Consolation Prize

by Silvestria

Summary:

AU S01 epic set after the flower show. Following an explosive argument with Matthew, Violet takes Mary abroad for adventures of discovery and romance in Europe while back at home Sybil finds herself torn between two men and her independence.

Notes:

A/N: So. Here starts my "epic and long-awaited" multi-chaptered and multi-shipped AU fic. I had a massive A/N planned about why I'm writing it and what I'm hoping to achieve but I'm jet-lagged and can't remember any of it. Maybe I'll have remembered by Chapter Two so you'll have to read on if you want to see what I have to say! I'll let the story speak for itself instead. Anyway, you should know by now not to listen to anything I say. ;) I will just say that I'm not sure how popular this will be as it will stray very far from where the tv series has taken and ever would take the characters, but I hope they will nevertheless remain in character and that you will stick with it. Many, many thanks go to OrangeShipper for beta-ing; I've been agonising for weeks over the last scene of this chapter and she's been a great sounding post. Finally, if you haven't gone over and joined the Downton Abbey Forums which I created with the help of some other awesome people in the DA fanfic community, you really should! There's discussion of the show, an RPG (with some main characters still available) and a place to discuss and recommend fanfiction and other fan works.

Chapter 1: Matthew, Unpacked

Consolation Prize

"It is fate, but call it Italy if it please you, vicar." ~ The screenplay of Merchant Ivory's film of A Room with a View.

Chapter One: Matthew, Unpacked

"I think I shall take a holiday," announced Matthew one morning several days after the flower show.

His mother looked at him sharply but when he did not raise his head from his newspaper, she merely said eventually, "What a nice idea. Where will you go?"

"Was thinking of a week in Manchester. I'll stay with Uncle Peter and look in on Fotherington and the rest of the firm. Really, it's overdue."

It had indeed been a long time since Matthew had left Downton but Isobel had her own theories about why that might be and forebore to point it out.

"I'll leave tomorrow as it's Saturday," Matthew continued. "Then I'll get as much time there as possible. You can expect me Sunday next."

He folded his newspaper and stood up. "I better go, Mother." He leaned down to kiss her cheek.

He was half out of the room when Isobel said, "But, Matthew, have you forgotten that we are both invited to dine at the great house tomorrow night?"

His head complete with hat appeared back round the door. "Then they'll just have to do without me!" He grinned briefly at her and then disappeared again and she heard the front door slam a few seconds later.

---

"I am not sure that I understand this concept of a holiday," said the dowager countess the following afternoon. "It's not Christmas."

"He just wants to get away from Downton for a little while," put in her daughter-in-law. "He's been working so hard in his firm not to mention spending every Saturday on the cottages, it's really no wonder he wants a break. I can perfectly understand it."

"In Manchester?" queried Mary, who was standing a little apart from the others at the window, watching cousin Isobel's slow approach down the drive. "I would hardly have thought of Manchester as a particularly restful destination."

"Precisely," continued the dowager. "Scarborough maybe! But Manchester-" She shuddered expressively.

"I can't imagine Matthew wanting a restful holiday," said Sybil. "He's the sort of person who needs to do things, you know. I simply cannot picture him sitting on the beach with all the donkeys, can you?"

There was general laughter at this image until Edith interrupted, "I dare say he is only going to get away from Mary."

Her elder sister, who could in fact easily picture Matthew on a windswept Yorkshire beach, valiantly juggling the reins of a donkey in one hand and an ice-cream cone in the other and found the picture appealing, turned abruptly from the window, the smile falling from her face.

"What do you mean by that, Edith?" asked Lady Grantham.

"Oh, nothing in particular," she replied, relishing the attention. "Only that Mary sent Matthew packing at the flower show, didn't you?"

"Is this true, Mary?" asked her father.

Mary picked up a book left lying on a small table and glanced casually at the spine. "Of course not. We hardly spoke at the flower show."

The damage had been done much earlier when Sir Anthony Strallan had come to dinner.

"Then you should have done!" weighed in the dowager. "Matthew may not be everything we might wish him to be but he is still your father's heir and if you are in any way the cause of him thinking that-"

"You speak as if I were in some way responsible for his behaviour. I'm not: he's his own master."

"Hmm, that is rarely ever true of a man, and never where a woman is concerned."

"Isn't it more likely," said Sybil, looking anxiously round at her family, "that Matthew simply wanted to go on holiday and that there is no ulterior motivation behind his timing of it?"

"You are a darling, Sybil!" murmured Mary gratefully, shooting Edith a resentful glance.

"Whatever the reasons for his leaving us now, girls," interrupted Lady Grantham firmly, "we shall miss him and must make cousin Isobel feel welcome in the meantime."

"I cannot imagine why you're looking at me, Cora!"

She ignored her mother-in-law and continued, "And if Mary did send him packing, to use your vulgar phrase, Edith, then Mary must unpack him. Is that understood? When he returns, you can invite him to dinner as soon as he gets back."

---

Monday afternoon found Matthew Crawley in an environment very different to anything the ladies at Downton could have imagined. Not far from St. Peter's Field in Manchester was a narrow, redbrick terraced house with a shiny brass plaque next to the front door announcing the offices of Butt, Roper & Fotherington, Solicitors. In a messy office on the top floor, Matthew was partaking of a rather good brandy with a rotund gentleman about ten years his senior who possessed a very fine pair of auburn whiskers.

"Been very busy, Crawley, very busy indeed," said the whiskers. "We're dealing with Westacres Ltd. now, you know."

Matthew raised his eyebrows and grinned. "Going up in the world, aren't you?" The careful listener might have discerned the faintest hint of a long dormant Mancunian accent in his speech that day.

"That we are. Not as much as you for all that though. Proper aristocratic you've become. Knew you'd keep up with the job though. Young Roper, he thought you'd have given it up in a shot but I knew better. Not Matthew Crawley, I said, lawyering's in his blood, it is, and you'd sooner see him swimming the channel than not working."

"I'm not sure I'd go quite that far! I'm glad of my work, but frankly I find I'm growing rather fond of the old place after all." He frowned for a moment into what was left of his brandy and then drained it.

"Suppose it's very big," suggested his friend.

"One of the biggest in Yorkshire."

"And very handsome."

"Oh, very!"

"Hmm. What of those girls then? They handsome too, eh?"

"What girls?"

"Come now, don't play coy! When you left, you was all paranoid about those three daughters and how you'd be marched up the aisle with one of them before you'd been there a week. I suppose that was all hokum was it?"

Matthew laughed. "Not quite hokum, but nothing so barbaric as a forced marriage, I can assure you. This is England! I expect everyone would be delighted if I married the oldest though, except perhaps Lady Mary herself."

"Ah, these rich fillies never are worth the trouble to actually secure them. What's she like anyway?"

"She's very beautiful," replied Matthew after a short pause, "but flighty, I'm afraid. May I?"

"Be my guest – and another one for me, if you're pouring. Eh, she's a woman. What do you expect?"

At this point Matthew managed to turn the conversation easily to the more engrossing topic of Mrs. Fotherington, her health and her children.

---

Matthew returned to Downton as planned on Sunday and that afternoon found Mary riding to the village to discharge her promised duty. She left Diamond outside and found her cousin alone as Mrs. Crawley had gone to a friend's for tea.

When she came into the room Matthew found himself strangely taken aback. He had spent a week in the near constant company of two imaginary Marys, one a beautiful, pure, marble fairy and the other an equally beautiful but cruel, wicked sprite, his imagination presenting one or the other to him depending on his overall mood that day. Seeing the real Mary, neither angel nor monster but somewhere in between and very definitely mortal, came as a surprise. A pleasant surprise overall: he had lost sleep over the phantom Marys.

She approached him with a friendly smile, as if the awkwardness of their last couple of meetings had not taken place. "How was your holiday? Sybil is convinced you spent it all in a lawyer's office. Please tell me you did not!"

"Not quite all of it, but I confess that my main motivation for choosing Manchester was to see old acquaintances and they tend to spend a lot of their time in offices, I'm afraid."

"Well, nobody's perfect!" She smiled engagingly but Matthew felt irritated by her casual dismissal of such an important part of his life. He tried to hide it: as she said, nobody was perfect.

"And you, cousin Mary? Have you been well? Any news at the great house?"

She sat down and arranged her skirts around her with practised ease. "We are all just as you left us, I believe. Christmas came early for Edith on Wednesday when Sir Anthony happened to be passing by." She rolled her eyes as she accepted a cup of tea from Moseley. "Really, I have no idea what she sees in him, always talking about his agricultural equipment. I start to think that it must be innuendo."

And how much more interesting he would be if it were, thought Mary.

The treacherous leap of Matthew's heart that this throw-away comment provoked only made his retort come back even sharper than he had intended it. "Exactly what you see in him, I expect."

For a moment she was startled and then she brushed it off with a usual laugh. "Really, Matthew, you shouldn't take me so seriously! What happened that night was only a game between me and Edith."

"A shame then that Sir Anthony and I were excluded from knowing the rules; we might have found it more amusing."

Matthew was shocked at what he found himself saying. He had gone away to separate himself from her before he found himself betraying feelings he was only just realising he might possess. His journey had failed, however, for he was far from indifferent. He stood and took his tea to the window, trying to master the confused emotions she constantly inspired.

Behind his back, Mary swallowed, frowned and shifted in her seat, aware of his awkwardness but unable to understand it.

"Your Manchester friends have spoiled you, Matthew," she said eventually. "I'm afraid they would disapprove of me."

"They are not very likely to ever meet you." It was a scenario he had imagined repeatedly over the past week.

"No? You met all my friends in London. You liked them, I recall. Why, even I like some of them!"

She smiled ruefully and he almost smiled back, unable to help himself. He was powerless before her.

"The circumstances of our meeting would be very different," he tried to explain. "I met your friends during the season but I cannot think of a suitable occasion when you might be introduced to mine."

"Can't you?"

He could. "I don't suppose you would be interested if the opportunity arose."

"Are you offering?"

She was goading him with that steady gaze and teasing half-smile of hers, just like the other night, and yet not so.

"Is that what you want?"

"Matthew, I -"

She half rose and as she did so he took a large gulp of tea in an attempt to diffuse the heaviness that had suddenly infected the atmosphere; thus he missed the real longing briefly visible in her expression.

