Belle (2013)

Gugu Mbatha-Raw: Dido Elizabeth Belle

Photos 

37 more photos

Quotes 

• Dido Elizabeth Belle : My greatest misfortune would be to marry into a family who would carry me as their shame.

• Dido Elizabeth Belle : I have been blessed with freedom twice over, as a negro and as a woman.

• [last lines] 

  John Davinier : Can it be true?

  Dido Elizabeth Belle : Of course, he sees what I see. His words are as clear as...

  John Davinier : No. No, that your feelings for me are so? That you would be my wife? Because - because I cannot conceive of a life without you.

  Dido Elizabeth Belle : I love you. For all that you are, and with all, all that I am.

  [they kiss] 

• Lady Ashford : [to Lady Mansfield]  Do you feel I have any lesser need to ensure my child's well being and future than you?

  [everybody remains silent] 

  Lady Ashford : [looks around, then loudly referring to Dido Elizabeth Belle]  Does she still have a tongue?

  Dido Elizabeth Belle : I have a tongue, madam. Though yours explains well enough why I may not marry your son. You view my circumstances as unfortunate, though I cannot claim even a portion of the misfortune to those whom I most closely resemble. My greatest misfortune would be to marry into a family who would carry me as their shame, as I have been required to carry my own mother - her apparent crime to be born negro, and mine to be the evidence. Since I wish to deny her no more than I wish to deny myself, you will pardon me for wanting a husband who feels forgiveness of my bloodline is both unnecessary and without grace.

• Dido Elizabeth Belle : I remember my father's eyes. They were kind, gentle. A little like yours.

  John Davinier : Mine?

  Dido Elizabeth Belle : I mean in colour. He showed me much love, though I only knew him a few hours.

  John Davinier : What of your mother?

  Dido Elizabeth Belle : I know very little of her, other than the colour she has given me.

  John Davinier : Well, then at least you know she was beautiful.

• John Davinier : 'Tis pitiful. Such inability to simply know what value to put on another's life.

  Dido Elizabeth Belle : What price a worthless negro?

  John Davinier : You utterly misunderstand me. I am saying that no man may have the value of cargo. Human beings cannot be priced since we are priceless - free men and slaves alike. I am with others here. All students in law, applying pressure on the insurance companies to refuse from hereon to insure slaves on any ship.

  Dido Elizabeth Belle : But that would require a change in law.

  John Davinier : How can we expect to be civilized when we live in such a barbaric world? It is the utter injustice.

  Dido Elizabeth Belle : It is more than that. It is the shame of a law that would uphold a financial transaction upon that atrocity.

• Dido Elizabeth Belle : The alternative is to replace Lady Mary in her responsibilities at Kenwood.

  John Davinier : But - she's a spinster.

  Dido Elizabeth Belle : Papa did not trust I could achieve a match that would raise my rank or even equal it.

  John Davinier : You are above reducing yourself for the sake of rank. I pray he would marry you without a penny to your name, for that is a man who would truly treasure you.

• Lord Mansfield : [confronting them]  This man's ambition includes you. You will endure shame and risk your position for a man without name, who will sully yours and drag your reputation into the gutter.

  John Davinier : I take great offense at your summation of my character without ever even taking a moment to know me. Where is your right?

  Lord Mansfield : Right? I have every right!

  John Davinier : That you will never have. Not until you cease from judging the entire world as those above and those below, and begin to see people as people. Human beings who think and feel no more or less than you do.

  Lord Mansfield : I know there is a lady in Belsize who is waiting to be your wife.

  John Davinier : No, I have an ambitious aunt in Belsize. Who, like you, assume that wealth and reputation are all that life depends on, and despises love as though it were the devil's own creation!

  Lord Mansfield : Love? You claim love?

  Dido Elizabeth Belle : No! Stop, Papa!

  John Davinier : YES! YES! l love her! I love her with every breath I breathe!

  Dido Elizabeth Belle : Go, John. You do not deserve this.

  John Davinier : [bounds out the door] 

  Dido Elizabeth Belle : Captain Sir John Lindsay would never have behaved like this.

  Lord Mansfield : Captain Sir John Lindsay would never have behaved like this, because Captain Sir John Lindsay was never here.

• Dido Elizabeth Belle : Must not a lady marry, even if she is financially secure? For who is she without a husband of consequence? It seems silly - like a free negro who begs for a master.

