CREATION
    Written by
    John Collee Note: Our story alternates between Past and Present "Present" means the fall of 1858 when Darwin was 49. The children are: Etty (15) George (14) Betty (11) Franky (10) Lenny (8) and Horace (6). "Past" means the summer of 1850, when Darwin was 41. The children are: Willy (11), Annie (9) Etty (6) George (5), Betty (3) Franky (2y) and baby Lenny.

INT. DARK ROOM. THE PAST. DAY
    In darkness, chemicals wash over a copper plate. Strange silvery patterns evolve in the half-light.

EXT. TERRA DEL FUEGO. DAY
    Our POV rotates downwards onto an irregular shape. This shape is grey-green and crammed with detail which emerges as we draw close - like a continent seen from outer space. A fruit fly lands on it and we now recognise the shape as a patch of lichen. A number of other fruit flies are grazing there. Wider. The lichen is on a rock. A black lizard climbs over the horizon - stalking flies. A slow advance. A sudden rush. A fly is snapped up and mashed between toothless gums. The lizard is fixing its beady gaze on the next potential victim when... A shadow falls, the lizard tries to flee. A seabird grabs the lizard in its claws. Death is sudden and bloody. The bird settles to eat. Whizz...Thunk. A sharpened stick flies out of nowhere and impales the bird through its wing. The wounded bird falls between boulders, flapping helplessly. The rest of the flock take to their air, calling and wheeling as... A crowd of local savages come racing over the larger horizon of the rocks armed with primitive bows and arrows, spears, rocks and throwing-sticks... A child grabs the injured bird and kills it. An adult biffs the child on the head and steals the bird. The rest of the savages leap among the jagged rocks smiting each other, shouting and snarling among the whirling flock of birds. AND WE CUT TO

EXT. COASTLINE. DAY
    A POV shot through a telescope: The whirling birds the strange half-animal forms of the savages. The whole scene is jerky, out of focus and inaudible at this great distance like a very old silent movie.
    CHARLES DARWIN (V.O.)
    In Terra del Fuego. The "land of fire" - A blighted and loveless country on the earths furthest rim - there lives a community of the dirtiest, the rudest, the least civilised beings you can imagine.
    The telescope focusses. The image becomes a little clearer

EXT. CLIFF TOP. DAY
    The flock of boobies fly out to sea. The savages follow as far as the top of the cliffs, where they stop in sudden amazement, staring at a distant sailing ship.
    DARWIN (V.O.)
    They were all completely naked, the men as well as the women, with hair down to their bottoms. They spoke in grunts and they never washed their hands and faces! In many respects they resembled wild animals, except that animals are kinder to their children.
    A savage child makes a comment and gets biffed on the head again. Strange, foreign cries of the sailors are faintly audible over the water, as the anchor is dropped with a rattle and a splash. A small boat is lowered.
    DARWIN
    One day, Captain Fitzroy went ashore to meet them.
    The slow rhythm of the oars. Sailors and savages clutch their weapons, watching each other in breathless anticipation.

INT. DAGUERROTYPE STUDIO. THE PAST. DAY.
    A door opens and a figure in black, hurries past, clutching a number of prepared photographic plates in their light proof cases.
    TECHNICIAN
    Not long now. I shall be with you immediately...
    ANNIE DARWIN, wearing in a checkered dress, aged about 9 years old, sits looking straight at camera. She has short hair and a pretty oval face On her lap there is a posy of artificial flowers, in the background an improbable vista of jagged mountain.
    PHOTOGRAPHER (O.S.)
    Ready now. Very still please.
    ANNIE
    Will this hurt, papa?
    DARWIN
    No. It is only a beam of light.
    ANNIE
    How can light make a picture.
    DARWIN
    Well they prepare a copper plate with chemicals on it. The chemicals are sort of energized by the light reflecting off your face. Then silver sticks onto the plate according to where the light is brightest.
    ANNIE
    Betty was worried it would hurt. ....What a little duck she is.
    DARWIN
    So as I was saying, Captain Fitzroy went ashore to interview the Fuegans....

EXT. SHORE. TIERRA DEL FUEGO. DAY
    Waves lap on the black pebbly beach, where a young naval captain FITZROY with mutton chop sideboards disembarks lightly from his jolly-boat.
    DARWIN (V.O.)
    After some discussion persuaded three of the savages` children to come home with him.
    The "discussion" is more in the nature of heated bargaining for slaves. Fitzroy finally produces enough cloth and axe-heads to secure the deal. The unwilling children pushed away by their parents and grabbed by sailors who bundle them, biting crying and kicking, into the waiting boat.
    DARWIN (V.O.)
    Their names were Jemmy Buttons, York Minster and Fuegia Basket.

INT. BELOW DECKS. DAY.
    Below decks: a slapstick struggle with soap and scrubbing brushes - much biting kicking and howling - as sailors scrub the children clean.
    SAILORS
    Ow! Shite! Hold still ye maggot!
    DARWIN
    The captain had them washed and got their hair cut, then dressed them in proper clothes, and taught them proper table manners.

INT. CAPTAIN'S CABIN. DAY
    The children, cleaned and dressed, seem happy enough in their new situation. They sit at the captain's table clumsily sawing with a knife and chasing Brussel sprouts around a plate with their cutlery. A sprout shoots off the table

EXT. SHIP'S DECK. DAY
    Splosh! A weighted canvas body bag is tipped overboard. The rough unshaven seamen crew all remove their hats, some of them cry openly.
    DARWIN
    York Minster died of the smallpox but the other two learned English
    and went to meet the queen.

EXT. BUCKINGHAM PALACE. DAY
    A fanfare as the gates swing open as a coach-and-four rattles through.

INT. BUCKINGHAM PALACE. DAY
    Jemmy Buttons, looking very smart in velvet suit with silver buttons gives proper bow and shakes the Royal hand. Fuegia Basket curtsies. Queen Victoria remains out of shot but her attendants hand out presents off a purple silk cushion: A Bible for Fuegia and a telescope for Jemmy

EXT. SHORE OF TIERRA DEL FUEGO. DAY.
    Hairy savages reassemble on the cliff tops
    DARWIN
    Two years later. Captain Fitzroy and I took them back, in the company of a young Parson, hoping they would bring the other savages to god and to teach the others by example.
    The hairy savages squint from the cliffs to sea.... Another boat, the Beagle, has anchored in their bay. Captain Fitzroy is being rowed ashore with Darwin, plus a very young parson and the two young Fuegans, who are happy and agitated to see their homeland again.
    DARWIN
    And what do you think happened?

INT. DAGUERROTYPE STUDIO. THE PAST. DAY.
    Annie suspects there is a joke coming and cant help her mouth from twitching the corners.
    DARWIN
    (laughing)
    Correct! A complete and total failure!

EXT. ROCKY CREVICES. TERRA DEL FUEGO. DAY
    At the first sight of their countrymen, Jemmy and Fuegia rip off their clothes, drop the bible and the telescope, and run to join them, yelling like nut-cases.
    HAIRY SAVAGES
    YAAAAAH!!
    JEMMY/ FUEGIA
    Yaah!! Yahh!!
    The benighted young parson scrambles after them, collecting their discarded garments from among the rain-swept rocks.
    PARSON
    Jemmy! Fuegia
    The telescope is smashed. The Bible lies abandoned - the wind catching its soggy pages and whirling them off in the storm.

INT. DAGUERROTYPE STUDIO. DAY.
    Darwin still laughing, dabs his eyes
    ANNIE
    (laughing)
    Yaaah!
    The photographer disappears behind black curtains.
    TECHNICIAN
    Very still now. No more talking please
    Annie composes her face in an expression of angelic seriousness. A glass dome above her head glows snapdragon blue Close on Darwin watching his daughter, his eyes still damp with tears of laughter. Electricity hums. The strange blue light glows brighter, brighter... Brighter. The image of his daughter imprints on Darwin's memory. Just so. Forever.

INT. DOWN HOUSE. DINING ROOM. THE PRESENT. EVENING.
    Servants are laying a table for dinner Gas lamps and the coal fire struggle to illuminate the lofty room. Mrs Davies the Welsh cook, bangs the dinner gong and shouts across the darkening garden outside.
    MR DAVIES (O.S.)
    Children! Franky! Horace! Dinner!
    Darwins attractive wife Emma adjusts the lamps and the boys run in, Franky aged 10 Lenny aged 8 Horace aged 6.
    LENNY
    Mama mama.
    EMMA
    Yes. What is it
    LENNY
    Horace says he's six feet tall.
    EMMA
    Have you all washed your hands.
    HORACE
    He said I have to be or I can't join the army.
    EMMA
    First things first. An officer must always tuck his shirt in.
    Their elder sisters Betty and Etty take their places at table
    BETTY
    The boys made a camp with a camp- fire
    LENNY
    Oh! Sneak!
    EMMA
    Where's the campfire.
    BETTY
    In the summer house but Brodie put it out.
    Parslow enters with the turreen
    EMMA
    Thank-you Parslow. Where is Mr Darwin?
    PARSLOW
    He was killing pigeons Ma'am
    EMMA
    Will everybody sit down please.
    As they are pulling in their chairs, Darwin enters, drying his hands on his trousers. He's aged ten years since we last saw him and has lost his former air of gaiety. He sits, with a distracted nod to the family.
    PARSLOW
    Soup du jour, sir
    The children smile at Parslow's air of earnest formality but the atmosphere even among the younger kids is sombre and subdued.
    DARWIN
    Thank you Parslow
    He butters some bread and starts eating. Emma clears her throat.
    DARWIN.
    Oh.
    The children bow their heads. The bread stick in darwins mouth. Emma says grace.
    EMMA
    Lord God who watches over all that we do. Bless this family and
    the food we eat. In Jesus name. Amen.
    Everyone repeats the "Amen" except Darwin.
    EMMA
    I hear Mr Hooker is coming tomorrow.
    The children prick up their ears at this. They like Hooker
    DARWIN
    He won't stay long.
    EMMA
    Did he say what it was about?
    DARWIN
    I think this is not the time to discuss it.
    EMMA
    Maybe the time to discuss it was before you invited him.
    DARWIN
    He sent a telegram. I'm sorry if it inconveniences you.
    Emma purses her lips and turns her attention back to the children
    EMMA
    Eat your soup now.
    Darwin takes a couple of spoonfuls, pauses, as a wave of nausea sweeps over him, then pushes away the dish.
    DARWIN
    (To Parslow)
    Tell Mr Davies it was delicious, but my stomach is not quite right yet.
    (To Emma)
    Excuse me.
    He gets up and leaves. As soon as he has gone, the children natural talkativeness reasserts itself.
    CHILDREN
    Can we take Mr Hooker to the Chalk pits. Why can't he stay. Can we pick blackberries?
    EMMA
    I think he is just here to work

EXT. DOWN HOUSE. DARWIN'S STUDY. THE PRESENT. NIGHT.
    A branch taps gently against the window pain, like an insistent guest demanding to be admitted. The coal fire burns low in the grate - wind in the chimney rattling the damper Firelight flickers on a collection of finches in a glass case, on a bird skeleton, on a fossil, and on numerous specimen bottles containing the fleshy parts of barnacles preserved in spirit-of-wine. Darwin sits immobile in his chair, regarding a locked, black lacquered steel trunk, on the floor under his work table. A voice speaks behind him.
    ANNIE
    Aren't you going to open it?
    He turns and sees her sitting on the day bed - the same little bright eyed girl from the daguerrotype studio. She's the same age as she was then and wearing the same checkered dress - though Darwin himself has aged ten years.
    DARWIN
    Maybe best if I just burn the whole lot.
    ANNIE
    (horrified)
    No papa - You can't. I'm in it.
    DARWIN
    Don't be absurd. Of course you're not.
    ANNIE
    The story of me when I was small. You showed me the pages.
    DARWIN
    Ah yes.
    ANNIE
    "The natural History of babies" ...Remember?
    DARWIN
    Of course I remember.
    He continues to stare at the shiny black box, his hand fluttering lightly - a nervous tic. Music seeps in - a soothing Chopin Nocturne and....

INT. DOWN HOUSE DRAWING ROOM. THE PAST. NIGHT
    Darwin aged 40 - bright-eyed and inquisitive leans over to examine something, offering it his finger tip while making little tut tut tut noises. In the cot is a one-month old baby.
    DARWIN
    Annie. Annie. Annie.
    The piano music continuing over, as her fist closes round the end of his finger, then tries to pull it towards her mouth. He pulls it away from her and she frowns. He offers it again and the tug of war becomes a game. Baby Annie laughs. Darwin writes something in his notebook. Then tucks his pencil behind his ear and tries out various facial expressions - scowling, smiling - to gauge the baby's response. Emma turns on the piano-stool.
    EMMA
    (affectionately)
    What are you doing?
    DARWIN
    Just playing.
    She comes over and, leaning against him, reads from his notebook.
    EMMA
    "Six weeks: Gurgles. Holds tight to my finger. Tries to suck. Smiles at my smile"
    The baby lets out a long yodel of pleasure
    DARWIN
    I should add that she is musical.
    EMMA
    I hope you do not plan to treat all our children as little animacules to be included in your experiments.
    DARWIN
    Do you mean there will be more.
    EMMA
    I assumed that's what you wanted. Of course, if the idea doesn't appeal then...
    DARWIN
    Appeal? Dearest cousin. I am making plans for an army!
    He takes Emma in his arms. She gives a little squeak - caught off balance then laughing as he waltzes her around the room, singing.