"If you're really interested then I'll invite Mr. and Mrs. Fotherington to stay one weekend and you can come to dinner."

She sank back into her seat with a small sigh. "Oh, Matthew, for a moment I thought you were suggesting something quite different then."

The room had become overly small and warm. Matthew paced back to the window, as far away as possible from her and her fine, dark eyes and did not look at her.

"Believe me, Mary, when I propose marriage to you, you will be aware of it!"

She must have missed his unintentional replacement of the conditional with the temporal, for she cried very quickly, "Oh! I suppose you would be the kind of lover who goes down on one knee, addresses me as Mary Georgiana Victoria Crawley and then lists all my virtues one by one, dwelling especially on the ones I know I don't have and -"

"Stop!" he interrupted, torn between indignation and laughter at her rather desperate flippancy. "You shouldn't make fun of love in that way."

"What has love to do with a proposal? Come, Matthew, you should know by now; I am not a romantic person."

He stared at her. "I assume you're jesting."

"Not at all. What is more suitable a subject for satire than love and its impossible foolishness?"

Matthew fell silent. He felt a great weight descend on his heart. Then she spoke more quietly, as if she had only just processed what he had inadvertently said. "Do you love me?"

His eyes were drawn to hers and his mouth opened as he tried to decide how to answer. Acknowledgement and denial were equally unthinkable. For a moment an invisible bond connected them to each other, their expressions mirroring each other's in wonder and curiosity and revealing nothing. Then Mary bit her lip and looked away and it was broken.

"Well, it doesn't signify really," she said with polished brightness after he failed to reply. "Some people are simply incapable of real love, either the giving of it or the receiving. It's better this way."

The weight on his heart twisted and burned.

"What do you mean?"

"Only that -" She faltered, perhaps becoming aware of the hole she had dug for herself. "That for some people there is something so intrinsically wrong about them or that their situation -"

"Mary, I beg you, stop!" Matthew could hardly hear his own voice over the tremendous buzzing in his ears.

"But I -"

"I think you'd better leave now."

She rose, pale and scared at the unnatural tone of his voice. At the door she turned and faced him and said stiffly, "I was sent to invite you and your mother to dinner tonight. I hope you will come."

"I would by no means inconvenience cousin Cora by rejecting her kind invitation," he replied with equal formality. He held the door open, not trusting him with any further speech.

She passed out of the room with only a brief pained glance at him which he did not see, and showed herself out of the house. Within minutes she was mounted again and as soon as possible left the road and cut across the fields. It was fortunate that Diamond knew his way home for after urging him into a frenzied canter, it was all that Mary could do to cling to the reins as tears blinded her to everything else.

Chapter 2: How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria

Notes:

Especial thanks this chapter go to LadyGrantham for being a Cora goddess and looking it over and her helpful comments.

"We need to talk about Mary," said Robert, when he finally came to bed.

Cora looked up from her magazine. "Must we do it now, Robert? It's late."

Her husband sighed as he sat down on his side of the bed. "When would be a better time? Something has to change. What was this evening all about?"

To describe the dinner earlier that evening as anything approaching a success would only be remotely true if referring to Mrs. Patmore's trifle and even then generous allowances would have to be made.

"I don't know. I tried to talk to her this afternoon but she locked her door and wouldn't let me in. I'd have insisted if I'd known what she'd be like at dinner."

"She certainly does know how to create an atmosphere."

"Well, I wish she'd create a good one for a change!"

They were silent for a moment as Robert got into bed.

"If it wasn't for Sybil," he continued a moment later with renewed energy, "we'd have been lost. Who would ever have thought initiating a debate on the Russian revolution would be such an ice-breaker?"

"Who indeed!" Cora chuckled and then added with a touch of irrepressible glee, "Your poor mother!"

Robert smiled along with her, before they both became more serious again. Amusing as was the memory of cousin Isobel trying to deflect suggestions she might support the Bolsheviks and the dowager countess' horror throughout the conversation, they were straying from the point. Matthew had been silent and grave throughout the dinner, speaking only when spoken to and then with a formality they had not seen from him since his first arrival at Downton. As for Mary, she had been even more silent and seemingly lost in thought. The contrast with her usual demeanor had been marked. Normally, even when upset, Mary made her presence known verbally. However, the only thing she had said had been to put down Edith once who had dared to express an opinion on Russia. Apparently Tolstoy had said differently in Anna Karenina and one must be guided in all things by one's reading of Tolstoy! Or perhaps Edith had gone to Russia and seen for herself? Apart from this one interruption, she had simply sat there toying with her food, a solitary black hole of morose and silent bad temper and misery.

Cora had some but limited sympathy. However badly she was feeling, she always put on a brave face in public. Whatever had happened that afternoon between Matthew and Mary clearly went deeper than one of their average squabbles.

"I thought they were moving towards some kind of understanding- they seemed to be getting along so well," mused Robert. "I cannot tell you have happy it would make me to see Matthew my son-in-law and Mary well settled."

"I know."

"And then these last couple of weeks, it's all gone wrong somehow. Either she's pushing him away or he's pushing her away or -"

"I think they're sharing out all the pushing pretty equally. But, Robert, what do you want to do about it? You can't force them to marry each other if they don't want to."

"No, of course not." He reflected a moment before continuing, "I wish there was some way that Mary could be made aware of her situation: she will be twenty-two next month and she ought to be married soon, whether to Matthew or to someone else!"

Her husband did not know how right he was. "I think Mary is perfectly aware of her situation."

"Then why does she persist in acting so – so against her own interests?"

Cora almost smiled at his blind frustration. "When was the last time you saw her actually acting in her own interests? You know Mary!"

"I do indeed know Mary, and that is why I feel that we should help her. The society here is so unvarying- and I wouldn't wish Sir Anthony on her, not really!"

"You propose sending her to London then?" Cora was sceptical.

"Yes, why not? She always likes to go to London – she can stay with my sister for a month or so, and that will give her a good opportunity to think about Matthew, or find someone else in town if she decides against him and show the world Evelyn Napier is quite wrong with those rumours. Nothing could be easier- Rosamund knows plenty of young men."

Cora sighed. "My dear, Mary knows everyone there already! If she was going to marry one of them it would have happened already."

"Feelings can change over time." Robert looked at her and for a moment their eyes met in mutual acknowledgement and fondness.

She squeezed his hand before saying, "The problem with Mary's situation is that she never had to look for a husband before, not properly. Unless she managed to find someone better than Patrick then she could always rely on being a countess. And eligible dukes and marquesses don't grow on trees, you know!"

"Even so, she still did not manage to attract proposals from anyone, did she?"

"Sir Giles Ambleforth proposed to her in her first season," admitted Cora rather reluctantly.

Robert frowned at her. "I never heard of this! She rejected him?"

"Yes. On my advice, and your sister's. I wonder now if we should have interfered. She did seem to quite like him."

"Like or love?" asked Robert, still frowning.

"Oh, she was quite happy to refuse him; I don't think either of them broke their hearts over it, but if I'd known how things would turn out I'm not sure either of us would have been so quick to dismiss him."

"I wish you'd told me about this. I don't like the idea of you and Rosamund going behind my back in this way."

"Oh, come on, Robert! You would have sided with us; you wanted Mary to marry Patrick as much as anyone!"

As this was true, the earl forbore from pursuing this subject and turned his attention back to the present. "So if not Rosamund, where should she go? I suppose there's always my aunt."

"Lady Elizabeth! You can't seriously be suggesting that Mary is going to find a husband staying with an eighty year old spinster in a boarding house in Brighton?"

"What then? I don't have an inexhaustible supply of relatives on which to off-load my daughter."

Cora had been thinking. She turned to her husband with a mischievous smile. "What about mine? She could go to America!"

---

"America?" exclaimed the dowager countess the following afternoon. "She's behaved badly but not that badly!"

Cora smiled into her tea and was determined not to rise to the bait. Her mother-in-law's reaction was not unexpected.

"I said America, not Australia and I believe New York is quite civilised these days. But you must agree that the best thing to be done for Mary would be to separate her from Matthew for a period and introduce her to new society, and new men."

The dowager shuddered expressively. "We certainly do not need a repeat of last night's performance, I will agree with you that far."

"Exactly." Cora took a cucumber sandwich.

"But America! Is it really necessary to send her that far?"

Cora was starting to get exasperated. "What do you propose instead? Robert suggested that she could stay with his aunt Eli-"

Violet held up her hand in protest. "He must be going senile if he thinks that is a good idea! My dear, Mary would murder her within a week. Or the other way round; I never could tell with Elizabeth."

"If you'd let me finish, I was going to say that I told him it was not a practical idea."

"Hmm, well, that would be one way of putting it. My dear, what on earth is wrong with the continent? Italy these days is positively filled with girls searching for husbands! And the climate is infinitely to be prefered."

"Unlike America, I do not have any relatives conveniently living in Italy who would love to see Mary," replied Cora drily.

Her companion was silent for moment before saying thoughtfully, "I don't suppose you could go with her yourself, not with Sybil's first season just round the corner."

"No, exactly. It would be quite impossible."

"She cannot go unchaperoned of course." Violet was quiet again and Cora sipped her tea, not liking to interrupt her in case she came up with a solution. Eventually the dowager fixed her with a beady eye and said almost grudgingly, "I could always go with her."

Cora's eyebrows shot up into her hair and she opened her eyes wide in astonishment. The desire to retort "Why?" was overwhelming. She opened and closed her mouth again, not sure whether to take her seriously or not.

Violet's lips twitched in amusement. She cleared her throat. "My dear school friend Lady Eastwick, Elinor Brentford as she was before her marriage, moved to Italy some thirty years ago. For her health, so she always said." She sniffed sceptically. "I always said I would go and see her one day but I have not yet had the opportunity."

Cora had never heard of Lady Eastwick or known her mother-in-law to have ever expressed any interest in going to Italy but if she was being serious then this was too good an opportunity to pass up.

"Do you mean it?" she inquired cautiously.

"I was not aware that I was in the habit of saying things I do not mean," Violet retorted.

Cora could think of several ways of countering that but decided she had better not. "Where in Italy does Lady Eastwick live?"

