitles

-We're off to Long Reach tomorrow.

-What's in Long Reach?

-Mr. Benham's brother, Lord Percy.

-Baby brother, where the devil have you been hiding, hmm?

-Meg is carrying on with the girl right under your nose.

-You stole my trust by taking what is mine.

-Madame!

But the trouble wit' you,

you couldn't leave the people dem alone.

Why am I here?

Olaudah was a friend to me once.

-I don't know what happened.

I was sleeping.

-Double murder is a hanging offence, Miss Langton.

-How can I be sure I didn't do it?

♪♪

[ Door closes ]

[ Door closes ]

[ Footsteps approach ]

[ Keys jangle ]

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

-Every English trial is a story of a crime,

not a person.

[ Indistinct shouting ]

-Murderess!

-By the time they've finished with you,

they could almost make you hate your own self.

♪♪

And mine...

-I will have silence in this court!

-...was no different.

♪♪

-Frances Langton is indicted of the willful murder

of George Benham and Marguerite Benham.

In that on the 17th day of February

in the year of our Lord 1826,

she did strike and stab them until they were dead.

Mr. Jessop to conduct the prosecution.

-And may it please your lordship.

Gentlemen, I appear for the Crown

and my learnt friend Mr. -- er...

Pettigrew appears for the accused.

The Crown's case could not be simpler.

On the evening of the 17th,

Mr. and Mrs. Benham were stabbed to death.

He in his library, she in her own bedchamber.

This woman, the prisoner at bar, stands accused of those crimes.

The medical evidence will show that the victims succumbed

to stab wounds to the chest and throat

and that Mrs. Benham was with child.

[ Court gasps ]

The fetus was recovered from beneath the prisoner's bed.

Stored in an apothecary jar.

Together with this...

It has been identified as the weapon used

to commit those crimes.

-I never touched that knife! -Prisoner at the bar!

-I told him, someone must have put it there!

-Prisoner at the bar, I will have silence.

Mr. Jessop, you may proceed.

-Thank you, my lord.

You will hear from guests in attendance

at the Benhams' soiree that earlier that night,

she confronted them in their own drawing room

and threatened them with death.

[ Court gasps ]

You will also hear that she was turned out for thieving

and that she took to prostitution.

And that when she returned

to the Benhams' household last week,

she had revenge in mind.

You will also hear that when she was apprehended,

she was found beside...

-They looked at me and saw only anger.

God forbid they saw the truth.

-Sit down, both of you.

Have you asked her?

-Not yet.

-Then ask her now.

-Mr. Benham's man of affairs has located a house in Cornwall,

somewhere discreet...

and arranged an annuity for you.

After the child is born,

Mr. Benham and I will go back to London...

and you will stay there.

-You're asking what?

-You'll take the child and raise it.

-And do what with it?

-Whatever you want.

It will have nothing to do with us.

-[ Sobbing ]

-This is why you sent for me?

-I'm sorry. I thought that you...

-You thought I would do anything for you?

-In the meantime, so far as the gossips are concerned,

everything in this household will continue as usual.

Tomorrow, I will host our soiree as planned.

I expect you to play the glittering wife.

Give them marvellous Meg.

♪♪

-You never saw Meg anywhere without that girl in tow.

There was something rather obsessive about it.

-Thank you, Miss Elliot.

No further questions, my lord.

-Are you suggesting that there was something sinister

in the behaviour of a dutiful Abigail

towards her mistress, Miss Elliot?

-I'm merely telling the jurors what I observed.

-But you would agree that it formed part

of my client's duties to serve as companion to Mrs. Benham?

-Yes.

-How would you describe your own feelings towards Mrs. Benham?

-We were fond of each other.

-Is it fair to say that she could be mean at times?

Selfish?

-I refuse to slander a friend.

-If your answer would be slander, Miss Elliot,

that is the answer.

She did not afford you the same courtesy.

I have here an extract of a manuscript

she was working on late last year.

"Hep is far from handsome, but she does have handsome thoughts.

We both wanted to live as men. Now she proves an irritant.

She calls it selfishness that I am not prepared to be

consumed by her, by her affections."

-I shouldn't be surprised.

Meg "the magpie", I called her.

