A certain type of English novel has focused on the doings of the upper classes.  I have tried to recall every novel I have read that involves at least one scene in an upper crust country house or a grand house in London.  I have not read widely in this field, but I can list Dickens’s Bleak House, the six “Palliser” novels plus The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope, and Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh.[1]  In addition to the novels I have mentioned, you could add the old PBS series Upstairs, Downstairs.  It’s not a huge sample, but large enough to form some opinions.

One attraction of these stories is that they grant us a glimpse into a life we could not otherwise know, both because it is of an age much earlier than ours and because it is lived by people we could not possibly hope to know in that age or our own.  The Palliser novels are interesting to read as stories and as character studies, but they also can be read as social history.  Trollope’s characters are sufficiently dimensional that we can imagine them living a life, competing with their rivals, falling in love, making decisions and taking risks without knowing how things will turn out.  The same is certainly true of the work of Messrs. Dickens and Waugh.

In this type of story, a category to which Downton Abbey is an applicant for inclusion, as in other novels aiming at realism, there is a certain unspoken agreement between writer and reader or writer/director and viewer.  We willingly suspend disbelief and accept the local habitation and name that the author has given to airy nothing.  The writer in turn undertakes to provide a credible reproduction of life being lived by believable people who must deal with the complicated problems that the author sets for them.  We sit around the campfire (all right, the TV) in anticipation of an interesting story well told.

Over the course of the previous three seasons, Mr. Fellowes has had to ask the viewers to grant him advance after advance out of our limited store of credulity.  The two cousins were not scheduled to travel on the Titanic, but down with her they went.  The replacement cousin is just the right age to marry Lady Mary and has the looks, charm, and grace to fit the part.  An undressed Turk dies at just the wrong time, and in an even worse place, but the situation is put right – almost – with a bit of heavy lifting.  An evil, twisted, spurned wife is able to make her suicide look like murder, but her successor is so determined, yet at the same time so mild, so generous of heart, so pure of intention, that she sees justice done, almost singlehandedly.  A jilted fiancée gives up her future husband for his greater happiness, without any thought of her own desires, then dies in a manner most convenient.  Fortunes are lost, or are diverted from their preferred course, but wills have a way of turning up to get large sums of money to the recipients who will keep our story going.  Every reader can supply another dozen examples.

Through all of this, we have continued to watch in our millions because it has been fun to see these characters maneuver through the shoals of British upper class life (both above and below stairs) at the point (just before the First World War) of its maximum opulence to the beginning of its decline (where we are at the moment).  The unspoken deal between the writer/director and the viewer has been put under stress, but it has remained intact until now.

I submit that Mr. Fellowes has broken this covenant by subjecting the beloved character Anna to a barbaric sexual assault that has left her physically bruised, bloodied, and violated and emotionally devastated.

I have a weakness for police procedurals.  I was a big fan of Law & Order and Law & Order Criminal Intent.  I will watch reruns of The Closer and I like Major Crimes, a spinoff.  I like the Las Vegas version of CSI and I will occasionally check in with Criminal Minds.  When you turn on one of these shows, you know that the focus is going to be a grisly crime.  It is going to be solved.  We are going to spend some time on the personal issues of the investigators, some of them will be allowed to develop a relationship, or will have an episode where they are in greater focus than usual, but it never fails that the main focus is The Crime and The Solution.  You are never going to have an episode of CSI where the technicians plan a party, we watch various dishes being prepared outside the lab, there is a crisis hiring enough staff to serve the food and drinks, but ultimately everything turns out just fine (except that one major character feels he doesn’t fit in, and some of the techs are competing to see who will be in charge of serving the next meal).  The continuing characters keep the story moving but the crime and its solution are the focus.

This is not to say that crime cannot enter the world of the type of English upper crust story I am talking about.  There is a murder in Bleak House, a spectacular theft of jewels in one of the Palliser novels, fraud and at least the threat of physical violence in The Way We Live Now.  But when crime enters, it naturally takes over the story to the cost of all other elements.  Part of the charm of Downton Abbey up until now has been the complexity of the plot, the multi-layered intersections of characters and events within the confines of a single (grand) household.  I think the best we can hope for is that this complexity will be put on hold, and not lost permanently, as the story focuses on this horrific crime.