"They have a villa in Tuscany not far from Florence. At least I believe Lord Eastwick is still alive. She rarely mentions him in her letters so it is hard to tell the difference."

"You might want to ascertain that before you write and invite yourself to stay!"

"Hem, yes, the thought did occur to me. I would not anticipate spending the whole time there, however. If the aim is to find Mary a husband she might as well go and stay with Elizabeth all winter for all the good Lady Eastwick's villa will do her. No, I think a tour of all the main cities, Venice, Florence, Rome, Naples, is called for before settling for a period in the countryside. I assume you will tell Robert of our decision?"

Cora blinked. "Yes, of course," she replied faintly. If the dowager really intended to take Mary abroad, then she was not going to stop her. In fact, she thought, as she made her way back to Abbey some time later, a winter without either her mother-in-law or her difficult eldest daughter under her feet was an almost delightful prospect.

---

After this plans advanced quickly. Lord Grantham was somewhat surprised to hear that his mother intended to take Mary to Italy to find a husband but he approved of the scheme. Not only would it solve the problem of her behaviour towards Matthew and maybe get her married off after all, but he knew that his eldest daughter would truly appreciate the opportunity to travel. He knew she was bored and frustrated by her life and felt that a few months of seeing new places and meeting new people would be very good for her from that point of view as well. Nevertheless, by an unspoken mutual agreement neither he nor his wife nor mother spoke of their scheme to anyone else whilst it was in the planning stages. The more details were fixed, they thought, the less Mary could object or make trouble.

Secret as they were intending to keep it, Cora nevertheless spoke of it to Miss O'Brien when she was undressing her. It was her habit to talk to her maid about matters uppermost in her mind, little thinking that O'Brien might do something with the information or that she might find it interesting herself.

So it was that about a fortnight after the dowager countess first mentioned Italy Miss O'Brien came into the servants' hall for dinner and sat down with such a look on her face that once they had finished eating Anna felt compelled to say, "Now what is it? We can tell you know something. Come on, out with it!"

"What's it to you then what 'er ladyship might 'ave told me this evening?"

"Well, then," said Bates, exchanging an amused look with Anna, "you can't say that and not expect us to be curious."

"I'm not curious," drawled Thomas, though his eyes were fixed on her.

"We all want to know; do tell us, Miss O'Brien!" put in Gwen.

Assured of a captive audience, O'Brien dropped the bombshell. "'Ere, you're goin' to like this. Lady Mary's gettin' 'erself a trip to Italy this winter to find 'erself a 'usband!"

Thomas whistled. "Lucky beggar!"

"You 'aven't 'eard the most of it. Guess who's accompanyin' 'er?"

The servants looked at each other.

"Are they all goin'?" asked Gwen. "Or is it just Lady Mary?"

"Just Lady Mary, an' wait for it – 'er royal 'ighness, the dowager countess."

"The dowager countess is taking Lady Mary to Italy? Wonders never cease!" Mrs. Hughes shook her head and smiled.

"Rather 'er than me, I must say. Fancy spendin' months on end with no-one to talk to but 'er ladyship! If you ask me they're tryin' to get rid of them both together."

"Why would they want to get rid of Lady Mary?" put in William with a frown. "She's always been decent to me."

Nobody replied though Thomas met O'Brien's eye briefly.

"Do you think they'll take any of us? Imagine going to Italy!" sighed Gwen.

"I shouldn't think so," replied Anna not unsympathetically.

"If they take any of us, it'll be you," said Thomas. "You're as good as Lady Mary's maid after all."

Anna bit her lip. She didn't look particularly thrilled.

Bates was watching her. "It would be a wonderful experience, if you did go."

She made an effort to perk up and nodded. "Of course it would be." She met his eyes briefly.

Daisy had been staring dreamily into the distance all this time. "Think of Lady Mary in a gondola! I can't imagine anything more romantic..."

"Is that you, Daisy?" called Mrs. Patmore from the kitchen. "These dishes won't clear themselves! Move yourself, girl – you're not the Doge of Venice!"

Daisy jumped up so fast she pushed over her chair and began collecting plates and cutlery. "Coming, Mrs. Patmore!"

As she disappeared, the others could hear her say as she followed Mrs. Patmore to the sink, "Oh, I wish Lady Mary would take me to Italy... I'd love it more than anything!"

Thomas was tapping the table pensively. Then he stood up and cocked his head towards the door to the yard. "Smoke?"

O'Brien nodded and followed him out.

"I wonder what they're plotting now!" wondered Anna with a shake of her head.

"Probably how best to smuggle Thomas out of the country in the countess' hat box," replied Bates and they laughed.

None of them thought that it might be a secret.

The next day, when Anna went up to dress the girls for dinner, it was quite natural for her to say while putting up Lady Mary's hair, "I suppose you must be very excited, my lady."

"What about?" asked Mary languidly, studying her reflection.

"Going to Italy, of course!"

"Who's going to Italy?" piped up Sybil.

Anna frowned. "Why, Lady Mary and the dowager countess. I'm sorry, my lady! I - I didn't mean to speak out of turn."

Mary had frozen in her seat, but she managed to say smoothly, "No, that's quite alright, Anna. Of course I am excited about it."

Anna smiled in relief. "I thought for a moment your ladyship didn't know about it!"

Mary's heart beat rapidly in her chest as she watched almost mesmerized as Anna put a final clip in her hair.

"There you go, my lady, all done!" She stepped back.

"Thank you, Anna. You may go now."

As soon as Anna left, Mary jumped up and ignoring Sybil's cry of, "What is this about Italy, Mary? Oh, you did know! How absolutely thrilling of Granny to take you to Italy!" pushed past her sisters and left the room. Sybil followed her out.

Left behind, sitting on the bed where she had been all the while, Edith looked down at her hands and whispered unheard, "I wish someone would take me to Italy."

Chapter 3: The Great Scheme

Over the last year Mary had become adept at dealing with unpleasant surprises. From Patrick's death to the news that her father did not intend to fight the entail, she had grown used to keeping her calm in the face of great personal disappointment. At least while the servants were present anyway; on her own, it was quite different.

After she left her bedroom, she sank against the wall in the corridor, a blank buzzing in her ears. She was being sent away. Never mind where or why or when, the inference was clear as was the motivation behind the secrecy. She felt the insult before she could rationally understand it.

She did not have long to react, however, for Sybil followed her out immediately. She touched her sister lightly on the arm.

"You didn't know, did you?"

Mary turned to look accusingly at her. "Did you know?"

"No, of course I didn't. How could I have done if you didn't? But even if it is a surprise, surely it's a good one? It will be such a wonderful opportunity!"

"Don't be naïve, Sybil," retorted Mary scornfully. "It's not an opportunity, it's a punishment."

Sybil opened her mouth to reply and then shut it again. Mary pushed herself off the wall. "I have to see Mama."

"Now? She'll be all ready to go to dinner."

"Dinner can wait. Will you cover for me, darling?"

She sighed. "Of course, Mary."

With one significant glance at her sister, Mary disappeared down the corridor and presently knocked on her mother's door.

Lady Grantham called, "Come in!" and Mary pushed the door open and just stood there. She did not know what to say or even how to introduce the topic in question. Resentment seemed to choke her.

The countess, however, took one look at her daughter's face and dismissed her maid with a rueful smile that only irritated Mary further. It seemed too knowing: a private joke at her expense. Once O'Brien had gone, Mary sat down quietly on her mother's bed and folded her hands on her lap, physically swallowing down her feelings.

Cora turned away from her dressing table and pursed her lips. "Before you explain to me what the matter is, just tell me this: are we going to be dreadfully late for dinner?"

Mary had absolutely no response to this frivolous remark. Her mother's hand went automatically to her hairbrush and she began to fiddle with it.

"Mary, whatever you -"

"I know about Italy, Mama."

The countess' hand stilled and she briefly opened her eyes wide in understanding. "Ah."

This one word and its knowing inflection freed Mary's tongue.

"Ah? Is that all you have to say about it? When were you planning to tell me? When my clothes were all packed away or maybe when I noticed I was on a boat? Or perhaps you thought I would mistake the Rialto for the Market Square in Ripon! Really, Mama, you must think I'm very stupid."

"No, my darling, I don't think that at all. But I do think that you are often inclined to see the negative before the positive and so -"

"And so you decided to plan the whole thing behind my back and tell the servants before you told me!"

"I'm sorry you found out this way, Mary, truly I am, but if you knew just how much trouble your father and I have gone to to -"

"Papa! He knows about this too?"

"Of course, Mary, what did you think? It was his idea really."

Mary digested this in silence, not really surprised that her father should have concocted another plan specially aimed at making a mockery out of her life, then asked, "Who else is in on this scheme then, or is it just you and Papa, oh, and all the servants?"

"Well, your grandmother is heavily involved of course -"

"Granny too! I suppose shewould be. What does she have to say about it then?"

"Quite a lot actually, considering she is going to be accompanying you."

"What!" Mary stared in open mouthed astonishment. "This must be a joke!"

"Not at all," replied Cora, trying not to sigh in exasperation. "If you will only let me talk uninterrupted for a moment I shall explain the whole matter to you and you can give your opinion on it. Perhaps you will even be pleasantly surprised."

Mary doubted this very much and moreover could not see the point in even having an opinion since what she thought would not make any difference to the pre-determined outcome. She said grudgingly, "Very well; explain it to me."

"Your grandmother has recollected a very dear school friend, Lady Eastwick, who lives in Italy, and is minded to pay her a visit this winter."

Mary raised her eyebrows. "Granny at school – now that's a disturbing concept! I've never heard of Lady Eastwick."

"No more have I," replied Cora, hiding her smile, "but your grandmother moves in mysterious ways so I am no longer surprised by anything she says or does. Anyway, as I was saying, she has taken it into her head to go to Italy and see this Lady Eastwick and she would like you to accompany her."

"I highly doubt that this was how the idea came about, Mama. You cannot surely think I would really want to spend a winter staying with a pair of exiled octogenarians- why not just call it a cottage and Mrs. Norris and have done with it?"

The countess had not read her Jane Austen recently enough to pick up on the reference but she understood the meaning easily enough.