Behind her back, naturally.

She was always collecting things.

Collecting people.

You think it was different...

for you?

-Miss Elliot, please direct your answers towards me or the jury.

-Don't fool yourself that you were the only one,

or that she felt an ounce of real love for you.

It was lust.

[ Court gasps ]

Lust!

She never cared that she hurt people and then just left us.

She left us!

♪♪

She was a bitch!

-Miss Elliot!

I'm going to stop you there,

to prevent you from slandering a dead woman,

even if you insist on slandering yourself.

-She and I might have been equal in our devotion,

but we were equal in our anger, too.

-Now you both want me to wash away your sins?

-Frances, I am so sorry.

I am so sorry.

He said he would divorce me, leave me with nothing.

If I was to have a Black child, in the wake of a divorce,

I would be on the streets.

I have to do what he wants.

A Black child.

I would be finished, and you know it.

I must give up the child...

...and then I must give you up.

♪♪

-We wish to call Dr. Wilkes, my lord.

-Call Dr. Wilkes.

-They had each sustained deep gashes

to the upper and middle chest.

The constable delivered a butchering knife

to the hospital,

which he said had been discovered

beneath the prisoner's bed.

I matched the blade directly to the victims' wounds.

-And did you notice anything else?

-Nothing unusual.

Except Mrs. Benham had recently been with child.

There were very clear signs,

enlargement of the uterus, general flaccidity,

oedema of the bladder.

It couldn't have been born alive.

But that's not to say it couldn't also have fallen victim

to whatever caused its mother's death.

By God's hand, or a savage one.

-Gentlemen, she killed her

and then carved the unborn child from her womb.

-She miscarried.

-Prisoner at the bar, I will have silence!

Mr. Pettigrew,

I hope you've been able to assure yourself

that your client's capable of understanding

the nature of these proceedings and following

along like a civilised person.

[ Door closes ]

[ Liquid pours ]

♪♪

-Where is it?

♪♪

-I took it upstairs.

-What will you do with it?

Will you keep it?

[ Sobbing ]

My husband always said it was my fault there were no children.

♪♪

♪♪

-She had brought it on herself.

But like so many things, we just didn't speak about it.

♪♪

-Jane.

Come.

Martha!

Come!

-What is it, Sal? Is it Fran?

-You're not gon' believe it.

That man was there today, testifying against her.

Wilkes. -Wilkes?

-Something not right.

No way Wilkes can just pop up

out of nowhere to point fingers against Frannie.

Unh-uh.

That don't make no sense.

-What can we do?

-Find Farley.

Make him stay put.

Them lawyers of hers too hard-ears

to do them job right, but we goin' make them listen.

-Now, my lord, we wish to call Eustacia Linux.

Mrs. Linux, you were housekeeper for Mr. George Benham?

-For seven years.

And for Sir Percy before him.

-Let me take you back to that evening.

Can you tell us what happened?

-She came downstairs to the parlour, went right up

to Mrs. Benham and said she was going to kill her.

-That's not true!

-She said, "This means death."

[ Crowd murmurs ]

-After we had finished tidying up downstairs,

I went up to his library

to discuss what was to be done with her, to...

And that's when I found him...

My poor master.

[ Sobbing ]

-One last thing, Mrs. Linux.

Do you recognise this knife?

-It is my butchering knife.

-When did you last see it?

-While we were tidying up that night.

I locked it away in the cupboard.

-Did the prisoner have access to the kitchen?

-Yes.

-Thank you.

-According to your testimony, you went straight

from your master's dead body to your mistress's bedchamber?

I'm waiting for your answer, Mrs. Linux.

-Well, I'm waiting for your question.

[ Laughter ]

-You did not send for the constable

after discovering Mr. Benham.

Your own evidence puts you in both places

where crimes were committed that night

before anyone had discovered them.

I put it to you, that in order to cover your own tracks,

it suits you to implicate my client.

-That is utterly ridiculous!

-You'd been quarrelling with your master in recent months,

hadn't you?

You were angry about the fact

that he'd allowed the prisoner to live in the house.

-We knew nothing about her.

Only that she came from a savage place.

-And you argued with your mistress, too.