EXT. WOODS AND MEADOW. THE PAST. DAY
    An army of children - the Darwin family - run across the screen from left to right. The little kids first, scampering through the hay meadow off into the trees. Household servants follow, carrying blankets, hampers and parasols. The red haired Scottish nursemaid Brodie, shouts ahead to the little ones.
    BRODIE
    Careful! Not too far ahead now.
    The children ignore her so she pick up her skirts and races after them. The Adults follow in their wake - Charles and Emma Darwin plus two younger men aged about 30 - Joe Hooker and the Rev Innes

EXT. RIVER BANK. THE PAST. DAY
    They have set up their picnic on a river bank. Emma is reading. Joseph Hooker is teaching the boys to fish. He has spectacles and long wispy side-whiskers: a battered panama on his head and his trousers rolled up to his knees.
    HOOKER
    Give it time to take a bite.
    The fishing float moves a little
    HOOKER
    He's Nibbling. Nibbling. Oh Bother. No-one move.
    He's dropped his spectacles in the shallows. George (aged 5) feels a jerk on the line. He squeals and drops the rod. The fish takes off upriver. Will goes after the dropped rod. On shore, Annie runs up with a collecting box to show her father
    ANNIE
    I've got one.
    She opens the box to show him a little black beetle. The local parson, Innes, inclines his head to inspect it
    ANNIE
    What should I feed it?
    MR INNES
    A leaf I should think. What plant did you find him on?
    ANNIE
    In the mud under that log.
    Innes looks to Darwin for advice
    MR INNES
    ...Or a piece of bark maybe.
    Darwin peers at the insect
    DARWIN
    Cycrus caraboides. You can see from the mandibles he's a hunter. He feeds on slugs and snails.
    INNES
    Oh.
    Annie runs off, calling to the other children
    ANNIE
    Etty! Willy! Find me some slugs. He's hungry!
    INNES
    When I said I knew something of insects.....
    DARWIN
    Oh tush.... I studied Theology for a year but yet I know exceedingly little of the bible.
    INNES
    Then once I am properly installed at Down I shall take pleasure in instructing you.
    DARWIN
    I should look forward to that immensely.
    Emma, knowing her husband's ambivalence towards religion, casts him a slightly arch, amused look. Innes notices this, though he pretends not to. Hooker returns from the river, looking slightly damp, with the rod which he has managed to retrieve
    HOOKER
    Everyone's a bit wet. Sorry, but the fish are surely biting. More worms, boys, more worms.
    George is looking under stones
    HOOKER
    Try over there, Georgey, we've used all these ones up.
    They move off, joining Annie and the other in their hunt for crawling things. The air above them is heavy and sparkling with pollen.

EXT. OCEAN. NIGHT
    A sailing ship sails past, trailing phosphorescence it its wake.
    DARWIN (V.O.)
    On the Beagle, quite, often we would drop a flask in the ocean and find it teeming with living particles which glowed in the night

INT. SHIP'S CABIN. NIGHT
    The figure in silhouette of young Darwin inspects a flask of sea water, glowing in the darkness. He takes a few drops on a watch glass and places them on the illuminated stage of his microscope. Under the microscope, against a black background, millions of tiny swimming animals.

EXT. BY THE RIVER BANK. THE PAST. DAY
    Cut to the air above the picnickers - alive with glittering particles - against the dark trees behind.
    DARWIN
    ....so much beauty for so little
    purpose.
    EMMA
    Surely not without purpose. They were helping to light the ship's way were they not.
    Darwin smiles at the idea, turns to Innes
    DARWIN
    Are you familiar with the works of Thomas Malthus, Mr Innes?.
    INNES
    He married his first cousin didn't he?
    EMMA
    So did Charles.... So did I.
    INNES
    Oh, I was not at all suggesting....
    Emma waves it away. Just teasing
    DARWIN
    He made the point that if every trout, say, has a hundred offspring And so on and so on through the generations. Then the planet would be knee deep in trout in just a few decades.
    INNES
    Of course most of the eggs are destroyed and eaten so the numbers remain stable. That is the beauty of God's plan.
    Emma gives Darwin a "So there" look and hands Innes a sandwich.
    EMMA
    Cheese and cucumber
    INNES
    Thank-you
    Somewhere in the woods, Annie has found a treasure trove of worms and slugs.
    ANNIE (O.S. DISTANT)
    Over here ....there are millions!
    DARWIN
    It doesn't strike you as an exceedingly wasteful plan - these myriad lives created only to be immediately extinguished.
    EMMA
    (a gentle warning)
    Charles....
    INNES
    (confidently)
    They are providing food for others.
    DARWIN
    You think they are happy about it?
    INNES
    Happy?
    Close up on a writing worm. Hooker is instructing George how to put a worm on a hook.
    HOOKER
    Through his bottom and up though his mouth - perfect
    DARWIN
    ....To be doing Gods will.
    EMMA
    (to Innes)
    Please ignore him. After two glasses of claret he tends to becomes mischievous.
    DARWIN
    No I'm serious. If thousands are destroyed that a few may live their lives, is not the general sum total of happiness not in some kind of massive deficit?
    INNES
    Well far be it from me to speculate on the mind of God, far less the happiness of an earthworm ha ha ha. But it seems to me that nature is at peace...and most of her denizens are content.
    EMMA
    Amen.
    INNES
    (to Darwin)
    You don't agree.
    DARWIN
    I think it is a battlefield. A constant and shifting struggle for survival between everything and everything else.
    EMMA
    I really do think men have a problem with natural beauty. They cannot ever just accept it for what it is.
    (Calls off)
    Children! Sandwiches!
    (Then)
    Tell me of your wife Mr Innes.
    Darwin lies back on the rug and turns his head away from the sun. The base of a tangled hedgerow is just a few feet away. Looking into its tangled depths he sees something gleaming white - the skull of a sheep with briars growing through the eye sockets.

EXT. BASE OF THE HEDGEROW. TIME-LAPSE. NIGHT
    The sheep's skull is half-decomposed. In fast forward we see maggots pecking the remnants of flesh from the bone, birds feeding on the maggots. A bird becomes trapped among the briars. It flaps madly upsetting a nest. Eggs and blind featherless hatchlings fall down through the dark web of branches where they are devoured by voles and rats, then slugs, then worms All the times tendrils and vines are growing, the skull - bleached white - now encased in a cage of thick spiny branches, fizzing with insect life, where ants and ground beetles feast on the carcasses of slugs and....

INT. DARWIN'S BEDROOM. THE PRESENT. DAWN
    Darwin wakes in sudden terror. Dawn light illuminates the wallpaper in front of him - a William Morris design of interweaving vines. Emma, is asleep in her night-cap at his side. Darwin lies for a while in the semi darkness, until his hand, fluttering on the coverlet, becomes still at last.

INT. SCULLERY. THE PAST. DAY.
    Light and noise. Crash of gleaming copperware, clattering of water in the pipes as the servants prepare Sunday breakfast The cook, Mrs Davies looks out through a steamed up window to see the angular figure of Charles Darwin, bent almost double inspecting a tiny segment of lawn. Brodie joins Mrs Davies at the window.
    MRS DAVIES
    What is he doing now, exactly?
    BRODIE
    Cutting the grass with nail scissors.
    MRS DAVIES
    Such a shame he never had a proper job. At least your Mr Thackeray had his books to write.

INT. DOWN HOUSE. THE PAST. DAY
    Children thunder up and down the stairs between Brodie who is doing a final check on grooming and Emma who is marshalling them in the hall.

INT. HALLWAY. THE PAST. DAY
    EMMA
    Chop chop Georgie. Socks! And you have not buttoned your trousers.
    Baby Lenny starts crying and she goes to comfort him

INT. GIRLS' BEDROOM. THE PAST. DAY.
    Brodie is arranging hair and tying ribbons for Annie (9) Etty (6) and Betty (3)
    ANNIE
    Did you never think of getting married Miss Brodie.
    BRODIE
    Once. But he went to Australia and I missed my chance.
    Willy passes the door, his hair in need of brushing.
    BRODIE
    Master William. Hairbrush.
    William comes in. Brodie brushes the back of his hair.
    WILLY
    Ow. Ow!
    BRODIE
    Well what do you expect. It is a birds nest.
    WILLY
    Papa says God doesn't care if we are neat.
    BRODIE
    (brushing)
    Your father is a very wize man but has a small understanding of religion. No-one can read what goes down in Gods great book of
    accounts. ....Fingernails.
    Willy presents them for checking.
    BRODIE
    You can go.

INT. HALLWAY. THE PAST. DAY.
    The children come racing and swinging and clattering down the stairs. Emma, holding the baby in one arm, steers a tricycle out of the way, clearing a path to the door
    EMMA
    Mrs Davies, Will you ask Jenny to wear a bonnet. I would not like people to think her fast.
    George aged 5 tugs at her skirt
    WILLY
    Can I bring my mouse for a blessing?
    EMMA
    What mouse?
    George (5) pulls it out from his pocket. Its dead, muddy and bloody
    GEORGE
    Elsie caught it in the barn. We need to pray for his soul
    EMMA
    Mice don't have souls. Leave it on the window sill. Everyone come now or we shall be late.

EXT. LANEWAY. DOWN HOUSE. THE PAST. DAY
    Pealing of church bells Mist rises from the ploughed fields and hangs among the ancient oaks. A little procession heads down the lane. The Darwins - Charles and Emma - plus their servants and children (older now, for we have flipped into the present), all in their Sunday best. The trees are bare. Their breath condenses as they walk.

EXT. VILLAGE SQUARE. THE PRESENT. DAY
    The ancient flint church stands in the centre of Downe (sic) village, opposite the George and Dragon pub. A massive and venerable Yew tree casts its shade over a number of gravestones one of them inscribed "to Mary Darwin born Sept 1842 died Oct 1842." Beyond the church fence, villagers greet each other before heading inside. The great majority of the village have turned out, from Squire Lubbock through the tradesmen and domestic servants from the village to the clodhoppers (farm labourers) in their colored smocks. Rev Innes is welcoming his large flock at the gate.
    EMMA
    Reverend Innes.
    INNES
    (smiling)
    Ma'am. Welcome. Welcome
    Then his eye moves on to Charles Darwin and his smile falters, his expression turning slightly cold. Darwin tips his hat rather stiffly and walks away, through the throng of parishioners, leaving his family to file into the church without him.

EXT. WOODLAND. PRESENT. DAY
    Darwin walks across the meadow and into the woods. A flock of crows take flight from the rookery in the bare trees overhead.

INT. DOVECOTE. PRESENT. DAY
    In darkness, a furious struggle, squawking and frantically beating wings. Darwin seizes on a dove and backs out of the dovecote, the silhouette of his upper torso taking shape in the square hole in the floor. He climbs down the ladder, passes the captive bird down to Parslow, then climbs back up and pushes him upper body into the dovecot again, in search of the next victim.

EXT. THE GARDEN. DOWN HOUSE. THE PRESENT. DAY
    The dovecote is a substantial affair on four pillars with a ladder in the centre. Outside the dovecote, the boys are racing around playing at soldiers. (Franky 10, Lenny 8, Horace 6) Parslow has a number of the birds in cages
    DARWIN
    Ring the two milky pouters. We'll sacrifice the tumblers and skeletonize them. Then...
    He looks up as a coach appears in the lane. The boys immediately break off from their game and run after it, shouting.
    BOYS
    It's Mr Hooker. It's Mr Hooker!
    Darwin tries to wipe the bird shit off his hands and succeeds only in getting it on his sleeve. His breathing quickens. He seems at a loss. Parslow is awaiting further instructions
    PARSOLOW
    Then... what Sir?
    DARWIN
    Just. ...to the shed with them. I shall clean myself up.
    He hurries off.

EXT. THE FRONT GATE. THE PRESENT. DAY.
    The coach pulls up and Hooker alights - ten years older than when we saw him catching fish, but still with the same hallmark side whiskers and wire-rimmed spectacles, the same springy step and ready grin. Already he is being mobbed by the younger boys - Lenny, Franky, and Horace - who clearly adore him.
    BOYS(AD LIB)
    - We're the Light Brigade Horace is a Russian.
    HOOKER
    Good choice Horace. I shall be Lord Raglan and watch the slaughter from a safe distance.
    BOYS
    - Will you give us a piggy-back? - Lenny cut his foot on a nail. There was lots of blood!
    Emma emerges from the front door. She smiles, pleased to see Hooker despite her misgivings. Then her smile falters as another man emerges from the coach behind him.
    HOOKER
    Emma. Forgive the short notice. You know Thomas Huxley.
    EMMA
    Only by reputation
    HUXLEY
    Mrs Darwin.
    HOOKER
    He insisted on coming and I could not refuse him.
    EMMA
    Tell papa his visitors are here.
    LENNY
    He knows already.
    HORACE
    He went that way.
    Emma smiles brightly, covering for her embarrassment at her husband's increasingly erratic behavior.
    EMMA
    Anyway. Come in please. Come in.
    Hooker heads towards the house, the boy still clustered around him.
    FRANKY
    Sir, Is it true when you were in the Himalayas you were imprisoned by the king of Sikkim?
    HOOKER
    Absolutely true.
    LENNY
    And he thought you were a spy for stealing his rhododendrons?
    HOOKER
    That's approximately true.
    FRANKY
    ....and he wouldn't let you leave unless you agreed to marry his fattest daughter.
    HOOKER
    Yes. (Conspiratorial) ....but you are never to tell my wife that!
    EMMA
    Children leave Mr Hooker alone now. I'm sure he has more important things to discuss.
    HOOKER
    Not really, but I think Mr Huxley does....
    Huxley has seen Darwin, washing his hands by the "skeletonizing shed". Huxley hangs back to introduce himself as Hooker steers Emma off into the house.
    HOOKER
    I have my heart set on a cup of tea and one of Mrs Davies' scones.
    Emma looks anxiously after Huxley but allows herself to be gently side-lined.

INT. KITCHEN. THE PRESENT. DAY .
    Emma is by the kitchen window, rearranging tea things on a tray. The sky outside is dark and lowering. Through the window she can see Darwin heading off down the sand walk - head bowed, walking stick in hand - deep in conversation with Huxley. She drops a tea-cup which smashes on the stone floor.
    MRS DAVIES
    I'll do that ma'am. Please. Let me do it.

