1It is nine months on from the Christmas Special, which was set at Christmas 1924. The story opens in mid-September 1925.
VIOLET AND ROSAMUND
1. EXT. Day, in the graveyard.
Violet and Rosamund are standing by a great stone monument inscribed with the words Robert Crawley, 5th Earl of Grantham...
VIOLET: My dear boy! However will I get on without him! He was the dearest person in my life!
ROSAMUND: And what am I, Mama? Chopped liver?
VIOLET: Chopped liver?! My dear Rosamund, must you demonstrate your complete incapacity for turning a colourful phrase every time you speak?!
ROSAMUND: It is just a little tiring, Mama, to know that I mean so little to you.
VIOLET: Well, it can hardly be a surprise. No one wants a daughter, my dear. What on earth good are they? They can't inherit anything and inheritance, after all, is the bedrock of our society.
Besides, women are so wholly unreliable. Look at Cora.
ROSAMUND: Crushed by the grief of losing her beloved husband at an early age, she is seeking solace in the familiar and, I might add, much more welcoming arms of her mother across the sea. Unlike you, I can wholly appreciate Cora's situation. Losing an adored husband is a great blow indeed.
VIOLET: Please, don't compare my golden boy to that upstart grandson of a manufacturer that you married. One can not speak of them in the same breath.
ROSAMUND: Well, maybe you can't. I only wish that, like Cora, I had a loving mother to turn to instead of the harridan with whom I am saddled.
VIOLET: There is nothing that says you need to spend time with your mother, dear.
ROSAMUND: Isn't there? Then I'll be off.