You complained often about having to serve

a "damned French woman".

-Has she told you all this?

-You have admitted here that the murder weapon belonged to you.

You were angry with the Benhams.

And that very night, you announced you'd prefer death

to enduring it a minute longer...

-My lord!

-You had every opportunity to kill them,

moving unobserved about the house...

-That's quite enough, Mr. Pettigrew.

-I did nothing that night, except what I have always done.

Nor was I the one threatened to kill them

who was covered in blood.

-Blood that could have transferred onto my client

as she lay there sleeping.

-Her own mistress massacred right next to her,

and yet she never woke?

-No further questions, my lord.

-This is what made it so difficult

to be sure I hadn't done it.

I still couldn't make sense of it, even then.

-We'll adjourn until, uh...

two o'clock.

-All rise.

-Pettigrew.

Pettigrew!

-Yes? -We need to talk.

♪♪

♪♪

-I just...

I don't see how Frances...

The prisoner, sir.

I-I don't see how she could have done this thing.

You call her a savage,

but that's not what I knew of her, not at all.

Maybe we're just not used to seeing blacks here.

I'd never met one before, but it turned out

she had two thumbs like the rest of us.

She wasn't used to some of the ways of an English house

and she always felt the cold...

-Thank you, Miss Rattray.

-...but once she started waiting on Madame, her spirits improved.

They were so fond of each other that I just don't see

how Frances could have done this thing.

-Thank you, Miss Rattray.

I won't trouble you further.

-No questions, my lord.

♪♪

-These somnambulistic states, trances,

I suppose a layperson would call them,

involve the consciousness and unconsciousness

to the same degree and at the same time.

The person affected can still have the will to act,

but the moral nature is entirely wanting,

because they've lost the regulating power

of their own mind.

-In other words, they're not responsible for their actions?

-Quite!

It's a kind of insanity.

-Could the same state be produced

by an excessive amount of opium?

-Yes, indeed.

We are, of course, talking not about a sleeping state

but a soporific one.

-Please stop crying. You're free now.

Isn't that what you wanted?

-You are being cruel. -I am being honest.

But you have no idea what honesty looks like.

You'll have no more use for me now.

Come with me. Please.

-Oh, Frances.

Frances, wake up!

How many times?

What do you think the two of us would do?

Live happily in a little cottage by the sea?

-I believe, from what you've told me,

that this might be what affected your client

on the night in question.

[ Door creaks ]

-Thank you, Dr. Lushing.

-My lord, you are suggesting

that the prisoner took herself upstairs,

killed her master, then --

[claps hands] presto --

killed her mistress, all in this alleged trance.

-It is a form of derangement.

-Well, there we agree.

It would be the first in my experience,

and in English law,

if a woman could simply get away with murder

by claiming she didn't remember committing it.

No further questions, my lord.

-Mr. Pettigrew?

-My lord, I have an urgent application.

There have been some new developments

over the luncheon adjournment.

New evidence brought to my attention.

We wish to recall Dr. Wilkes.

-I hope this isn't an attempt to time waste.

This trial is already taking up too much time.

Very well.

We will adjourn.

-All rise!

-We've had some good news, thanks to your friend.

It seems we can mount an attack on Wilkes.

-Meaning what?

-Dr. Wilkes, when you testified this morning,

you said you examined Mrs. Benham's stomach contents.

-As I said, I found nothing of any note.

Only the remains of the food Mrs. Benham had eaten.

-Nothing else?

-No.

-In other words, you found what you were looking for.

-I beg your pardon?

-What did you know about Mrs. Benham

before you cut her open, Dr. Wilkes?

Did you know how often she indulged in laudanum,

for example?

Dr. Wilkes?

-I had been told she had a prescription

from the family physician.

-Did you test for it?

-There would have been no point.

It would have been entirely consistent

with her medical history.

-I suppose what I'm wondering, Dr. Wilkes,

is how you would know

that the quantities present were consistent

with Mrs. Benham's medical history

if you did not test?

-My lord!

My lord, I have tolerated a great deal

during the course of these proceedings,

but I cannot, I cannot sit idly by

while my sister-in-law continues to be slandered!

Her private affairs, my brother's private affairs,

picked over by vultures in this courtroom.

