Downton Denouements

DOWNTON DENOUEMENTS AN EPILOGUE 1

downton abbey

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Foreword I began writing these epilogues in random order, as a way to get my thoughts onto paper as the inspiration moved me. I was planning to rearrange them in some sort of logical order (Upstairs vs. Downstairs), but as I was writing, I discovered that a certain narrative thread was emerging throughout, so chose to leave them as-is.

It’s a true testament to Julian Fellowes’ skills as a master storyteller that these characters, so beautifully drawn and fully rounded, easily inspired any number of outcomes, realistic or outlandish. I realized that we have come to love these people as if they were historical figures who actually existed.

The only major character who I was unable to conjure up an epilogue for was Robert, Lord Grantham. For whatever reason he remains a cipher, but as my friend Linda astutely observed, “Robert is a man so solidly mired in his class, station and status quo, that I don’t find him doing anything remotely adventurous or unexpected.”

And “unexpected” is definitely my modus operandi in the following pages. If I had to identify a theme to these denouements, the old phrase “truth is stranger than fiction” comes to mind. But perhaps a simple three-word title would suffice.

The Last Laugh.

—Rick Gydesen, April 2015

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Tom Branson Branson emigrates to America, but instead of the level playing field he had dreamed of, he becomes a victim of class prejudice even worse than what he fled in England. He eventually falls in with bootleggers and gangsters, and meets a tragic end.

When Robert Crawley put Branson and Baby Sybil on the train to Southampton, he felt a chilly wind blowing across the platform. Not only was he losing a granddaughter, who he knew in his heart he’d likely never see again, he sensed that he was losing Downton Abbey as well. Although he desperately wished that Matthew had lived and assumed the reins, Branson had proved to be a more than capable replacement, and his superior management skills had served as a bulwark against the rapidly approaching tide of modernism that was threatening their way of life. In short, Lord Grantham needed his Irish son-in-law, and now without him, the future of the estate was in question.

Against Tom’s egalitarian objections, Robert booked first class passage for the two of them on the RMS Mauretania. During the voyage to America, Branson felt torn, knowing that other Irish emigrés weren’t so fortunate, as they had to endure the rough, often miserable voyage in steerage. But when they arrived at Ellis Island for processing, Branson got what he prayed for: he and Baby Sybil were rudely herded into a separate line for “undesirables”, and thus began their American nightmare.

Ellis Island was to be the first of many harsh reminders for Branson that the rigid class-conscious world he left behind in Britain wasn't so bad after all, given the virulent prejudice that welcomed an Irish immigrant in America. And worse, prejudice from his own kind. Shut out of work opportunities (and even housing) because he was the wrong 4

kind of Irish, a discouraged and increasingly embittered Tom ended up in Boston, where the management experience he gleaned at Downton landed him a front office position at a large construction firm. But he soon discovered that the firm was just a front, a money laundering enterprise for the Irish mob. When a foreman found out about Tom's republican terrorist past in Ireland, he was immediately reassigned, and found himself working directly for the real firm.

So this is how the idealistic young Branson fell in with bootleggers and gangsters, and ended up serving as the body man and driver for the local Irish don. The bitter irony wasn’t lost on Tom: he came to America seeking equality and opportunity, and ended up as he had begun, as the “grubby little chauffeur chappie” Larry Grey had so rudely accused him of being that long ago evening at Downton.

Tom’s work for the mob increasingly took him away from home.

Unable to look after Sybil on his own, Branson entrusted her care to his landlady in exchange for bootleg whiskey. When Sybil told her father that the woman was abusing her, Branson chose to look the other way. Sybil was prone to exaggeration anyway, and Tom really had no other options.

Branson was killed two years later in an ambush during a liquor heist gone awry near the Maine border. With the whiskey payments now dried up, the landlady callously deposited the 6-year-old Sybil at a Catholic orphanage, where she was most definitely abused, physically and sexually (the orphanage was shut down by the authorities in 1961, after decades of horrific abuse by the resident nuns and clergy was exposed by former wards.)

Orphanage life turned the child hard and bitter. Having learned to be a pathological liar in order to survive, Sybil – now 15 – conned her way into a job in the orphanage kitchen, where she proceeded to seduce the delivery boy from town into sneaking her forbidden treats and pleasures. She finally conned him into hiding her in his truck and taking her into town, where she promptly vanished.

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Sybil ended up back in New York City, where she took a job in a sweatshop on the Lower East Side. But the shop foreman, taken with the girl’s beauty and streetwise savvy, lured her into a more lucrative way for a young girl to earn a living. And that's how Baby Sybil fell into prostitution. Had she not been taken away from Downton at such a tender age, she might have acquired the kind of patrician bearing and manners that could have gained her entrée into New York Society as a high class courtesan, like Lily Bart in Edith Wharton’s cautionary tale, "The House of Mirth". But instead she acquired the slatternly ways of the Irish milieu her father returned to, so Sybil worked the streets.

Within just a few years, she completely lost her looks to the ravages of heroin and alcohol.

Sybil died in the winter of 1944 of septicemia, caused by a back alley abortionist not washing her hands. She was buried anonymously in a pauper's grave in Brooklyn, as no one was able to identify the body at the borough morgue. She had just turned 22.

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George Crawley Baby George, the princeling son of Lady Mary and Matthew Crawley, ended up a dissipated homosexual who died penniless and rejected by his mother.

It was often whispered sarcastically that the Dauphin of Downton was secretly sired by Thomas Barrow, as George grew up to be a spitting image of the conniving footman. Not physically, as George was pretty like Barrow, but blond and blue-eyed like the father he never knew. But the fact that the boy and Barrow were very close during the lad's formative years did raise an eyebrow or two. And indeed, Barrow did have a remarkable (if socially inappropriate) influence on the lad. When he was just ten years old, George’s suspicious Latin master found a pack of Pall Malls in George's satchel, the same cigarettes Barrow and O'Brien used to smoke.

But the truth is, in the absence of a father, and with a mother completely lacking any measure of maternal instinct, George turned to the conniving footman as a surrogate father of sorts. But it says a lot about George's defective morality that he chose Thomas Barrow as his role model.

To everyone’s dismay, George clearly shared Mr. Barrow’s temperament. Early on the boy displayed a disturbing mean streak, requiring frequent intervention by his mother to exercise damage control. As a small child he tortured the estate forester's dog to death, kicked lambs down in the holding pen so badly they had to be shot, and tried to set fire to a pony. Later at school he was frequently in trouble for cheating and stealing, showing gross disrespect to his masters and elders, and for his frequent bullying of the other students. George was particularly cruel to women, as he held them in the same regard Mr. Barrow did.

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But any attempts to correct this alarming behavior were fruitless, because by the time he went through puberty, it was clear this child had been born without a conscience, the way Barrow was similarly handicapped.

By age 15 it was patently clear the boy was homosexual, and like his mentor, with a penchant for rough trade. Like many patrician homosexuals, he wasn't particularly discreet about it, believing himself immune from censure due to his social lineage. The future Lord Grantham made frequent visits to the village doctor with black eyes, broken ribs, and other injuries incurred after a night of cottaging on the wrong side of town, and ensuring the secrecy of his assignations by bullying the man into lying on his behalf.

Even in the post-modern 1930s, social class still had its privileges.

But George's illusions of immunity were shattered when he was expelled from Eton after being discovered in flagrante with a South African groundsman twice his age. The man ended up in prison after George claimed he'd been raped, when in fact George was the seducer and had been carrying on with the man for two years. Given his social status, the boy avoided legal consequences.

Without an Eton diploma, and combined with the ugly sex scandal, George's university prospects were limited. But he managed to enter Oxford after his mother prevailed upon her former suitor, Lord Gillingham, to pull strings. Hardly chastened, George continued cottaging, and in the process encountered a fellow traveler who was a professor at the college. Sensing a blackmail opportunity (Mr. Barrow would be proud), George promised to keep the man's secret in exchange for academic favors. The relationship steadily soured, and there were reports of horrific arguments overheard inside the man’s office.

It turns out the blackmail was pointless, as the professor was a known homosexual in spite of thinking he'd kept it a secret. When he discovered that everyone knew, yet had graciously looked the other way, he informed young Crawley that the favors would cease.

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A few days later the man was found beaten to death in his faculty flat. A maid reported to the campus constabulary that she had seen George in the dormitory lobby earlier that evening, at which point the Dean suggested that it was best if the young man simply vanished.

George returned to Downton, and didn't even bother to give his mother an excuse. He just told her to "Piss off!", but by then she no longer gave a damn. Lady Mary even began to openly taunt her son, belittling him the way she diminished many of the males in her life. In retaliation, on his 18th birthday – in front of assembled guests and staff – George coldly refused his mother's insincerely offered kiss.

"I hear that Lord Gillingham has syphilis, so it would be advisable to refrain from intimate contact with my dear mother."

Shocked out of her mind, Mary slapped his face. And to the shame and horror of those assembled, he instantly slapped her back.

Another chip off the block: like the snake his friend Barrow was, George not only humiliated his mother in public, but showed his gratitude to the man who had bailed him out of a scandal by slandering his reputation. But the irony of the boy’s specific slander wouldn’t become apparent until years later, as the disease was already raging inside his own body.

George’s grandmother Isobel attempted several interventions to help her troubled grandson, but he cruelly rebuffed her kindness, considering her a commoner beneath his station. Reeling from the shock of once again being rejected for her middle class origins, Mrs. Crawley never spoke of him again.

Before Matthew died, he had set up a sizable inheritance for his son which he was to receive on his 20th birthday. The funds were held in trust, and were to be doled out to George at the discretion of the trust officers. But by 1942, Lady Mary was on the brink of financial ruin, so had other plans for that money. In order to stave off the sale of the remaining land, or worse, to avoid a public auction, her son’s trust fund was her last hope.