EXT. DOWN HOUSE. THE SAND WALK. THE PRESENT. DAY.
    The Sand-walk is a gravel walking path between the garden and the fields, flanked by mature oaks and ancient willows.
    HUXLEY
    We're reforming the Linnean. The committee will comprise myself, Lyell, Huxley...yourself of course if you are willing.
    Darwin grunts noncommittally. The Crunch crunch of their feet is punctuated by the regular stomp of his metal-shod walking stick.
    HUXLEY
    We intend to reclaim science as a profession - wrest it away from the country parsons and beetle-
    collectors. Your book will be our rallying point.
    DARWIN.
    You know it is not yet any fit state to publish.
    HUXLEY
    I have read your detailed abstract. The argument is complete and utterly compelling. All that is lacking is the detail and we know you have that in abundance. Your barnacle work has established you as the pre- eminent authority on marine life.
    DARWIN.
    On one small mollusc!
    HOOKER
    In which the whole story of creation can be read. Do not pretend to me that was not your intention.
    DARWIN.
    Honestly....
    HUXLEY
    A "family tree" of barnacles stretching back 300 million years to the time it was a free swimming prawn!.
    DARWIN.
    There are many gaps.
    HOOKER
    Of course with gaps! But that is the very point. If we but had the complete fossil record we could trace all life back to one speck of protoplasm. The branching of forms in ever more complex succession...until.
    DARWIN.
    Yes yes, but one cannot infer too much.
    HOOKER
    Mr Darwin. Either you are being disingenuous or you do not fully understand you own accomplishment. You have killed God.
    DARWIN.
    Mr Huxley
    HUXLEY
    ....and good riddance to the bearded malicious old bugger!
    DARWIN
    (interrupts)
    Please I must beg of you....
    HUXLEY
    No. I must beg of you sir. Joseph Hooker we know is too nice a chap to do it. You are a fine and brilliant man who hates to give offence - an admirable quality - wish I had it myself. But what do we believe? What do we know to be true. Will you light the way or leave us all to flounder in the mire for another decade.
    He stops and lowers himself onto a bench, teeth clenched.
    HOOKER
    Are you alright?
    DARWIN.
    A touch of indigestion. It will pass.
    Its clearly worse than that, but Huxley, refusing to be distracted, blithely ignores it and sits down beside him til the worst of it passes.
    HUXLEY
    It is time to write your book Mr Darwin. Write it brilliantly as we all know you can. Strike hard and fast with a blow that is utterly conclusive.
    DARWIN
    (in pain)
    Sir, you are talking like a revolutionary and really...
    HUXLEY
    It is a revolution. And not before time.
    HUXLEY
    Goodbye to the lot of em - damned bishops and Archbishops with their threats of eternal punishment.
    DARWIN
    And you'd replace Gods Laws with what.
    HUXLEY
    The laws of logic. The laws of nature.
    DARWIN
    Knowing, as we do, that most capital crimes are her everyday practises: Theft, rape, murder, adultery, infanticide....
    Huxley waves it away
    DARWIN
    We live in a society bound together by the church. An improbable sort of barque I grant you but at least it floats. You suggest we change all that at a stroke. You wish me to rebuild, plank by plank, the very vessel we are sailing in.

EXT. DOWN HOUSE. DAY.
    The Coach to London has pulled up outside the front gate. Huxley is aboard. Darwin is talking with the coachman Hooker comes down the path in his black coat, carrying his Gladstone bag.
    EMMA
    Mr Hooker.
    He turns. He has already said his good-byes.
    EMMA
    I beg you, please don't push him.
    HOOKER
    No-one can push Charles. You know how fixed he is. Bit of a barnacle himself ... his own words.
    EMMA
    And if you prize him from his rock he will die. I know you all mean well but....
    COACHMAN
    (Impatiently)
    All aboard!
    Hooker gets aboard. Huxley leans out of a window and waves cheerily to the whey-faced Darwin
    HUXLEY
    We'll meet again, Mr Darwin

INT. THE LANEWAY. DAY
    The coach pulls away. Looking back though the rear window Hooker sees Emma with the boys clustered around her skirts.
    HUXLEY
    What did she say to you?
    HOOKER
    That it was killing him.
    HUXLEY
    A mighty slow death considering the time he's spent. We'll be dead and buried ourselves if he prevaricates much longer.
    Huxley takes off his spectacles and polishes them, embarrassed by Huxley's directness, inspecting his own conscience in the bevelled glass.

INT. DARWIN'S STUDY. NIGHT
    In the darkened study, with his specimens and books all around him, Darwin kneels by the box. Steeling himself, he unlocks the padlock and opens the lid and takes out the papers and notebooks which are stored there. The bulk of it is a single manuscript, accumulated over many years, divided into 14 chapters with pages of notes interleaved. The Chapters are headed. Variation under domestication, variation under nature, Struggle for Existence, Natural Selection.... A noise behind him almost makes him jump out of his skin. Its Annie, ten years old in her checked dress, as she will always be in his imagination.
    ANNIE
    Why are you scared?
    DARWIN
    Like you said. You're in it.
    ANNIE
    Its only a book, silly.
    He sits there regarding the open box, paralysed by indecision. Annie tenderly smooths his hair, rearranging his collar.
    DARWIN
    What are you doing, Annie?
    ANNIE
    I'm making you beautiful.
    DARWIN
    I have to work.
    Though the soft touch of her little hands is almost too real for him to bear and he closes his eyes
    ANNIE
    Breath in, papa. Breathe out. Now Tell me a story.
    DARWIN
    I have no time....
    ANNIE
    About Jenny. Please?
    The sound of a wave breaking. Wind stirs Darwin's hair He opens his eyes and he is ....

EXT. ENGLISH BEACHSIDE. THE PAST DAY
    Sitting with Annie ten years ago on an English pebble beach. She has collected a pile of shells and is arranging them in "families". The dialogue is continuous
    DARWIN
    Why do you always ask for Jenny? Its so sad.
    ANNIE
    That's why I like it. It makes me cry.
    She looks up from her shells and smiles winningly. Darwin looks out to sea, at the bright crashing line of surf, and begins the familiar, much-told tale:
    DARWIN
    Once apon a time there was a family of Orang-u-tangs living in the jungles of darkest Borneo

EXT. JUNGLES OF BORNEO. DAY
    Our POV moves between dark tropical trees to find a group of Orangutans flopping around grooming each other. As with the land of the Fuegan savages, there is something slightly artificial about these jungles, as though the trees really belong in Kew gardens, and the naked jungle warriors, whom we now see stalking through them, are on loan from the museum of mankind.
    DARWIN
    Their eldest daughter was the most loving, caring and trusting Orang of all.
    We follow a young nimble female, swinging through the trees, revelling in her own gymnastic ability, until she stops - hearing something: the sound of human speech.
    DARWIN
    But these qualities in themselves cannot guarantee an ape's survival. Sometimes, quite the reverse.
    Native hunters are creeping through the undergrowth A warning screech from one of the Orang-u-tangs posted as lookouts. Most of the apes flee up into the canopy. Jenny stays where she is, fascinated, just a moment longer than is prudent.
    DARWIN
    When she realized her danger it was too late.
    As she turns to flee a weighted net is thrown on top of her. The hunters pounce.
    DARWIN
    They put her in a bag and carried her off....
    ANNIE
    " much to her loving parent's sorrow."
    DARWIN
    Exactly.
    The family screech and hoot, anguished, as the hunters head back off through the trees.

EXT. MARKET-PLACE. DAY
    Exotic coins and bank-notes pass from hand to hand: from the tribal chief to the sultan, in his overlarge turban, from the sultan to the trader in his solar topee and stained white suit.
    DARWIN
    The hunters sold her the to the Sultan who promptly sold her to a visiting Englishman who packed her aboard a sailing ship and brought her to London zoo.
    Jenny is taken out of a bamboo cage and put into a metal cage.

INT. CARGO SHIP. DAY
    The cage is lowered by a crane. Jenny looks out from her swaying prison at spinning grey skies and brick warehouses.

INT. CAGE. LONDON ZOO. DAY
    Now she sits disconsolately in a corner of her permanent enclosure. She has been dressed, ridiculously and poignantly in a smock and a bonnet. A group of onlookers are trying to get a reaction out of her. Eventually they give up and move on.
    DARWIN
    In London she had many admirers - of whom your father was but one.
    Darwin moves forwards from the shadows, where he has been observing and taking notes. As the other humans move away be attempts to start a conversation with Jenny in her own language, much in the way he communicated with baby Annie.
    DARWIN
    Hoo hoo hoo hoo.
    Jenny regards him sceptically then looks away.
    DARWIN.
    HOO!!
    She startles and looks at him aggressively.
    DARWIN
    Hm?
    He reaches in his pocket. This gets her interest. She comes closer, expecting food. Darwin takers out a sprig of verbena - a strongly scented herb. He holds in front of his nose and inhales, making contented expressions of pleasure. Jenny watches. Darwin holds the verbena towards Jenny. Cautiously she extends a hand through the bars. Their fingers touch in space, like God Giving life to Adam. For Darwin its a breakthrough - a moment of connection. Jenny eats the verbena and spits it out, shrieking angrily.
    CHARLES
    Wait, sorry, wait - I've got something else here for you
    He reaches in his pocket. She cocks her head, alert. With the air of a conjurer, he pulls out: A child's hand mirror, flashing as it catches the sun through the skylights.
    CHARLES
    (pleasurable surprise)
    Ahhhh!!
    He shows Jenny her own reflection and, then hands the mirror through the bars. Jenny takes the mirror, bites it, discovers it is inedible, and smashes it on the ground. Charles makes a sad, whining sound
    CHARLES
    Hew Hew Hew...
    JENNY
    (pouting)
    Hmph.
    Meaning: "OK then, I'm sorry." It's such a complex human reaction - grudging contrition - that Charles laughs aloud with pleasure. Jenny laughs. Charles takes out a mouth organ and plays a snatch of Chopin. Jenny covers her ears and chatters. "Not listening not listening!" Charles, insulted, stops playing. Jenny laughs waves a hand as if to say: "Play, if it amuses you. I'm must kidding."

EXT. THE BEACH. THE PAST. DAY
    The salt wind. The dazzling light. The slow pulse of the surf. Darwin has paused in his narrative.
    ANNIE
    Go on papa.
    DARWIN
    Go on what.
    ANNIE
    The bit where she gets sick and dies.
    DARWIN
    No. Why do you want to hear that bit?
    ANNIE
    I just like it. It makes me cry.
    Darwin smiles, his own eyes filling with tears. Then a door opens, softly, in the sky.

INT. THE STUDY. THE PRESENT. NIGHT
    It opens wider to reveal Emma's elegant profile, framed against the gaslight of the hallway. Her POV: the black box is unlocked and open, its contents strewn around the floor at darwins feet. Darwin is sitting on the floor of the study holding in his had a magazine, published by the Society for the useful Distribution of Knowledge, with a picture of Jenny on the cover
    EMMA
    Are you coming to bed?
    DARWIN
    Presently.
    He doesn't move. She comes in
    EMMA
    What did Huxley want?
    DARWIN
    He thinks I should write it and be done with it. He feels it is a question of moral courage ...or the lack of it.
    EMMA
    You did not tell him about your health.
    DARWIN
    His theory is that I am making myself ill by holding back. That I should lance the boil. Plunge in and hang the consequences.
    EMMA
    Thank the Lord he is not a surgeon.
    Darwin takes a breath and plunges in himself:
    DARWIN
    I've concluded he is right. Bite the gag. Speed is everything. It will all be over in a matter of months.
    Emma is horrified.
    EMMA
    It is not mere months that concern me Charles. Nor even years or decades...
    Its said quietly but with genuine anguish. To Emma it is as though her life partner has announced he's contemplating suicide.
    EMMA
    Do you really care so little for your immortal soul - for the knowledge that you and I may never be together, in all of eternity.
    DARWIN
    (softly)
    You know that what concerns you concerns me also. What do think has held me in limbo all these years.
    Emma has. They both know it. She turns abruptly from the door and hurries away.

INT. BEDROOM. THE PRESENT. NIGHT.
    Emma has been crying. She lies in bed pretending to sleep. Darwin gets into bed behind her. He wants desperately to reach out a hand to touch her, to comfort her, but he cannot do it for fear of weakening his own fragile resolve.
    DARWIN
    Dearest Emma. You know This is not a decision made lightly....

INT. DARWINS STUDY. THE PRESENT. DAWN
    In the dawn light, Darwin is writing a letter to his wife.
    DARWIN (V.O.)
    .... It has been a very slow and gradual process, like the raising of continents.

EXT. GARDEN. THE PRESENT. DAY.
    EMMA stands alone in the wintry garden, a white apron over her black dress, reading.
    DARWIN (V.O)
    What else can I say to you, except that it seems the process is now complete.
    A tear tracks down the curve of Emma's cheek as she folds the letter, puts it in her pocket and return to the business of dead-heading flowers. In voice over we hear singing.
    CONGREGATION
    All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small. All things wize and wonderful, The lord God made them all.

EXT. DOWN VILLAGE CHURCH . THE PAST. DAY.
    Move in through the graveyard, past the ancient yew..
    CONGREGATION (OS)
    Each little flower that opens, Each little bird that sings, He made their glowing colors, He made their tiny wings.