Apart from my anger at Mr. Fellowes for putting dear Anna through this life-altering agony, I don’t see how he continues to tell his tale without the vicious assault on Anna becoming the major focus of the story.  Word of the assault will spread gradually because Anna’s wounds, physical and emotional, are too obvious to hide and also because Mrs. Hughes does try to help any situation by bringing in reinforcements.  It appears that Mary and the rapist’s employer are going to develop a relationship, so that will throw Anna and Bates together with the criminal.  No doubt there will be endless permutations of these and related themes.

The act was, is, so horrendous that I don’t see how we can avoid having it become the center of the Downton Abbey tale from this point on until it is resolved with the capture of the criminal, or possibly his own end through violence.  But even then, won’t the breadth of the story be altered permanently?  This isn’t something that Bates and Anna will laugh about in later years, or that Mary and Lord Gillingham (??) will dismiss as “valets being valets”.  I fear that the story will be forced into a much narrower channel and will be less rich, less varied, and less interesting than it might have been.  Our energy is going to be focused on our sympathy for Anna and our desire to see that valet locked up.  That’s fine if we are watching CSI, but I fear that Downton Abbey is in serious jeopardy.

I hope that I am proven wrong (and there is no need to point out that this would not be the first time).  I await Sunday’s developments.

Isis the dog was back to walk us up to the Abbey’s front door.  And O’Brian is still gone.

 

January 9, 2014

What a delight to return to the manicured grounds of Downton Abbey!  For those of us who vaguely remember attending law school, this first episode of Season Four held special charms as one legal issue after another was unfolded, but perhaps we should come back to those gems later and focus on the developments that didn’t require the audience to blow dust off law books.

My first question is: What happened to Isis the dog?  We have grown accustomed to entering the life of the Abbey by walking behind Lord Grantham’s best friend (although many might have agreed with me that it would have been just as pleasant had the camera been held slightly higher off the ground).  The dog did not appear during the episode and I fear the worst.

And O’Brien is gone, too!  It was good to see that her departure did not work corruption of the blood of her nephew Alfred, who was under a cloud only for the briefest moment until the good nature and good sense of the staff put him in the clear.  It helped that he threw his aunt under the omnibus by referring to her as a “dark horse” but I’m sure that only speeded the process.  He would have been fine either way.

As long as we are reacquainting ourselves with our friends below stairs, I myself was glad to see the lovely Edna return, although I know that she is going to be nothing but trouble.  She acquired her new post as a lady’s maid under false pretenses (if she has an aunt at all, I doubt they are on speaking terms) and she quickly got in with the wrong crowd downstairs.  (Must we call him Barrow?  Just Thomas used to be good enough.)  Well, as long as she doesn’t try to seduce poor Tom (or Branson, if you prefer).

And speaking of Mr. Barrow (one almost chokes on the words), he is immediately up to his old scheming ways.  We have barely adjusted the volume on our TVs before he is scheming to get rid of Nanny West, but this time he strikes gold!  Nanny West is indeed guilty of the charge that Thomas invented.  Lady Cora herself catches Nanny West mistreating little Sibyl and referring to the child as a “half-breed” (and is this because her father is Irish or Catholic or of non-upper class origin?).  Write down the date, because this is the first time that Lady Cora has caught a staff member misbehaving or displaying bad faith of any kind, although she is surrounded by these events.  And of course the consequence for Mr. Barrow is that he has now gained Lady C’s trust, which he proceeds to abuse through another accusation, this time a false one against dear Anna.  And remember that in Season Three, Mr. Bates was in a position to wreck Thomas and chose not to do it.  Really Thomas’s perfidy cannot be fathomed.