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During an unexpected visit from his Aunt Edith, an ugly confrontation was to ensue that would forever alter the course of their lives. One morning at breakfast in the dining room, George quietly announced he was leaving Downton for good. In an insolent tone of voice he sneered, “I’m through with you, dear Mother.”

When Mary retorted, "And just what do you think you're going to live on??" he viciously replied, "Ask Aunt Edith."

Mary found out that Edith had pressured the family solicitor to be named an officer of this trust fund, and had convinced him and her mother Cora to join her in vetoing Mary's access to the funds. With a look of near rapture on her face, Edith pulled out a check for 250,000 pounds made out to George, and handed it to the boy. Gazing ecstatically at her sister, Edith dealt her long overdue death blow.

"You didn't think I traveled from another continent to this dismal graveyard just to revisit old times... or did you, Mary?"

For the rest of her life, Edith cherished the memory of her sister’s stricken face. She had finally trumped and humiliated her lifelong tormentor, by inflicting a wound that she knew would never heal, Edith ensured that Mary would feel the same pain she had suffered at her sister’s hands since childhood.

Her parting shot at Lady Mary as she left the dining room were to be the last words she ever said to her sister.

“I’m only being fair, dear sister. Isn’t that how Pa-Pa raised us?”

Edith departed that same morning to catch the noon train to London, never to return. The next day, with no one to see him off, George bade farewell to the snakepit he had made of his life at Downton, and triumphantly flitted off to pursue a life of indolent pleasure on the Continent. He certainly looked the part of the international playboy, with his movie star looks, fit figure, and unfettered confidence. And a patrician-size bank balance to match.

But pleasure turned to dissipation as George began to fall in with one unsavory crowd after the other – bohemian gold diggers and thrill 10

seekers who were more than happy to seduce George into parting with his money. In addition to the unchecked syphilis beginning to ravage his body, he further abused his increasingly frail constitution by succumbing to rank alcoholism and opium addiction.

When the last of his trust fund was gone, he managed to charm his way into the graces of a middle-aged American homosexual living in Italy, who was smitten by George's frail, angelic looks, and impressed by his haughty, aristocratic demeanor (Lady Mary's one lasting influence on her son.) But George's alcoholism, mean streak, and expensive tastes grew tiresome and untenable. One morning as they were waiting on the platform in Rome to board the train to San Remo to take the waters, the man excused himself to go use the men’s room, and never returned.

Abandoned and near penniless, George hit rock bottom. As a useless aristocrat with no practical skills, he had no choice but to use his fading looks to survive. But as it is with most drug-addicted prostitutes, it wasn't long before hotel rooms gave way to back alleys, cinemas, and public loos. His penchant for rough trade did his looks no favors, either, as this time George didn't have the money to get patched up by a doctor.

George Crawley was found savagely beaten to death in a sordid boarding house on Santorini in 1951, shortly after his 29th birthday.

A search through his meagre belongings turned up a few pound notes, a pack of Pall Malls, and a tattered photograph of a handsome young man with brunette hair and cold blue eyes, wearing an old-style footman's uniform.

Thoroughly disgusted by her son, and feeling utterly betrayed

by Edith's treachery on his behalf, Lady Mary didn't bother to have George's body shipped back to Downton. So she wired 50 pounds to a bank in Thera, and had them pay a fisherman to haul his dissipated body out to sea and dump it overboard.

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Thomas Barrow Thomas Barrow was the last member of the original staff to leave Downton. He died five years later in a hospital outside Bath of complications from syphilis.

Mr. Barrow stayed on six years after the last of the original staff had departed. Most of them left via attrition, as Lady Mary couldn't bear to actually let anyone go. But many of the downstairs contingent left prematurely as an act of kindness: with the Grantham fortune largely depleted, they knew staying on was a burden to the family.

Some stayed on for a year or more at no salary, merely accepting room and board. But they had their own futures to worry about, so by September of 1936, Mr. Barrow was the last one left. No one knows for sure why he stayed, or why he seemed to have no job prospects, but seeing how he had no family or friends – and how he clearly enjoyed serving as a surrogate father of sorts for young George Crawley – the Granthams were in effect Mr. Barrow's family.

In short, Thomas Barrow's years of pathological scheming had cooked his own goose: he had nowhere to go.

After George departed suddenly for Europe, Lady Mary suddenly turned cold and refused to see Barrow. The family lawyer told Barrow they could no longer pay him, and that Lady Mary felt it was inappropriate to have him stay on as an act of charity, so it was best he leave.

Barrow left on a cold, rainy day in March, 1942 with the clothes on his back, a small black satchel, and a garment bag containing his old footman's uniform, which Mary said he could keep.

He tried finding O’Brien, his old partner-in-crime, but she had apparently left Yorkshire for a position up north a number of years previously, and was never heard from again. He eventually found work 12

at a posh hotel in Bath, where he served as a doorman and occasional bellboy. Conniving attempts to get promoted to the Dining Room were unsuccessful, a heartbreaking humiliation for a man whose entire life had been devoted to serving in one of the grandest dining rooms in all of England. It's been said that his known homosexuality prevented his further advance in life, but it's more likely it was his habitual scheming, and his own lack of a conscience, that ultimately ruined his life.

Thomas Barrow died of complications due to syphilis in October of 1947, at the age of 53. Discovered among his belongings were a pack of Pall Malls, a sterling silver lighter with the initials RC engraved on it (dear Thomas, couldn't resist nicking a souvenir when he left Downton), and a lock of blond hair tied with a ribbon. The hair was analyzed in 1974 by a descendant of Barrow's landlady, who discovered it in an old black satchel he found in the attic. There was something about the contents, including some yellowed newspaper clippings, that led him to think the fine, golden locks may have belonged to a crime victim.

The lab determined it had been snipped from the head of a 15-yearold boy. They found minute traces indicating the presence of syphilis, but the results were inconclusive.

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Lady Violet The Dowager Countess of Grantham had the ignominious distinction of outliving all of her children. They say she died of a broken heart.

Lord Grantham suddenly passed away in 1931, finally felled by the heart condition he had earlier passed off as indigestion. He collapsed of a massive heart attack while in London visiting the offices of his solicitor, where he was meeting to figure out how to save Downton after the near-complete collapse of the Grantham fortune following the stock market crash of 1929.

His sister Rosamund had already preceded him in death a year earlier, succumbing to what was most likely kidney failure. It was the second time in just a year that Lady Violet was to attend a funeral for her own child. On the bleak November afternoon they buried Robert in the family mausoleum on the grounds of the estate, Isobel Crawley held Violet’s hand, as she knew all too well what it was like to bury your own child. And with Robert now interred, the Dowager Countess of Grantham had endured the great tragedy of having buried all of her children.

Shortly after the first world war, Robert had extricated his mother's assets from the family portfolio. His move was prompted by the family’s first financial crisis, when poor investments decimated Cora’s American fortune. It was Robert’s way of ensuring that his mother remained independent and well off until her death.

As her son’s financial position began to further deteriorate in the late 20s, the Dowager Countess began quietly funneling money to the staff at Downton to keep the Abbey afloat, on the strict proviso that her son was to never find out.

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The servants went to their graves maintaining the secret. This was especially critical after Robert’s death, as Lady Violet wanted to spare her daughter-in-law Cora the humiliation of knowing the family was surviving on an act of charity.

Not long after Robert’s funeral, Violet’s health began to decline.

Her eyesight failed, to where she suffered the further indignity of prevailing upon the house servants to read the morning paper to her.

Isobel began to drop in to Dower House more frequently to check in on her friend, and eventually became a daily caller. Violet couldn’t bear the ear-shattering sounds of her Birmingham housekeeper, so prevailed upon Mrs. Crawley to take over the reading duties. Since Isobel had steadfastly refused to succumb to the hooty tone favored by the landed aristocracy, she playfully annoyed the Countess by occasionally reading the paper in her best imitation of a Birmingham accent.

Six months later Violet was confined to a wheelchair, and had become completely blind. Isobel urged her to move to the village hospital where she could receive constant care. But Violet refused.

“The day I depart Dower House, I depart feet first.”

Lady Violet died in 1932 at the age of 89 of pulmonary failure.

Since she had been in failing health since the death of her son, conventional wisdom had it that she died of a broken heart. But on the contrary, she left this earth in a state of joy, as she died in the arms of the one person she had ever truly loved: her friend and soulmate Isobel Crawley.

Lady Violet left one million pounds in her will to the village hospital, which was renamed the Matthew Crawley Sanitarium For Physical and Spiritual Recovery (renamed Crawley Hospital in 1957 when the facility was turned over to the state.)

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Lady Rose Rose MacClare Aldridge never stopped being a free spirit. She abandoned her life as an aristocrat and emigrated to America, where she eventually started her own talent agency representing an A-List roster of the nation’s most famous jazz artists.

It turns out that "free spirit" business wasn't an act. Within three years of marrying Atticus Aldridge, her dashing Jewish boyfriend, Rose realized they were drifting apart. He was happy to settle into the staid life of a nouveau aristocrat, but she couldn't get the itch out of her feet. When the news of Branson's untimely death made its way back to Downton, Rose impetuously decided it was her mission to go find Baby Sybil and bring her home. So she booked passage out of Southampton, and sent Atticus a quick telegram from the dock saying she'd be back as soon as she can.

Her attempts to find Sybil were fruitless, but she never gave up hope. At the end of her life she left a bequest in her will to Sybil, to be held in trust should she ever surface.

Rose took to Manhattan like a duck to water, and soon immersed herself in the world of big band and jazz. In turn, Manhattan was smitten by Rose, and doors opened all over the town that was to become her oyster. But the biggest door was opened by the very first person she spoke to upon arriving in New York City.

