Downton’s Secrets

By Deborah Cohen

Downton Abbey—it’s often been remarked—has scored a greater success among guileless Americans than class-savvy Brits, who know to object to its nostalgia for a world of monkish servility for the many and unfettered plenty for the few. That’s certainly true,so far as the critical reception goes. Where American critics lavished giddy praise (and six Emmies and a Golden Globe) on the show, British reviewers have responded far more stingily. This season even the reliably conservative Daily Telegraph described Lord Grantham as an “anachronistic nitwit.”

Downton’s viewing numbers, though, tell a different story. In the UK, the third season averaged an audience of nine-plus million, or 36% of the country’s viewers.PBS pulled down just over half that number in America,and given that the population of the United States is nearly five times as large as Great Britain’s, it’s not just Americans who are succumbing to a fantasy land of benevolent country grandees and Edwardian millinery.

And so, however righteous Simon Schama’s salvo against the “unassuageable American craving for the British country house” may have been, the charge must also be turned back—fair is fair—to the native audience.Leaving aside the class angle, let us chew over another aspect of the show that’s hardly provoked any comment. Above all else, Downton Abbey is about a family. Given the triumph of other family-related shows on TV (Modern Family at the head of the pack),Downton’s account of the emotional dynamics of the aristocratic Crawleys is arguably as central to its success as the period frills and furbelows.

Percolating through the first and second seasons of Downton Abbey, and motoring much of the plot,is a Crawley family secret. The Turkish diplomat,Kemal Pamuk, has died in fragrante delicto after romancing his way into Lady Mary Crawley’s bed.A panicked Lady Mary calls in first her loyal maid,Anna, then her mother. At Anna’s suggestion, they decide to move Pamuk’s body back to his own room.

《唐顿庄园》已是时下的热门话题，该剧在美国比在英国更受追捧。从目前该剧受到的评论来看，这一点绝对属实。与厚道的美国观众相比，深谙阶级之道的英国人懂得抑制这种怀旧情绪，因为在那个时代，大多数人都过着苦行僧般的奴隶生活，能无拘无束纵情享受的只是极少数。美国人把这部剧夸得天花乱坠（该剧在美国拿下六项艾米奖和一项金球奖），相比之下，英国的影评人士则吝啬得多。就连一向可靠保守的英国报纸《每日电讯报》都将本季中的格兰瑟姆伯爵形容为“不合时宜的傻瓜”。

然而《唐顿庄园》的收视指数却得出了不同结论。在英国，该剧第三季平均有900多万观众收看，这一数字占到全英国观众总数的36%。而在美国，该剧通过PBS（美国公共广播公司）放映，收看人数仅为英国的一半多一点。考虑到美国人口几乎是英国的五倍，我敢说被仁慈的王公贵族以及爱德华时代的妇女头饰所吸引的，可绝不仅仅是美国人。

另外，一身正气的西蒙·沙玛抨击道“贪得无厌的美国人觊觎着英国的乡间建筑”。就算这话有几分道理，但公平来讲，他的炮口也不得不掉转过来：还是对着英国本土的观众开火吧。

阶级观念先放到一边，让我们从另一个角度、一个很少受到评论关注的角度来谈一谈这部剧。说到底，《唐顿庄园》讲述的是一个家庭故事。与另一部家庭题材的收视冠军剧集（《摩登家庭》）相比，《唐顿庄园》之所以能成功依靠的绝不仅仅是华丽的古典服饰，对贵族克劳利一家的感情刻画同样功不可没。）

克劳利一家的家族秘密贯穿了前两季《唐顿庄园》，并且推动了绝大部分剧情的发展。剧中的土耳其外交官凯末尔·帕慕克潜入玛丽·克劳利小姐的闺房与她私通，却在云雨之时一命呜呼。惊慌的玛丽先是叫来忠心耿耿的女仆安娜，然后又叫来了她的母亲。在安娜的建议下，她们决定把帕慕克的尸体搬回他自己的房间。

Little does the trio of plotters realize, however,that their stealthy progress down the corridor has been observed by the scullery-maid Daisy, who eventually tells Mary’s rivalrous sister, Edith, who tells the Turkish Ambassador, who in turn feeds the rumor mill of London Society. Eventually the news comes to Mrs. Bates, the estranged wife of a Downton valet, who threatens to expose the entire incident in the tabloids, forcing Mary (almost)into a marriage of serious inconvenience with the loathsome press baron, Sir Richard Carlisle.

So just how plausible is this story-line?