INT. DOWNE VILLAGE CHURCH. THE PAST. DAY.
    The church is packed for the Sunday Morning service The Darwin family stand in the front row. Emma, the servants and the rest of the family are singing lustily: Parslow - a somewhat pompous operatic tenor, Brodie and Innes both loudly Scottish (Innes out of tune), Annie by Darwins side, trilling along in a tuneful little descant. She notices her father is not singing and offers him her hymn book with the words. Darwin smiles and returns it. Its not that he doesn't know the lyrics, its just that he can't bring himself to say them.
    DARWIN FAMILY
    All things bright and beautiful all creatures great and small. All things wize and wonderful the Lord God made them all.
    The organ, played by Mrs Innes, wheezes to a pause. Innes himself mounts the pulpit.
    INNES
    Let us pray.
    Everyone bows their heads in prayer.
    INNES
    Lord God we know the world is governed by Thy plan.
    Darwin is immediately not listening. He looks along the row of his children, standing dutifully in a line between Charles and Emma. George, aged 5, is studying the woodlice which are nesting between the pages of his hymnal
    INNES (O.S)
    Extending even to the merest creatures thou hast made, such that even a sparrow falls not to the ground without thy will.
    Darwin, stands watching the play of light from the stained glass window on his shoes. Then raises his head
    INNES
    Teach us that all misfortune. All sickness and death, all the trials and miseries of which we daily complain are intended for our good, being not the vagaries of an uncaring universe but the corrections of a wize and affectionate parent
    Innes looks up sternly and sees the Darwin's head raised among the sea of down-turned heads. Their eyes meet briefly in a sort of challenge, and in that moment, Darwin somehow knows with absolutely certainty that religious faith has left him. With a whispered word to the beadle standing next to him to take the collection Darwin slips out from the pew and heads off up the aisle.
    DARWIN
    Excuse me
    He's intending to be quiet and subtle but the creaking boards under his feet loudly announce his departure. Innes raises his voice above the fusillade.
    INNES
    Turn with me now to the book of Job, Chapter Two verse twelve
    The congregation, not daring to raise their heads, watch Darwin's sturdy walking shoes departing down the aisle.

EXT. THE CHURCH. THE PAST. DAY.
    The rise and fall of Innes's voice continues in the background as Darwin walks out from the porch, emerging from shadow into sunlight. A summers day. He feels like a weight has been lifted. The church beadle comes out behind him.
    BEADLE
    Are you all right, sir?
    DARWIN
    Never better. Thank-you.
    He heads off up the gravel path INT WOODLANDS. THE PRESENT. DAY The faint and Distant sound of church singing filters through the misty woods. The black wet trunks of trees catch the sunlight. Frosty dew highlights Mistletoe and holly and dead bracken and the sudden red flash of a robin. Darwin cuts a strange dark angular figure, walking along the narrow track a single step at a time. He pauses breathing, and listens. His quick eye catches the robin seizing a worm. Further on. A pheasant breaks cover. A hare stands upright in a clearing then bounds away. Darwin looks down and takes another step, placing his feet carefully, silently so as not to disturb the wildlife. Cut to a different pair of much newer shoes in exactly the same spot.

INT. WOODLANDS. THE PAST. DAY
    Darwin is ten years younger, pacing in the same, measured way through summer woodland. There's a noise behind him and he turns, finger to his lips for silence. Annie turns away from him and passes the sign down the line of children: Etty, George, Betty and Franky, in decreasing order of height.
    ANNIE
    Shh
    FRANKY
    (to ANNIE)
    What are we looking at?
    The question comes back up the line
    DARWIN
    A weasel.
    The children bunch up to gaze on a strange and wonderful sight. In a little sun-dappled clearing a weasel is turning loop the loops in a strange spiralling dance for the benefit of... ...a young rabbit, which sits utterly hypnotized by the performance. At first its strange and amusing, then the dance becomes more sinister. The weasel advancing by tiny increments as it tumbles in the air, finally
    ANNIE
    NO!
    The weasel seizes the bunny rabbit by the back of the neck and shakes it savagely. The rabbit shrieks and spasms. Annie is beside herself, drumming the ground with her feet in a fever of fear and pity. The rabbit is still in its dearth throes, its neck broken, its back legs still jerking
    ANNIE
    No! No! Stop it. Daddy. Stop it. Make it stop.
    The rabbit is already dead.
    DARWIN
    Annie, Annie, Annie.
    He sinks to his knees, heedless of the mud on his Sunday best worsted, embracing her. The others are shocked and amazed by the rabbits death, but none of them distressed as Annie. They are country children and death is an everyday event
    GEORGE
    The chickens do that too when cookie kills them
    ANNIE
    (tearful furious)
    Chickens are different!
    (To her father)
    ANNIE
    Why didn't you do something. You should have stopped it!
    DARWIN
    The weasel has to eat. Its the way of the world. Annie
    ANNIE
    Its not fair. Its not fair.
    DARWIN
    No, its not fair at all.
    Patting her and stroking her as the little sobs subside. The weasel is dragging the dead rabbit back to its lair.
    DARWIN
    ....but still it is extraordinary, do you not think, that a weasel should learn to dance the polka.
    Despite herself the concept amuses Annie. Chest still heaving with sobs - she dries her eyes and smiles at him through her tears.

INT. DOWN HOUSE. BEDROOMS. THE PAST .NIGHT .
    Piano music - Chopin - plays softly over as Charles and Emma do the rounds of their large brood of children, turning out lamps and kissing sleeping heads, taking a doll from one sleeping child's embrace, a sword from another. Shooing a cat and her kittens from the bedroom.
    EMMA
    Good-night Lenny.
    DARWIN
    Good-night Frankie
    EMMA
    Good-night Betty.
    Darwin watches his wife, a sensuous figure, stooped over the sleeping child, a lock of hair falling forwards as she kisses her.
    DARWIN
    Good-night George
    EMMA
    Good-night Etty.
    DARWIN
    Good-night Willy
    DARWIN AND EMMA
    Good-night Annie
    She's sound asleep. Finally Charles and Emma are alone together in the blissfully silent house. Emma smiles
    EMMA
    Dear Charles
    DARWIN
    Dearest Emma
    He takes her hand and leads her to their bedroom.

EXT. THE BEACH. THE PAST. DAY
    Emma lies on a rug, her head is in Darwin's lap. She is reading aloud from a new book of poems by Wordsworth.
    EMMA
    "Loving she is, and tractable though wild. And innocence hath privilege in her. To dignify arch looks and laughing eyes; And feats of cunning; and the pretty round Of trespasses, affected to provoke Mock chastisement, and partnership in play"
    She puts the book down
    DARWIN
    (smiling)
    Then we were wrong. She is not unique after all.
    Darwin is watching Annie dancing in front of the surf , turning cartwheels - a wild dancing sprite of the sea, oblivious to the cold, shouting and singing: THE BEACH. LATER Later, Near the cliff, Darwin is "geologising" He's excited, breathless and windswept, shouting over the sound of the nearby surf as he clambers over the huge assorted boulders pointing out the geological strata to his kids who are more interested in clambering.
    DARWIN
    This is Devonian, about 400 million years ago. Rocks like this might have fishes in them, trilobites, tree ferns, corals maybe....
    He knock off a corner of rock with his geological hammer, then moves on
    ETTY
    Is this a bit?
    DARWIN
    No that is Cretaceous Etty. It was made a hundred millions years ago, when this cliff was a coral reef and Down village was a swamp full of great crocodiles.
    Tap tap tap with his hammer as the boys scramble upwards, playing at mountaineers.
    DARWIN
    We might find oysters and sponges imprinted in it, or dinosaurs if we were lucky...
    GEORGE
    What's a dinosaur?
    ETTY
    Professor Owen invented them.
    DARWIN
    They are the giant lizards which lived on earth before there were any humans.
    BETTY
    But they weren't real
    DARWIN
    Of course they are, Betty. Did I never tell you of the skeletons I found in South America
    (to Etty)
    Do you remember Mr Martell?
    ETTY
    No.
    Annie arrives, hopping nimbly over the rocks still in her wet swimsuit
    ANNIE
    Yes you do. When he came to tea and showed us drawings of his Iguanodon. And George burnt his fingers roasting chestnuts.
    ETTY
    Oh yes.
    ANNIE
    She doesn't remember.
    DARWIN
    You should have your clothes on Annie. You are quite blue.
    ANNIE
    Savages don't swear clothes.
    She runs to the top of a great fallen rock, spreads her arms out, and yells to the sky.
    ANNIE
    I'm a Fuegan.
    DARWIN
    Well don't fall and hurt yourself. Your mother would never forgive me.
    Annie gives a shout and disappears head over heels.
    DARWIN
    Annie!
    ANNIE
    I've found one!
    In the rubble at the base of the rocks she has landed, unhurt and quite by accident on a perfect specimen of a fossilized trilobite.

INT. DARWIN'S STUDY. THE PRESENT. DAY
    The black box lies open with all its secrets strewn around the office. Stacks of paper - a stack for every chapter - are held down with paperweights - a fossil, a skull, a specimen bottle. Darwin squares a stack of blank paper between his hands, then reaches for his pen.

INT. VILLAGE SCHOOL. THE PAST . DAY.
    Annie reaches for her pen. Reverend Innes is giving the children their writing lessons, according to "Mulhauser's technique"
    INNES
    First positions.
    The children assume the position as if in some militaristic drill.
    INNES
    Second positions.
    Grips are adjusted, pens are dipped.
    INNES
    Assume the distance.
    The children lean back fractionally, so their elbows are just back from the edge of the desk.
    INNES
    .....and begin.
    The Children start to copy the sentence which Innes has written on the blackboard. Annie reads the sentence and hesitates: "And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested" INT DARWIN'S STUDY. DAY. Darwin massages his cramped hand then takes a blank sheet of notepaper.
    DARWIN
    Dearest Hooker. I am one week into the great project and I feel at last that it is real. Its title is "On the Origin of Species." As I write theses words why does it feel as though I am confessing to a murder...
    A paper stirs in the breeze and he pins it with the nearest object to hand - Annie's trilobite. His eye rests on it a moment CUT TO

INT. DARWIN'S STUDY. THE PAST . DAY
    The corrugated gray surface, greatly magnified. The Darwin of ten years ago is examining the trilobite with a watchmakers eyeglass. There is a small mirror above his desk, angled so as to give him a view of the path leading round from the front of the house. Innes appears briefly in it, preceded by Annie, who is trotting to keep pace with him and crying. Darwin, intent on his work, notices neither of them From downstairs he hears the door knocker then Brodie's voice, then Emma's overlapping with half-heard fragments of Innes's Scottish brogue.
    INNES (O.S.)
    I thought you needed to know why I had to chastised her.
    Darwin remains immersed, examining each detail of the trilobite, comparing it with other specimens in books and in boxes.
    INNES (O.S.)
    ....It is not fair to the other nor to Annie herself that her head be filled with these ideas....
    EMMA
    Are you listening, Annie?
    Annie sobs louder, incoherent in her grief. Darwin finally focusses on the sounds, recognizes her distress and gets up to investigate. EXT .UPPER HALLWAY. DAY. He reaches the top of the stairs. Annie is directly below him, slumped, still sobbing at the foot of the stairs. Emma has ushered Innes to the porch out of sight.
    INNES (O.S)
    I shall bid you good day then
    The front door closes. Darwin comes downstairs
    DARWIN
    What happened?
    ANNIE
    Nothing.
    DARWIN
    Its not nothing. (To Annie) Why
    are your knees bleeding?
    EMMA
    Mr Innes had to have words with her. It is sorted now.
    DARWIN
    Words are very well. I am asking what happened to her knees.
    ANNIE
    Mr Innes sent me to the corner and made me kneel on rock-salt.
    DARWIN
    What!
    ANNIE
    (in a rush)
    I said there were dinosaurs and he said there wasn't dinosaurs but there were because you saw them.
    EMMA
    (interrupting)
    Annie. Let me talk to your father. He told her to kneel til she repented...
    DARWIN
    Repented what?
    EMMA
    The bleeding is due to her own stubborn-ness. It is finished now.
    DARWIN
    It is by no means finished. Where is my coat. Its intolerable
    EMMA
    Charles. Please.
    Charles ignores her, Forcing his arm into the sleeve of his coat.
    EMMA
    Mr Innes is a dear friend and
    neighbor. I beg you at least appraise yourself the facts. She contradicted him repeatedly. The fault was Annie's Mr Innes was quite within his rights.
    DARWIN
    (his arm is stuck)
    In his rights to torture our children for expressing the plain truth.
    Brodie appears and Darwin ushers Annie towards her
    DARWIN
    ...Please take her to kitchen.
    EMMA
    It is not the truth as he sees it
    DARWIN
    Well damn how he sees it. Damn the pair of them and all their works
    EMMA
    Charles listen to yourself. Listen
    Blocking his path as he heads for the door. Her palm flat on his lapel, soothing, reasoning with him
    DARWIN
    Emma please. I will not have Innes tell me what I can and cannot tell my children.
    EMMA
    It is what I have told them every night at bedtime. It is the instruction my aunt and your brother and most of our family live by. It is what all of the village believe ...or try to. Charles. Must our children be revolutionaries at nine years of age. Write to him with your concerns - our concerns - about the manner of the punishment but please do not set yourself against him. Think of my feelings on this. I beg you.
    Finally his outrage has spent itself, neutralized by her gentle persistence and the deep affection he holds for her.
    DARWIN
    You're right of course.... I'm sorry.
    He embraces her. Emma is reassured, she cannot see the conflict written all over Darwins face.

INT. STUDY. DAY. (THE PRESENT)
    The conflicted expression has hardened, the furrows in Darwin's brow etched deeper, as he dips his pen and begins the second chapter. From the floor below we can hear Emma practising a piece of music on the piano - Chopin's revolutionary etude: a rippling, brooding arpeggio running up and down the keyboard, redolent of an angry sea. Darwin's pen scratches doggedly over the paper.