Spotting her looking lost and confused outside Grand Central Station, a tall, elegant black gentleman in a full length camel hair coat approached and asked if she was lost. She said she had just arrived, and had no idea America was this big (spreading her arms to try and take it all in.) She said the first thing she wanted to do was hear some American jazz, and in fact she was starving to hear even a note of that 16

magic potion music. And would he by any chance know how to get to the Cotton Club.

Looking bemused (but sockless, as they had already been charmed off his feet), the gentleman said that by complete coincidence he just happened to be going there himself, and could he give her a lift. She clapped her hands in joy, and gave him an exuberant bear hug in that spontaneous way that was so characteristic of the young dynamo.

Suddenly looking horribly embarrassed, Rose hastily smoothed the man's coat collar, which she had just rumpled.

"Oh dear, where are my manners? We haven't even been introduced!"

She energetically held out her hand.

"Lady Ro– er, Rose MacClare!"

The man took her hand in return, kissed it, and bowed.

"No need to be modest, m’lady, as I happen to be a Duke.�

The elegant man who gazed adoringly at her was none other than Duke Ellington. Although they never became lovers, the two of them became fast friends, and remained so until Ellington's death in 1974.

That same day Ellington not only set her up in a flat with one of the showgirls, but got Rose hired on as a coat check girl at the Cotton Club. But irrepressible Rose, within a week she was assisting the club's harried publicist.

The press loved Rose, so with the uncharacteristic help of a bunch of hard-bitten (but clearly smitten) newspaper reporters, within a year Rose was working as an associate in the office of the city's second most powerful music publicist.

Two years later, Rose was now the principal partner, with a 51% share in the agency, which she bought with the modest inheritance her father Shrimpie left her after he succumbed to cholera in India. (Her mother committed suicide not long after they arrived in India, unable to bear the living hell she had made of her life.)

Although she struggled financially during those early years, Rose 17

never asked for a dime when her estranged husband finally filed for divorce, believing it was unfair and immoral of her to expect anything from a decent man who had kept up his side of the bargain, while she was the one who was guilty of abandonment, and the one who had been unfaithful (even just in spirit.) A good egg, that Rose.

The divorce finally came through on July 3, 1938, and on July 4th Rose married the first man she had ever loved: Jack Ross, the American black band singer she had brazenly danced with on that scandalous outing to the Lotus Jazz Club back in 1922.

Not surprisingly, on the ocean voyage to America Rose entertained secret thoughts of finding Jack and rekindling their romance. But her hopes were dashed when she innocently asked Duke if he had heard of Jack. Smiling indulgently at her rather bad poker face, Ellington anticipated her next question by telling her that Jack had already married.

But Rose lived a charmed life – whenever a door closed, somewhere a window flew open.

On a trip to Baltimore from Chicago, where she had been scouting out some new talent, Rose boarded the train and headed toward her Pullman sleeper. In the passageway outside the compartment, she encountered a loud altercation involving a nattily dressed black man and an officious conductor, who was refusing to allow the man to enter.

It was Jack Ross, who was on his way to Baltimore for a gig with the Dorsey band at the Dixie Ballroom.

It turns out the station agent had mistakenly booked Jack into the wrong car. The conductor insisted that he had no choice but to reassign him into the second class accommodations at the rear of the train.

Rose, knowing full well that this was all about Jack being black, would have none of it. Channeling her cousin Mary, Rose imperiously told the man to be off, that she would handle the situation. After a fruitless (and increasingly half-hearted) search for the station master to rectify the situation, she gave Jack a devilish wink, and pulled him into the compartment.

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The moment the door was closed, the two of them threw themselves at each other, and engaged in a long, scandalous kiss, such was their overwhelming joy at seeing each other again after so long. They didn’t emerge again until the train pulled into Baltimore.

Early that evening, a black porter – mistakenly thinking the compartment was empty – opened the door to deliver an extra blanket, as the weather had turned cold. The surprised couple was at first terrified at being discovered, but quickly relaxed as the porter matter-of-factly placed the blanket on a shelf above the dressing table.

“Have a lovely evening, Mr. and Mrs. Aldridge,” the man said with a conspiratorial wink as he closed the door.

It was all they could do to stifle their giggles as they marveled at their good fortune.

And indeed, Lady Luck continued to smile on Lady Rose. It turns out Jack and his wife, a tempestuous lounge singer, had become estranged. The moment both of their divorces came through, they headed directly to City Hall.

Jack, 15 years her senior, was the love of her life, and that love gave them great strength as they endured unimaginable pressure as an interracial couple in the dark years before the Civil Rights Act. But the world of jazz provided them a refuge, where they served as an inspiration to everyone who knew them.

Rose eventually bought out her partners, and with her husband expanded the business into a full-fledged artist management firm. The agency represented some of the biggest names in American jazz, including her first friend in New York, her beloved Duke Ellington.

On a Saturday night in June of 1964, Jack and Rose were waiting backstage at the Apollo to introduce Joe Henderson, a hot young saxophonist they had just signed. When they stood up to make their way to the wings, Jack suffered a massive stroke. He died two days later.

The Ellington band played at his funeral in Harlem, which was attended by hundreds of musicians, singers, and fans. At the private 19

burial service later that day in Brooklyn, Louis Armstrong played “Nearer My God to Thee” on his famous cornet.

Rose continued to run the agency with the same indomitable spirit and generousness of heart for which she was so beloved. Until the day she died, she was at the office every morning at 7 o’clock, and continued to run circles around her staff with her irrepressible energy.

On a balmy night in May of 1978, Rose attended a performance at the Village Vanguard by an up-and-coming act she had just signed.

Suddenly feeling unwell, she uncharacteristically left after the first set had finished, and headed home.

Rose died later that night in her sleep in her Upper West Side apartment. She was only 74, far too young for someone so young at heart and full of life. Rose and Jack had no children, the reason for which remains a mystery, as the couple never spoke of it.

Atticus remarried in 1939 to a Jewish girl from a prominent family, much to the relief of his father, Lord Sinderbery. They took up residence in Knightsbridge, and Atticus went to work as a vice president in his father’s East India import/export firm. The couple had two children, a boy and a girl. His wife became active in various societies, including a stint as Treasurer for the Kensington Garden Club. But she was thwarted in her bid to be elected President due to her Jewish heritage.

Atticus still carried a torch for Rose, but as a gentleman never allowed his wife or family to know his private thoughts. But he was a contented man nonetheless, as he had settled into the staid aristocratic life he had always wanted. But that was soon to vanish, when he unwittingly accepted an executive position at a branch of his father's company in Hamburg.

In February of 1941, Atticus and his wife were interrupted during a dinner party by two SS officers, and summoned to the police station for questioning. They were detained, and three nights later found themselves on a train bound for Bergen-Belsen. Separated en route, they never saw each other again.

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Mrs. Aldridge perished in the camps, and after the Allied Liberation, Atticus returned to England blind and broken. He died in 1949 after a lengthy stay in a sanitarium outside London.

The fate of their two children is unknown.

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Edith Crawley McDowell Lady Edith confounded every assumption made about her. She became happily married, and finally enacted the revenge on her abusive sister that was long overdue.

Edith initially considered Branson's offer to join him and Baby Sybil in America, but got cold feet. Branson's invitation felt a bit more personal than she was comfortable with, and in spite of her feminist bent, Edith was still a Lady, and felt it unseemly to be taking up with her own brother-in-law. In this she was truly her father's daughter.

Instead, she took Marigold with her to London, where – as a tribute to the late Michael Gregson– she was determined to make the magazine successful. But the American depression had extended its tentacles across the pond, so during those lean years several small newspapers and journals were shuttering their doors.

When her own business was on the verge of folding, she received help from the least likely source: her grandmother, Violet. And for this she had Isobel Crawley to thank.

Mrs. Crawley's deep friendship with the intractable, hopelessly traditional Violet had clearly born fruit, as the Dowager Countess had become the most truly modern of all the Granthams – perhaps not in word, but in deed. And thus she encouraged her granddaughter Edith in her feminist venture, and ensured that her illegitimate granddaughter, little Marigold, was well cared for.

When her father suddenly died, Edith returned to Downton for the funeral. At the post-burial reception, Mary called everyone to attention. Gazing triumphantly at her sister, Mary informed the assembled mourners that Edith had been cut out of the will, "for reasons Lady Edith will no doubt deduce." A dead silence fell across the room.

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Edith never found out the true reason for her disinheritance, or if it was even true. It was clear that this was not her father’s doing, but rather her sister’s way of yet again humiliating her, even if it was a lie.

Highly distraught, Edith immediately packed and returned to London. On the train ride south, after a good, long cry, something changed inside her. Misery gave way to rage, which finally gave way to a calm but steely determination to destroy her sister. Little did Mary know that this little stunt she pulled to further amuse herself at her sister's expense had sown the seeds of her own destruction.

When Lady Violet died a year later, Edith waited to hear from the family solicitor about her expected inheritance. But after two months and no word, she paid a visit to the firm’s offices, where she was informed by an uncomfortable associate that the Countess of Grantham’s various bequests to the family had been seized by the state for non-payment of back taxes. Sensing her sister Mary’s treachery at play once again, Edith debated filing suit, but decided it wasn’t worth getting involved with the horrible woman all over again.

No longer able to rely on those monthly checks from Dower House, Edith sensed the inevitable. She put the magazine up for sale, but had no takers. She finally had no choice but to shut down the company.

Waiting in the office of her solicitor to begin bankruptcy proceedings, she encountered a stranger who was to change the rest of her life.

Ian McDowell was Scottish in origin, but was now living in Rhodesia, where he had acquired a derelict farm and managed to turn it into one of the region's top agricultural producers. He was in London arranging financing for the purchase of some new machinery that would eventually double the operation's already impressive output.