Is there no concern for the dignity of the deceased?

-You may rest assured I would allow no such thing,

Lord Benham.

You may wish to resume your seat.

-Dr. Wilkes, I put it to you

that you deliberately overlooked the presence of opium

in Mrs. Benham's stomach contents.

-Mr. Pettigrew,

you've had quite some time on this path now.

I suggest that you set yourself on another.

-My lord, I believe I'm entitled to cross-examine this witness.

-You cross-examined this witness this morning.

Now you seem to be digging old ground.

-My lord, I assure you, this is new ground entirely.

A witness has come forward.

Dr. Farley.

He was Dr. Wilkes's former assistant at St Thomas's.

It was Dr. Farley who performed both autopsies, not Dr. Wilkes!

-Absurd!

-Have you called this Dr. Farley?

-My solicitor informs me

that it has not been possible to locate him.

He had assured us that he would attend court.

I suspect he's understandably concerned

about what might happen to him.

According to my instructions, his employment was terminated

at the behest of Lord Percival Benham.

-Mr. Pettigrew...

-No doubt in an attempt to discredit him.

-Mr. Pettigrew --

-To silence him, and it seems to have worked.

-I am warning you not to stray into contempt of this court.

If you cannot produce this doctor,

then nothing he might have said may be relied upon,

nor can you expect to cross-examine

Dr. Wilkes about it.

-I must be able to cross-examine about these matters.

-You well know, you may not.

-It is a matter of grave importance.

Dr. Farley concluded that

Mrs. Benham died by opium poisoning, not by stabbing!

-My lord!

-Given her habits, any overdose would have been

most likely self-administered.

In fact, this would not have been the first time.

-Madame.

-There were no knife wounds found on her body.

None. Look!

His clothes are soaked, yet hers stained in a manner consistent

with a woman who had just lost a child.

-Mr. Pettigrew, this is your last warning.

Dr. Wilkes, you do not have to answer any further questions.

-Dr. Wilkes, I put it to you that you conspired

with Lord Percival Benham to ensure that word

of Mrs. Benham's overdose would never become public.

-My lord, this is pandemonium!

-She was not stabbed.

-That you altered notes made by your junior doctor,

who performed the autopsy.

-Mr. Pettigrew, that is enough!

Silence in court!

-I didn't do it.

-Mr. Pettigrew,

your behaviour disgraces the bar.

Dr. Wilkes, you are discharged.

You were, in fact, discharged several moments ago.

Gentlemen, please disregard

everything that you've just heard.

This is my fault entirely.

I have allowed matters to get beyond me.

We will, um...

adjourn until, uh, tomorrow morning.

-My lord! -All rise!

♪♪

[ Handcuffs click ]

[ Door opens ]

-I will never understand these people.

-It's true?

-It was the laudanum that kill her.

No doubt about it.

Wilkes never even went anywhere near the bodies,

him only pretended afterwards.

-But how did you find out?

-Remember when me tell you about the doctor that got paid off

when Benham cripple the girl?

Well, it was Wilkes.

Me knew something not smell right when me see him.

And Farley was his assistant back then also.

Me found him in his cups.

There's a pub right there where the pair of them always went.

Some of the women knew because they been keeping an eye on them

ever since what happened.

Farley told me Lord Percy got to Wilkes,

paid him to lie against you.

Said there not goin' be a suicide in him family tree.

-She killed herself.

-Farley still too coward to come forward.

But at least this time, him tell the trut'.

-I don't know what to say.

You did this, Sal.

-It might not make no difference.

After all that.

She lose her baby, them say you do it.

She kill herself, them say you do it.

When it goin' stop?

[ Indistinct whispering ]

♪♪

-Mr. Jessop, you may call you next witness.

-My lord, we wish to call Dr. Pears.

He was the family physician to the Benhams for many years.

He will testify...

♪♪

♪♪

-You never stop thinking about yourself, do you?

You still won't take responsibility...

for anything.

♪♪

♪♪

-[ Breathing shakily ]

-Gentlemen, I instruct you to disregard everything

that you have heard

regarding the cause of death of either Mr. or Mrs. Benham,

except Dr. Wilkes' evidence in chief,

given yesterday morning.

