<p>I don’t get the impression that Mary would have ever done anything that she really didn’t want to do.</p>
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<p>Haha! I don’t think I knew you were from NJ. North or south?</p>
<p>North. I don’t live in NJ now, but that’s where I grew up.</p>
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<p>South for me. Where my hockey roots lie! I no longer live there either. There are a lot of us from NJ here on CC.</p>
<p>Me too. Also North.</p>
<p>Me too - South - deep south</p>
<p>H is from NJ. In fact seems like we run into more people from NJ than anyplace else. We are in So CA. I describe H as East coast direct (subtle he is not). Off route 22</p>
<p>I like Mary, too. And I’m not sure if it’s fair to throw ignoring her child at her since nobody in her class raised their own children in those days.</p>
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<p>He didn’t exactly shoot himself. He held up a lighted match in the dark to attract the attention of a German sniper who shot his hand for him. But he definitely intended to suffer a wound to get himself out of the trenches and into a hospital.</p>
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<p>I bet most people didn’t call their children “orphans,” but she did.</p>
<p>Mary absolutely did not warn off Mr. Ross for because she was worried about him and Rose’s reasons. I lived in the UK from the 50’s to the 80’s…the class divisions were so strong then…I don’t know about now…there is no way they were worried about him…it would definitely have been about her.</p>
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<p>Do you mean the “local man” who ended up leaving Edith at the altar, humiliated? Mary’s nastiness pales in comparison to Edith actually writing to the Turkish ambassador in order to reveal the circumstances of Pamouk’s death. What Mary did upset Edith by discouraging a suitor; what Edith did would have ruined Mary’s reputation forever, as well as Sybil’s and hers, by association. The entire family would have been harmed by such a revelation in pre-war British society.</p>
<p>It’s obvious that Mary and Edith are chalk and cheese although they both have grown up enough not to target sheer meanness to one another anymore. However, if there’s a contest for which one tried to seriously harm the other, Edith wins by a landslide. I’ll bet if her parents knew what she had done they’d never forgive her (and she has never apologized for it either).</p>
<p>If anyone lives near Winterthur Museum in Delaware, this could be fun- 40 of the show costumes coming on exhibition.
<a href=“http://www.winterthur.org/downtonabbey”>http://www.winterthur.org/downtonabbey</a></p>
<p>Oh wonderful! My girls will love this ^^ Thank you for telling us, Marylandfour!</p>
<p>I’m firmly on Team Edith. Most people can only be pushed so far before they start fighting back and it appears to me that Edith has been pushed most of her life, even, inadvertently, by her parents. </p>
<p>I agree. There was one conversation between her parents to the effect of, “poor Edith who doesn’t have a bit of Mary’s accomplishments”. What accomplishments? Being older? </p>
<p>One thing is good is that they’ve both gotten better.</p>
<p>I had seen the announcement about the exhibit at Winterthur and have also always wanted to visit there… so this might prompt a weekend visit when the weather improves…or will it ever improve? That’s a discussion for another thread.</p>
<p>I like both Mary and Edith. Mary knows she can be cold, but she also knows it is up to her to save Downton. First, by marrying (whether she wanted to or not - luckily for her it worked out), then by carrying out Matthew’s plans regardless of her beloved but financially incompetent father’s ideas. When she said, “Let the games begin” toward her two current suitors, I think it was because she really has no intention of marrying either of them. She’s told them both to look elsewhere, but they’re not listening. If they want to keep tilting at windmills, why shouldn’t she be amused? I think she’d like to be happy again, but right now she’s got other things on her mind.</p>
<p>And Edith… poor Edith. I wish Julian Fellowes would cut Edith and Anna a break. It seems like he’s rubbing his hands together thinking, “Gee, what else can I do to break Edith’s or Anna’s heart?”</p>
<p>and Edith finally learned to dress better.</p>
<p>Resurrecting this thread. I’ve started watching Season One on Amazon Prime. (I never saw any of Seasons One or Two.) So I’m having a wonderful time! </p>
<p>Just saw Anna, Mary, and Lady Cora schlep the Turk’s body down the hall. Fun!!</p>