INT. BEDROOM. NIGHT.
    In the bedroom, in his nightgown, Darwin scrubs the ink stains off his fingers with a pumice stone. Emma passes behind him, preparing for bed. He glances at her in the mirror
    DARWIN
    You're still angry with me.
    EMMA
    No. Why?
    DARWIN
    I can always tell by your playing.
    EMMA
    Not angry. I'm sad.

INT. DARWIN'S STUDY. THE PRESENT. DAY
    Darwin sits at his desk, writing and editing, his hand clamped on the pen. A voice speaks from nowhere
    ANNIE
    Talk to her.
    DARWIN
    (still writing)
    And say what? She does not want to hear it.
    ANNIE
    Then write to her.
    DARWIN
    (irritably)
    That is what I am doing Annie, I am writing all of it.

EXT. DARWIN'S STUDY. DAY
    Emma, passing the open door glimpses Darwin talking angrily to himself as he writes.
    DARWIN
    ....and then she can read it, and we can all be free of this! Now, please, Annie no more interruptions!

EXT. GARDEN. DAWN
    The music continues, louder. A frosty coating of dew covers the lawn. Footprints lead to a strange wooden tower in the garden. Parslow stands outside, shivering in the grey morning light. Darwin shouts from inside.
    DARWIN
    Pull!
    Parslow pulls a lever. There's the sound of crashing water, a yell of pain from inside the tower. Ravens rise, calling, from the surrounding trees.

INT. DARWIN'S STUDY. THE PRESENT. DAY
    Darwin dips his pen, scores out some text from his previous draft and writes again. The music continues from downstairs, louder and more insistent than before. LOUNGE ROOM. THE PRESENT. DAY Emmas hands race back and forwards along the piano keyboard. INT DARWIN'S STUDY. THE PRESENT Darwin's pen scratches across the pages, making a noise like fingernails on a blackboard. The music from downstairs seeming to drive into his skull He speaks aloud the words he is writing, in an effort to drown out the piano music.
    DARWIN (THOUGHT VOICE)
    ... In time small variations become extreme...
    Strange detailed drawings of barnacles are strewn across his desk, seeming to change and transmute before his eyes.
    DARWIN (V.O.)
    ...Organs change their very function, the oviduct becomes a cement gland.
    He stops. His hand is shaking too much to write.
    ANNIE
    What's an oviduct?
    DARWIN
    Nothing that need concern you.
    ANNIE
    (sulkily)
    I know what it is anyway.
    Darwin gets up abruptly from his desk.

INT. WATER TOWER. DAY
    DARWIN
    Pull!
    Darwin stands naked, clutching to two hand rails for support as a great tub of freezing water tilts and pours its contents on top of him. Darwin yells EXT DOVECOTE Birds rush out from the dovecote

INT. STUDY
    Darwin dips his pen and writes
    DARWIN
    ....What was once a free- swimming creature now finds itself glued by its head to a rock, flailing for food with its legs...,
    The Revolutionary etude is continuous now - real or imagined. UNDER THE SEA Surf crashes. Underwater, among the swirling seaweed, fragile sea creatures being torn this way and that by the raging surf

INT. MALVERN SPA TREATMENT ROOM. DAY
    Annie screams and kicks her legs, overwhelmed by water in some dark place. Pull back to reveal:

INT. HELL.
    A vision of hell: The water is fire. The barnacles are people. The people are Annie, Emma and Darwin.

INT. BEDROOM. NIGHT
    Darwin wakes in a panic and sits up in bed. He raises his right arm and looks down at his inky writing hand fluttering in the moonlight, like an organ with a will all of its own Emma is a sleep. There's a crucifix on the wall above her bed. On the bedside table there's a bible.
    EMMA
    " ...About the midst of this valley I perceived the mouth of hell to be; and it stood also hard by the wayside. Now, thought Christian, what shall I do?

INT. NURSERY. THE PRESENT. NIGHT
    The children are gathered around Emma who is reading a bed- time story to them by lamplight. Emma is in the centre of a circle of little attentive faces. She's aware of Darwin, standing in the darkened corridor beyond the door, drawn to the cosy little group but unable to join it. She lets him be. Continues reading
    EMMA
    And ever and anon the flame and smoke would come out in such abundance with sparks and hideous noises, that he was forced to put up his sword, and betake himself to another weapon, called "All Prayer"..."

INT. ETTY'S ROOM NIGHT.
    The older girls Etty and Betty finish their prayers and jump into bed in their night-gowns Emma comes in to take away their lamp.
    ETTY
    Is Daddy not coming to kiss us good-night
    EMMA
    He is still a little bit ill from working ...maybe tomorrow.
    BETTY
    That's what you said last night.
    Emma turns out the light. In the darkness Etty says.
    ETTY
    I think when Annie died he stopped loving us.
    Emma returns to her bedside
    EMMA
    Oh come now, Etty. You know that's not true. He is just a little bit ill - and a little bit busy.

INT. BOILER ROOM. DAY
    In the bowels of Down House the house, we find Darwin wrapped in wet towels sweating in front of the wood-burning stove. As he gazes into the leaping flames, Annie appears at his shoulder.
    ANNIE
    Is there really such a place as hell.
    DARWIN
    No of course not. How can there be? If he is supposed to be loving and forgiving - what on earth is the sense punishing all these millions of souls.
    ANNIE
    But just suppose if there was. And all this was punishment.
    DARWIN
    All what?
    No reply.
    DARWIN
    I don't know what you mean. All what?
    INT THE WATER TOWER. DAY Darwin stands, legs apart in the water tower bracing himself like a colossus against the full force of the deluge.
    DARWIN
    Pull!
    EXT THE WATER TOWER. DAY The gardener, splitting logs, watches Darwin stagger from the tower with a rug wrapped around him, and make his way back to the house.

INT. DARWIN'S BEDROOM. DAY.
    Darwin lowers himself into bed, inky and tousled. He seems prematurely aged, crippled by the gruelling process of writing the book. As he lies there, unable to sleep lines of written text seems to appear behind his closed eyes, or in the tangled vines of the wallpaper. Emma speaks from the other side of the bed.
    EMMA
    Talk to Mr Innes. Please. You are clearly not well
    DARWIN
    He is what? A physician now
    EMMA
    You know what I mean. I think he can help you.
    Charles remains stubbornly silent, his hand fluttering over the coverlet.
    EMMA
    I am taking the children to Maer for a while, to visit their cousins.
    (Beat)
    I worry for you, Charles. Please
    talk to him INT DARWIN'S STUDY. DAY Fire flares in the grate as Darwin compares the skeletons of various pigeons. He starts a new Chapter: "changes under domestication"

INT. THE DOVECOTE. THE PRESENT. DAY
    Pigeons mate and coo in the dusty twilight.

EXT. THE DOVECOTE. THE PRESENT. DAY
    Parslow picks up two of them, casually wrings their necks and heads off with them to the skeletonizing shed.

INT. DARWINS STUDY. THE PRESENT. DAY
    Darwin Looks out of the study window, searching for inspiration. He sees Emma and the children getting into a coach with their baggage.

INT. DARWIN'S STUDY. THE PRESENT. NIGHT.
    Darwin sits at his desk. He has written the chapter heading and nothing else. Parslow knocks and looks in
    PARSLOW
    Will you be eating sir.
    DARWIN
    No thank you.
    Parslow leaves. Darwin addresses the empty room.
    DARWIN
    Annie? .....Annie.
    She will not come.

EXT. THE BEACH. THE PAST. DAY
    Annie dancing in the surf. One minute she is there and the next she has vanished, lost among the churning waves. Darwin leaps top his feet shouting
    DARWIN
    Annie!
    Raucous male laughter takes us to

INT. PUBLIC HOUSE. THE PAST. EVENING.
    The George and Dragon on a Saturday night. The air loud with laughter and thick with pipe smoke. Clodhoppers crowd the snug, many of them roaring drunk, with their florid complexions, stained and broken teeth. Darwin trying, to slip in discreetly is spied by a group of locals who hail him and gather around him, wedging him into a corner with their overloud loud talk and laughter.
    THATCHER
    Mr Darwin! Mr Darwin! I was explaining to Mr Goodman here your interest in breeding. Mr Darwin is our foremost scholar in the village.
    DARWIN
    No. No I am but one of many. There is Squire Lubbock, and the reverend Innes
    The Thatcher waves them away as lesser talents.
    THATCHER
    ....he is also a noted explorer, the author of many books..
    DARWIN
    ...which no-one has read.
    THATCHER
    ...a fellow of the Royal society and a prodigious expert on clams...oysters?
    DARWIN
    Barnacles.
    THATCHER
    Mr Goodman, now, is the foremost pigeon fancier in all the southern counties. Kent champion two years running. I swear he can give you any beak or plumage in four generations. Head and tail in five.
    DARWIN
    How do you do it?
    GOOODMAN
    By breeding cousin with cousin. I find it the fastest way to alter
    the strain - provided you do not weaken it in other ways. Darwin takes a slug of whiskey

INT. DARWIN'S STUDY. THE PRESENT. NIGHT
    He is drinking in his office. The clock strikes twelve. The page in front of him remains stubbornly blank Darwin is rising from his desk when he sees something move. In one of the bottles on his desk, a fleshy marine specimen seems to have come to life. It writhes blindly in its bottle of formalin, making a sound like a baby crying. Darwin, recoiling in horror, pushes himself back from his desk. The castors on his chair trundle back from his desk. Behind him he hears a tapping and turns to see that all the birds in his big glass display case of Galapagos finches have started to beat against the inside the crowded glass case. They flutter, frenzied, tapping with their beaks on the inside of the glass, which shatters as... One by one the bottled specimens explode, discharging their contents onto the floor. A lamp falls over. The room is filled with birds the floor awash with formalin and broken glass. The Study seems to tilt like the cabin of a ship in a storm and.

INT. DARWIN'S BEDROOM. THE PRESENT. DAWN
    Darwin wakes from the nightmare asleep at his desk, the whiskey bottle a quarter empty, ink on his hands and his shirt cuffs He gets up and puts on his shoes.

INT. DOWN HOUSE. DRAWING ROOM. THE PRESENT. DAWN .
    The scullery maid, lighting the fire, looks round and sees Darwin. He walks past her without a word and heads out into the garden.

EXT. DOWN HOUSE GARDEN. THE PRESENT. DAWN
    Darwin heads across the lawn, takes a key from his belt and opens the door of the skeletonizing shed.

INT. SKELETONIZING SHED. THE PRESENT. DAWN
    In the grey light he takes in the corpses of doves from the dovecote. Some have been skinned, their pelts curing on frames, their carcasses steeping in a buckets chemicals which remove the flesh from the bones. Previously he regarded this place as a sort of laboratory. Now it seems a place of horror. The door opens behind him. Its Parslow.
    DARWIN
    Get rid of them.
    PARSLOW
    Which ones sir?
    DARWIN
    All of them. All of it.

INT. DOVECOTE. THE PRESENT. DAWN
    Darwin reaches into the dovecote and starts grabbing pigeons at random, dragging them out and flinging them into the air.
    DARWIN
    Go. Go!

EXT. DOWN HOUSE. THE PRESENT. DAWN.
    Displaced doves beat the air. Darwin climbs down the ladder, grabs and axe and attacks the wooden stanchions supporting the dovecote Parslow comes running over from the skeletonizing shed, calling:
    PARSLOW
    Sir. Mr Darwin.
    Darwin stands back, hair wild, eyes crazed, his sleeves covered in bird shit.
    PARSLOW
    Please rest sir. I'll have John Lewis remove it. Have some breakfast now and rest. Shall I call the doctor?
    DARWIN
    God know.
    PARSLOW
    Or the water tower.
    DARWIN
    A pox on all of them!

INT. ANNIE'S ROOM. THE PAST. DAY
    The local doctor Henry Holland takes out various concoctions from his medical bag and arranges them on the dresser. We are in the past. Annie is in bed with a fever. Emma is pregnant.
    DOCTOR
    Calomel then, twice daily.
    DARWIN
    I will not give it to her.
    EMMA
    Charles....
    DOCTOR
    Mrs Darwin, it is nothing but chloride of mercury. I have prescribed it often in children as young as two.
    DARWIN
    Not to any of mine I hope. On the Beagle I dropped some on a microscope slide and all my animacules died of it.
    DOCTOR
    Well animacules are not persons. Presumably they would die if you dose them with Madeira wine.
    DARWIN
    On Madeira they thrived most excellently, as did Captain Fitzroy, while it lasted.
    Annie enjoys the joke and gives Darwin a weak smile. The doctor regards her balefully
    DOCTOR
    Or if she would submit to be bled.
    ANNIE
    Please no.
    DARWIN
    I will write to Dr Gully again.
    DOCTOR
    (sceptical)
    The hydro-therapist?
    DARWIN
    I have always found his treatments most effective.
    DOCTOR
    ...no matter that they defy all sense of logic.
    He is packing up his bottles and his lancets
    DARWIN
    Logic is not everything.
    Emma shoots him a look. Til now scientific logic has been his guiding principle.
    DOCTOR
    Then I shall bid you good day.
    DARWIN
    Parslow will bring your carriage. I will be down presently
    The doctor leaves the room. Emma is in a terrible quandary
    DARWIN
    I should take her to Malvern.
    EMMA
    I think it is better she is here.
    DARWIN
    Gully can care for her properly there. She can be treated daily, as I was.
    EMMA
    Charles no. She is better with us. With her family. Please do not take her away from me.

INT. DARWIN'S STUDY. THE PRESENT. DAY
    Parslow enters to find his master staring vacantly into space. The page in front of him is still blank. The study is in chaos. It seems as though the contents of the black box have multiplied and spread out to colonize every corner of the room.
    PARSLOW
    Post for you sir.
    He leaves it by Darwins elbow and backs out. After a while Darwin seems to rouse himself. He picks up the largest envelope, postmarked Malaysia, and slits it with a letter knife. The sender is a Mr Wallace. There's a covering letter and a twenty page attachment Darwin reads, and lets out a sudden loud bellow of laughter.
    DARWIN
    Ha!!

