The Chronicles of Downton Abbey: A New Era (7 page)

The hymns chosen by Lady Mary
were both staples of Society
weddings – and still are. Indeed,
‘Love Divine All Loves Excelling’–
with words by Charles Wesley
and music by W. P. Rowlands –
was sung at the marriage of Prince
William and Catherine Middleton.

Martha
The world has changed.
These houses were built for another age.
Are you quite sure you want to continue
with the bother of it all

Mary
Quite sure.

O
f all the characters, Mary is the one who undergoes the greatest metamorphosis over the course of the three series. When we first met her she appeared to be a hard-hearted, rather cold and ambitious elder daughter of an earl. Blighted by having been born a girl rather than a boy, she needed to prove that she could make a success of herself just as much as any male heir would have. But Mary is also traditional in her outlook – closer to her grandmother, the Dowager Countess, than to her American mother – and so seeks to establish her own power and wealth through a suitable marriage. However, finding herself engulfed in a potentially ruinous scandal when her one-night lover, Kemal Pamuk, died in her bed, she was forced to see that even upright and good people make mistakes. Owing the protection of her reputation to the discretion and generosity of her servant, Anna, allowed Mary to see altruism in its purest form. Having to confess her sin to those she most loved and respected – her father, her grandmother, Matthew – and then living with the knowledge that several people knew what had happened, exposed her to the pity and forgiveness of others. These were things which she had neither wanted nor needed before. Yet, ultimately, the scandal was Mary’s salvation, softening her and opening her up to true, honest love.

Mary was taken by surprise when she fell for Matthew. She knew it would be convenient for everyone if she did marry him, but she did not think at first that she could love a man who had not been born into the aristocracy. A man who worked for his living was not her type, but his kindness of heart, his palpable love for her and, perhaps, his good looks and charm too, won her over.

Still, it was hard for Mary to relinquish her dream of securing a powerful and rich Society figure for a husband. When it looked as if there was a chance Matthew might not be the heir after all – when Cora was briefly pregnant – Mary wobbled a little. We shouldn’t judge her too harshly for this; it takes more to make a happy marriage than love. A shared background and a shared direction for the future matter a great deal, too. Mary had also been schooled in the success of a financially astute match: it was what had happened to her own parents. In the rest of her life Mary is unsentimental – she is less concerned with her popularity than she is with getting what she and her family need. She was quickly punished for these doubts; Matthew sensed her wavering and called off the engagement, and by the next time she saw him, he was in love with Lavinia Swire.

Having her heart both broken and put back together by her true love, Matthew, has rounded the edges off Mary yet more. ‘The thought of losing Matthew had a big effect on her,’ says Michelle Dockery, the actress playing Mary. ‘It made her a nicer person in the end.’ Now, she has her backbone of steel but she is kinder, nicer and altogether more forgiving of human fallibilities – even her own. And, of course, she has her own wedding to look forward to, with all the attendant dresses and details to think about and plan. What could be better? But with Mary’s headstrong, stubborn temperament and Matthew’s desire to toe the moral line, we should not expect their marriage to be free from drama.

The depths to which Mary sank – after the death of Kemal Pamuk – and from which she has now been rescued, should not be belittled as we observe the situation from our twenty-first-century viewpoint. A hundred years ago the idea that an unmarried woman could take a lover was considered immoral, if not perverse, an insult to her femininity and the maternal role for which she was born. Marie Stopes wrote the controversial
Married Love
in 1918, a book intended to aid family planning but which also encouraged a healthy sex life in marriage. In it she says: ‘The idea that woman is lowered or “soiled” by sexual intercourse is still deeply rooted in some strata of our society … Women’s education and the trend of social feeling have largely been in the direction of encouraging the idea that sex-life is a low, physical and degrading necessity which a pure woman is above enjoying.’

So when Edith discovered Mary’s sordid secret she was delighted – it was the sort of thing that could undermine her elder sister’s position in Society in a way that little else could. Their relationship now is less antagonistic than it was, but they will never be close; they are too much set in their pattern. ‘Mary is very headstrong and unable to accept that she can’t have her own way,’ says Julian Fellowes. ‘But coupled to that is that she cannot be pitied. She can never be in a position where anyone feels sorry for her.’

Of her youngest sister, Mary is protective. She may not agree with her politics, but she sees that they both essentially want the same thing – to be happy – they are just going about it in different ways. She worries, too, that Sybil may have made choices that she is unable to make a success of. ‘When she discovered Sybil running away with Branson, Mary was playing the part of the older sister,’ says Dockery. ‘There was also perhaps an element of her stopping someone else from finding happiness by following their heart rather than their head. Which, of course, is what she should have done with Matthew from the beginning.’

Mary is old-fashioned in many respects, closest to her traditional-thinking father (‘In some ways she is the son he never had,’ says Dockery) and grandmother, and understands their world view in a way that many of her contemporaries do not. This leads her to be sometimes rather dismissive of her mother; Mary does not consider herself half-American but wholly English, and she has no compunction in telling Cora this, more than once. Dockery says of their relationship: ‘She acts a little superior around her mother. She shows a sort of teenager’s toughness that has never worn off.’ If she appreciates her mother for anything, it’s the money that she brought to the family, saving the estate.

Mary
But I do hope you feel that
Mama’s fortune has been well spent
in shoring up an ancient family.

Martha
You gotta spend it on something.

Mary’s closest relationships are with men: her father, Matthew and Carson. This stems, perhaps, from her feeling that she should have been born a boy. If she wasn’t one, then she was going to be as near as dammit. Her admirable qualities are ones that would have been considered masculine in 1920: she’s an adventurer, brave, an excellent horsewoman and a natural leader. In many ways, a woman of her disposition at that time would have been frustrated by the stemming of her potential. It’s Mary’s archaic views, her determination to gain power through her role as a châtelaine, that enable her to believe that she can be a success. It’s a big contrast to Matthew, whose modern attitude is likely to be what saves Downton Abbey and keeps it a relevant enterprise in the 1920s.

For all her femininity, Mary has
strengths that many at the time
would have considered masculine,
and a fearlessness that helps her to
achieve the power she so desires.