My lord!

-I direct that no further reports

be made of any of the evidence,

in respect of which I have now directed an embargo.

Prisoner at the bar, this is your chance

to address the jurors in your own defence.

Your barrister cannot speak for you.

Do you understand?

You must tell the jurors, in your own words,

whatever it is you have to say for yourself.

-But I didn't do it.

[ Court murmurs ]

I could think of nothing to say that any of them would believe.

So...

I told the truth.

I loved her.

[ Court murmurs ]

If I am guilty of anything,

I am guilty of that.

I was a woman who loved a woman.

Chief among all of the womanly sins.

Like barrenness...

and thinking.

You bring people here.

You try them.

You make them beg.

Tell them what they can and can't say.

In the whole sum of human history,

by what order have you white men been wrong

more than you've been right?

You will never try yourselves.

You will never take responsibility.

You build statues for men who build themselves

on the backs of other men.

You celebrate yourselves,

the way you celebrate George Benham.

You think he was a good man.

A great one.

Your finest mind.

No man who owns slaves can be good.

-That is enough.

-My lord, I find this all rather edifying.

Perhaps the prisoner should be allowed to conclude?

-Very well.

-According to all of you,

John Langton is a monster in plain sight.

But what was the difference between him and George Benham?

♪♪

♪♪

-Prisoner at the bar, what are you looking at?

♪♪

-I thought I was lucky.

You told me it wasn't luck.

Remember?

You told me.

You were right.

I wish I had never set foot inside that place.

All I wanted was just to have the pages

of a book beneath my fingers.

Fresh air.

Early mornings.

A mirror.

I told myself I didn't have any choice.

-Prisoner at the bar,

I should warn you not to waste this court's time.

-I'll tell them the truth about what happened there.

And what I helped them with.

♪♪

John Langton wanted to prove that the African

is not a member of the human species

by doing experiments on the people he owned...

-Don't bring me into this!

[ Gavel bangs ] -Mr. Langton, silence.

-Cadavers, at first.

But then surgeries...

with no ether.

It was George Benham who told him where to look,

who to buy, who wanted all of it done in the first place.

[ Indistinct whispering ]

John Langton bought a boy and his mother last year.

Even after the trade had been abolished,

he bought them illegally...

...and George Benham financed it.

He wanted to conduct a study of an albino...

[ Gavel bangs ]

...and Langton had found him one.

There was a woman there at Paradise.

My mother.

She tried to save him.

I had been left to watch the boy,

she came to get him...

but I didn't know what Langton would do.

I was afraid.

We fought so long that by the time she did manage

to get him away from me...

...it was too late.

If you gave me the choice of one moment to undo, to take back...

it would be the day I let you down.

I was a coward, and because of that, because of me...

♪♪

-[ Exhales sharply ]

-Prisoner at the bar.

Have you finished?

-[ Sniffles ]

John Langton murdered her for it.

My mother.

He murdered her!

-How can I sit here while you let her slander me?!

[ Gavel bangs ] -Enough!

-I knew had to spring myself from his trap.

I saved that boy.

I burnt it all down.

Every blade of grass, every plank of wood

on his damn estate!

-You bitch! You ruined me, you bitch!

You'll hang! You'll hang!

[ Gavel bangs ] -Please, take him away.

-You bitch!

You --

♪♪

-Mr. Jessop, your cross.

-My lord.

I did not hear a denial from you in that whole unedifying speech.

-I am denying it now.

Then I assume your sleepwalking defence is now withdrawn.

-He might have been saying that.

I am not. -I see.

By your own admission, a moment ago,

you have done monstrous things.

I say you are the monster who murdered George Benham.

The monster who murdered his wife.

-No.

-I suppose you would have murdered John Langton, too,

given half the chance.

-Someone should.

[ Court murmurs ]

-Which is exactly what you thought about

George Benham, too, isn't it?

Isn't it?

Furthermore, you claim to have been in love with your mistress.

You knew she was pregnant with her husband's child.

And you could not tolerate this symbol of her rejection of you.

And so you killed her. -I did not.

-You killed her and then carved the unborn child from her womb.

-She miscarried.

She was in no fit state for anything.