Far-fetched as the diplomat-in-the-bed incident might seem, Julian Fellowes, Downton’s creator,has claimed that he borrowed it from real-life. In the diary of a great-aunt of a friend of his wife’s is told the tale of a corpse, dead in the act, smuggled down the dim halls of a country house.

That the Countess of Grantham, furious as she might be, would keep her daughter’s secret as her own is entirely believable. That Lady Mary’s father would be left in the dark is not improbable,as women (especially mothers) often managed family secrets, with or without their husbands’knowledge. That the young housemaid would blurt out the news was, or so the Victorians believed, a dangerous likelihood. “Remember this, husbands, and wives, fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, brothers and sisters,” the novelist Mary Elizabeth Braddon warned her readers, “Your servants enjoy the fun.”

然而密谋好的三人均未发现，她们轻手轻脚地穿过走廊时已经被帮厨女佣黛西看在眼里。黛西把这件事告诉了玛丽的死对头，她的妹妹伊迪丝；伊迪丝又告诉了土耳其大使；土耳其大使又把这件事传得沸沸扬扬，闹得整个伦敦社会满城风雨。最终流言传到了贝茨夫人耳中，她是唐顿家男仆贝茨的太太，但两人关系却已经疏远。贝茨夫人威胁要让整件事见报，迫使玛丽（几乎）陷入了一桩极为麻烦的婚姻中：她差点嫁给了令人厌恶的报业巨头，理查德·卡莱尔爵士。

故事剧情合理吗？

《唐顿庄园》的编剧朱利安·范罗士称，虽然外交官猝死石榴裙下看起来十分牵强，但剧情却是取材于现实生活。在他妻子的一位朋友的伯祖母的日记里，有一段关于某人尸体的记述。此人正是死于欢好之时，而后被悄悄从一间郊区别墅的楼上挪到了昏暗的大厅里。

格兰瑟姆伯爵夫人虽然怒不可遏，却把女儿的秘密视为自己的秘密，这一点也是非常合理可信的。而玛丽小姐的父亲被蒙在鼓里也并非全无可能。不管丈夫知不知情，一个家庭中的秘密通常都是由女人（尤其是母亲）处理的。年轻的女佣要戳穿谎言这一情节，至少在维多利亚时代的人看来是很危险、却完全有可能的事。所以，“丈夫们、妻子们、父亲和儿子们、母亲和女儿们、兄弟姐妹们，记好这一点，”小说家玛丽·伊丽莎白·布雷登告诫她的读者说：“你们的仆从喜欢干这种事。”

But would Lady Edith have exposed her sister?Here the plot falls down. The shame of the one sister would have been felt by the other. More often than not,familial solidarity, especially in matters of morality, was steadfastly maintained, even by siblings who despised each other. However poor Edith’s marriage prospects were, they would have been still worse had her sister’s reputation been ruined. When the of ficial snoopers of the Victorian-era Divorce Court sought to uncover the secrets that petitioners had hidden, they at first imagined that family members would furnish the best evidence. But rare, it would turn out, were the parents or siblings who willingly sent a black sheep to slaughter.

When it comes to the subject of familial dynamics,then, Downton is pure mid-twentieth century melodrama. It caters to our present-day inclinations rather than the historical realities. The closely-guarded skeleton in the closet is nowadays as rare an item of household furnishing as the antimacassar. But for the Crawleys, even the vengeful ones, there was little about the truth that could set them free.

但是伊迪丝夫人真的会告发自己的姐妹吗？这里的情节就有点不合常理了。一个姐妹的不光彩通常也会影响到其他人。大多数情况下，尤其是涉及到道德问题时，家庭成员都会坚定地团结在一起，即便是互相看不顺眼的兄弟姐妹也是如此。如果姐妹的声誉被毁，可怜的伊迪丝自己的婚姻前景也会越来越糟。在维多利亚时代，离婚法庭的官方调查员要想找出申诉人隐藏的秘密，第一反应总是认为申诉人的家庭成员可以提供最好的佐证。但结果往往是，很少有父母或兄弟姐妹愿意出卖亲人，即便此人是家中的害群之马。

谈到家庭活动，《唐顿庄园》纯粹是一部20世纪中叶的情节剧。该剧的剧情更偏向于现代人的喜好，而非贴近史实。现代家庭中恐怕没有人会把一架骷髅放在壁橱里小心看管，就像没有人再使用椅套了一样。但是对克劳利一家来说，包括那些报复心很重的成员，真相也无法让他们获得自由。