Downton Abbey (TV Series)

Episode #1.4 (2010)

Phyllis Logan: Mrs. Hughes

Quotes 

• Mrs. Hughes : Before I first came here as head housemaid, I was walking out with a farmer. When I told him I'd taken a job at Downton, he asked me to marry him. I was a farmer's daughter from Argyle, so I knew the life. He was very nice. But then I came here and I-I did well, and I... I didn't want to give it up. So, I told him no, and he married someone else. She died three years ago, and last month, he wrote asking to see me again, and I agreed, because all this time, I've wondered.

  Charlie Carson : Go on.

  Mrs. Hughes : I met him the other night. We had dinner at the Grantham Arms and after, he took me to the fair.

  Charlie Carson : And he was horrible and fat and red-faced and you couldn't think what you ever saw in him?

  Mrs. Hughes : He was still a nice man. He is still a nice man. Well, he was a bit red-faced, and his suit was a little tight, but none of that matters. In the real ways, he hadn't changed.

  Charlie Carson : And he proposed again... and you accepted?

  Mrs. Hughes : In many ways, I wanted to accept. But I'm not that farm girl anymore. I was flattered, of course, but... I've changed, Mr Carson.

  Charlie Carson : Life's altered you, as it's altered me. And what would be the point of living if we didn't let life change us?

• Mrs. Hughes : I've sent Anna to bed with a cold, so I need you to manage the young ladies.

  Sarah O'Brien : What, all three of them? I'm not an octopus. Why can't Gwen do it?

  Mrs. Hughes : Because she is not a lady's maid.

  Sarah O'Brien : *I* am not a slave!

• Mrs. Hughes : Anna's still not well. O'Brien, you'll need to dress the girls this morning.

  Sarah O'Brien : [Privately, only Thomas can hear]  All we know about Lady Mary, and here I am waiting on her, hand and foot.

  Thomas Barrow : Will we do anything with that?

  Sarah O'Brien : Maybe, but not yet.