EXT. DOWN HOUSE. THE PRESENT. DAY.
    Darwin sits in sunshine at the rear of the house, rugged up against the cold. Looking frail still, but oddly at peace.
    INNES
    Ah, there you are Mr Darwin.
    Darwin looks up blinking in the sunlight to see the stocky, dark-suited figure of Mr Innes.
    INNES
    May I join you.
    DARWIN
    By odd means
    He makes some space on the bench. Innes hesitates, unable to read Darwin's feelings towards him. The smile is welcoming enough but there is something not altogether balanced about it
    INNES
    Mrs Darwin informed me you would be alone and ....perhaps a need to counsel.
    He sees an envelope on the ground and stoops to retrieve it.
    INNES
    You dropped this. What a beautiful postage stamp.
    DARWIN
    Yes. It is from the Spice islands.
    INNES
    I do rather envy your wide circle of correspondents. In my youth I always wanted to travel.
    DARWIN
    You are still young. You could be
    a missionary and follow in Mr Livingstone's footsteps.
    INNES
    Yes, although I have always felt there is quite enough evil at home without looking for it abroad.
    (Then, casually)
    Mrs Darwin told me of the book you are writing.
    DARWIN
    Not any more, thank goodness
    INNES
    You have finished it?
    DARWIN
    It has been finished for me. My correspondent In the spice islands has arrived independently at exactly the same idea, expressed in a mere twenty pages.
    DARWIN
    There's brevity for you. I had so far covered two hundred an fifty and come to a dead end. So finally I am rid of the project.
    Innes is relieved to hear it
    INNES
    The Lord moves in mysterious ways.
    DARWIN
    He does indeed Mr Innes. I was reflecting only the other day on the fact that he has endowed us in his blessed generosity with not one but nine hundred species of intestinal worm each with its own unique method of infiltrating the blood supply and burrowing through the mucosa.
    Innes shifts uncomfortably.
    DARWIN
    And then again on the great love
    he shows for butterflies by inventing a wasp to lay eggs inside the living flesh of caterpillars
    INNES
    Well. It is not for us to guess at His reasons.
    DARWIN
    No. We can leave that for Mr Wallace now. Should I advise him to stay overseas do you think? If he shows his face in Kent he may be required to kneel on rock salt.
    Innes rises. He's a short man, acutely aware of any threats to his dignity, and he's had enough of this mockery
    INNES
    I once valued our friendship Mr Darwin. I had hoped it might be possible to restore it. Clearly in your present mood that is not going to be possible. My regards to Mrs Darwin
    He starts off round the corner of the house. Darwin listens to his footsteps receding, then turns his face back to the sun. When he opens his eyes sees a figure standing in the lawn. It is Annie, plain as day, scowling at him angrily.
    DARWIN
    What? I am forestalled by Mr Wallace. That is the simple fact of it. What reason do you have to be angry?!
    She shoots him a look of hatred then turns away from him and runs off towards the meadow. Darwin, instantly remorseful, gets to his feet and hurries after her.
    DARWIN
    Annie!
    He reaches the centre of the lawn and stopped by a sudden intense pain in the gut which strikes him like a blow and fells him to his knees. He lies their gasping, his vision clouding as the pages of the Wallace letter slip from his grasp and are scattered to the wind. A view from high above: spiralling downwards on the Darwin garden, as household servants emerge from various quarters and hurry to his assistance.

INT. DARWIN'S BEDROOM. THE PRESENT. DAY.
    There are some faint stains on the plasterwork of the bedroom ceiling. Like lichen on a rock. Like an archipelago of islands. Darwin lies, pale and weak, looking upwards from a sea of white blankets. The door opens and he turns his head. Its Emma.
    EMMA
    You have a visitor.
    DARWIN
    No. No. I will not be bled or lectured to.
    She gives him a pinched look, then Hooker pushes in behind her.
    HOOKER
    It is me. Thank God you are still with us. Word came from London you had suffered an apoplectic stroke.
    DARWIN
    No. Simply the great relief of liberation. Did you read the Wallace abstract.
    Hooker bats the idea away
    HOOKER
    It is a letter. You have a book
    DARWIN
    ...barely half of it
    HOOKER
    You have a book. What is not already on the page is most certainly inside your head and I intend to extract it, if it kills us both.
    DARWIN
    You have been talking to Huxley.
    HOOKER
    No. Had I done so he would have hastened here himself armed with every instrument of torture known to her majesty's navy.
    (Then)
    Charles I have read the first Chapters. It is brilliant. You must continue.
    DARWIN
    I cannot. Seriously Joseph, I am completely blocked. All my old symptoms have returned with a vengeance. The sweats the shakes the abdominal pains. The whole endeavour was cursed from the outset.
    Hooker takes darwins hand, presses it to stop it from trembling
    HOOKER
    Charles. It was you who opened my eyes to the wonders of science. So let me open yours. You have an illness. You have had it as long as I have known you.
    HOOKER
    It is clearly made worse in times of overwork but the nature of the work is irrelevant. This is not
    visited on you by God or the devil. This is a set of physical symptoms. Go to Malvern and get treated.
    DARWIN
    Not Malvern
    HOOKER
    Why not. What is there to be scared of there. He has worked for you in the past it will work again. Then come back and finish the book. Your enemies are already toasting their good fortune but they shall not prevail.
    DARWIN
    What are you talking about. I have no enemies.
    HOOKER
    They are legion, believe me, and they are implacable. We are all of us fighting a battle against fear and superstition but we can win this battle. We must win it. You can win it for all of us. Go to malvern, then come back and finish it.

INT. DOWN HOUSE. THE PAST. DAY.
    Upstairs, Servants are packing for a journey. The vigorous Darwin of the past moves swiftly from room to room, gathering his things. Hat and gloves, books, spectacles, papers. Emma, eight months pregnant, tries to keep up with him
    EMMA
    Charles, please reconsider
    CHARLES
    Emma it is weeks now, months. She is getting worse, not better.
    EMMA
    Then I am coming with you.
    DARWIN
    You cannot come. How can you possibly come in your condition.
    EMMA
    It is not so far.
    DARWIN
    It is two days by coach and train. Who will look after the others.
    EMMA
    I do not care for the others. I care for Annie!
    Etty, coming apon then unexpectedly, hears this and is instantly heartbroken. EMMA is devastated by the slip but is presently too overwrought to retract it.
    DARWIN
    Leave us please, Etty.
    Parslow has gathered up Annie from her room and is carrying her downstairs, pale and sickly-looking, with Brodie fussing behind.
    BRODIE
    Make sure she is tucked in. Watch her shawl
    ANNIE
    I don't need to go.
    At the bottom of the stairs, Darwin takes Annie from Parslow's arms
    DARWIN
    The coach is outside. I will carry her from here.
    EMMA
    Annie...
    ANNIE
    Mama...
    She clasps Emma's hand. Darwin keeps heading for the door. Emma holds fast to Annies hand and follows behind
    DARWIN
    You will see Mamma when you are better. Say goodbye now.
    Parslow holds the door open. The coach is at the Gate. Emma stops on the threshold, unable to let go her daughters hand and suddenly deeply convinced that she is making a mistake here.
    EMMA
    Wait. I am coming with you
    DARWIN
    Please, Emma
    EMMA
    Wait there.
    She hurries back inside. Darwin makes a decision and heads for the coach.

EXT. DOWN HOUSE. DAY
    Down the patch and through the open gate with the servants following.
    DARWIN
    Get aboard. Brodie
    ANNIE
    (shouts back)
    Mama!
    The garden gate clangs shut behind them.

INT. DOWN HOUSE STAIRWELL/ UPPER HALLWAY. THE PAST. DAY
    Emma looks out of the upstairs window, realizes they plan to leave without her and hurries downstairs again.

INT. COACH. THE PAST. DAY
    Charles bundles Annie inside.
    DARWIN
    (to the coachman)
    Go. Go.
    EMMA
    (calls)
    Wait!
    DARWIN
    Go now!
    ANNIE
    Mama!!
    The coach sets off. Emma runs to the gate calling desperately.
    EMMA
    Charles. Please God. No. Annie!

INT. COACH. THE PRESENT
    Charles, feeble and debilitated, levers himself into the coach with Parslow assisting and slumps back in the leather upholstery. Servants gather at the gate. Some of them tearful, not expecting him to return

EXT. STEAM TRAIN. THE PRESENT. DAY.
    A steam train comes charging past trailing plumes of black smoke, striking sparks from the track with its wheels.

INT. CARRIAGE. THE PRESENT. DAY.
    The sickly Darwin of the present sits hunched and nauseous, with Parslow sitting beside him with his suitcase on his lap. Every jolt of the train sends a spasm of pain through Darwin's guts. The people sitting opposite - a woman, a child, and a man - regard Darwin in silence. Whatever he suffers from its not good and they are worried about getting infected with it They plunge into a tunnel. The carriage fills with smoke. Parslow gets up and tries to close the window but it won't budge. A burning ember flies inside and lands on Darwin's leg. Darwin is too weak to lift a finger. Parslow slaps the ember and extinguishes it.

EXT. STATION. MALVERN.
    The train wheezes to a halt. The doors open and the train disgorges its cargo of sick people, come to Malvern for treatment - a coughing child, a woman with one side of her face aflame with shingles - the halt the lame and the afflicted.

EXT. HORSE AND CART. DAY
    Darwin sits in the back as the attendant drives them through Malvern.
    DARWIN
    Tell him not this way.
    PARSLOW
    (loudly)
    Hello there. Stop. Can we go by the other route
    ATTENDANT
    The Worcester Road is shorter.
    DARWIN
    ...by the low road.
    PARSLOW
    He wishes to go by the other route.
    ATTENDANT
    (with a sigh)
    As you will sir.
    He backs up the horses and turns the cart around

INT. GULLY'S CLINIC. DAY
    Dr Gully is the chief physician at Malvern spa. His marble- tiled consulting rooms resound with the sound of rumbling pipes and dripping water. Darwin reclines on a leather couch, watching the watery play of light on the ceiling. A door opens and Dr Gully comes in, accompanied by two assistants. Gully is a small dapper man wearing an apron over his shirt and tie. His trousers are tucked into calf-length Wellington boots. He greets Darwin cheerfully, effusively.
    MR GULLY
    Mr Darwin, old friend. Mr Darwin. It has been too long I fear. Tut tut tut tut tut. What have we now what have we now?
    He clasps Darwin's hand, feeling his pulse at the wrist, then commands him to open his mouth
    GULLY
    tongue...
    Darwin shows him.
    MR GULLY
    Ugh. Shirt up. Let me feel your liver.
    Darwin untucks his shirt. Gully prods at Darwin's belly. Darwin winces.
    DR GULLY
    Pulse hectic, togue furred, liver tender and enlarged.
    Darwin's ink stained fingers speak volumes.
    DR GULLY
    No doubt you have been exercising your brain every hour that God gave you.
    DARWIN
    I was persuaded to write book.
    DR GULLY
    Madness there are far too many of those already. Are you Sleeping?
    DARWIN
    Poorly.
    DR GULLY
    I suppose never taking the 50C dilution of Chelidonium.
    DARWIN
    (shakes his head)
    I had the gardener build a water tower. It no longer has any effect.
    GULLY
    Of course not. Your gardener is not a hydrotherapist. What on earth possessed you ?
    DARWIN
    I feared I was dying.
    DR GULLY
    Oh come come come. We shall not have that talk here.
    Half turning to his assistant, who is staking notes.
    GULLY
    A smart spinal scrub. Cold douche daily at 7.00. Wrapping in towels and sweating by the lamp.
    Then, to Darwin:
    DR GULLY
    No red meat, no reading, no mental agitation of any kind. We shall soon have you right old friend, we shall have you right.

INT. TREATMENT ROOMS. DAY
    Music over: Darwin sits in a deep metal bath while one of Gully's assistants scrubs his spine with a loofah.

INT. DOUCHE. DAY
    Darwin stands in a shaft of light, grabbing onto the hand rails as the icy flood continues to crash down on his shoulders, splintering and fracturing in the shaft of light.

INT. TREATMENT ROOMS. DAY
    Two assistants bind him tight in damp linen sheets, til he is immobilised like a cocoon, with his legs together and his hands by his side. They pick him up and lie him down, quite rigid beside another pod like creature, similarly swaddled, with a red face and a beard.
    BEARDED STRANGER
    Mr Darwin is it?
    Darwin nods, unable to turn his head, or make any gesture with his hands. The stranger continues to talk to him nonetheless.
    BEARDED STRANGE
    William Carter of Southampton. I read your Beagle account many years ago. Former naval man myself. What brings you here? Myself, a Bilious fever with blood per rectum, but I have every faith in Gully. The man is a miracle worker.

INT. TREATMENT ROOM. DAY
    Darwin sits with a blanket draped over his shoulders, under the merciless glare of a heat lamp. Sweat pours off him and forms puddles at his feet.