He was instantly smitten with the smart, intelligent redheaded woman he encountered in the waiting room when he emerged from the solicitor's chambers. She wasn't what he'd call lovely – more like "next door to pretty" – but he was smitten. Edith in return felt like the giddy schoolgirl she had never really been. Ian too was merely "next door 23

to handsome", but his rugged confidence, kind blue eyes, and freckled ginger complexion appealed to her enormously.

When Ian awkwardly asked if he might take her to dinner, Edith quipped, "Won't we attract unwanted attention? I mean, two gingers in tow are bound to scare them all off."

He loved her wry, self-deprecating sense of humor, so indeed, it was a match made in heaven. After a three-day whirlwind romance before he was to set sail for Africa, he asked Edith to marry him. Once a Grantham, always a Grantham, so she demurred, worried what people would think. Who gets married to someone they've only known three days? But then, didn't Rose become engaged to Atticus after knowing him just one day? Sensing that her life in England was going nowhere anyway, she gave in.

"Oh hell, let's just do it!"

Edith suddenly realized she had never told him about Marigold, who was boarding at a Catholic convent school in Norfolk. Without a sign of hesitation he replied, "And I have a son by my late wife. His name is Harold, and just turned 14. He would love having a sister."

They were married by the ship’s captain on the voyage to Cape Town, with little Marigold serving as a shy flower girl. Ian had wired ahead to his son and the housekeeper, who traveled by train from Salisbury to meet them at the dock.

Edith only returned to England once, that infamous visit to Downton Abbey she undertook in early 1942 to destroy her sister Mary – and Downton – once and for all. On the ocean passage back to Cape Town she was the picture of serenity, realizing she had never been happier in her entire life. Revenge is such sweet joy, isn't it?

Edith and her husband ran the farm side-by-side until his death from liver cancer in 1955. Her stepson Harold, looking for an excuse to abandon his struggling law practice in Pretoria, returned to Rhodesia to assume Ian’s mantle. As his father had done, he worked happily in partnership with his stepmother to run the massive operation.

24

One afternoon in 1972, while inspecting one of his combines, Harold was slain by a band of ZANU African nationalist guerrillas.

Edith carried on by herself, but knew her situation was precarious.

In 1980, when the new black government of what was now Zimbabwe seized the farm, Edith fled to South Africa and never returned.

Marigold married a young man from the local Anglican seminary, and emigrated to China, where they worked as missionaries until they were deported during the Cultural Revolution. It is not known what became of them since.

In the spring of 1985, Edith died alone at her seaside cottage outside Cape Town, from complications after a fall. She was discovered when a passerby heard the sound of a distressed animal barking inside the cottage. Upon entering the house, the man encountered Edith lying peacefully in her bed, with a small white labrador puppy sitting at her side.

She was 93 years old.

25

Cora Levinson Crawley Cora never got over the death of her husband and the dissolution of her former grand life at Downton Abbey, and went insane.

Cora was always two ladyfingers short of a tea, but then, much of that had to do with being raised by an ambitious American social climber to be that rare orchid – a debutante of delicate refinement, who for all her charming qualities was in fact just a silly little nit. If it wasn't for Robert keeping her tethered to reality, there's no telling how her life might have turned out.

So it came as no real surprise to outside observers when Cora became completely undone when Robert unexpectedly died in 1931. The tragedy is that the rest of the family now turned to her to be in effect the new patriarch, but the poor woman wasn’t even remotely up to the task. After a series of bad (even bizarre) decisions, it became patently clear to Lady Mary that Downton would go down the drain unless she staged an intervention, and took over the management of the estate and the family.

Rather than fighting her daughter's power play, Lady Cora seemed immensely relieved, even deliriously so. Stripped of her last shred of financial, familial, and eventually, social, obligation, Cora was free to go stark raving mad with impunity. She was manageable for perhaps three years, but her increasingly erratic and volatile behavior was becoming untenable.

Mary tried pawning Cora off on her American grandmother, and Martha Levinson was happy to come rescue her daughter from the weak aristocrats who had failed her. She boarded a train from Newport to Manhattan, where she had a first class ticket to sail on the newly inaugurated Queen Mary. But midway en route to New York, she sud26

denly fell ill. An ambulance was waiting at Grand Central Station to take her to Roosevelt, where she remained hospitalized for five days.

Cora’s brother Harold came down to New York with two nurses to take his mother back to Newport.

Three weeks later, it was clear the end was near. Martha’s attendant nurse telephoned London, which patched her through to Downton Abbey, to deliver the news. When she asked if Mrs. Levinson could speak with her daughter one last time, Lady Mary was furious. She icily informed them that she was expecting Mrs. Levinson on her doorstep, and not on the telephone. And because Martha had clearly disappointed the family by failing to do her maternal duty, she would not permitted to speak to Cora. The fact that Mrs. Levinson had failed to do so because she was dying was irrelevant. Had Martha been a true aristocrat, she would have put off her demise, and performed her duty. So she must be punished.

The nurse’s pleas went unheeded. With a loud click, Mary hung up the phone.

Out of compassion, the woman told Mrs. Levinson she couldn't reach Downton because of a bad overseas connection. To which the savvy Martha replied, "Bullshit!"

She died three days later.

Cora continued to deteriorate. What staff remained would tsk, tsk in pity when they'd go in search of her, and discover Lady Grantham in her increasingly favorite place – sitting on the spot on the bathroom floor where she had slipped on O'Brien's planted soap, losing her baby.

When Cora began tearing the hair out of her scalp, cutting herself repeatedly with sewing shears, and finally, erupting in violent tantrums at the dinner table, Lady Mary had had quite enough.

Accepting Isobel Crawley’s kind offer to take Cora in as a permanent resident at the sanitarium, Lady Mary summoned a taxi from the village, deposited her mother in it, and got rid of her. Mary made a handful of cursory visits to see her mother, but was repulsed by the 27

wild-eyed hag that would greet her with unrecognizing eyes. The last time she visited Cora, her mother experienced a momentary glimmer of recognition, and suddenly started screaming nonsensical epithets.

Clearly the sight of her own daughter was causing the poor wretch extreme distress.

Mary showed not an ounce of compassion. Her mother had become an embarrassment, and in upper crust English terminology, that meant she no longer existed.

Mary never saw her mother again.

In February of 1942, after the shock of discovering Edith had betrayed her by enlisting their mother’s complicity in seizing George’s trust fund, Mary did make one final visit to Crawley Sanitarium. She confirmed with the hospital supervisor that Edith had indeed made a recent visit to see her mother, and was spotted helping the nearly catatonic Cora scrawl her signature on a document. Claiming to not know who this Edith McDowell was, Mary informed the woman that the facility was clearly no longer fit to provide her mother protection, if they would allow any nefarious embezzler or ne'er-do-well to have access to the confused old woman. Thus she would be transferring her mother to a more suitable facility.

Within the hour Mrs. Crawley had been informed, and she rushed out to Downton to plead with Mary. She acknowledged the breach in protocol in not securing Mary's permission regarding visitation requests, and made a plea to allow Cora to stay under the proviso that the sanitarium’s security would be enhanced.

But her efforts were in vain. With resignation, Isobel suggested several other fine sanitariums in Yorkshire which could take Cora in, and look after her well-being.

But her mother's welfare was of no concern to Lady Mary. What was of great concern was that her mother be punished for her betrayal.

And her lack of cognizance when doing so was considered an irrelevant fact.

28

The next day a lorry with wire mesh windows pulled up to Crawley Sanitarium. With tears in her eyes, Isobel and two nurses helped a frightened, confused Cora – wearing nothing but a diaper, a shift, and cloth slippers – into the rear compartment. The door was slammed shut, and the lorry took off.

Three hours later it pulled up to the front gates at Bethlem Royal Hospital, near Eden Park in South London. Or as it is known in popular parlance, Bedlam.

Yes, Lady Mary had her own mother committed to the world's most notorious asylum for the criminally insane, to punish her for something she had no idea she'd done.

Tragically, Cora lived another four years.

Cora Levinson Crawley died in 1946 at the age of 77, after being found frozen to death on the floor of the isolation cell she had been confined to for two and a half years.

29

John and Anna Bates Finally free of the suspicion that had dogged them for so long, Anna and Bates departed Downton Abbey for York, where they ran a pub on Micklegate until Mr. Bates’ death four years later.

Unable to secure airtight evidence to charge either of the Bates’s, the constabulary finally suspended their investigation of the couple.

The case remained open for decades, however, and in 1955 was transferred to Scotland Yard, along with thousands of other unresolved cases after a nationwide reorganization of British law enforcement.

The case was finally closed in 1984 after Parliament – to clear out what had become an untenable backlog – passed a sweeping law granting amnesty to any unsolved cases prior to 1960.

After Lord Grantham’s unexpected death in 1931, Bates was assigned to Young George as the lad’s valet. But the two of them got along even worse than Bates ever did with Barrow, and after a horrific row one morning in the boy’s chambers, Bates handed in his resignation to Lady Mary. He moved into the village, where he found work as a barkeep. Anna moved with him, but continued working as a lady’s maid for another nine months.

But in what was to be the first of several major downsizings on the estate, Lady Mary eliminated the positions of valet and lady’s maid. In honor of her late father, Mary never did dismiss a single member of the staff, so downsized the ranks over the years through attrition and reorganization. She offered Anna a position as a house maid, but knowing she would never accept.

And indeed, in the summer of 1932, Anna Bates left Downtown Abbey for good. Disenchanted and bitter about their situation, Anna and John decided they needed to put the past behind them, so packed 30

their belongings and moved to York. Given their reputations, work was hard to come by. But one day Bates ran into an old Army mate of his, who owned a bustling pub on Micklegate near the famous town gate. The man promptly hired the couple, and to their relief, they found gainful employment as a barkeep and restaurant hostess.

