Lady Hyacinth Abroad -- A Gentleman's Guide to Love & Murder (2013)

HYACINTH
If I’m ever to show my face in society again,
I’ve got to find a new cause of my own and quickly. Come, come, any ideas?

ENTOURAGE
Daisy Greville has the old. Lady Sitwell has the blind

HYACINTH
And the fund for sailor’s widows?

ENTOURAGE
That’s the two of them combined

HYACINTH
Nightschool for the nervous?

ENTOURAGE
Lady Beach and Margaret Guest

HYACINTH
Crutches for the crippled?

ENTOURAGE
That was Elsie Ponds’ bequest

HYACINTH
Wayward women

ENTOURAGE
Daisy Greville

HYACINTH
Who’s behind disfigured men?

ENTOURAGE
Daisy Greville

HYACINTH
And the deaf… don’t tell me it’s Greville yet again.
Everyone’s got something can’t you see why I’m bereft.
I want to do some good but what the devil’s left?

ENTOURAGE
What the devil’s left?

MONTY NAVARRO
If I may your Ladyship, one hears about such terrible poverty in Egypt these days…

HYACINTH
Egypt. Land of the pharaohs and of Moses the Israelite.
Home to the great pyramids and the sphinx.

That’s it! We’ll populate an orphanage in Cairo, with foundlings from the reeds along the Nile.
To watch a creature grow, to swaddle it and know the joy of its pathetic little smile

ENTOURAGE
It’s little smile

HYACINTH
The news will travel soon enough to London

ENTOURAGE
To London

HYACINTH
Our selflessness will meet with great acclaim

ENTOURAGE
Huzzah

HYACINTH
The sniping will be stilled, and the empire will be filled, with homes for bastard children in my name.
All aboard the Luxor express to Cairo.

MONTY NAVARRO
And off she went, what I failed to tell her was that a violent uprising against the empire was imminent
and no british citizen was considered safe, so you can imagine my surprise when
Lady Hyacinth returned to London quite unharmed.

HYACINTH
Oh where will my largesse be truly appreciated,
I need a place so low that hope itself has been abandoned

MONTY NAVARRO
You’ve heard of course of the untouchables in India.

HYACINTH
India. Land of Hindus and Muslims, of tamarind and saffron. Exotic and unknowable.

That’s it! We’ll find ourselves some lepers in the Punjab.
The hopeless and the wretched and the cursed. Forgotten and Unblessed

ENTOURAGE
Unblessed

HYACINTH
I’ll take them to my breast

ENTOURAGE
Your Breast

HYACINTH
If Daisy Greville doesn’t get there first. When we arrive, they’ll hobble out to greet us

ENTOURAGE
Hello there

HYACINTH
Their toothless grins would melt a heart of stone

ENTOURAGE
Awww

HYACINTH
And every dilettante, will envy me and want a colony of lepers of her own,
now not a word to even your mothers til we leave although,
come to think of it what is the point of helping others unless you let the whole world know,
call the Times of London.

MONTY NAVARRO
And off she went,
I neglected to mention the malaria pandemic in the Punjab
a bit of insurance in case leprosy itself failed to prove contagious,
so you can imagine my shock when Lady Hyacinth returned to London in record time quite the picture of health.
I don’t suppose you’d be willing to penetrate the jungle of deepest darkest Africa…

HYACINTH
Africa. From Zululand to Yoruba, home of proud warriors that naked torsos rippling in the firelight.
We’ll civilize a village in the jungle

ENTOURAGE
The Jungle

HYACINTH
It can’t take long to learn their mother tongue

ENTOURAGE
Not long then

HYACINTH
The words they have are six and five of them are clicks

ENTOURAGE
Click

HYACINTH
And all of them are different words for dong.
And can’t you see their frightful painted faces

ENTOURAGE
Their faces

HYACINTH
They’ll teach us how to swing from vine to vine

ENTOURAGE
From vine to vine to vine

HYACINTH
It’s Daisy Greville’s loss, she’ll never come across, a tribe of backward natives worse than mine.

Their may appall us...But even they are part of God’s design

ENTOURAGE
Awww

HYACINTH
We bid you all goodbye

ENTOURAGE
Goodbye

HYACINTH
Let all of London try, to find a tribe of natives worse than mine. Charity towards others is divine.

ENTOURAGE
Divine, Divine, Divine, Divine, Charity is Divine.