"Don't be difficult, Mary; it's a genuine offer, and Granny doesn't intend to spend the whole time with Lady Eastwick anyway. Most of the time you would be staying in the main cities and mixing with society there as well as seeing all the principal sights. How should you like that?"

Mary was determined not to like it at all. There was little point in making a tremendous fuss and then not keeping it up. Anyway, she had been spoiling for a fight for weeks now.

"The point is not whether I would like it or not. The point is that you have decided this for me without my consent. What if I don't want to go? What if I refuse to go? Will you stop your plans?"

"If you simply refuse to go then everyone will think you are a silly and ungrateful girl, and they would be right. If, however, you really do not want to go and you have a good reason for it other than being contrary – no, do not interrupt me, Mary – then we would naturally try to cancel your ticket."

"There, you see! You have already bought my ticket. How can I make you understand, Mama?"

"I do understand, darling, really, I do!"

"No, no, you don't, you can't! You don't know what it's been like for me!"

Cora had the impression that she soon would and resigned herself to not eating for a while yet. Perhaps she ought to consider ordering up some sandwiches.

"A daughter can only ever be second best and I have been trying to make up for that initial disappointment since my birth. Don't try to deny it, Mama; I know how the world works as well as you." She stood up, hugged her arms round herself and began pacing. "Patrick was to be my redemption, wasn't he? I didn't mind much - I liked Patrick. Not as much as I should have done but I didn't know that till later. Then Patrick died. Never mind, perhaps now the entail could be broken, but of course it could not. Even this is not the end of the world, however, because I could always marry the new heir. What was that then: the third best way of disposing of me? I had lost count by then. But it would never have been my choice – it would have been Matthew's, and the only power I would have had would have been of refusal. Hasn't the world advanced at all over the last few centuries?" This last statement burst out of her, as she whirled round to face her mother directly. "Why must I settle for being the runner up in every competition I am entered for?"

"Mary, who on earth do you think you're competing against? You're not being entered into any competitions and there are no prizes."

"No?" she retorted, her voice hard. "What is this about then? I thought I managed to eliminate myself when I took a lover, yet here we are again. Mary must marry! Mary cannot marry! Mary must go to Italy to find a husband because she will not find one in England! Did Evelyn Napier prompt this? Because he would have given up on me anyway at some point, just as every other man who ever expressed interest in me did. Or was it my behaviour towards Matthew that sealed my fate? Mama, you don't know what happened that afternoon so perhaps you should ascertain the truth before you blame me for it all! Matthew's no saint whatever Papa thinks."

Cora started to feel a headache developing and she pressed her fingers to her temple. She was not up to unpicking everything Mary seemed to be trying to say here, at least not before she had eaten. It was the tone and incoherency of the rant that most disturbed her. She realised that she had very little idea what was going on in her eldest daughter's head. She thought back to the conversation they had had only a few weeks previously and in the light of this, was more worried than before. Mary had called herself a 'lost soul'. Now she was talking about 'redemption' and 'fate' and using other loaded vocabulary. All things in consideration, the countess found herself becoming rather anxious about her daughter's choice of reading material and its possible influence on her state of mind.

As these thoughts occurred to her, Mary sighed and walked to the window, as the fight left her, evaporating quickly as it so often did. She was really not very good at sustaining an argument once the initial impetus had passed.

The countess chose her words carefully. "Mary, everybody knows what it's like to feel powerless sometimes, women especially. You are not alone in feeling this. Do you think that I was ecstatic when I had to marry your father, a foreigner whom I didn't love?"

Mary turned her head towards her mother and frowned, her hand restlessly fiddling with the pendant at her throat. "And yet you are consigning me to exactly that!"

"I was very lucky with your father and the chances are that you would be at least content with your husband, if you were willing to give somebody the chance."

"Content! I don't think there is a more depressing word in the English language! The idea of it makes me nauseous."

Cora's irritation had been tempered with genuine sympathy until now, but annoyance was quickly overtaking. "Mary, please! Will you just listen to me? You are beginning to sound ridiculous. If you wish to be taken seriously, then you had better stop these absurd comments."

Mary glowered but said nothing, which was something at least.

"You have been putting words into my mouth all evening, and I have to put you right now. I have never once said that you are being sent to Italy to get a husband."

Mary scoffed. "Why else would I be sent there? Not even three weeks ago you were throwing me at Sir Anthony Strallan. I find it hard to believe that your priorities have changed since then."

"They haven't, and I am sure if you were to find someone suitable whom you thought you could marry while you were out there, your father and I would be very pleased. However, not everything is to do with marrying you off - I mean it. You're an intelligent young lady, Mary, when you choose to be, and I know how much you enjoy reading literature and looking at paintings and that kind of thing. If anyone here would be able to appreciate a trip to Italy of all places, it should be you. Go abroad, my dear, and see something of the world; that'll make it worthwhile whether you come back with a husband or not."

She was being disingenuous. Cora did truly believe that Mary would benefit from travel in many ways, but her main hopes were more selfish. She suspected that spending time abroad would give her daughter a better understanding of the world and her own character and that this in turn might help her to finally become ready to marry.

Mary closed her eyes. Her automatic desire to be contrary and resist this officious assumption of her interest warred with a genuine spark of curiosity about the scheme. She did not want her mother to be right, and she did not want to be manipulated into behaving as her parents thought best, but an inner voice that she was not yet ready to listen to suggested that the trip might well be everything her mother said it would be.

"Just think about it, Mary. Promise me that." Cora knew when to push her advantage, and stood up before her daughter could say anything else to make the situation more complicated than it already was. She really did want her dinner.

Mary nodded once and turned back towards the window, deep in thought. Her mother briefly squeezed her arm affectionately and then left her there and went down to dinner, thinking it probably best not to insist she accompanied her, and making a note to order some food to be sent up to her room later.

Chapter 4: What Women Want

While Mary was left mostly on her own to make a free and informed choice between being, as her mother put it, a "silly and ungrateful girl" and an "intelligent young lady", plans for the trip to Italy proceeded apace. The boat tickets had already been booked for her, the dowager countess and Violet's maid. With the dates of their crossing established, Lord Grantham in consultation with his mother turned his attention to hotels in Paris, where they were to break the journey for a week, and then to the destinations in Italy.

At this point Lady Rosamund somehow got wind of the plans and sent gushing letters to her brother, sister-in-law, mother and niece, providing rather out of date information on the best place to find glass in Venice, the best restaurant in Rome, the best phrases to use when accosted by strange men and so on. Mary devoured these chatty and informative letters from her aunt and poured over the unfamiliar, foreign names with more eagerness than she displayed to the rest of her family. Lady Rosamund knew the kind of thing likely to appeal to a young person of Mary's situation and temperament and in return her niece trusted her judgement. In this way, Rosamund was of more assistance to her brother in the persuasion of Mary than she was ever given credit for.

The project was soon widely known and discussed through the household and village, mainly due to Sybil's unreserved enthusiasm for it.

"Doesn't your ladyship wish you were going as well as Lady Mary?" Branson could not help asking her one day as he drove her to the library in Ripon, after she had treated him to an excited monologue on how lovely it would be to see the leaning tower of Pisa and what a shame it was they were not going in the summer as then Mary could have seen the Pallio in Siena, which she would have been sure to like.

Sybil actually considered this for the first time. "No," she said eventually. "I suppose I ought to be desperately jealous like Edith, but I'm not. Perhaps I might have been last year or even next year, but there is so much else going on this year that I am simply happy to enjoy it by proxy."

He glanced up at her. "You mean your season?"

"Yes, I suppose so, among other things. But I am tremendously excited about the season and that will require a great deal of preparation. Mama would never let me go away."

He replied only half joking, "I thought you were more interested in serious matters!"

"Believe me, Branson, we take the season very seriously!" she laughed, and met his eye briefly in the mirror.

---

Apart from the fact that nobody spent much time asking Mary what she thought about it, everything was going well until, about three weeks before they were due to leave, crisis struck from the most unexpected source.

Miss Simmons, the dowager countess' maid, had apparently been quite ready to accompany her mistress abroad but now, without any warning, she handed in her notice, declared that she had no intention whatsoever of leaving the country and putting herself at the mercy of those dreadful, dirty furriners and moreover was getting married.

Violet, in high dudgeon, rushed immediately to the Abbey to complain to her daughter-in-law.

"That's too inconsiderate of her!" said Cora sympathetically, pouring a restorative cup of tea. "What did she mean by springing it on you in this way?"

"She said," replied the dowager in tones that suggested exactly what she thought of Simmons' excuse, "that it took her some time to bring him to the point and that she was not so stupid as to leave a good position before acquiring a better. I ask you! Did you ever hear the like?"

"It is very vexing. Does she not know how difficult it is to get a decent ladies' maid nowadays? I do not know what I should do without O'Brien."

"Well, I think you will have to do without her, my dear. Mary and I cannot possibly go to Italy without a maid and I do not know how I shall find a replacement for Simmons at such short notice."

The countess held her cup suspended between the table and her mouth and opened her eyes very wide. "I very much hope you are not suggesting I lend you O'Brien!"

The dowager cleared her throat, raised one eyebrow and fixed her with a challenging glare which her daughter-in-law met with equal firmness.

Eventually, tiring of the silent battle, Cora replaced her cup on its saucer and said politely enough, "You may take Anna. I suppose it would be easier to find a temporary replacement for her."

"A housemaid!"

"Yes, and she looks after all my daughters and does it beautifully. You have surely never had anything to object to there."

As Violet had never noticed anything lacking in her granddaughters' presentation (except Sybil's extraordinary get-up that one time and Anna could hardly be blamed for that), she could not hold out any further objections.

Mrs. Hughes was consulted and that very evening Anna was informed of her good fortune. She received the news of her promotion with calm acceptance and gratitude and was so overwhelmed by joy that she hardly spoke all evening.

The following morning, as Sybil made her way along the upstairs corridor, she almost walked into Gwen, who was just leaving one of the bedrooms and had her head down and did not see her.

"Oh!" cried Sybil, taking hold of Gwen's arms to steady her before they collided. "Whatever's the matter? You're crying!"

Gwen blushed and shook her head, stepping back. "No, not at all!"

"You are!" insisted Sybil. "You're upset. Come here!"

She manoeuvred Gwen into the nearest room, shut the door behind them and then sat down on the bed next to her and put her arm round her shoulders.