When the proprietor suddenly died of pleurisy, the couple used their savings to make a down payment, and bought the pub from his widow.

Bates continued to attract attention from the local constabulary.

Whenever there was a murder, or a crime deduced to be an act of vengeance, Bates was routinely questioned. It deeply upset them at first, but after a while it became a source of amusement for the couple.

One day when they were strolling alongside York Minster, they heard a loud crash, and saw a motorcoach hitting a lamppost as it swerved to miss an unobservant pedestrian.

“I suppose I’ll be blamed for that, too,” mused Bates with a wry chuckle.

Eventually the ongoing suspicions about Bates proved to be a source of good fortune. As his fame slowly spread throughout the county, the pub began attracting curiosity seekers wanting to catch a glimpse of the famous Yorkshire Murderer. At first this alarmed Anna, who would recite her standard speech defending her husband and setting the record straight. But it was a fruitless effort, as by now John Bates had become an urban myth. And it certainly wasn’t hurting business. When the cook cheekily created a pork haslet sandwich and named it The Hangman, even Bates found it amusing.

But what wasn’t amusing was the real reason John Bates spent his life living under a cloud of suspicion: his temper. A proud and stubborn man, Bates never learned the wisdom of holding his tongue. He had a gift for inflaming even the mildest of conflicts into full blown conflagrations, in spite of his wife’s efforts to calm and reassure him.

One evening his trigger-temper was to invite the execution that he had eluded all those years.

31

On a warm May night in 1936, Mr. Bates was shot and killed during an argument with a customer who refused to cease and desist with some off-color jokes at Bates’ expense.

After burying her husband in a crowded plot near the rear gate at York Cemetery, Anna sold the pub and left town. Her whereabouts remained unknown until she surfaced in Brighton two years later.

32

Charles Carson and Elsie Hughes Mr. Carson and Mrs. Hughes were the first of the downstairs staff to leave Downton. They married, and ran a charming guesthouse in Brighton for several years.

Mr. Carson and Mrs. Hughes were truly the backbone of the Downton household. Given what stalwarts they had been, the assumption was that they would be the last ones standing. But to everyone’s astonishment, they were the first to go.

It turned out to be an unexpectedly fortuitous move.

One day Robert overheard two maids chatting indiscreetly above stairs, and thus learned of the pair’s desire to eventually get married and run a guesthouse. But knowing their sense of duty would never permit them to leave the family voluntarily, Robert took matters into his own hands. Not only did he give them his blessing, but made their retirement official by formally dismissing them, and bestowing upon them a gratuity for their decades of service – a cheque for 40,000 pounds.

Had they stayed on after the collapse of the family’s fortune, their own fortunes would have taken a far different turn.

The couple was married in the Downton village church in August of 1928. Lord Grantham threw a lavish post-nuptial celebration for the couple at the Abbey, where the footmen were ordered to prevent Mr. Carson from trying to serve at his own wedding reception!

A few days later the downstairs staff threw a little farewell party for the couple at the village inn, where amidst the tears and merriment was also a sense of dread. They had learned that neither Carson or Hughes would be replaced, as the staff was being reorganized. It was clear it was the passing of an era, and what lay ahead was a big unknown.

33

On the day they were to leave, Lord Grantham had insisted they depart through the Abbey entrance, and not the servants' entrance.

When the couple came upstairs, they discovered the Great Hall was empty. Was no one to see them off? But that was as it should be: there was work to be done, and a household to run, so they must all be busy with their duties.

After pausing to take one last look around, the couple looked at each other with a touch of sorrow, but also great joy. Mr. Carson took Mrs. Hughes' arm, and they made their final walk through that resplendent hallway.

When they emerged through the front door, they encountered two lines standing at attention: on the left was the entire staff at Downton Abbey, in full dress, and on the right was the entire Crawley family, standing at attention in their finest regalia. Overcome, the couple stood there speechless.

To ease their embarrassment, Lady Violet stepped forward, placed her hand on Mr. Carson's arm, and said, "You, my fine man, are that rarest of breeds: a true gentleman." Startled and moved beyond words by the Countess of Grantham's unexpected tribute, Carson bowed humbly in homage to the woman who had first brought him to Downton so long ago. Sensing he was on the verge of shedding an unseemly tear, she came to the man's rescue.

"You know, Mr. Carson, when I engaged you 43 years ago, I found you to be a most impressive young man." With her trademark cock of the head and mischievous twinkle in her eye, Violet added, "And might I say, you had a rather impressive way of turning an old girl’s head."

Everyone burst out laughing, as Carson and Lady Violet locked eyes for one final moment.

With each handshake or kiss Mr. Carson's resistance weakened. He reached the end of the line, and saw Lady Mary standing straight and tall – stoic as ever, but struggling mightily to maintain her composure.

She put her arms around him, and beyond overcome, the big man held 34

Mary in a tight bear hug. Breaking away, he tried to say something, but the words wouldn't come. She knew if he tried to speak, the poor man would break down, so she placed her finger on his lips to silence him.

"I love you, Carson," she whispered.

Hastily turning to retrieve his bride and depart before all decorum was lost, he spotted Mrs. Hughes reluctantly withdrawing from her long embrace with Mrs. Patmore, who surprised everyone by being the only soul in attendance who maintained her composure. But inside she was falling apart, as she knew the end was coming. It was always known that the day Mr. Carson left Downton Abbey would be a milestone, signaling that the Old World was gone forever.

The Carsons took the train to Blackpool, where they enjoyed a short honeymoon at a charming inn near the beach. Having declined to buy that guesthouse they had mused about three years previously, they decided to rekindle that old dream. As they were walking along the beach early one morning, Mrs. Hughes’ face lit up as an idea came to her.

"Wouldn't it be lovely to run a little hotel by the seashore… but only if you think it a good idea, Mr. Carson."

And that's how they came to buy a charming little guesthouse two blocks from the beach at Brighton. Built of sturdy field stone and solid timbers, it sported four guest rooms in the house proper and a small honeymoon cottage in the rear garden.

But alas, their timing could not have been worse, as the crash of 1929, the ensuing Great Depression in America, and the onset of the Second World War nearly dried up the tourist trade for a good fifteen years. Standing on ceremony, Mrs. Hughes had allowed her husband to manage their finances. But after his third foolish decision, she quietly assumed stewardship of Lord Grantham's largesse.

Thanks to her practical nature, they not only survived those dark years in Britain, but made a lovely life for themselves.

The couple never returned to Downton Abbey, not even to attend the funeral when they read about Lord Grantham’s death in the news35

paper. Decades in service had taught them that as much as Upstairs considers Downstairs to be part of the family, the truth is, they aren't family. A return to Downton, even with the best of intentions, would merely create the kind of "awkward moment" that both Servant and Master are bred to avoid.

As for other habits born of breeding that persist, to the day they both died, she called her husband Mr. Carson, and he called her Mrs. Hughes, because that’s how they had known (and loved) each other for over 30 years. And because that's who they were – people in those days didn't reinvent themselves.

In 1938 Mr. Carson suffered a mild stroke, after which it was clear the increasingly elderly couple could no longer manage on their own.

Mrs. Hughes wrote to Anna Bates, the only Downton alum she managed to not lose contact with. She asked Anna what she was up to, and then obliquely mentioned that they were looking for someone who might be interested in running a guesthouse for room and board, plus a modest stipend. Knowing that she was now a widow, Mrs. Hughes was secretly hoping that Mrs. Bates herself might be so inclined.

Five days later, to Mrs. Hughes’ (relieved) astonishment, Anna appeared on their doorstep. With her trademark intelligence and industry, she soon assumed full management of the establishment, and looked after the couple as they grew increasingly frail.

In 1945, on the eve of the Allied Victory in Europe, Mr. Carson died of a massive stroke while inspecting the new rosebushes the gardener had planted along the stone wall.

Mrs. Hughes – wiser than Mr. Carson ever suspected – never let on that she knew her husband had never stopped carrying a torch for Alice Neal, the beautiful actress he had been so smitten with back in his music hall days. So she had him buried next to her in a churchyard near Manchester.

As she told Anna, "I had him in life, so it's only fitting that she have him in heaven."

36

Mr. Carson was 79.

It always saddened Mrs. Hughes that her husband died when he did, because in the years following the end of the war, their fortunes took a turn for the better. Tourism to the British Isles resumed, and by the mid-1950s was becoming a booming business, as thousands of newly affluent Americans began traveling abroad to make their Grand Tours of Europe. Brighton became a major destination, both for Americans curious to see Queen Victoria’s eccentric summer house (the Royal Pavilion), and Londoners seeking a relaxing holiday at the seashore.

The guesthouse did brisk business, and was often booked ahead for months at a stretch.

Mrs. Hughes passed away quietly on October 4, 1957 while sitting in her chair in the kitchen listening to the news of Sputnik on the radio.

Out of respect for her late husband's memory, Mrs. Hughes never bought that newfangled contraption known as a television. She was 89.

Anna Bates inherited everything, including the guesthouse. When she visited the bank to sign the transfer papers, she was astonished to see that every penny of Lord Grantham's 40,000 pound bequest was still there. The banker told her that Mrs. Hughes industriously paid back every penny she had to borrow from that fund during those early lean years.

"That money belongs to the late Lord Grantham, and it must remain intact in case the family needs it back," Mrs. Hughes explained.

Anna smiled wryly, knowing Elsie Hughes was truly the last of her kind.

Anna sold the guesthouse, and on Christmas Eve, 1957, she withdrew the 40,000 pounds, and boarded the 11 o'clock northbound train from Brighton to London.