EXT. TERRACE. DAY.
    A bright sunny day. Darwin, looking weak but purged, sits on the terrace, sipping a glass of foul-tasting mineral water and looking out over the stone houses, fields and valleys of Malvern. Gully sits with him, interviewing him.
    GULLY
    What action do you most associate with the symptoms. Eating? Strong emotion? Strenuous Excercise?
    DARWIN
    Does the exercise of memory count as an action.
    GULLY
    Memory of what.
    DARWIN
    My eldest daughter. You remember her.
    GULLY
    Of course. Of course. You must accept there was nothing more we could do.
    DARWIN
    I know that. I know.
    A long, awkward silence, neither of them wants to recapitulate the events of Annies death.
    GULLY
    You say you were writing about her.
    DARWIN
    No. It is a scientific text. But I had reached a point, beyond which it was impossible to
    progress. She had been my companion throughout. Now it seemed she was ahead of me in a place I could not follow.
    GULLY
    Of course. Plainly she is in heaven.
    DARWIN
    That is what my wife believes. It is a great consolation to her
    GULLY
    But not to you.
    DARWIN
    Emma and I have become ...divided on it.
    GULLY
    Does it affect your marital relations.
    DARWIN
    We have none ...to speak of.
    GULLY
    (a beat)
    Are you familiar with the writings of DeQuincy."There is no such thing known to the mind as forgetting."
    DARWIN
    I don't know what it means.
    GULLY
    He suggests we have thoughts which do not actually enter the realm of consciousness. Nervous fibres exist after all throughout the whole body. Is it not possible that certain primal feelings manifest in some physical way. Eczema. Boils. A fever. Might some blocked passion imitate a gall-stone? Or even manufacture one.
    DARWIN
    Well, until someone devises a machine to read nervous impulses, or a telescope to look inside the body I suppose we can only guess at it.
    GULLY
    We can Mr Darwin. We can look inside you. If you find yourself open to it, there is a way of seeing.

EXT. STREETS OF MALVERN. NIGHT
    Darwin wanders the cobbled streets of Malvern, pausing occasionally to consult a hand-written address. It is starting to rain as, finally, he arrives at the address he is looking for. A substantial terraced house. Darwin descends a stone staircase to the imposing front door, and rings the bell. As he waits for an answer a woman appears, unseen in the rain streaked window above, observing him. Darwin rings again. A moment later the woman answers the door.
    DARWIN
    Mrs St John?
    MRS ST JOHN
    Mr Darwin. Come in.

INT. MRS ST JOHN HOUSE. NIGHT
    The room is large and hot, crowded with pot plants, and bric- a-brac. Various fringed lamp-shades, a dancing Shiva, a framed picture of Lourdes, and some illustrations from the Tarot. None of this inspires Darwin with confidence.
    ST JOHN
    Just leave your coat on the table. Sit down here. Show me your palm.
    The husky voice and the plunging decollete troubles Darwin, who hesitates.
    DARWIN
    Sorry. I'm confused. What is it you do exactly.
    MRS ST JOHN
    I envision what's inside your belly, dear. That's what you wanted, isn't it.
    DARWIN
    Envision how? When Gully described you I fancied some scientific instrument....
    MRS ST JOHN
    Depends what you class an instrument. In more resistant cases I might use a pendulum...
    He frowns. She smiles.
    MRS ST JOHN
    Its ten shillings for a reading by the way. In advance.
    DARWIN
    Well. I have a ten shilling note here in my wallet.
    He doesn't take it out.
    DARWIN
    If you can tell me the numbers on it we can begin.
    Mr St John' face hardens.
    MRS ST JOHN
    (coldly)
    I'm a professional lady Mr Darwin. I don't do party tricks.
    DARWIN
    I am a professional man. And I asking for no more than I ask of all my colleagues - a
    demonstration of competence.
    MRS ST JOHN
    It is you who are here to be tested, Sir, not me.
    DARWIN
    Then I am sorry to have wasted your time.
    He puts his jacket back on and heads for the door.

INT. HALLWAY. NIGHT.
    Mrs St John follows him. As he reaches for the doorhandle, and opens it, she says:
    MRS ST JOHN
    She's with you, you know that.
    Darwin turns.
    MRS ST JOHN
    Your little girl. I saw her from the window standing at the top of the steps.
    DARWIN
    How dare you.
    MRS ST JOHN
    Pardon?
    DARWIN
    ...prey on people's grief like this.
    MRS ST JOHN
    I have done no such thing.
    DARWIN
    (furious)
    Do you take me for an idiot? Clearly Gully has appraised you of my history.
    MRS ST JOHN
    I beg to inform you he did no such thing!
    DARWIN
    It is chicanery of the very lowest order and I despise it utterly!
    MRS ST JOHN
    Get out.

EXT. THE HOUSE. DAY
    Darwin steps outside and she slams the door on him. Darwin continues to rant at the closed door, standing in the pouring rain without his umbrella. He gets to the top of the steps, and looks around, trying to get his bearings. In a pool of lamp-light at the far end of the street a figure stands watching him. Darwin squints at her through the rain, which is falling harder now. The figure is Annie. She looks at him crossly, then heads off up a cobbled side- street. Darwin follows.

EXT. MALVERN. SIDE STREETS. VARIOUS. NIGHT
    Darwin pursues his daughter up narrow cobbled lanes.
    DARWIN
    Annie. Annie!
    The rain is getting heavier, turning the gutters into rivers. Water overflows the drains and culverts and rushes over the cobbles, making them slick and treacherous. Darwin hurries down darkened lanes and alleys, the sound of rushing water echoing all around, the little girl always ahead of him. A DRUNK MAN in oilskins comes barreling past him, head down, cursing the weather. A child's ball goes floating downhill in the current. Darwin loses Annie, then he sees her again, at the top of a steep flight of stone steps. Darwin, drenched chases after her.

EXT. WORCESTER ROAD. NIGHT.
    At the top of the steps he stops for breath and he looks around. There is no sign of Annie but he knows this street - The Worcester Road - a row of Grey Georgian houses, their backs against the hill, their sloping front gardens looking out over the rooftops of Malvern. Most of the street is in darkness but the house directly opposite has lights in the window. He knows this house also. He hesitates, then crosses the street towards it.

EXT. GUEST HOUSE. NIGHT
    Soaked to the skin, he raps with the brass door-knocker, then waits for someone to answer. Muffled voices. Then a man answers from within.
    LANDLORD (O.S.)
    Hello?
    DARWIN
    Is Mrs Carey still the landlady here.
    LANDLORD
    No.
    The door opens on a chain.
    DARWIN
    My daughter Annie ...lodged here some years ago. Can I come in?
    The man closes the door to release the chain, then opens it again to admit Darwin.
    DARWIN
    I know this is an intrusion. I wonder - could I visit the room she stayed in?
    The landlord doesn't know what to make of this
    LANDLORD
    Wait here. I'll get the missus.
    He leaves Darwin dripping in the hallway which he goes and consults with his wife in the lighted parlour. Darwin looks around. This place is all too familiar to him - the bevelled gold-rimmed mirror, the carved mock-Tudor coat- stand. Muffled conversation off. There are crutches and walking sticks among the umbrellas. Lavender potpourri in a brass dish. A wheel-chair in one corner, a picture of the pieta above the door. Finally, the land-lady emerges from her parlour.
    LANDLADY
    Which room?
    DARWIN
    Fourteen. I would only be there ten minutes. I am happy to pay.
    She goes into an alcove and emerges with a key.
    LANDLADY
    Up one flight and along the corridor to the right.
    DARWIN
    I remember.
    LANDLADY
    Try not to touch anything.

INT. GUESTHOUSE. THE PRESENT. NIGHT.
    Darwin, climbs the stairs to the Landing.

INT. GUESTHOUSE. THE PAST DAY
    The younger Darwin flees up the stairs.

INT. GUESTHOUSE. THE PRESENT. NIGHT.
    The older Darwin, reaches the top of the stairs and walks along the corridor to the right.

INT. GUESTHOUSE. THE PAST DAY
    The younger Darwin, races along the corridor.

INT. GUESTHOUSE. THE PRESENT NIGHT.
    The older Darwin, hesitates, chest pounding, outside the door of number 14, then unlocks it as...

INT. GUESTHOUSE. THE PAST. DAY
    The younger Darwin bursts into room 14 and takes in the scene. The room is full if light. A maid is bundling soiled sheets. Brodie is there with a harrassed-looking Dr Gully. They turn as he enters. Annie lies on the bed between them, her breathing fast and shallow. She manages a weak smile.
    DARWIN
    Is she any better? Does she want for anything?
    Gully stands up from the bed. His expression tells us hope is fading. Annie's pale sunken cheeks and caked lips confirm it. Darwin kneels by her bedside, clasps her little hand is his own.
    DARWIN
    Darling Annie. I am here now.
    Annie lets out a reedy whine of appreciation and strokes his lapel "making him beautiful" Brodie cannot bear it and bursts into tears.

INT. ROOM 14. THE PAST NIGHT.
    Annie sleeps. Darwin sits up, writing to Emma, crying as he writes.
    DARWIN (V.O.)
    Dearest Emma. I think it best for you to know how every hour passes. It's a relief for me to tell you. Whilst writing to you I can cry tranquilly.

INT. ROOM 14. THE PAST DAY.
    A local surgeon lays out various instruments, including a glass syringe with a long needle. Annie struggles and whimpers. Brodie comforts her
    DARWIN (V.O.)
    Mr Coates the Surgeon came today to draw off Annie's water. This did not hurt her, but she struggled with surprising strength against being uncovered.
    BRODIE
    There there. It will all soon be over.

EXT. CHURCH AT MALVERN. ENTRANCE. DAY
    Darwin enters through the heavy stone entrance.

INT. THE CHURCH AT MALVERN. DAY
    The relatives of the sick, stand or sit among the pews, arriving, praying, departing Darwin kneels awkwardly in front of the altar, clasps his hands together and prays:
    DARWIN
    Save her. I will believe whatever. Forever. Please save her
    He looks up at the image of Christ on the cross, hoping against all reason, for some sense of epiphany. It's not working. He feels nothing embarrassment at the cheapness of the gesture. INT GUEST HOUSE. ROOM 14. THE PAST .NIGHT Darwin sits alone with Annie who is babbling incoherently. He can't make out anything she says
    DARWIN (V.O.)
    Our dear child has taken a turn for the worse. She talked a great deal but we could seldom make out anything. Much of what she says we cannot make out from the roughness of her poor mouth.

INT. GUEST HOUSE. ROOM 14 NIGHT
    Dr Gully leaves, the surgeon arrives. The maids squeeze between the two medical men, bundling sheets
    DARWIN (V.O.)
    Today she vomited rather much again. Dr Coates has been to draw off more water.
    Brodie and the maid roll Annie on her side and cut off the tail of her shirt, then roll her on her back again, with a pillow between her two bony knees.
    DARWIN
    Is that good, my lovely
    ANNIE
    (suddenly lucid)
    Beautifully good. I am making custards.
    DARWIN (V.O.)
    Gully thinks her in imminent danger.

INT. DOWN HOUSE. DAY.
    Heavily pregnant Emma sits in the drawing room, crying and reading Darwin's latest letter.
    DARWIN (V.O.)
    We sponged her with water and vinegar, made her sweet with chloride of lime....I fear we must prepare ourselves for the worst

INT. ANNIE'S ROOM. GUEST HOUSE. DAY.
    It is midnight Darwin, exhausted, keeps a lonely Vigil by Annie's bedside. Each breath seems like it will be her last. Suddenly she speaks: faintly but audibly:
    ANNIE
    The rabbit.
    DARWIN
    What?
    ANNIE
    The rabbit taught him the polka.
    DARWIN
    I don't understand my love.
    ANNIE
    Tell me about Jenny.
    Darwin bends low to hear her more clearly.
    DARWIN
    What about her.
    ANNIE
    When she died
    DARWIN
    I don't want to talk about death my love.
    ANNIE
    But tell me. I like it.
    DARWIN
    Well. What the keeper told me was. When she was very sick with pneumonia, lying very still, he tried to feed her but she shook her head, looking at him as though to say: "Its nice of you but really you shouldn't bother". And as he bent down to take the spoon away she brought her arms around his neck and kissed him. And then she was dead.
    Annie smiles, puts her hands around her fathers neck and dies.

INT. TRAIN THE PAST DAY
    Darwin sits, his face wet with tears, reading, through blurred vision, a letter from Emma.
    EMMA (V.O.)
    I was in the garden looking at our poor darling's little flower bed when John Griffiths drove up with your letter.

INT. DARWIN'S BEDROOM. NIGHT
    Emma goes to bed, utterly drained.
    EMMA (V.O.)
    When I went to bed I felt as if it had all happened long ago. When the blow comes it wipes out all that preceded it.

INT. DARWIN'S BEDROOM. DAY.
    She opens the curtains on a bright day. The other children are playing in the garden
    EMMA (V.O.)
    My feeling of longing for our lost treasure makes me feel painfully indifferent to the other children, but I shall get right before long.