"Now, Gwen, you can't pretend to me. What has happened?"

Gwen shook her head silently.

"Is it to do with the job? Because there will be more, I know it, and I won't stop looking for you, I promise."

"No, my lady, it's not the job," replied Gwen finally and sighed.

Sybil bit her lip and studied her. "What then? Please tell me."

After a long pause in which Gwen appeared to be weighing up her options, she eventually sighed again and raised her eyes to Sybil's. "Well, it's not really the job. Only you know as how Anna is to go to Italy with Lady Mary and the dowager countess-"

Sybil nodded.

"Well, she's mopin' about as if someone's died. In fact, even more so!"

"Why doesn't she want to go?"

"Oh, it's not my place to say!" answered Gwen immediately but on her mistress continuing to look insistently at her added, "That is, I did talk to her a bit last night. She is so fond of Downton and of –of the people here that I think she does not want to leave. She would miss them too much."

Gwen almost felt as if she were betraying Anna's confidence even by saying this much and hoped Lady Sybil would not press her further.

"That's very sweet of her and a good reason not to go." Better than some reasons anyway. "I suppose you will miss her," she added.

"Very much, my lady! She's like a sister."

"Yes, I shall miss Mary too," replied Sybil quietly, looking away for a moment. Amidst her excitement, she had not really thought of what it would be like to remain at Downton without Mary, and with only Edith for company. Rather lonely, she was inclined to think. For all her prickliness, Mary was her closest ally at home. Of course, Mary would marry one day, or she would. A trial separation was certainly for the best.

They were silent for a moment, then Gwen, who was calmer now, mused, "I suppose it just seems so unfair that she should have this great chance to travel but she doesn't value it, when there are others who would."

She had not meant to be so obvious, but Sybil understood her instantly, reflecting that this was a popular attitude at the moment.

"Do you wish you were going instead of Anna, is that it?"

Gwen blushed. "Well, no, not exactly instead of her, because it's not my place, but I couldn't help thinkin' that it would be wonderful to go and- and that I might learn so much."

Sybil nodded. "Indeed you would!"

"I have to face it, I'm not goin' to get a job as a secretary any time soon – I'm simply not good enough." She continued wistfully over Sybil's murmured protest, "I did wonder though if it might improve my chances of gettin' somethin' if I could say in the application that I'd been abroad, especially if I learned a bit of Italian. But I know I'm not goin' and Anna is, though she doesn't want to." She looked down at her lap, resigned.

Sybil had been frowning to an increasing extent as Gwen spoke. By the time she had finished speaking, she had reached a conclusion.

"You have to go to Italy!"

Gwen looked up at her. "My lady, how?"

"I'm not sure yet, but I think you should!" She removed her arm from round Gwen's shoulder and grasped both her hands. "Listen, I don't see why you shouldn't go if you want to. There is every good reason for you to go and every bad one for Anna to go!"

"Apart from the fact that she is a ladies' maid and I don't know the first thing about it!"

"You know, I expect you do even if you think you don't, and anyway, you have plenty of time to learn – it's only brushing hair and sewing; I'm sure your current work is harder!"

Gwen looked unconvinced. She had a rather better idea of what was involved than Lady Sybil seemed to.

"I'm sure if you really wanted it, you could learn anything!" added Sybil enthusiastically.

"I don't know about that, my lady, but supposing you were right, how on earth would you persuade them to take me?"

Sybil's face assumed a rather mulish expression as she plotted. "Leave all that to me!" She stood up, still holding her friend's hands and grinned suddenly. "I shall arrange it all. Just promise me that you will go along with whatever is suggested!"

There was nothing that energised Sybil more than a new project. She whirled towards the door, not giving Gwen much opportunity to reply. As a parting shot, she cried, "And have some biscuits before you go back to work – none of us ever eat them!"

Leaving Gwen, Sybil knew exactly what to do.

---

She found Mary sitting outside on the bench under the ancient Lebanon cedar with a book. She looked up and smiled at her sister when she saw her coming round from the house.

"Hello! What brings you out here?"

Sybil was still full of enthusiasm for her latest scheme, for she had been considering her plan of campaign as she made her way outside. "You, actually. I thought I'd find you here. May I sit down?"

Mary nodded and raised her eyebrows. "Me? Whatever do you mean?"

Sybil sat down and was about to start speaking when she noticed the book. "What are you reading?"

Mary held it out to her with a ghost of a smile. Sybil looked at the spine: Baedeker's Florence.

Her sister understood the question without needing to be asked. "Florence is a fascinating city to read about whether I decide to go or not!"

Sybil grinned. "Of course it is! I want to ask you a favour, Mary."

"What is it?" she replied warily.

"I want you to take Gwen with you instead of Anna!"

Mary stared at her. "Why?"

"Because she wants to go."

"You mean, you want her to go, which is a different thing altogether."

Sybil laughed fondly at her. "No, she told me herself that she wants to go."

"You seem to know a great deal about the feelings of a housemaid, Sybil," observed Mary, evading the issue.

"Aren't Gwen's feelings just as valid as yours or mine? Isn't she allowed to want things?"

"That's not enough to make things happen. We're women, Sybil; we don't get what we want!"

"How can our lives ever be improved if women themselves actually have that attitude? I don't see why Gwen shouldn't get what she wants," cried Sybil passionately, adding darkly, "Somebody ought to!"

Mary could not help smiling rather sadly at that, but the point hit home. "You can't expect Granny to agree to take Gwen. She's upset enough at the though of putting up with Anna."

"She'd agree if you asked her, if you made it a condition of your acceptance," said Sybil slyly. "What do you say?"

Mary raised her eyebrows, impressed in spite of herself, though she was careful not to say anything at all encouraging. "I say that as romantic as the idea of giving a housemaid the trip of a lifetime may be, I foresee a great deal of inconvenience in employing an untrained maid as a ladies' maid."

"But she can be trained! She taught herself to type all by herself – of course she can learn how to be a ladies' maid."

"In three weeks? Really, Sybil?"

"I'm sure she can do it. Please, Mary, you don't have to agree to anything now, but can you just promise me one thing?"

"That sounds a lot like agreeing!"

"All I am asking is that you give her a chance. Let her help Anna get us ready for dinner tonight, and then see if Mama or Papa notices the difference when we go downstairs. If she really can't do it then I won't press it." She smiled persuasively. "I promise!"

Mary squeezed her hand. "Very well, darling. There can be no harm in seeing how she does, I suppose."

Immediately Sybil was all smiles as she jumped up again from the chair. "Thank you, thank you! You're the best sister I could imagine!"

Mary raised one eyebrow at this but did not challenge it, but as Sybil was moving away she suddenly called after her, "Sybil, what do you want, if all this is what Gwen wants?"

She stopped and turned round. "Oh, many things! I want women to be able to vote and stand for parliament and have jobs, I want to be able to go to places when I want to without asking permission, I want to dance at my ball and fall in love one day – but I don't think those things are so important really."

"No? Most women would say that nothing is more important."

"Anyone can fall in love, Mary, but not anyone can change the world!" replied Sybil with happy confidence. "What do you want then? I don't think anyone knows that!"

Her sister laughed rather bitterly. "What do I want? Ah, Sybil, I'm not sure about that myself, and if I was, who would listen?"

"I'd listen!"

"You are a darling!" she replied, not really believing her. "You know, I feel smothered sometimes, Sybil, as if – as if my very voice were taken away." Her hand went to her throat as she stared intently at the ground, as if these feelings were somehow physical. "Silenced, like the nightingale in the myth. When I speak, nobody listens and so what is the point of speaking at all? Sometimes I am not convinced I even know what I am thinking!" She sighed, coming back to the present and looking anxiously up at her sister again. "Do you ever feel that way?"

Sybil frowned at her. "No. No, I always know what I am thinking!"

Mary sighed again. She remembered being as certain as Sybil was but, as with all phases, she had eventually grown out of it. "Well, you better get on. Don't you have a world to change?"

Sybil knew she did not mean the mocking tone that had crept all unawares into her voice. "Well, I am only starting small for now!"

As she walked away, she could not help thinking that Mary would probably be happier if she took part in the women's rights movement and turned to recommend some pamphlets she had on the subject, but Baedeker was open once more and she did not dare interrupt again.

---

That evening, Sybil persuaded her sisters to go up and dress half an hour early to give Gwen time to observe and learn in an unhurried environment. She watched Anna dress Mary and Edith and do their hair, but then Sybil insisted that she tried for herself.

Gwen's hands trembled as, under Anna's supervision, she did up the hooks and eyes on the back of her mistress' dress, knowing that all eyes were on her, but she only dropped something once, and picked it up with flaming cheeks only to meet Sybil's encouraging smile in the mirror. She felt a little calmer after this.

Edith watched critically from the bed and eventually commented, "If Gwen can replaced Anna just like that simply because she wants to go, I really don't see why I should not replace Mary in a similar way!"

"Ah, but I don't think you would be able to replace me even with three weeks training!" retorted Mary without really trying.

"I should think it would be an improvement without the training!"

It was too far beneath Mary's dignity to reply to this and she paced to the window, looking out across the parkland as it stretched away towards the village, her mind's eye following the drive all the way to Crawley House. None of them had seen anything of cousin Matthew for several weeks now, not since the disastrous dinner after their argument. She thought about him sometimes, though not as often as she might have done without Italy. She repented the split between them but since he was the one avoiding her, was not sure what she could do about it. Presumably she would see him again before they left (if they left), but it was not a meeting she was anticipating with pleasure.

"How do I look then?" cried Sybil, standing up and twirling.

"One moment, my lady," said Anna, reaching up to tuck back an errant curl.

Sybil looked very pretty indeed and everyone said so. Downstairs at dinner, nobody was aware of any difference in presentation between her and her sisters and there was general astonishment that Gwen could have done so well. Her mother even promised to consider the issue and discuss it with Mrs. Hughes.

Later, Sybil confided to Gwen that she thought she had done brilliantly. "And if you can deal with Edith, then Granny won't present any problems!"

Sybil got her way, of course, especially when she found an unexpected ally in Miss O'Brien. Upon discovering that with Anna gone she would be responsible for looking after Edith and Sybil as well as her mistress, she was only too enthusiastic to espouse any cause that would avoid this undesirable outcome. With O'Brien persuading the countess and Sybil working on her father, the result was almost inevitable but, as she had anticipated, it was Mary who held the casting vote.

