Miranda Richardson credited as playing...
Lady Ashford
- Lady Ashford: [to Lady Mansfield] Do you feel I have any lesser need to ensure my child's well being and future than you?
- [everybody remains silent]
- Lady Ashford: [looks around, then loudly referring to Dido Elizabeth Belle] Does she still have a tongue?
- Dido Elizabeth Belle: I have a tongue, madam. Though yours explains well enough why I may not marry your son. You view my circumstances as unfortunate, though I cannot claim even a portion of the misfortune to those whom I most closely resemble. My greatest misfortune would be to marry into a family who would carry me as their shame, as I have been required to carry my own mother - her apparent crime to be born negro, and mine to be the evidence. Since I wish to deny her no more than I wish to deny myself, you will pardon me for wanting a husband who feels forgiveness of my bloodline is both unnecessary and without grace.
- Lady Ashford: You will refrain from any intercourse with the negro. Lord and Lady Mansfield may find it fascinating to have a Lady Mulatto running around in their house, but I will not have one running around in mine.
- Oliver Ashford: She is an heiress.
- Lady Ashford: Although exceptions can be made.
- Oliver Ashford: It is said that her father left her a rather vast fortune.
- Lady Ashford: I mean to say, if that is your inclination.
- Oliver Ashford: She is rather soft on the eye. I have thought no further of it, Mama.
- Lady Ashford: Where do you get your information?
- Oliver Ashford: Her sister-cousin has a rather fast tongue.
- Dido Elizabeth Belle: We are to finally come out?
- Lord Mansfield: Elizabeth is to come out.
- Lady Ashford: Dido is not.
- Dido Elizabeth Belle: But... why?
- Lord Mansfield: You understand the ways of the world for a female, Dido. Elizabeth has no income.
- Lady Ashford: [to Elizabeth] You are to meet as many gentlemen as possible before we make the match.
- Lord Mansfield: [to Dido] When all this is gone to her father, there'll be nothing left for her.
- Dido Elizabeth Belle: And... me?
- Lady Ashford: Any gentlemen of good breeding would be unlikely to form a serious attachment to Dido, and a man without... would lower her position in society.
- Elizabeth Murray: She is not merely my cousin, Mama. She is my sister.