She was never heard from again.

37

Isobel Turnbull Crawley Isobel Crawley never remarried, and remained self-conscious to her death about her middle class origins. She outlived every member of her generation.

When Lady Violet was dying in her arms, Isobel was too kind and decent a person to ever let on that the friendship, as lovely as it had grown to be, was largely one-sided. Isobel had suffered much during her life as a result of the rigid class system in England, and knew that as much as Violet loved her, she still considered Mrs. Crawley to be her inferior. At least the Countess of Grantham was an honest woman.

In many ways Isobel felt like the African slaves at Monticello comforting Thomas Jefferson on his deathbed, as there was no one left who gave a damn about the man.

Isobel was astonished when she attended the reading of Lady Violet’s will, and discovered that her small village hospital had been bequeathed one million pounds from the Countess of Grantham’s estate.

With a bit of affectionate cheek, Isobel used Violet’s largesse to fund the best possible care for those who could not afford it, welcoming patients of all colors, creeds, and social backgrounds.

Including Indians and Irishmen.

But out of genuine admiration for her late friend, Isobel served as a stalwart steward of Crawley Sanitarium until the day she died When Isobel turned down the village doctor in the early 20s, it was clear that spinsterhood suited her just fine: her life was her life’s work.

So it came as no real surprise to anyone that she never remarried, even though Dickie Grey (Lord Merton) gallantly never gave up his courtship, and even estranged himself from his sons in order to prove to Isobel that his intentions were serious.

38

His efforts were to be in vain, but for an unexpected reason.

In June of 1927, while weekending in Northumberland with an old university chum, Lord Merton suffered a sudden aneurysm, and died a few hours later.

To her surprise (and consternation) Isobel was invited to a reading of the will, in which the assembled sat in stunned silence as the solicitor announced that Grey was leaving half of his estate to Isobel Crawley. His bitter son Larry, his twisted face almost unrecognizable, exploded. He stood up and pointed at Mrs. Crawley.

“Filthy whore!!!”

Isobel immediately retorted that he needn’t worry, that she felt it was highly improper for her to be receiving anything from a man who was not her husband, as it implied an intimacy that was not present.

So she said she would gladly sign her half over to the two boys on the spot, as the money was rightfully theirs.

But that wasn’t enough for the raging monster. To accept her offer was to accept charity from a harlot, and he was determined that the will be legally changed so that he and his brother were properly bequeathed what they were due. He stormed out, turning to Mrs. Crawley to deliver one final menace.

“I’ll bury you, you middle class opportunist!”

It turns out the civil trial never transpired. On his way to his London solicitor’s office to make a deposition, Larry stepped off a curb on Chancery Lane and was struck by a lorry. Some eyewitnesses were certain that he was pushed, others claimed he had been accidentally knocked into the lorry’s path by a passerby.

John Bates happened to be in London that day, and yes, he was questioned. But the investigation eventually proved inconclusive, and Grey’s death was ruled an accident.

Larry Grey was buried in the village cemetery instead of the family crypt, as his own will stipulated that he not be interred anywhere near his father.

39

Mortified by his brother’s behavior, and wishing to avoid the scandal of a public trial, Tim hastily sent word to Mrs. Crawley that he wished to meet with her. She received him coolly (if not as icily as her friend Lady Violet had encouraged her to do.) But she soon warmed to the lovely young man, realizing that he was indeed a good egg like his father, but merely a weak boy who had been no match for his bully of a brother.

Tim Grey accepted her signature transferring Mrs. Crawley’s half of his father’s estate, and in exchange – to her genuine astonishment – he handed her a check for 500,000 pounds as an endowment for the hospital. This, along with one million pounds she was to receive from Violet six years later, ensured Crawley Sanitarium’s survival during the lean war years to come.

Permanently estranged from her grandson George, and now from Lady Mary after Mary’s unspeakable cruelty towards her own mother, Isobel Crawley never again set foot inside Downton Abbey. She would occasionally spot Mary in the village, but would discreetly slip into a shop and wait for her to pass.

In her later years, when declining health prevented her from getting around on her own, Isobel hired one of the sanitarium orderlies, a homely but cheery young man named Jimmy, to serve as her driver.

Jimmy worshipped Mrs. Crawley – there was nothing he wouldn’t do for her. In spite of her protestations that there was so such thing as Master and Servant, Isobel soon learned that service was the young man’s way of showing how fond he was of her. So she graciously assented, and allowed herself to be fussed over the way the Dower House staff had fussed over her late friend Violet.

Jimmy would often show up unannounced on a Sunday afternoon, and ask if she wanted to take a little spin. Lonely and restless, with no family or friends left to keep her company, Isobel would accept, and they’d enjoy a lovely ride through the Yorkshire countryside.

Occasionally they would pass by the locked gates of Downton Ab40

bey. Isobel would ask Jimmy to pull over, then turn to glance wistfully up the famous wooded lane. Knowing she would never pass beneath those grand oaks again, her face would cloud over with sad bitterness. “This is how it should be. Matthew and I were never one of them, and we were only fooling ourselves into believing they had ever accepted us.�

Isobel Crawley died of complications from pneumonia at Crawley Sanitarium in April of 1954, and left her estate to the hospital foundation, along with a 50,000 pound bequest to young Jimmy. She outlived everyone from her generation.

She was 92.

41

Lady Mary Mary Crawley never remarried, and devoted the rest of her life to maintaining Downton Abbey and her family legacy.

When she was at finishing school, an arch rival began a campaign of slander insinuating that Mary was a sapphist. It was untrue. But over the years there were those who wondered if on some level Mary Crawley didn’t like men. When in fact, it was women that Lady Mary hated.

Her relentless unkindness toward her sister Edith, and her unconscionable cruelty toward her mother toward the end of the poor woman’s life, were just more dramatic examples of the loathing she felt for her own sex. The only woman Mary ever respected or cared for was her lady’s maid, Anna Bates. But then, Mrs. Bates was neither rival nor peer.

If you look back on the years beginning with the first world war, Mary was always a reluctant paramour… it was a near miracle that she and Matthew Crawley were finally married, and her later courtship of the Look-Alikes (Tony Foyle, a.k.a. Lord Gillingham, and Charles Blake) was more of a game than a courtship. Her single scandalous affair, the ill-fated assignation with the handsome Turkish diplomat, proved to be the one and only time she ever gave herself to a man with genuine abandon. She loved her husband (or thought she did), but after the mandated period of mourning following his untimely death, she acted as if she’d never been married.

But her behavior with the men in her life was merely a symptom of her social status. For women of her lineage, marriage was a business arrangement. She married Matthew as a way to keep Downton in the family, and not allow it to slip into the hands of shirttail relatives, which is how the Granthams always secretly regarded Matthew and his 42

mother. Her horrific experience being courted by Sir Richard Carlisle, the nasty newspaper magnate, was a way to marry into the kind of fortune her father needed to hold onto Downton. And the Look-Alikes were merely a way to maintain social decorum, as it was unseemly for a young woman of her station, even a widow, to remain unmarried.

As time went on, those who remained in her life, or who hadn’t been banished or destroyed by her spiteful cruelty, realized that the only thing Lady Mary had ever loved was Downton Abbey. Not even Pa-pa… and in fact, her father’s sudden death in 1931 provided her a convenient excuse to never marry. She now had a more important obligation from which she could not be distracted: preserving the legacy that she rightfully believed was hers, and hers only.

It’s nigh impossible to summon any sympathy for the woman, but her life after her father’s death was a long, dark nightmare from which she didn’t begin to emerge until a decade later. After the crash of ’29, Robert’s fortune largely vanished, and thus began the long, slow process of slowly selling off the estate’s assets in order to maintain the family’s hold on the property. A small inheritance or two from various relatives helped for a while (Robert’s sister Rosamund, and a cousin of Cora’s from America who left her a 100,000 pound bequest.)

Expenses were trimmed: at the time of Robert’s death, they had largely ceased throwing the lavish parties and soirées the Granthams had been famous for. The staff began to leave through natural attrition, and weren’t replaced. By the time Lady Violet passed away, the house was down to a handful of maids, a few groundsmen, a cook, and Mr. Barrow.

Lady Mary herself assumed what had once been the combined duties of Mr. Carson and Mrs. Hughes, and managed the household herself. After Robert’s death, Mary honored his wishes and never dismissed a single staff member, although she steadily encouraged them to seek alternate employment, in some cases prevailing upon family contacts to secure positions for them. By the time Mr. Barrow 43

left, there were no official members of the resident staff left, and Mary turned to outside agencies to provide the dwindling number of services required.

In 1939 – with Edith in Rhodesia, Rose in New York, Baby George gone for good, and Cora incarcerated in an asylum – Lady Mary was the only member of the family left living at Downton Abbey.

Say what you will about Lady Mary Crawley, but she confounded all expectations. In spite of the stylish wardrobe, clandestine sex with Turks, and other affectations of modernism, Mary was first and foremost an aristocrat, and indeed, far more aristocratic than any of the Granthams. In the last year of her life, Violet confided sarcastically to Isobel that Mary was even more grand than she was.

“I feel positively dissolute in Her Ladyship’s presence!”

But when life dealt her a losing hand, she proved to be a survivor of the first order. She had clearly paid attention to Branson when he was managing the estate, as Mary developed a head for management. And she was ruthless when it came to finance. In her myriad negotiations to sell off the land, she developed a reputation for steely resolve: no man could bend her.

Unlike her mother, who used to brag about being an American and thus “have gun will travel”, yet was as spoiled and lazy as it comes, Mary had no fear of getting her hands dirty. Yet she maintained the dignity and bearing befitting her station. When one of the last tenants on the estate startled her while she was feeding some livestock, and laughed sarcastically at the sight of her covered in mud, she dispatched him with aplomb.