  John Davinier : Well, unless she marries her equal. Her true equal. A man who respects her.

• John Davinier : Permit me to ask, why do you not dine with your family ever?

  Dido Elizabeth Belle : That is not correct.

  John Davinier : Forgive me, but twice now I have seen you separated from the gathering. I am confounded.

  Dido Elizabeth Belle : And well you might be when the son of clergy is permitted to the table before a lady of the house.

  John Davinier : Is that a reminder of my place?

  Dido Elizabeth Belle : No. It's a statement of mine.

• Dido Elizabeth Belle : Papa, how may I be too high in rank to dine with the servants and too low to dine with my family?

• Dido Elizabeth Belle : Is Mabel a slave?

  Lord Mansfield : I beg your pardon?

  Dido Elizabeth Belle : Is... Mabel... a slave?

  Lord Mansfield : She is free, and under our protection.

  Dido Elizabeth Belle : Oh, like me.

• James Ashford : Miss Lindsay. Not husband hunting, are we?

  [approaching menacingly] 

  James Ashford : Good Lord, I forgot, you have ensnared my brother. Tell me, are you to share his dining room as well as his bed?

  Dido Elizabeth Belle : Oh, Mr. James, your manners are as poor as your brother's finances.

• John Davinier : Should not any lady be flattered to be such a subject?

  Dido Elizabeth Belle : How should any male know the ways of a lady when he has not even mastered the ways of a gentlemen?

  John Davinier : Quite. Though one should be forgiven for thinking he is in the presence of a lady, when she is in fact still a juvenile.

• Lord Mansfield : What do you want, Dido? What precisely are you looking for? I have enabled every rule of convention so that you would know exactly where you belong. And yet, little appears enough for you.

  Dido Elizabeth Belle : And what if there were not a rule, Papa? What if the rule that allowed you to take me did not exist? Would you have returned me to the slums? You *are* courageous. When it comes to the matters you believe in, society is inconsequential. You break every rule when it matters enough, Papa. I am the evidence.

• Dido Elizabeth Belle : It is not in my repertoire to keep company with beasts!

• Elizabeth Murray : Do you think I may see Mr. James in town?

  Dido Elizabeth Belle : Perhaps.

  Elizabeth Murray : I could fall in love with such a man, Dido.

  Lady Mary Murray : Love. Hm!

  Dido Elizabeth Belle : Bette, you shall feel no such sentiment, for you shall either end poor or broken-hearted.

• Dido Elizabeth Belle : We are to finally come out?

  Lord Mansfield : Elizabeth is to come out.

  Lady Ashford : Dido is not.

  Dido Elizabeth Belle : But... why?

  Lord Mansfield : You understand the ways of the world for a female, Dido. Elizabeth has no income.

  Lady Ashford : [to Elizabeth]  You are to meet as many gentlemen as possible before we make the match.

  Lord Mansfield : [to Dido]  When all this is gone to her father, there'll be nothing left for her.

  Dido Elizabeth Belle : And... me?

  Lady Ashford : Any gentlemen of good breeding would be unlikely to form a serious attachment to Dido, and a man without... would lower her position in society.

  Elizabeth Murray : She is not merely my cousin, Mama. She is my sister.

• Dido Elizabeth Belle : Papa did not trust I could achieve a match that would raise my rank or even equal it.

  John Davinier : You are above reducing yourself for the sake of rank. I pray he would marry you without a penny to your name, for that is a man who would truly treasure you.

• Dido Elizabeth Belle : James Ashford is not kind. He is not appropriate.

  Elizabeth Murray : Appropriate? The brother of the man you are to marry is not appropriate for me?

  Dido Elizabeth Belle : He does not desire you, Bette! Or at least, even if he does, you would regret such a mistake. He... he... laid his hands on me, Bette. In the most ungentlemanly fashion.

  Elizabeth Murray : Why should you say such a thing?

  Dido Elizabeth Belle : He hurt me!

  Elizabeth Murray : You are a liar!

  Dido Elizabeth Belle : Why would I lie to you?

  Elizabeth Murray : I don't know! But do you not see? Have you never been able to see? He would never touch you! You are beneath him!

  Dido Elizabeth Belle : [stunned and angry]  I am beneath him?

  Elizabeth Murray : Yes. Yes! You are...

  Dido Elizabeth Belle : What? Tell me! Tell me what I am!

  Elizabeth Murray : You are... you are... YOU ARE ILLEGITIMATE!