One day as she sat taking tea with her grandmother and listening to her talk about all the things they were going to do without reacting very much to anything, as the dowager paused to sip her tea, she commented blandly that if she had to go away, she really would prefer Gwen to accompany them.

Somebody ought to get what they wanted after all.

Notes:

Interested in the nightingale myth Mary references? Check out the story of Philomela, Procne and Tereus as told in Ovid's 'Metamorphoses' Book VI! (Or look it up on wikipedia...

Chapter 5: The Food of Love

Notes:

There is some music in this chapter. If you're not familiar with the pieces in question, you can find a good recording of the first song here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMrRmOa8eMM) and a recording of the second that gives the tune but is not performed at all in the style described in this chapter (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Io9MPyXE2K0).

And what of Matthew? Apart from seeing her across the chapel on Sundays (when she bothered to come), he had not seen his cousin Mary since the day she had laughed at romance, and called him unlovable. Of course, this should not have affected him very greatly for, though he was prepared to admit he was fascinated by her, he certainly was not prepared to consider the idea that he might actually love her. Nevertheless, it bothered him, and he resented her deeply for it, both for the words themselves and for his reaction to them.

On the rare occasions he did see her, he avoided her. He was cool and reserved and in turn so was she. Sometimes he would glance at her in church but she was always looking away, bored and haughty in expression. Was this what she was really like then? Matthew was confused. He had seen her convulse with laughter, had watched her lean forwards to share a joke specially aimed at him, had bandied words with her and knew her to be intelligent and articulate, more so than any other woman he knew (and most men too). Yet all that wit and humour that he had believed her capable of seemed to be going to waste in her childish manipulations. The laughter, the flirting that he had foolishly wanted to believe in was no more than a game to her and he did not see what he had done to deserve it. Perhaps she simply was that cold and artificial. It was an opinion he tried hard to sustain over the weeks following their last meeting and her behaviour did nothing to shake it. He never noticed when she was looking at him.

There was little surprise in the trip to Italy either. He knew her frustration with her life, and her current, inexplicable desire to be through with him. That she should seek to change her situation was natural and he could not imagine a better place for her to go than to Italy. He could see her there very easily, a diamond among European diamonds. She would shimmer and sparkle around the canals of Venice and fountains and squares of Rome, her beauty and mystery putting all other foreigners to shame. That she would be courted and admired he had no doubt, as he had no doubt that part of the reason for her journey was to find a husband, since he had proved such a disappointment in that sphere. Either she would make an excellent wife for one of the many English noblemen who resided abroad or, if she were brave, an Italian noble. These were all bitter fantasies though he tried to pretend that his delight in her travels was altruistic and genuine. Moreover, she would like the warmer climate, he thought, and the variety in society found there, and he had thought she would appreciate the culture as well. He was not so sure now, when it was so hard to tell what was an act and what was not.

All in all, he knew she was lost to him whether she married in Italy or not, and he was glad he had realised his error before... before it would have been more difficult to detach himself. Really, he thought as he raised his newspaper and pretended not to listen to his mother's gossip from the great house, it was a very good thing he was not in love with her.

Notwithstanding his resolve not to interest himself in his cousin's affairs, Matthew nevertheless found himself one day after work getting down his father's old atlas from the top shelf and, after looking up the location of the mine in South Africa with which his current case was concerned, turning to Europe and tracing the route that Mary would travel. Down to Paris... then across the Alps... (He flipped the page over.) Venice, then Florence, Rome and finally Naples. Where would they spend the longest? Where precisely was Lord and Lady Eastwick's villa? He shut the atlas and sighed with irritation. It was none of his business.

Perhaps it was lucky that he never knew that at that very moment in Lord Grantham's library, Mary and Sybil were looking in a very similar atlas and tracing the same route.

Before he knew it, August and the heat of the flower show were only memories and the day of departure had come. Matthew and Isobel had been invited to dinner the night before. Refusal was impossible, though Matthew found himself dragging his heels getting ready and walking up the drive more slowly than usual.

"Do you think it will really make a difference?" he asked his mother as they walked. "Their going, I mean."

She glanced over at him. "I expect Lady Grantham's absence will make a great difference at the hospital. Finally a chance to implement some much needed changes!"

Matthew grinned at her but did not pursue the subject. She had not answered the question he had wanted to ask.

In the drawing room they were met by the rest of the family and Matthew's eyes were drawn instantly to Mary, however much he wished they were not. She was wearing her red dress again. It instantly brought back memories of the last time he had seen her in it, when Sir Anthony had been there. At least he had not been invited that evening, which was something. Why was she wearing it? It made her seem too exotic, too beautiful, too tempting. Matthew resented her all the more and was cool in his greeting.

Lady Grantham had obviously put some thought into the seating plan because Matthew found himself near the foot of the table between his hostess and Sybil. Mary, on the other hand, was on the other side of the table next to her father. In many ways it was a good arrangement, but it made it only too easy to watch her. He turned determinedly towards Sybil instead, who was in high spirits that evening, and managed to sustain a conversation with her for the duration of the first course without looking at her sister once. However, she was watching him.

At a lull in the conversation as the plates were being cleared away, Lord Grantham said, "I bumped into Murgatroyd today. He wished you both safe journey."

"Not Alan Murgatroyd, our member?" exclaimed the dowager. "He ought to be dead!"

"Really, Mother, he's the same age as you!"

"I don't believe it for a moment. He's at least ten years my senior!" She sniffed, unimpressed, and Mary hid a smile behind her napkin.

"Was he in good health?" asked Lady Grantham from the bottom of the table. "I haven't seen him in the village for so long."

"Well, not really," her husband was forced to admit. "I thought he looked rather unsteady. Poor man. He really should not have stood again at the last election."

"Why did he then?" asked Sybil. "What's the use of a politician who is too old to do his job? Do you know, I cannot think of a single thing he has ever done for us!"

"I suppose nobody stood against him," suggested Isobel. "I think it's terribly sad how much apathy there is towards politics nowadays."

Sybil looked at her speculatively but did not immediately reply.

"Well, we're due for an election next year," said her father, "so we'll see if anyone stands against him then."

"If he survives the winter," added the dowager ominously.

"You could stand, Matthew!" exclaimed Sybil suddenly, turning eagerly towards him.

"Me?" he stuttered, unwilling to be drawn into the main conversation, and uncomfortably aware of Mary's dark eyes observing him.

"Yes, of course. I think you'd make a wonderful MP because you would actually do things, and it would be very good practice for when you inherit and take up your seat in the Lords." She frowned at him. "You are going to take up your seat, aren't you?"

Matthew was not at all sure he would make a good member of either house and thought his cousin had a rather more optimistic notion of his capacity for action than he did. It was not a career move that had ever occurred to him, not when he was perfectly happy in his own profession.

He set down his knife and fork heavily by his plate and tried to answer in a reasonable way as the whole table was listening to his reply. "Sitting in parliament, in either house, is a great responsibility, and not one that I would ever undertake lightly." He nodded towards the earl. "And in one case in particular, I very much hope I will not be called upon to do so for a long time yet!"

There were general smiles at this diplomatic answer and Matthew felt able to continue eating, until Mary spoke up for the first time. She said with a light laugh and a teasing look down the table at him, "Well, you must be surely in the minority in thinking that!"

There was a sudden stillness round the table at this.

"Mary!" cried her mother, aghast.

She clutched her knife and fork more tightly and the smile faltered. She swallowed. "I was speaking generically, Mama, of the general feelings of heirs towards their inheritance, not of anybody here, and certainly not of cousin Matthew."

"I am glad you do not think me so devoid of all proper feeling!" Matthew bit out before he could help himself.

Across the table, Mary locked her gaze onto his. "No," she replied equally cuttingly, "not devoid of all feeling!"

Matthew found himself gripping his cutlery as much as she was. He had no idea what on earth he had done to cause her to look at him with so much scorn – by right he ought to have been the angrier. So he had not said that he loved her? Well, he didn't, and she had had no right to ask if he did! Giving her a final glare, he looked back down at his plate and the roast chicken and potatoes that no longer looked very appetising.

The silence following this exchange continued uninterrupted for several more moments. Matthew regretted his outburst, but not enough to apologise if she was not going to first.

Eventually, when it had become almost unbearable, though very little time had actually passed, Sybil broke the silence, by saying with forced cheerfulness, "I received a letter from Vivian Beresford today! You'll never guess her news!"

Everybody seemed to visibly wilt in relief as the tension diffused. Knives once more clinked against forks and glasses once more were raised.

"And what is dear Vivian's news?" asked the countess with far more interest than she would normally have expressed in such a situation.

"Her cousin, Grace, is going to Girton College, Cambridge in October to read English literature! I think she is so lucky."

"Oh, very well done to her!" exclaimed Isobel in relief at the change of subject, before turning to Edith to enquire who these people were. Matthew murmured his agreement.

As Edith explained that Vivian's father, Lord Mounteroy, was a distant friend of the family's, the earl and countess exchanged glances down the table.

"Grace does not have the kind of opportunities you have, dear," said Cora in a conciliatory tone. "One presumes that she will not have a season."

"I do not have the kind of opportunities Grace has," shot back Sybil immediately. "She went to Cheltenham Ladies College! If I had had that kind of education I might have been going to Cambridge or Oxford as well."

"And what would you have done with a degree in English literature, Sybil?" asked Mary with a studied air of neutrality. "Nobody ever wanted to marry a girl because she had read clever books."

"I wouldn't study English-" began Sybil at the same time as Isobel said, "Not everything needs to be about marriage. I am very much in favour of women attending university, whatever they do with their knowledge afterwards."

The dowager countess, who had been restraining herself with difficulty up to this point, now muttered audibly, "Why does that not surprise me?" Then she turned to Sybil and addressed her reprovingly, "Mary is quite right. You have received an excellent and fitting education from your governess. I really cannot see how you would be improved by five years at Cheltenham and three surrounded by undergraduates, most of whom have the most deplorable morals!"