As someone who has made a number of firm predictions about the world outside of Downton that turned out wrong (the details I am sure don’t matter), I am perhaps overly proud that one prediction I made in Season One has finally panned out.  You recall that Charlie Griggs showed up at the Abbey midway through Season One with the apparent purpose of blackmailing or at least embarrassing Mr. Carson.  Lord Grantham entered the scene, immediately determined that the man was contemptible, nay beneath contempt,  (the cut of his clothes, and the aggressive checked pattern of his coat gave him away before he uttered a word), gave him some money – did he toss banknotes onto the carpet? – and sent the man on his way.

I firmly predicted that Charlie would return.  It is a commonplace in stories of this kind and I felt sure that Mr. Fellowes would stick to the pattern.  I thought that Charlie would return in Season Two as a war profiteer, but he remained below the radar (perhaps because it hadn’t been invented yet).  He remained hidden throughout the turmoil of Season Three.  But as we rounded the bend to start Season Four, there he was!  I was certainly happier to see him than was Mr. Carson, until the melodramatic end, of course, complete with Mr. Carson emerging through the steam of a resting locomotive.

Poor Mr. Carson.  He kept that photo of Alice all those years, the face that, if it did not launch a thousand ships, nevertheless sundered a pair of Charlies.  Well, as the train pulled away that chapter of Mr. Carson’s life finally closed  – and by the way, how long do trains stop at minor country stations?  There was no one getting off and only Charlie Griggs getting on, but the train stayed in the station long enough for Mr. Carson to emerge through the steam, tip his hat to the three worthies accompanying Mr. Griggs, catch up on some thirty years of developments with his fellow Charlie, and then shake his hand and wish him well.  As do we all.  May the stage door of the Cardiff Music Hall be kept long and well by Mr. Griggs.

As we touch a handkerchief to the corner of our eyes, perhaps it is time to turn our attention to the good people above stairs.  I don’t mean to be too solemn, but consider these lines from Shakespeare’s King John:

Grief fills the room up of my absent child ,
Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me,
Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,
Remembers me of all his gracious parts,
Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form;
Then, have I reason to be fond of grief?

As usual, Mr. S conveys in half a dozen lines more than anyone else could hope to do in 600.  (Put aside the fact that the child of the woman who speaks these lines has been captured and marked for death, but is still alive.  And while you’re putting things aside, add the fact that she predeceases him, although not by much.)  The point is, grief as profound as that experienced by Mary and Isobel is so consuming, so overwhelming, so seductive in its power that it takes the determined energy of those around the sufferer as well as her own strong efforts to overcome it.

It’s traditional for three attempts to be required before a quest can be fulfilled, and so it is here.  Tom makes the first effort to pull Mary from the clutches of her grief, followed by Grannie (I would never refer to her this way outside of these pages), and then by Mr. Carson.  Isobel (who has given up social work for the duration) is asked to help with Project Moseley and then twice with Project Griggs, to make up the three efforts on her behalf.  Of course, the final item to bring them out of the pit of grief is the discovery of the will, which prompts me to take a slight detour into the legal world of Downton Abbey.

At the beginning of the episode, Robert mentions that, because Matthew died without a will, his widow Mary receives a life interest in one-third of Matthew’s real property and receives one-third of his personal property outright.  My ears immediately pricked up.  Here we have the common law estate of dower!  I remember that from the first year of law school! [1]

And to make the legal problem even more interesting, Mary might have received more if Matthew had left it to her in a will, and sure enough a will is found!  Or is it a will?  Again, we ancient law students remember from second year of law school the concept of a “holographic” will – a document entirely handwritten and intended by the writer to be his or her will.  Is that what we have here?  (And what is the over/under on how many more surprise wills are going to find their way into this story?)