“I may be a slopping pigs, but I slop like a Lady! So hold your tongue, you impertinent ass!”

Over the past decade, Mary had rebuffed several offers from various buyers, as her patrician breeding wouldn’t allow either a stranger or someone beneath her social station to gain possession of her family’s legacy. But when she failed to get her hands on George’s trust 44

fund, she reached her lowest point. She told anyone who would listen that she should have murdered her sister and her son on the spot, but then who would save Downton if she were standing on a gallows?

Desperately needing to prevent the sale of a massive tract of land that would in effect have reduced the Grantham holdings by 80%, Mary had no choice but to lower her standards. With a heavy heart – as if she really was mounting a gallows – Mary responded to an unsolicited inquiry from a land developer from South London she had never heard of.

When the firm’s representatives arrived at Downton to begin negotiations, she demanded an unreasonable price, assuming they’d eventually settle for half, enough to suit her needs. But when they failed to make a counteroffer, and instead accepted her price – twice what the property was worth – she was dumbfounded, thinking what stupid fools she had just suffered. Because indeed, she was no fool herself.

On May 14, 1942, Mary Crawley signed the papers, and transferred what was left of the estate – save the house and a ten-acre park surrounding it – to a complete stranger.

Mary spent the next decade of her life in increasing isolation. At first she would respond to the occasional letter from a family acquaintance, or a distant relative, saying they were planning to travel through the area, and mightn’t they stop in for a visit. But she discovered that after just two hours, she was wishing they would leave. So she stopped responding to the letters, and even took to having the housekeeper answer the telephone and make excuses for her mistress’s absence.

She was rarely seen in the village, only deigning to make the drive into town if no one else was available to run the errand. She was aloof, and outright dismissive if anyone attempted to engage her in more than a polite “Good day.” As time went on she was never seen in the village at all. Merchants making deliveries to the house were stopped at the gate by the caretaker, who received the packages through the gates, and told the delivery boy to be on his way.

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Thus began the scurrilous rumours around the county that Mary Crawley had become an eccentric recluse – an insane Madwoman of Chaillot, even, just like her poor mother. But in fact, Mary reveled in her isolation, finally free of the humanity that had sorely disappointed her all her life.

She used her time well. She began compiling a detailed inventory of the house’s treasures and contents, and then turned to cataloguing the structure’s myriad architectural details. When Downton Abbey became a museum several decades later, the documentation she left behind proved to be invaluable to the historians charged with curating the estate. And it also served as an effective lure to attract the thousands of visitors who would eventually flood the great house on a daily basis.

Mary frugally managed the funds from the massive land sell-off.

To economize, she gradually shut off most of the house, turning off the heat and electricity. By 1945 she was occupying a small apartment she had fashioned from a handful of rooms on the third floor, including the small room that once been her childhood nursery. Other than a caretaker who lived in the forester’s cottage at the front gate, she no longer had any resident staff, instead hiring help from the village as needed.

But she had gone as far as she could cutting costs without imperiling the condition of the house. She was determined to not allow Downton to fall into disrepair, as was the fate of so many of the other oncegrand estates in the county. Post-war inflation had reduced the effective value of her portfolio, and by the early 50s Mary found herself needing to raise funds all over again. Yet there was nothing left to sell unless she sold the house itself, which was unthinkable.

A rare moment of sociability proved to be her saving grace.

A stonemason repairing a section of the foundation spotted her walking in from the gardens, and looked up as if to speak with her. She was about to dismiss him with a wave of her glove, but Mary was in a rather cheery mood, and thought, why not humor the poor man, this might be amusing. What he said to her changed the course of her life.

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“Fantastic place you have here, m’lady,” the man said cheerily, in an overly ‘familiar’ Australian accent. “I didn’t know anyone was still living in these old houses. You could probably make a fortune selling tickets to take a look inside.”

And that is how Mary became one of the first English aristocrats to open their ancestral homes to the public. She began with a group of art historians from Cambridge who had written to express their keen interest in seeing the Raphaels that legend had it were part of the family collection. Although it was just one Raphael (albeit an important one), they were nonetheless ecstatic after their visit, and word soon spread.

She was eventually hosting several groups a week – scholars, architects, art curators, and garden clubs anxious to see the famous grounds.

When automobile travelers started showing up at the gate out of curiosity – in startling numbers – she opened the Abbey to the general public, hosting two tours a day, one at 10:10 o’clock in the morning, and a second one at 2:20. The afternoon group was summarily dismissed at 3:55 sharp, in time for tea.

Mary led these tours herself, mainly as a way to maintain an eagle eye and make sure nothing was nicked. The tourists loved her, especially Americans. The hootier her voice, and the more imperious her manner, the more delighted they were. One man even applauded when she delivered an insult worthy of her late grandmother Violet.

In 1958 she began taking in overnight visitors. As they were preparing to depart for the train station, a sudden thunderstorm prevented a group of Turkish antiquities collectors from catching the last train to London, due to reports of flash-flooding on the road into the village.

Highly annoyed, Mary placed a number of telephone calls to find suitable housing for the gentlemen, but discovered there were no rooms available anywhere. With withering exasperation, she told them they could stay at Downton for the night, but it would cost them dearly.

She was hoping they’d just leave and fend for themselves, but to her dismay, they offered a king’s ransom for the convenience of stay47

ing over. The opportunity to spend even one night under such a storied roof was worth the price, even if the heat and electricity had been turned off, and the sheets hadn’t been freshened in years.

As she was counting the cash later that evening, Mary realized she had lucked into yet another source of badly-needed revenue. She steadfastly refused to turn Downton into a hotel with rooms for hire, but offered overnight stays to select groups willing to pay handsomely for the privilege.

The final years of her life were to provide an ongoing irony that wasn’t lost on the reclusive Mary. As a woman who cherished her solitude, she was dismayed by the never-ending hordes of humanity that traipsed daily throughout her refuge.

“I may as well take up residence in Waterloo Station,” she remarked sarcastically to a visitor.

The massive cultural changes that swept in with the 60s left her unfazed. “At least they’re wearing proper neckties” was the one and only comment she ever made about The Beatles. To the day she died, Lady Mary remained a true aristocrat, and wasn’t bothered by what people thought of her. When an American college student touring the Abbey made a crack under his breath about what a fossil she was, Mary offered a crisply delivered retort.

“I may be a ‘fossil’, as you put it so diplomatically, but I have better manners. And better grammar.”

On a gray November day in 1968, Mary made a rare visit to the village to cast her vote in the local elections. The polling station was set up in the old village hall, where her grandmother Violet’s prizewinning roses failed to win the Grantham Cup for Best Bloom in that long-ago summer flower show, thanks to Mrs. Crawley’s democratic meddling.

It was a frigid day, due to an unusually early snowstorm that had swept the county earlier that week. As she was emerging from the hall, she suddenly slipped on a small patch of ice, fell, and broke her hip.

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Against her imperious objections, she was taken to Crawley Hospital and admitted for surgery. But the doctors determined that an undiagnosed condition of hypertension would put her at too great a risk, so she remained bedridden until they could reduce her blood pressure.

Instead, Mary took a turn for the worse, contracted pneumonia, and died in her sleep three weeks later on December 18, 1968. She was buried in the family mausoleum on the estate next to her late husband Matthew. She was 74 years old.

The following fall, a young American hippie wearing a tie-dye Jimi Hendrix t-shirt was touring the Abbey, and stopped in front of a regallooking portrait of Mary seated at her father’s old desk in the library.

As he was reading the bronze plaque next to it, a fellow visitor – a dapper-looking Brit in his 40s on his sixth visit to Downton – strolled over and stood next to the scruffy-looking boy.

“It’s a pity you never had a chance to encounter the great lady of the house.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet she was a real trip, man,” the hippie drawled.

“Well... quite. It was rather – ‘groovy’ – is that how you put it?

– meeting Lady Mary,” replied the Brit with bemusement. “But it’s fitting that she passed when she did.”

Taken aback, the boy exclaimed, “Huh?? How do you figure that?”

Pausing to glance at Mr. Hendrix’s giant afro on the tattered singlet, and letting his eyes linger for a moment at the dirty blond pony tail doing a tango with the young man’s derrière, the gentleman replied.

“She survived two world wars, the loss of her family’s fortune, and the near-complete diminishment of her social status. But she would have never survived Woodstock.”

As he turned to depart, the man placed a reassuring hand on the bewildered boy’s shoulder, and proceeded to deliver the perfect epitaph for Lady Mary Crawley.

“Trust me, the old girl got out just in time.”

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Daisy Daisy Robinson Mason was summarily dismissed from Downton Abbey in 1928. She eventually overcame her gross insecurity, and developed a remarkable knack for business. She married well, and went on to become one of the largest landowners in Yorkshire.

Daisy was the next member of the staff to leave Downton Abbey after the departure of Mr. Carson and Mrs. Hughes, but it was to be an involuntary separation. Mrs. Patmore, reading the writing on the wall as far as the future of Downton, knew that Daisy would never have the courage to leave on her own volition. But the longer she stayed, the more she would settle into service, and render herself unfit for the modern world she would eventually be plunged into. So Mrs. Patmore set in motion the departure of her beloved cook’s assistant.

One morning Daisy returned from the village market bearing three dressed ducks for Mrs. Patmore’s famous cassoulet. To her shock, Mrs. Patmore threw a temper tantrum, saying she had wanted partridges, not duck. Confused, Daisy stammered that Mrs. Patmore always used duck, but her protestations were rebuffed.

Mrs. Patmore fired her on the spot.