But he was still forcing her to go down there.

To play his glittering wife.

-What do you think the two of us would do?

Live happily in a little cottage by the sea?

I have to go downstairs.

Stay here.

-You are the one who is cruel.

Cruel and a coward.

That child is better off!

I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

♪♪

[ Door opens ]

[ Glasses clattering ]

This is death.

This is death!

-But that's not all you did, is it?

No.

Because in that moment, according to your lawyer,

you were some sort of automaton.

A killing machine.

And now you'd been given a reason to kill.

-No. -He was turning you out.

Again.

And so you killed him. You killed his wife.

-No. -Didn't you?

-No. -You killed George Benham.

-He deserved to die!

[ Indistinct chatter ]

♪♪

He deserved to die.

♪♪

-[ Groaning ]

She's ill.

You need to send for a doctor.

-No. -Please!

-It's the damned drug, you know it is.

Look at you, you're on it yourself.

-No.

It's not that.

Something's very wrong.

-Get off me!

Tomorrow, she'll still be the same thorn in my side

that she always is!

And even if she's ill, I think it was de Sade who said,

"It's better to have a dead wife than an unfaithful one."

The only man that she had to avoid in the whole of London

happened to be the one she fucked.

And as for you, do you know what,

you're worse than both of them.

The things that you did at Paradise

and now here, under my own roof.

You really are John Langton's bastard, aren't you?

You're animal, do you understand?

You're filthy! You're disgusting!

You should be ashamed of yourself --

-Aah!

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

-[ Gasping ]

-[ Breathing shakily ]

♪♪

-And so you killed him?

-I killed him.

[ Indistinct chatter ]

I am not sorry for what I did to him.

I had just had enough of everything.

Of all of it.

Afterwards, I went upstairs.

What choice did I have?

I should have run, of course,

taken myself back into the streets.

But I went back up...

to her.

♪♪

♪♪

When they told me she was dead...

I thought, at first,

it was because she was ill.

She was burning up.

But when they told me she had been stabbed...

and after what I had done, I...

I didn't know.

I didn't know and I needed to know.

I know you think I should have confessed

everything at the start.

But I needed to know I hadn't killed her first.

I needed to know. I needed to know.

-I don't know about you, but I've never seen anything

quite like this in a very long career.

Nevertheless, there are still procedures to follow.

-My lord, gentlemen of the jury,

you may be bewildered by what has happened here today,

but, in fact, I have never seen a more straightforward case.

-...laboured under a state of mind

so disordered to deprive her of responsibility,

as Mr. Pettigrew suggests...

-...Mr. Benham was stabbed to death, he in his library,

she in her own bedchamber.

-Gentlemen of the jury.

Have you reached a verdict?

-We have.

♪♪

Guilty, my lord.

♪♪

-Both?

Guilty of both?

♪♪

-Frances Langton,

the scriptures say that whosoever shall spill blood,

his blood also shall be spilt.

I now impose upon you the sentence of the law

and direct that you, Frances Langton,

be taken from here to the place whence you came,

and thence to the place of execution

where you shall be hanged from the neck until you are dead.

[ Chains clinking ]

♪♪

♪♪

[ Door opens ]

♪♪

[ Lock clicks ]

-I'm sorry.

Is there anything I can do for you?

Anything you need?

No. Thank you.

-You didn't say anything...

about me and her.

Thank you.

-I could never understand why.

How...

What happened between you and her?

-What did she say?

-That she was lost.

That she searched you out.

That she feared she'd hurt you all over again

in her moment of madness.

And hurt me, too, by doing it.

-[ Breathing shakily ]

She was...

lost. I mean...

so was I.

I-I suppose it was the same grief.

The same fear.

The same...

confusion.

And then I didn't know what would become of her.

Of me.

Of the child.

It was all, as usual, within his control.

He deserved to die.

-[ Breathes shakily ]

-[ Sighs ]

♪♪

-Since I came to this country, so many people have said to me

that being owned must have taught me to hate.

But the truth is there was love as well as hate.

The truth is the love hurt worse.

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I'm afraid.

♪♪

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[ Lock clicks ]

[ Footsteps approach ]

♪♪

[ Chains rattling ]

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