INT. TRAIN CARRIAGE. THE PRESENT. DAY
    Darwin sits in the train, Heading home from malvern. He is looking across the carriage at his younger self, re- reading the letter and weeping uncontrollably. EXT DOWN HOUSE. LOUNGE. THE PRESENT. NIGHT Torrential rain crashes down on the house, the garden, the ancient trees and the outbuildings, flooding the path and the lane beyond the gate. Darwin pays the coachman and hurries inside

INT. DOWN HOUSE. LOUNGE ROOM.
    Emma is playing a beautiful slow Nocturne. The rain outside drown out all other side. She doesn't notice the figure of Darwin until he appears, like a ghost, reflected in the polished wood of the piano. She turns with a start and sees him, still in his dripping coat, hair plastered over his brow
    DARWIN
    Sorry. I startled you.
    EMMA
    Take your coat off by the fire there. What time is it?
    Darwin stays where he is, dripping on the carpet
    DARWIN
    We need to talk. I need to talk to you.
    EMMA
    Of course, but dry your hair. I shall call for a towel.
    As she moves to the bell-pull he grabs her wrist
    DARWIN
    I went back to Worcester Road. I saw Annie.
    EMMA
    Charles. No.
    DARWIN
    Let me tell you.
    EMMA
    I don't want to hear it. This must stop.
    DARWIN
    You don't understand.
    EMMA
    I do! Do you think me deaf and blind. You have lived with her and spoken with her every day since she died.
    Parslow comes in with firewood then sees Emma yelling at darwin and hurriedly retreats, spilling logs in the hallway.
    EMMA
    She is more real to you than I am. She's dead Charles.
    DARWIN
    I know that.
    EMMA
    Then what is wrong with you that even our poor daughter cannot be left in her grave but you would....
    DARWIN
    I know she is dead. I know it. It is you who will not accept the fact, preferring to think of her in heaven.
    This again! The unspoken argument which has been brewing for a decade, never before expressed so bluntly. Emma heads for the door
    EMMA
    Get away from me!
    She heads into the hallway, he follows her ranting
    DARWIN
    Snowy white wings and dancing with the angels. Is that your idea of honesty.
    Servants scramble out of sight and out of earshot
    EMMA
    Why did you come back. I will not hear this!
    Emma picks up her skirts and hurries up the stairs. Darwin pursues her. On the landing, Betty and Horace, wide eyed and terrified are bundled into the nursery by Brodie as Charles thunders up the stair.
    DARWIN
    You have to Emma, everything these was between us is gone. The boat is wrecked and sunk now. We have to hold to something else.
    EMMA
    To what. Your ghosts? Your theories? What Charles.
    CHARLES
    To the truth of what we know it.
    She slams the bedroom door on him and bolts it.
    DARWIN
    Open this door Emma. The truth, how wonderful and extraordinary our daughter was....
    EMMA
    (through the door)
    I know that. I do not need you to say it. Of course I know.
    Charles throws his shoulder to the door and bursts through it. Emma screams
    CHARLES
    But free of the fantasy, free of the rest, the silly vain hope that we will be reunited in heaven and the nagging unspoken belief that I killed her!
    In the lower hallway all the servants hear this In the nursery, Brodie, aghast, covers the childrens ears In the bedroom, Emma has nowhere left to run
    EMMA
    I have never said that
    CHARLES
    Say it now. Say it. And all the rest that follows. That I should have kept Annie warm that day on the beach. I should not have taken her to Malvern. I should have let you come.
    Tears spring to her eyes and to his. The fury has gone from both of them, leaving sadness and pity
    EMMA
    I should have insisted.
    CHARLES
    No. It was me. I took her from you It was my fault.
    EMMA
    I could have followed. I was her mother what was I thinking of.
    CHARLES
    We thought she would live. You were not to know.
    He moves to her, she startles, then lets him enfold her in his damp coat
    EMMA
    I did. I did know. I knew when you left that I would never see her again. I hated you for taking her.
    CHARLES
    I hated myself. I knew that none of them could save her.
    CHARLES
    All I could do was watch hopelessly and weep for her - then flee the place in terror, not even waiting to see our poor dear daughter buried. She was our treasure and I failed her. We both did. We should never have married each other.
    EMMA
    What are you saying?
    CHARLES
    The unspeakable . I am saying that you and I, in making our perfect child, endowed her with the very weakness which killed her. Emma. That is what I couldn't write. That is what forestalled me all these years. It wasn't you I was angry with, it wasn't Innes and it wasn't God. I was angry with my theory. It was the truth I was angry with. It is the truth.
    Weeping, she shakes her head in furious denial. He kisses her hair, her eyes, her tear-streaked cheeks...

INT/ EXT BEDROOM, THE PRESENT. NIGHT
    Rain continues to batter the house outside Inside Darwin and Emma make love, with a kind of wild desperation, their clothes strewn all over the floor, clinging to each other like castaways in a storm. INT OFFICE. THE PRESENT. DAY Darwin enters his office. The chaos that existed here previously has been tidied away into files and boxes. Darwin opens the black box, takes out the files, places them on his desk, then sits down and begins to write

INT. STUDY. NIGHT.
    Darwin sits at his desk. Writing. He is possessed of a new sense of calm and purpose, the pen gliding fluently across the page. Night turns to day and then to night again. Darwin completes the Chapter headed "variation under domestication" and begins on a fresh sheet of paper.

EXT. THE GARDEN. DOWN HOUSE. THE PRESENT. DAY
    Crocuses are pushing up through the flower beds. Tiny green buds have started to emerge from the dead black branches

INT. DARWIN'S STUDY. DOWN HOUSE. THE PRESENT. DAY
    Still Darwin writes
    ANNIE
    Tell me a story.
    DARWIN
    I'm busy Annie.
    ANNIE
    (petulantly)
    I'll go away again, then you'll
    be sorry.
    DARWIN
    All right, come here, come here.
    She comes and sits on his lap.
    DARWIN
    Once there was a man Who, while travelling in South America, came apon a beautiful and dangerous idea.

INT. SOUTH AMERICAN JUNGLES. DAY
    Darwin is in the south American jungle, trying to coax down from the trees, some small squeaking creature - a tousled looking abandoned chick.
    DARWIN
    Here, here. Come on, come on then
    The creature draws closer, eyes like gimlets in the dark foliage.
    DARWIN
    ...I wont hurt you.
    He reaches into the dark recesses of the forest. Darwin grabs it and stuffs it, squawking into his collecting bag.

INT. DARWIN'S STUDY NIGHT
    Darwin comes in, empties the bag into a black box with perforations and closes the lid
    DARWIN
    He knew his wife wouldn't care for this creature so when he came home he locked it in a box, where it couldn't run around and do any damage.

INT. DARWIN'S STUDY. DAY
    Darwin works at his desk. There's a plaintive cooing sound coming from the box next to his feet.
    DARWIN
    But every so often he'd open the lid and feed it, just because he couldn't bear to let it die.
    Finally he opens the lid and offers the creature a biscuit. It has grown a bit larger and made itself a nest. It takes the biscuit and peeps gratefully.

INT. DOWN HOUSE. DAY
    Darwin goes to the box and opens it. There's nothing there but an empty nest and some broken eggshells.
    DARWIN
    One day he opened the box and discovered it wasn't in there at all. It had escaped with all its babies, who were nesting all over the house making a terrible mess.

INT. DOWN HOUSE. DAY. VARIOUS
    The Darwin's, their children and their servants run around the house finding birds everywhere. There is bird-shit on the curtains and the antimacassars, birds nesting in the sewing basket, the bread bin and the dress-up box. Every time you open a cupboard, angry birds fly out and flap angrily around the room. Mayhem. The house is in uproar.
    DARWIN
    But finally they caught them all, and bundled them in a blanket and he asked his wife to dispose of them as she saw fit.

INT. STUDY. CONTUNUOUS
    Annie listens entranced. Darwin pauses
    ANNIE
    And what did she do?
    DARWIN
    I don't know but I fancy she took them out in the garden and set them free.

EXT. DOWN HOUSE. GARDEN DAY.
    Emma and Brodie come out carrying a huge white linen bag between them. They shake it out in the garden and birds come pouring out of it. High shot, looking down on EMMA as she watches the birds wheeling round and round in the sky above.

INT. DARWIN'S STUDY. DAY
    Darwin sits in his study window, watching a great flock of birds wheeling in the sky outside, the whole flock forming an ever-changing shape from the movement of its tiny component parts. INT DARWIN'S STUDY. NIGHT Darwin puts down his pen, waking, as if from a dream. The manuscript is finished. The music of Chopin filters up from downstairs.

INT. DRAWING ROOM. DAY
    Emma is playing by candle-light. Darwin places the manuscript on top of the piano. She stops abruptly. The last chord resonates in the musky air.
    DARWIN
    Done. I have finally got it out of the air and into these pages. Will you read it and decide what must be done with it. I confess I no longer know and I am very tired.
    She takes his hand and squeezes it.

INT. DOWN HOUSE. BEDROOM.
    Darwin undresses.

INT. DOWN HOUSE DINING ROOM
    Emma sits at the table and begins to read.

INT. DOWN HOUSE. BATHROOM
    Darwin gets out of the bath and towels himself dry.

INT. DOWN HOUSE. DINING ROOM
    Emma lights a candle from the one before and continues to read.

INT. DOWN HOUSE. BEDROOM. NIGHT.
    Charles lowers himself into the bed, sleep washes over him like a wave.

INT. DOWN HOUSE. DINING ROOM. NIGHT.
    Still Emma reads.
    DARWIN (V.O.)
    Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted objects we can conceive directly follow. There is a grandeur in this view of life ...in which endless forms most beautiful and wonderful have been and are being evolved.
    Outside the sky is growing lighter.

INT. DOWN HOUSE. BEDROOM. DAY.
    Charles wakes. He opens the curtains on a clear autumn day. The house is unusually quiet.

INT. DOWN HOUSE. TOP OF THE STAIRS. DAY.
    The grandfather clock on the landing strikes mid-day. Darwin goes downstairs.

INT. DRAWING ROOM. DAY.
    He enters the drawing room. There is no sign of Emma nor of his manuscript. He goes to the window and sees her at the bottom of the garden standing over a bonfire, burning something.

EXT. GARDEN. DOWN HOUSE. DAY.
    Darwin goes outside.
    DARWIN
    Emma?
    She looks up from the fire. Darwin crosses the lawn to her. She's burning leaves and dead-heads from the flower garden.
    DARWIN
    Did you read it?
    EMMA
    Yes.
    DARWIN
    And....
    EMMA
    I wrapped it and put it on the table there.
    There's a brown paper parcel on the garden table where they like to sit under the big Cyprus tree. Darwin picks it up, it is addressed to John Murray, Publisher, stamped and sealed with sealing wax.
    EMMA
    You're right. True or not it must all be said. Probably most of it is true. God help us.
    Darwin kisses her.
    EMMA
    Careful. I have soot all over my hands.

EXT. BOTTOM OF THE DRIVE.
    Darwin stands with the brown paper package, turning it over in his hands.
    DARWIN (V.O.)
    Dear Hooker, I have today despatched to John Murray the completed manuscript. Who knows if anyone will buy it and how they will respond. No doubt many will wish al diabolo altogether. But least it is out in the world now and no longer torturing me.
    John Griffiths, the postman, comes up the hill from the village. Darwin gives him the manuscript. The Postman puts it in his satchel and heads on up the lane. Darwin turns back and walks up towards the house. As he does so a little figure, Annie takes his hand, and together they continue on home, Annie skipping happily by her father's side. POST-SCRIPT. Darwin's "Origin of Species" was sold out on its day of publication. A classic to this day, it was reprinted six times before his death; and his burial, with full Christian honours, in Westminster Abbey.
    THE END

Summary: British naturalist Charles Darwin is a young father who lives a quiet life in an idyllic village. He is a brilliant and deeply emotional man, devoted to his wife and children. Darwin is especially fond of his eldest daughter Annie, a precocious and inquisitive ten-year-old. He teaches her much about nature and science, including his theory of evolution, and tells her stories of his travels. Her favourite story, despite the sad ending, is about the young orangutan Jenny, who is brought from Borneo to the London Zoo, where she finally died of pneumonia in the arms of her keeper. Darwin is furious when he learns that the family clergyman has made Annie kneel on rock salt as punishment for contradicting him about dinosaurs, which she takes as having become extinct long ago. This contradicts their church's position that life is unchanging and that the Earth is very young -- Young Earth Creationism being a then-recent heresy taken as dogma by Seventh-day Adventists. Having returned from his expedition in the Galapagos Islands 15 years earlier, Darwin is still trying to finish a manuscript about his findings, which will articulate his theory of evolution. The delay is caused by anxiety about his relationship with his devoutly religious wife, Emma, who fundamentally opposes his ideas, which pose a threat to established Anglican theology. Emma worries that she may go to heaven and he may not, separating them for eternity. The film shows Annie, through flashbacks and Darwin's hallucinations, as a vibrant apparition who goads her father to address his fears and finish his big work. It is apparent that Annie has died, and that her death is a taboo subject between Darwin and Emma, as both feel intense blame for her death. As a result of the strained relations between Charles and Emma, they entirely stop having sex. Anguished, Darwin begins to suffer from a mysterious, fatiguing illness. It is revealed that after Annie becomes ill in 1851, Darwin takes her to the Worcestershire town of Malvern for James Manby Gully's water cure therapy, against Emma's will. Annie's condition worsens, and she ultimately dies after her father, at her request, tells her Jenny's story once more. Darwin is devastated, and her death sharpens his conviction that natural laws operate without divine intervention. To his contemporaries, this is an idea so dangerous it seems to threaten the existence of God (in reality, Darwin's biggest supporters were believers). In a box in Darwin's study, we discover the notes and observations that will become On the Origin of Species. Having read his 230 page synopsis, Darwin's friends in the scientific community, Joseph Dalton Hooker and Thomas Henry Huxley, also encourage him. Huxley admiringly tells Darwin that with his theory he has "killed God", which fills Darwin with dread. In his hallucinations, he also feels that Annie disapproves of his procrastination. Darwin receives a letter from Alfred Russel Wallace in 1858, which details the same findings as Darwin in 20 pages. He has mixed feelings about this; all his work may have been in vain, but on the other hand, as he will not have to write his book, the discord with Emma will heal. However, Darwin's friends urge him to continue, as his book is much more comprehensive. After receiving treatment at Malvern himself, Darwin makes a pilgrimage to the hotel where Annie died. The journey marks a change in him; upon his return home, he is able to reconnect with his wife, and they speak to each other for the first time of their fears and grief over Annie's death. They specifically speak about the possibility that Annie died because she was genetically weak, as Darwin and Emma are first cousins. Their renewed devotion restores Darwin's health, and he is able to resume his work. Emma's faith in their marriage is also restored, and she regains strength to support his controversial work. Darwin decides that Emma must make the decision about publishing his work. After reading the manuscript, she quietly returns it to him, having addressed the package to John Murray publishers in London. Emma accepts that she is an "accomplice" now, but hopes that God will forgive them both. Darwin walks down the lane, holding the package. When the postman arrives, Darwin falters, almost letting him go empty-handed. The postman rides away, unaware of the powerful idea about to be released onto the world. As Darwin walks home, the little figure of Annie walks alongside him.