It was a bad night for Edith and for the Bateses, but things seem to be rounding into form for everyone else.  Cora and Robert are back together.  Isobel is going to accept Lord Merton.  Gillingham is again chasing Lane Fox, leaving Mary available for Blake, who will not miss his second chance.  Rose and Atticus are about to enter full romantic mode.  His family’s religion doesn’t seem to bother anyone, eliciting a mere “It’s always something” from Violet.  (I’m sure the writers put that in as a special favor to Maggie Smith.)  Violet has enjoyed a face to face visit with her old flame Prince K and the frisson of excitement as he resumed the seduction that was merely interrupted half a century earlier.

(Slight pause while I yawn.)  Mrs. Patmore has found a sound investment for the inheritance she received.  She is not the least put off by the “outdoor privy”.  Mr. Carson has proposed marriage to Mrs. Hughes in the most oblique manner possible.  Still, his meaning was unmistakable.  Baxter had a further opportunity to demonstrate her purity of heart by helping to get Thomas much-needed medical treatment even after he had posted an anonymous letter that put her through an unnecessary encounter with the police.  The effect on Thomas seemed to be positive, but he is someone about whose moral reformation we must remain guarded.  Finally, Daisy’s education has reached the War of the Spanish Succession, a series of events the study of which has caused the ambitions of many a young scholar to founder[1].  Fortunately, Mr. Molesley is there to help and provides a slim volume of 700 pages for context.  His ambition to become a teacher will not be fulfilled, but he can experience some of the pleasures of pedagogy by helping young Daisy, whose growing confidence must be a source of pride and satisfaction to the entire viewing audience.

All of this contentment and improvement is not helping Anna and Mister Bates.  Things were looking quite bad for them when Bates discovered the birth control device that Anna is keeping for Mary.  He draws the obvious if incorrect conclusion that Anna is trying to avoid having a child with him.  She cannot provide the true story without compromising the reputation of Lady Mary.  What a spot to be in!  In the course of their mutual tear-laden confessions and revelations, we learn that Julian Fellowes gave us a first class head fake last season.  Mister Bates never went to London.  All that discordant music, his purposeful stride as he left the grounds with murder in his heart, and the London train ticket in his coat pocket on his return were designed to lead us to the conclusion that Bates killed Green.  I fell for it without a second thought, but now it turns out the blighter never traveled to London that day!  Why didn’t Mrs. Hughes or Lady Mary notice that the train ticket had not been used?  In my defense, I don’t know the ways of the British rail system.  I can’t tell whether a ticket has been used, but the two ladies in their very different stations in life know all about these things.  Why didn’t one of these intelligent, perceptive females notice that the ticket had not been used?

Well, whatever the explanation, Bates is now in real trouble.  I had speculated earlier this season that there was no way the writers were going to send Bates to the gallows for a crime he actually committed.  But now that he is innocent he is completely without protection.  Sending an innocent man to prison or the gallows is purely routine in this kind of story.  A writing crew that could send Matthew Crawley to his death on the day his son was born – and remember that in the UK that episode aired on Christmas Day – that crew is capable of anything.

I confess that the thought has crossed my mind that maybe Anna really did kill Green.  She was in London at the right time (as we or at least I learned last week) and she had motive.  It would be completely out of character, and it’s hard to imagine that she would have withheld confessing to Bates when he bewailed the lost train ticket, but it is not impossible.  Needless to say, I do not predict.  I offer the possibility for consideration.

Edith has been temporizing for two years, waiting for news of Michael.  Our worst fears were confirmed this week when his body was finally found.  There seems to be a slight hitch in the chronology of these events.  His death is being attributed to the violence attendant upon the “Beer Hall Putsch” in Munich in November 1923.  This was an attempt by the National Socialist party, led by Adolf Hitler and assisted by Erich Ludendorff, who had been in effect the commander of the German army during the last years of World War One, to take over the government of the state of Bavaria by force.  Some people died in the putsch, most of them party members, some of them police.  The chronological hiccup is that Michael went missing in 1922, probably 20 months before the Munich violence.

That’s just another one of those little nits that I like to pick at.  The main point is that he is now confirmed dead and that tells Edith that there is no point waiting for better days.  She needs to act now.  Last week, I thought she was going to kidnap the child because the alternative would have been to reveal the truth, which appeared to be a psychological impossibility for her.  I thought a full confession might have been the better course in the long run.  She found a compromise by taking the child after revealing the truth to Mrs. Drewe, who is heartbroken and furious at the same time, but telling no one else anything more than that she is going away.

By going away with her child, Edith may be opening up possibilities that she couldn’t see from the drawing room at Downton.  Last week we learned that she is still writing her column about the changing times.  In the current episode we learned that Mr. Gregson left his publishing firm to her in his will.  Incidentally, that makes the fourth will to have figured in this story by my count:  (1) the original will by Robert’s father entailing the estate; (2) the Swires will that puts funds into Matthew’s hands just when they are needed; (3) Matthew’s will leaving everything to Mary; and now (4) Gregson’s will to Edith.

Cora is moved by Mr. Gregson’s generosity.  But what about Mrs. Gregson, who is living in a mental institution somewhere?  Perhaps Gregson had other more liquid assets that could be devoted to the maintenance of his wife for the remaining half century or so of her life.  Otherwise, let’s not be surprised if her representatives raise an objection to the Gregson will.

Assuming that Edith gets to keep the publishing house, what is to prevent her from running that business, continuing her writing career, and doing all of that while acknowledging openly that she is a single, indeed unwed, mother?  She apparently is the beneficiary of a trust fund, so between her own funds and the income from the publishing house, she doesn’t have to worry about anyone’s opinion.  (I believe publishing was a lucrative business in the 1920s.)  She may not be asked to any fashionable parties, but then she might be just as well off avoiding members of her social class and finding new more bohemian companions.  I have to say that I like Edith’s chances in this situation, and she may agree once she has an opportunity to appraise things away from the constricting if stately confines of Downton.

As a final note, Isis the dog seems to be either ill or pregnant.  The fact that Robert is unconcerned suggests that the situation will soon be dire.  I hope that Robert decides to use the local vet and not some knighted fellow who will leave a path of devastation and mourning behind him.

[1] It’s interesting to note that the commander of Britain’s army in that war was John Churchill, the first Duke of Malborough, an ancestor of both Winston Churchill and Princess Diana.