In tears, Daisy rushed upstairs to find Lord Grantham, but was likewise rebuffed. He explained that it was improper for him to interfere with the management of the kitchen, and if Mrs. Patmore felt she had committed an unforgivable infraction, he must abide by her wishes.

Daisy had no idea that Mrs. Patmore had already consulted with Lord Grantham, and secured his blessing, as Robert too had faith in the girl, and believed she would have a much better future if she was pushed out of the nest.

Confused and hurt, Daisy gathered her meager belongings and left 50

Downton shortly after noon. Standing in Mr. Carson’s old quarters staring out the window, Mrs. Patmore wept copiously as she watched the girl she had come to love as if she were her own daughter disappear down the lane and out of her life forever.

Daisy never saw Mrs. Patmore again.

She moved in with her father-in-law and helped him run the farm, yet still dreamed of moving to the city and pursuing a career as a mathematician. But she soon realized she had a real knack for not only farming, but land management. And she had an uncanny head for finances. Her confidence grew as Mason turned more and more of the farm’s management over to his daughter-in-law, and in the process, Daisy finally shed that crippling insecurity that had held her back all those years. When Mason passed away, he left her not only the farm, but to her astonishment, a nest egg worth 30,000 pounds that he had presumably stowed away over the decades.

She used the money to start a small business, a land development enterprise through which she slowly began to acquire property around the county. But she found herself stymied: the grand families who were trying to sell off their estates stood on ceremony and refused to sell to a former kitchen wench. So she reincorporated under a new name, with herself as the silent proprietor, and engaged intermediaries to handle the transactions.

But the business lacked the funds to acquire more than a few scattered parcels, not enough to realize her dreams for a major redevelopment of the county. But one day her luck was to turn.

She was inspecting a small property she had acquired from another farmer in the area. As she approached a large pond on the tract, she stumbled upon a handsome nobleman in the reeds who was out for a day of duck hunting. Startled, he stood up and pointed his gun at her, then dropped it to his side. Clearly smitten, he stared in astonishment at the lively young woman confronting him.

Quickly coming to, he introduced himself.

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“Forgive me, miss! Baron Merton.”

It was Tim Grey, the younger son of Lord Merton.

It was certainly love at first sight for the Baron, but Daisy too found herself flustered. Anxious that no one know who she really was, she explained that she was just a farm girl out for an afternoon walk, and to please excuse her, she had to get back home. The Baron insisted he accompany her, as it could be dangerous for a young lady to be out in the countryside on her own. Nervous but excited, she accepted.

Six months later they traveled to the border of Scotland, and were married in a private ceremony at Gretna. Tim had already joined Daisy as an investing partner in the business, and together the two of them launched what was to eventually become the largest land development firm in Yorkshire.

Tim served as the public face of the business, using his title to gain entrée into the great estates that were now on the brink of financial ruin, and to discreetly buy up much of the land once owned by the great families of Yorkshire. Including Downton Abbey.

Over the years, Daisy’s firm acquired a series of parcels that Lady Mary was forced to sell off in order to ensure that the house itself remained in the family. Not surprisingly, Mary refused to sell to Baron Merton, having never forgotten the ugly business of the Grey boys’ appalling behaviour on those two notorious occasions at Downton. So Daisy set up a shell company based in South London, and engaged two agents to handle the negotiations.

They were startled when they received their instructions, as they were entirely unaware of what had transpired the previous year.

In the fall of 1934, Daisy visited Mr. Molesley at Crawley Sanitarium, where he lay dying of lung cancer. On his deathbed, Molesley unburdened himself of a secret that (the now late) Mrs. Patmore had made him swear to take to his grave. He told Daisy that her dismissal from Downton all those years ago was the cook’s way of showing how much she loved the girl.

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And there was another secret he was to unburden: the 30,000 pounds Daisy’s father-in-law left to her had been an anonymous gift from Lord Grantham, who had entrusted it to Mr. Mason under the proviso that Daisy was to never know its origin.

Thus, with her husband’s blessing, Daisy instructed the intermediaries to overpay (and generously so) for the parcels of Downton land.

Offering twice what the land was worth was Daisy’s way of helping the family that had not only provided her a home when she was young and orphaned, but had provided a sanctuary and a lovely life for Mrs. Patmore, and the hundreds like her who had been in service at the Abbey over the two centuries the family had been in residence.

And besides, Daisy’s business instincts told her that the land would someday be worth ten times over what she had paid for it, so it was a small sacrifice to make, but one which allowed Downton Abbey to remain in the family.

By 1955, apart from the house itself and a twenty-acre park surrounding it, the former tenant’s daughter now owned all of the land that had once belonged to the Crawley family.

When Mary passed away, Daisy quietly put in a bid to the Crawley family solicitors. She acquired the house and the twenty-acre park, and ran it as a hotel and conference center until her own death.

And thus how it came to pass that the former cook’s assistant was now the sole proprietor of Downton Abbey.

Having been born without a disingenuous bone in her body, the irony was lost on her. But her sincerity of heart and guileless innocence were the qualities her husband most loved and admired about her. But others weren’t so kind: the irony of her unintended triumph was duly noted around the county, with a mixture of resentment from those she had superseded, and envy from those who bitterly felt such fortune should have been theirs.

After Mr. Molesley’s death, Daisy lost all contact with anyone who had been at Downton during her time there. But on a trip to London in 53

1946 to meet with a building contractor, she was to encounter a ghost from the past who would re-enter her life in a significant way.

While enjoying a late luncheon in the dining room of the Russell Hotel in Bloomsbury, she heard the couple at the adjacent table (an MP and his wife) ask to speak with the chef. When the man emerged from the kitchen, Daisy was stunned: she would recognize that gangly sixfoot, six-inch frame and flaming ginger air anywhere.

It was Alfred Nugent, the former Downton footman, and her long ago unrequited love from Mrs. Patmore’s kitchen.

After Alfred left Downton Abbey (outwitted by his rival, the dashing Jimmy Kent), he graduated with honors from the cooking school that had finally accepted him, and went to work as a sous chef at the Ritz. His culinary gifts were soon noted by the hotel management, and Alfred was appointed assistant head chef, over the strenuous objections of the master chef who had been there for 30 years. Never as cunning or savvy as his nemeses at Downton, Kent and Barrow, Alfred fell prey to the jealous man’s subterfuge.

He was summarily dismissed one evening when a roach was discovered in a Beef Wellington plate he had prepared.

Alfred bounced from one kitchen to the next, finally landing at the Russell Hotel as the head chef. But his real dream all along had been to open his own restaurant, a dream he shared with Daisy later that evening in the hotel bar. Their reunion was awkward at first, but maturity had brought them to a place where they soon developed a deep and abiding affection for one another.

Alfred had married (rather late in life for an Englishman of the time period) to a sweet girl from East Anglia named Phoebe, and had two small boys, Alfred Jr. and Benny, aged two and three, and both gingerhaired like their father.

Over the next year Daisy made frequent visits to London to see Alfred and his family, and on her visit a few days before Christmas, the couple asked Daisy if she would serve as godmother to their two sons.

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Unable to have children herself, Daisy had grown to love the lads as if they were her own, and she joyfully accepted.

After the boys had gone to bed, Phoebe retired upstairs to let the two of them revisit old times. After tittering over Alfred’s retelling of the time he discovered Mr. Barrow attempting an indiscretion with the sleeping Jimmy Kent, Daisy cut to the chase and made a proposal to Alfred: she was willing to put up 50,000 pounds as an investing partner in a smart and elegant restaurant that he would own and manage.

Six months later, Alfred opened a swanky French bistro in Kensington. It was an overnight success: the establishment earned a Michelin star on four occasions, and became a favorite gathering place for politicians and diplomats. Daisy and her husband Tim were frequent diners, insisting on each occasion that they pay their tab.

The bistro continued to thrive for almost twenty years, providing a comfortable life for the Nugents.

One evening in 1963, while serving as maître d, Alfred suddenly felt ill, complaining of a stomach pain that had persisted for days and wouldn’t go away. Diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, Alfred died less than a month later.

Phoebe was in no condition to take over the restaurant, so Daisy paid for an interim manager to keep things going. But sensing that the establishment was at its peak, her instincts told her that if the place was going to be sold eventually, now was the time to strike while the iron was hot.

She arranged for the restaurant’s sale to a Saudi diplomat, who paid handsomely for the place. She invested the proceeds, including her half, into a trust fund for Phoebe and the boys.

Alfred’s passing affected Daisy more than she expected, as she came to realize she still carried a torch for the well-meaning but often clueless gentle giant of a man who had been her first crush. But she loved her husband, and the two of them were inseparable as they continued to grow the business to a level that astonished even them.

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Tim Grey died in 1975 of a sudden heart attack during a game of bridge while the couple was on holiday in Wales. He was 77.

By 1989, Daisy began to develop the osteoarthritis that eventually required her move to an assisted living facility, located in a former manor house near the Downton village centre. Daisy’s room was on the second floor in what had once been the bedchamber of the Dowager Countess of Grantham, another irony that was completely lost on her.

Every November 11, on the anniversary of the Armistice, people reported seeing a frail figure in black standing in front of the brick wall at the rear of the village garden. Clearing away the thick vines to uncover a rusted iron plaque affixed to the wall, the wraith would reach out a shaking finger, trace the name inscribed therein, then place the finger to her lips for a gentle kiss.

On November 11, 2001, the figure didn’t appear, and was never seen again.

Daisy Robinson Mason Grey passed away on September 14, 2009, having outlived everyone at Downton Abbey, upstairs and downstairs.

She was 104.

In her will, Daisy bequeathed Downtown Abbey to The Landmark Trust, along with a twenty million pound endowment to provide for its ongoing maintenance. She left the remainder of her estate to Alfred Nugent Jr. and his brother Benjamin.

The cheque was made out for £237,000,000.

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