"Excellent and fitting for what exactly? We never actually do music, we have never been to France, and I hate embroidery!" she finished triumphantly as more than one other member of the family sighed in resignation as the conversation again descended into unpalatable territory.

Matthew wondered if this dinner would ever end. He was inclined to sympathize more with Sybil's point of view than with her grandmother's, but after what had happened the last time he had spoken, he was not inclined to say anything further.

"Well, at least Mary will be able to justify those Italian lessons now," commented Edith.

Matthew looked up immediately and hated himself for it.

"You learned Italian? That should serve you well now," said Isobel.

"Only a little," replied Mary.

Her cousin was forced to turn to her other side as Edith continued, "We had to get a master in specially, Signor Rossetti. Mary insisted on it. She wanted to read, what was it, Mary?"

Mary drew in a breath, before replying, "The Decameron." She immediately looked down and speared a piece of potato to cover her irritation with the direction the conversation had taken.

"I don't believe you ever did read it though! You just had a crush on Signor Ro-"

Matthew felt terribly sorry for his mother, sitting inbetween the two sisters, as Mary opened her mouth to angrily deny the charge and the countess was forced to weigh in with, "That's enough, Edith! Signor Rossetti had many valuable qualities, and was an excellent teacher." She frowned. "Did you read any of it in the end, my dear? I always thought it looked very complicated. I forget what it was about."

"Of course I read it," replied Mary scornfully. "It's about the effects of the bubonic plague."

"Goodness, child, and while we're still eating!" The dowager scoffed.

Even as her grandmother was speaking, Matthew had somehow managed to meet Mary's eyes across the table again. "You didn't get very far!" he challenged her quietly but distinctly, breaking his decision to remain silent only minutes after making it. As far as he could remember from having read the poem once at university in English, the plague had only been the catalyst to get the characters together, giving them an opportunity to tell their more salacious stories.

Mary did not retort as he expected her to but swallowed and willed him insistently with her eyes not to say anything else. This was better than out-and-out hostility and he did not look away, hoping for something more from her – regret, acknowledgement, explanation even. What he got was perhaps some of that, but nothing explicit.

She looked away first. Lord Grantham, desperately trying to take charge of a situation that would have been farcical had anybody felt inclined to laugh, spoke firmly. "You mentioned music earlier, Sybil, and it occurs to me now just how long it is you or your sisters have played anything for us. In fact, I do not believe our cousins have ever heard you. Perhaps after dinner we might have a little concert."

"That would be lovely!" cried Isobel desperately, adding more forcefully, "Wouldn't it, Matthew?"

He tore his eyes away from Mary and grinned more widely than necessary at Lord Grantham. "Absolutely. Delightful."

The earl looked pleased at the success of his distraction. "Yes. Carson, we'll have tea in the music room this evening, I think. Mary, Sybil, I'm sure you have something you could entertain us with that won't be too taxing. It doesn't need to be anything long."

"I don't sing," replied Mary instantly and dismissively.

"I don't mind singing something if you like!" said Sybil. "What's the point of learning if we never perform? Mary, will you accompany me?"

Mary frowned and looked as if she would like to refuse, but she only said, "Of course, darling, if you wish."

"What about you, Edith?" asked Isobel pleasantly as the atmosphere returned to normal. "Do you play as well?"

"I used to," she replied, "but Mary was better than me."

And so the conversation was killed again, and it need hardly be said that they got through dessert as quickly as possible and without a great deal of enjoyment.

Once the ladies had retired, Matthew was alone with the earl. These dinners where there were no other men present always worried him, as he was never quite sure what topics Lord Grantham would choose to introduce. He was never more anxious than this evening, as he could think of several subjects related to this final dinner before Mary's departure that he would much rather not have to discuss.

Fortunately his cousin seemed to take pity on him, saying ruefully, "I think it's best if we don't keep them waiting too long tonight!" and then asking after Matthew's work.

Matthew told him about the trade union disputes he was dealing with in the local branch of a South-African mining company in relative detail, happy to be on a neutral subject and one about which he felt confident, until he realised the earl had probably only asked out of politeness and was not terribly interested.

As they left the dining room and he found himself ushered towards a smaller drawing room, which he had only been in a couple of times before, Robert suddenly stopped and said, "Thank you."

He turned in surprise. "For what?"

The earl clapped a hand on his shoulder before continuing across the hall. "However distasteful they find it, I think some members of my family would rather believe my daughter had been reading about the plague than a Medieval Ars Amatoria."

Matthew met his eyes and understood. "And you, sir?" he could not help asking curiously. "Didn't it bother you?"

Robert only paused right outside the music room door. "Mary always signed out the books she was reading and I always hoped that if she found anything that disturbed her she would come to me or Cora. If she had concealed her reading... that would have bothered me."

Matthew was not sure whether to admire his trust or find it naïve, and they went into the room.

The situation seemed a little more friendly than it had been during dinner. Cora, Violet and Isobel were talking quietly together and at the grand piano Edith and Sybil were looking over music. Seated alone at the instrument was Mary, head lowered, intent on the chords she was softly playing. The music rambled at will, the harmony constantly shifting as Mary played seemingly at random, always moving but never resolving, however many times it seemed to teeter on the edge of the desired cadence. Matthew had not been in the room two minutes before he felt more tense and wound-up than he had been all evening.

"Well, girls, have you decided what you're going to sing?" asked Cora, as she handed her husband and Matthew their tea.

Mary stopped improvising to Matthew's relief and looked up as Sybil came round beside her and spread out some sheets of music in front of her. Matthew was sitting close enough to hear her ask, "Are you sure you won't sing the second verse?" Mary frowned and shook her head, whispering back, "No, you sing it."

Matthew had very little musical background nor any particular interest in music in the ordinary way, but he had to admit he was curious to see his cousins perform, though he wished it had more to do with pleasure at hearing Sybil sing than at looking at Mary sitting at the piano, the bracketed lamps catching the gold of her necklace and the brocade on her red dress, as well as giving her pale skin an almost burnished glow.

Sybil came round to stand at the side of the instrument, and clasped her hands in front of her, her face shining with pride at showing off her talents and enjoying being the centre of attention. "I'm going to sing you a song from The Mikado. I hope you enjoy it!"

"Lovely!" smiled Isobel.

Sybil glanced back at Mary and nodded at her. She played a brief introduction before settling into a pattern of gentle, repeated chords, over which floated Sybil's melody.

"The sun whose rays are all ablaze with ever living glory," she began, "Does not deny his majesty, he scorns to tell a story!"

She had a sweet, light, and tuneful voice. It was not particularly powerful perhaps, but perfectly adequate for an intimate drawing room setting and was very pleasant to listen to.

"He don't exclaim, "I blush for shame, so kindly be indulgent." But, fierce and bold, in fiery gold, he glories all effulgent!"

Matthew found that he was effortlessly drawn to watching Sybil sing, all confidence and charm, as her voice soared up to the high notes: "I mean to rule the earth, as he the sky. We really know our worth, the sun and I!"At that moment, he could easily believe she intended to put what she sang into practice, even as she half laughed at the end of the verse when she ran out of breath a little too soon.

As Mary played the connecting bar between verses, Matthew looked back at her, finding it rather strange to see her so much in the background of the scene. He continued to watch her though, knowing that she was concentrating on the music and did not observe him, as Sybil sang the moon's verse. ("She borrows light that, through the night, mankind may all acclaim her!")

At the end, there was a little pause before everybody clapped. When his mother praised Sybil's performance and asked if she'd sing something else, Matthew found himself agreeing. She met his eye and blushed, pleased. "Well, if you like! What do you want to hear?"

Matthew was really not au fait with what was popular at the time. "What about a folksong?" he suggested rather lamely.

Fortunately, this seemed a good suggestion. Sybil beamed. "I know just the thing!"

She darted back round the piano and murmured something to Mary that Matthew did not catch, but Mary seemed to agree for Sybil returned to the front with a grin and her sister started playing a jaunty, familiar waltz tune, inserting a few Scotch snaps into the rhythm, an indulgent smile ghosting over her face as she played.

"My Bonnie lies over the ocean, my Bonnie lies over the sea. My Bonnie lies over the ocean, Oh bring back my Bonnie to me!" Sybil sang with infectious enthusiasm that the rest of the company could not help catching as well, for they were only too glad to put the awkwardness of the dinner behind them. As she launched into the chorus, she gestured with her hands that the rest were to join in. Matthew heard his mother sing along next to him as well as cousin Cora and covered his mouth with his hand to stop his amusement showing.

At the second verse, Sybil lowered her voice dramatically and sang very quietly and seriously in contrast: "Last night as I lay on my pillow, last night as I lay on my bed, last night as I lay on my pillow, I dreamed that my Bonnie was dead."

Matthew shivered somehow and when she started this chorus, nobody else joined in.

Sybil might have sung the second verse in a different mood purely for the drama of it, but by the end of the second chorus something had shifted in the atmosphere of the room, and as she started the final verse, she was still serious and the song seemed to become less jolly and more nostalgic, more yearning.

"Oh blow ye the winds over the ocean, oh blow ye the winds over the sea! Oh blow ye the winds over the ocean, and bring back my Bonnie to me!"

Matthew found a strange pressure fall on his heart accompanied by a cold feeling, almost as if the very winds of the song had blown through the room with the music. He looked away from Sybil as she launched into the final chorus and his eyes fell on Mary again. For the first time he allowed himself to realise that he would miss her. Whatever their relationship might have become, when he thought of Downton, he thought of her, and the idea of coming to the Abbey and not seeing her was almost inconceivable. Edith and Sybil seemed so very bland in comparison.

"Bring back, bring back, oh bring back my Bonnie to me, to me! Bring back, bring back, oh bring back my Bonnie to me!"

As Sybil sang, Matthew became aware of another voice mingled with hers, and knew it to be Mary's. Softer and quieter than her sister's, he would have missed it if he had not been looking at her and seen her lips move very slightly in time with the words. He stared at her, unconsciously leaning forwards in his seat, his tea forgotten on the table beside him. At that moment, she looked up, straight at him, and he met her gaze full on. Her voice faltered and she stopped, her lips parted on the vowel she had been singing, though her hands completed the simple accompaniment automatically. After the music died away, they continued to look at each other and he thought her expression softened towards him, as he knew his had done towards her. It was impossible to remain angry at her long, not when she was looking at him in that way and his heart was beating so loudly it seemed impossible nobody else should hear it. Nevertheless, even as the mood and their gaze were broken by the applause he felt sadness at the recollection of their previous meetings pour over him. He could not believe she was being insincere now, but had she been then? And what kind of fool was he, he thought bitterly, to continue to care?