What a lovely tangle.  Except, how much sense does any of this make within the context of the “in-universe” legal world created by the script?  Remember that in Season One it was established that the land, the stately home, and Cora’s money are subject to an “entail” established by Robert’s father.  It all passes from the current male holder (Robert of course) to the next most closely related male descendant of the original grantor (Robert’s dad).  When the Titanic went down, taking Robert’s first cousin and his son with it, the next man in was Matthew, the son of Robert’s third cousin.  If the problems of 1922 can be solved by having Matthew leave his share to Mary by will, the same solution would have been available to Robert in 1912.  Why not avoid the problem of an inconvenient male heir – a working solicitor of all things – by leaving Downton to a daughter (or all three) by will?  It wouldn’t have worked.  He couldn’t leave Downton to his daughters by will because of the entail, and Matthew cannot leave his “share” to his widow.  Matthew does not have a share of the Abbey.  He would have owned it absolutely one day (with careful driving), subject always to the rules of the entail, but not until Robert dies.  (To be clear, I am not trying to predict how any of this would come out under English law then or now.  I don’t pretend to have any knowledge about that.  I am talking about the supposed legal rules that the story tells us are in effect.)

Remember that in Season Three, Robert, wonderful manager as he is of affairs financial, medical, and emotional, has put a large dent in the family fortune by taking a plunge in Canadian railway shares.  The whole show is going to come unstuck and the actors forced to find other jobs when out of the blue Mr. Swires conveniently dies and even more conveniently leaves all of his money to Matthew.  At that point, Matthew and Robert came to some kind of arrangement, with Matthew supplying the Swire funds and Robert ceding managerial control to Matthew.  I don’t believe we know more than that.  Presumably Matthew did not actually hand any funds to Robert (who, you may recall, has heard wonderful things about this chap Ponzi who is achieving spectacular returns in New York).  If Matthew kept the Swires funds, Mary now owns them, but to repeat, she does not own or control the land or stately home.  Robert can do what he likes with the land, but he lacks the funds (other than what is left of Cora’s original contribution), so that is where Mary’s ability to control the situation comes from.  My point is that she would either have owned the money outright (under the will) or would have been appointed trustee of her child’s property (the Swires money) if Matthew had indeed not left a will.  So, the will really ought not to have made a difference to the legal/financial situation, given the rules of the story.

But of course it made a huge emotional difference to Mary to hear from Matthew from the other side of the grass and to Isobel to know that Matthew was the careful thorough conscientious considerate chap that she raised him to be.

The other emotional issue with significant legal entanglements involves Lady Edith and her Editor (forgot his name, sorry).  Is it seriously his plan to leave England, move to Germany, become a German citizen (check list: learn German, find job editing Die Zeitung von Hamburg, find cricket club, learn how to bring beer to room temperature), obtain a divorce in Germany from his mentally incompetent English wife who will not appear in the proceedings and could not understand what was going on if she did appear, marry Edith in Germany, move back to England, and resume his old life?  Do you think it likely that an English court would recognize a divorce obtained in this way?  And what will become of the mentally ill wife?  Will she be moved to a Dickensian madhouse somewhere, while Edith and the Editor sip sherry and gaze into each other’s eyes?  Edith is so much in love that none of this will bother her?  I ask you.

That leaves us with only Rose to consider.  She certainly loves to have her bit of fun, but attracted one member of the working class too many, turning a Thé dansant into a Thé combattant.  But she turns out to have a heart of gold when the more worthy of the two fighting Yorkshiremen comes to the back door to talk to the under-house-parlor maid by the name of Rose.  It’s interesting that Rose, for all the trouble she is prepared to cause, does not allow herself any entanglements outside her social class.  She quickly hops into a servant’s uniform (there is always one that fits perfectly hanging on a peg somewhere near the back door) and lets the young man down gently, giving him a nice pep talk and a chaste kiss for his trouble.  Her cousin Sibyl might have pursued the relationship.  Dare we think that Rose’s days of causing trouble are over?  Is she prepared to settle down and assume her rightful place in the drawing room (where we hope she will learn to arrive on time)?  Forgive me if I have my doubts.  (And why did Mr. Fellowes so obviously manipulate the plot to get Jimmy, Rose, and Anna to the same spot in York at the same time, and why does Jimmy come to the back door of the house at just the moment to observe Rose in her maid’s costume?  Perhaps Rose is going to cross the class boundary after all.)

Well, Episode One was full of action, a Top Gun among Downton episodes.  Will Mr. Fellowes be able to top this one?  We will know on Sunday.