Sunrise, sunset
Sunrise, sunset
Swiftly fly the years
One season following another
Laden with happiness and tears
— Bock & Harnick, “Fiddler on the Roof”
Sun Diary: This morning is one of those rare days when I stand midway between the Alpha and Omega — the beginning and the end of time. While I made coffee a golden full moon was slowly sinking into the west. I carried my coffee to the back of the house and watched through the window above my desk. There — there! The clouds were faintly tinged with pink that turned to salmon and now to brilliant orange as the fiery orb rises over the little band of trees at the back of our yard.
I also watch sunsets. One evening west, north, south and east, the setting sun painted its cloud-canvas with every shade of pink in a 360 degree, dazzling display. I called a kindred spirit, my niece Dee, and said, “Look outside!” “Oh my goodness!” Her brother takes pictures of lovely sunrises and sunsets.
Last week I wrote about the Downton Abbey addiction. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear! Sunrise, sunset indeed! When I started this and gave it its title I had no idea of what was going to happen.
Lady Sybil, one of the daughters of the house, jumped over the traces and married the chauffeur who is also an Irish revolutionary and vehemently opposed to great wealth and its trappings. Tch, tch, tch! Not at all the done thing!
One wonders which was worse for Papa — Branson’s class, his nationality, his Catholicism, his refusal to fight in World War I, or his politics. And he doesn’t even own the white tie and tails that the men wear to dinner every night! Lady Cora, Sybil’s mother, insists that they will have a relationship, regardless. However, the servants freeze out their former colleague.
Branson is sought by the police, and he and Sybil have fled Ireland and come home where their baby will be born. Oh boohoo! After a dispute between two doctors, there is joy when a healthy baby is delivered, but Sybil dies soon after from the convulsions of eclampsia. The grief of Lady Cora who watches her die is touchingly portrayed. Thomas, the valet and a snake, even cried because Sybil was one of the few people who had ever been kind to him.
A friend’s sister wrote, “Seeing Sybil struggle with childbirth and watching her die was devastating. Ken asked why I watch the show if it makes me so sad. Because it’s just that good . . . that’s why!!”
Downton Abbey is much more than a soap opera. It takes great talent to make a production resonate with its viewers so that they feel that they’re a part of it. In the preface of The Chronicles of Downton Abbey, which is a book full of lovely photographs and informative text, its creator, Julian Fellowes, attributes its success to the treatment of the family and the staff equally in terms of their narrative strength. “They all have emotional lives, dreams, ambitions, and disappointments, and with them we suggest a back story.”
Oh yum! What delicious complexities I foresee. The Earl, who supported the wrong physician, is informed that he has to sleep in the dressing room.
How long will he be in the deep freeze. Will Lady Cora’s rich American mother, portrayed by Shirley McClain, pay another visit? And what will become of the innocent Bates who languishes in prison? There will probably be a huge row between the Earl and his newlywed son-in-law who gave him the money to keep Downton going and has discovered inept management.
Following World War I that is vividly depicted in the show, irrevocable change is coming to Downton Abbey and its inhabitants. As happened with many of England’s great estates, the glory days are passing, and sunset approaches. wclarke@comcast.net