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Episode 6 || 4 November 1979 || Synopsis || Manor Trivia
Sixth episode of Series 1 (seven episodes)
From The Times: "Audrey feels she must take a holiday to keep up with her wealthy friends, but can she afford to leave DeVere in charge of his estate?"
Guest cast: Jonathan Elsom (J.J. Anderson); Dennis Ramsden (Arnold Plunkett); Joyce Windsor (Mrs Plunkett)

The excitement of the hunt ball has apparently been lost on Mrs Polouvicka, who, while disrupting Richard's rest with some noisy flower arranging, claims "It's too quiet here. It's not natural." When Richard protests that peace and quiet are precisely the reasons they moved to the country, she warns him that too much quiet can arouse suspicions in the gossipy country. "People are beginning to ask what it is you are trying to hide down here," she says. "I am ashamed to hold up my head in the chiropodists!" To put a stop to the argument, Richard agrees to hold a party--for which his mother has already produced a guest list, with Audrey's name noted twice. "She's worth two of any of the others," she says. Richard reminds her that relations with Audrey have been strained (apparently since the incident at the footbridge), but Mrs Polouvicka says she will invite Audrey as her guest.

Audrey, as expected, is observing their conversation from the lodge. "I would have thought the roses looked better on their own," she notes. Marjory tells Audrey that a vacation away from the estate would do wonders, but Audrey is loath to leave with DeVere at the manor. "The minute my back's turned DeVere will do something dreadful, like turning the orangery into an abattoire," she says. What's more, she refuses to make a peaceful overture to Richard. Marjory says if Audrey doesn't do something, Richard will lost interest. "I am not an interest, Marjory," Audrey says. "You make me sound like a stamp collection or a brass rubbing. I am an infatuation." Their conversation is interrupted by a call from Mrs Polouvicka, inviting Audrey to the party--which Audrey, typically, assumes is a rapprochement from Richard, getting his mother to do his errands.

The party is in full swing when Audrey arrives politely late, and the topics of conversation seem to be limited to speculation about Richard's business dealings ("Could be anything, the brigadier says; "bullion smuggling, drugs, white slave trading...anything") to vacation plans. Much is made of Audrey's pale complexion. "What ever colour do you call that," asks Arnold Plunkett. "Magnolia? Whippet beige?" The brigadier tells Audrey she looks as "white as a first-aid tent." When even Richard tells her she looks "terribly peaked," she has had enough and declares that she must leave to finish her holiday packing.

Marjory is unable to elicit any details from Audrey about her trip, apart from the fact that she will throw a party upon her return. Handing Marjory her invitation, Audrey tells her "I can't possibly afford to post them...Brabinger will have to deliver the rest in the Rolls." With her passport, travellers cheques and an assortment of pharmaceuticals packed, she and Brabinger set off for the airport.

 
A R N O L D:
"What ever colour do you call that? Magnolia? Whippet beige?"
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A U D R E Y:
"I am not an interest, Marjory. You make me sound like a stamp collection or a brass rubbing. I am an infatuation."

 
A U D R E Y:
"The whole point about a holiday is not that one should take one, but that one should be seen to have taken one."

Richard and the rector, meanwhile, are enjoying the view from the manor patio--a view interrupted by Brabinger's return in the Rolls, a sign that Audrey has left on her holiday. "That would account for the peace and quiet," says the rector. "We must all enjoy it while we can."

What the two men do not see, of course, is Audrey slipping out of the back of the Rolls and crawling behind the wall to the lodge. Once inside, she commands Brabinger to close the drapes and finally lets him in on her scheme. "I shall be spending my holidays here," she says, "and sunning myself on the sun-kissed beaches of Spain." She dispatches him to the attic to retrieve her holiday brochures, souvenirs, sun lamp and Spanish language record. "The whole point about a holiday is not that one should take one," she tells Brabinger, "but that one should be seen to have taken one."

Richard, meanwhile, implores Marjory to use whatever influence she might have with Audrey to put a stop to the rumours circulating about him. Marjory agrees, and they head to the woods behind the lodge to look for a pair of nesting badgers that have been sighted there.

After a few days under the sunlamp, Audrey is bored to distraction. She tells Brabinger (dressed in casual clothing so as to not arouse suspicion) about her wonderful holidays of the past, and consults her diary to see what she was doing last year at this time. It surprises her somewhat to learn that she was "bored stiff. 'Spent the evening exchanging addresses with people I hope I'll never see again; went to bed.'" Hearing voices outside, she peeks through the curtains...to discover Richard and Marjory heading for the woods. She is horrified, and is even further outraged to learn from Brabinger that the couple has been seen emerging from the woods every night this week, "brushing grass off themselves." To compound things, Audrey realises that she is hardly tan at all. She breaks out the bronzing cream, asking a shocked Brabinger to apply it to her back. "If it upsets you," she says, "think of England."

The next day, a tanned Audrey regales her guests with tales of her holiday in Spain ("I'm a new women," she tells Marjory, "and I gather the same can be said for you"). Rumours are flying that Brabinger has had a woman in the lodge in Audrey's absence. His "sister's daughter's child," assures Brabinger, "as beautiful as ever." "Yes, I agree," says Richard, and Audrey knows the the game is up. She asks him how much he knows. "Only that, like me, you spent your holidays on the Costa del Grantleigh," he says. But he will keep silent if Audrey stops spreading rumours about his business dealings. "All I ever said about you was that you didn't have to depend on the milk marketing board," Audrey insists. "That's nothing to the things I could say." Such as?" "Your little moonlight trysts with Marjory Frobischer...tongues really would wag." Richard insists on showing her just what he and Marjory were doing in the woods, and drags Audrey off. "Badgers!" she exclaims. "Is that all?" Her laughter draws her guest to the patio, where they see Audrey and Richard emerging from the woods. "You know how tongues wag," says Richard.
 
A U D R E Y:
"Tongues really would wag."

  • Richard had lunch with Princess Margaret the previous week, according to his mother.
  • Marjory is established as a nature-lover. "If you ever want to know anything about wildlife," she tells Richard, "I'm your man."

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