"I never realised," Sybil was saying as she sat down and rewarded herself with a large gulp of tea, "what a tragically romantic song that is! A pair of lovers separated by an ocean... I hope I never have to experience such a parting."

"You are very unlikely to, my dear," said Isobel with a quick, worried glance at her son, and a reassuring smile for the performer, "if you sing that well to your suitors in London!"

"You're wrong anyway, Sybil," said Mary, and Matthew was surprised at how cool and normal her voice sounded. "It's about Bonnie Prince Charlie. Your romantic ballad is nothing more than a Jacobite hymn."

"Well," replied her sister. "I don't mind that. I have a lot of sympathy for the Jacobites!"

"Here we go again!" muttered her grandmother.

At this point, Isobel took pity on the whole party and declared that they must be off. They did not wish to keep their cousins up too late, especially if the dowager countess and Mary had an early start in the morning.

Though they were pressed to stay, the entreaties had little enthusiasm. Matthew made his goodbyes as quickly as possible, wished the two travellers the best of luck, and ducked out into the hallway, having avoided saying anything personal to Mary or meeting her eyes again.

His escape did not last, however. Isobel had been retained by Lady Grantham to discuss a recipe exchange and before she emerged, Mary slipped out of the room and followed him into the hall.

"You didn't say goodbye."

He turned round and saw her standing in the gloom almost hidden under the great staircase, twisting her hands in front of her.

"I did," he replied uncomfortably. "I wished you and your grandmother a very pleasant time abroad."

She took a few steps closer to him and looked up with a smile that tried to be brighter than it was. "Come, cousin, don't let us part as enemies."

"Enemies!" cried Matthew, not looking at her. "Certainly not! Nothing could be further from what I want!"

"Then give me your hand and let's be friends!"

She held out one slim, gloved hand and he was unable to help looking at her. Her tone was teasing but her eyes serious and anxious. He swallowed, his glance flickering down to her hand and back up to her eyes, and he clasped it in his, much as he had done several months before in the library. He had not held her hand since, and he wondered afterwards if he ought to have done then. What right did she have to demand anything of him?

Not knowing precisely what motivated him to do it, Matthew found himself saying with a small smile, "I heard you before, you know."

She looked puzzled. "Heard me?"

"Singing."

"Oh, I wasn't singing!"

Her quick denial made him smile even more. "Well, I heard you anyway."

He dropped her hand as the rest of the family came out of the music room, feeling strangely pleased at having redressed the balance of power between them even a little.

As the Crawleys waved them off in the car from the steps, Matthew looked once through the back window. He fancied Mary was watching the departing car with particular intensity and wondered if she could be as affected by their parting as he was. Probably not, he thought with a renewed stab of bitterness: she would have all the distractions of new people, places and experiences to look forward to, whereas all he could anticipate was another winter at Downton and the memory of what was gone.

Chapter 6: Sea Interlude

The Crawleys parted as Englishmen: in a stoical and methodical fashion following a hearty breakfast of scrambled eggs, boiled ham, and muffins. Nobody cried, nobody was hysterical, and they left so much time to get to the station that the only worry of the whole affair was whether the car would hold all the hatboxes.

Downstairs, the atmosphere was not quite so peaceful, though they all put on a calm face before the family. Gwen's new clothes for her role as ladies' maid had only been finished the day before, and the other servants were as keen to admire her smart new black dresses as Gwen herself could be, every time she caught her disbelieving reflection as she scurried about her final errands.

"Here, Gwen, somethin' for the journey." It was Daisy, beaming nervously and holding out a parcel wrapped in brown paper with lots of string.

"What is it?" replied Gwen taking it gingerly from her.

"Bakewell tart," she replied. "Mrs. Patmore made it specially for you and she said how you wasn't supposed to give any of it to Lady Mary or Lady Grantham or you'd suffer her wrath."

Gwen laughed and looked down at the rather heavy package in her arms. "I can't very well eat it all myself!" Nevertheless, she was touched.

"I dunno, I would!" Daisy frowned. "What does 'suffer wrath' mean?"

"It means-" began Gwen and then broke off at the sight of Lady Sybil peering mischievously round the door to the servants' quarters. "Your ladyship!"

"I hope you don't mind my coming down here, Gwen, when you have so much to do, but I had to see you before you left. Hello, Daisy!" She came forward into the corridor, holding her hands strangely behind her back.

Gwen smiled at her in pleasure. She had been so busy tending to Lady Mary as a well as helping the new housemaid, Ethel, settle in and take over her job, that she had hardly seen Lady Sybil at all recently and she had missed her.

"It's very good of you to think of me, my lady," she said.

"Nonsense! You know I often think of you, Gwen. Whatever do you have here?"

"This?" She nodded her head at the cake. "It's bakewell tart, a gift from Mrs. Patmore, though I don't see how I can possibly eat it all!"

"Goodness me, that was nice of her!"

"I'm very spoiled," replied Gwen with some embarrassment, as Sybil took the package from her arms and sent Daisy off with it to find a suitable bag or box to carry it in.

"Well," she cried with sparkling eyes when Daisy had gone, "I am going to spoil you some more, I'm afraid."

"Oh, you really shouldn't-"

Gwen's protests were in vain. Sybil produced with a flourish from behind her back a plain, rectangular, wooden box and handed it to her friend. As Gwen took it, feeling a mixture of pleasure and shame at such a mark of preference, Sybil explained, "It's not really a gift, you see, more bribery to induce you to do me a favour."

"Bribery? Oh, my lady, after all you've done for me- Only tell me what you want me to do!"

"Nothing so very arduous, I hope!" laughed Sybil. "Only promise that you will write to me regularly and faithfully and tell me everything that you get up to."

"Won't Lady Mary write?" queried Gwen, her fingers nervously passing over the box.

"Of course she will, once in a while. Mary's letters are beautiful;" she added, "and by that I mean she has a beautiful hand!"

This was being a little hard on her sister's powers of composition. Nevertheless, it is broadly true that Mary's letters, whilst always lovely to look at and full of the most elegant turns of phrases and prettily described anecdotes, were rather instantly forgettable containing as they did very little pertaining to their author's own feelings or experiences; in other words, all the things that distinguish a personal letter from a guide book or satirical novel.

Gwen had been working closely with Lady Mary over the last couple of weeks in order to prepare for her new position and had found her a cold and capricious mistress and a demanding taskmaster, nothing like Lady Sybil. It is entirely possible that she understood Sybil only too well on this point of letters.

She made the promise readily enough. "Of course I shall write to you as often as I am able."

"Open the box then!" Sybil ordered. "I want to know everything you see and everyone you meet – remember, there may be rich business men abroad who need secretaries – and what you think of them and where you go!" She continued to chatter, covering her anxiety at the thought that Gwen might not like the present.

She need not have worried. The box contained several dozen sheets of thick paper, two plain but elegant pens, and two little pots of black ink. It was everything that was dainty, suitable for travel, and appropriate for someone in Gwen's position. She exclaimed in delight, looking up at her benefactress, face aglow.

"Oh, Sy- Lady Sybil, you are too kind – far too kind! With such beautiful stationery I shall be writing so often I shall make myself a nuisance!"

"I'm sure you wouldn't ever do that," replied Sybil warmly and then on an impulse pulled her astonished maid into a hug. For a second Gwen could not breathe but then she tentatively placed the palms of her hands on Sybil's back and closed her eyes.

It was over too soon. Mrs. Hughes came into the passage and Sybil saw her and pulled back, all unconcerned smiles. The housekeeper looked between them a moment and then delivered her message. "They're ringing for you upstairs, Gwen. You'd better say your goodbyes quickly. Is there anything your ladyship wanted?"

"Just to wish Gwen the best of luck on her travels," replied Sybil sweetly as Gwen took Mrs. Hughes' words as an excuse to fiddle needlessly with her dress and will away her blush.

"Thank you, my lady," she muttered, unable to meet her eyes.

Her mistress had already moved away towards the stairs. She turned again at the door. "Every week, remember, Miss Dawson," she cried with a grin. "I depend on it!"

"Every week!" replied Gwen.

---

The first night the travellers spent away from Downton hardly felt out of the ordinary. London might have been a novelty to Gwen, but Lady Rosamund's house in Eaton Square was almost as familiar to Mary and her grandmother as their own were. They passed a pleasant evening with Rosamund and even had time for the Sunday service at St. George's the following morning (the only place to see and be seen if you were anybody who was somebody) before continuing to the coast.

They had booked an overnight passage on the S.S. Regina and although she was not due to weigh anchor until late, they embarked in the early evening to dine in comfort while still in the harbour.

Mary had been on boats before of course. Rowing boats on the Serpentine with tedious young men, keen to display the skills they had learned at university. (Probably their only skills, she thought sardonically and wondered suddenly if Matthew could row. She fancied not, but even if he could, she felt sure he would never be so boring as to show off.) The paddle steamer, Waverley, on Windermere, taken on numerous occasions that long summer they had spent in the Lakes, a trip elongated when Sybil had fallen out of an apple tree and the whole family had been obliged to stay put two months longer than they had intended. Even the little boat in Scarborough that professed to show tourists the real life of the Yorkshire fisherman for two hours on a calm afternoon – and they had paid through the nose for the privilege. Mary had never been on a boat before that did not go in circles and end up exactly where it had begun.

Today, England; tomorrow, France. It was hard, sitting in the strange, low-ceilinged dining room and feeling the gentle, almost imperceptible rock of the boat at anchor, not to feel the tug of incipient adventure. The dowager countess did all in her power, in must be said, to squash these burgeoning feelings, by making disparaging remarks about the size of their cabins, the service in the restaurant and so on, but she did not quite succeed. Mary was filled with a quiet sense of anticipation which did not show in her expression or anything she said but which she felt anyway as she calmly sipped her wine, her chin resting on her hand, staring out of the window at the shore lights twinkling on the still, murky, harbour water.

Lady Grantham did most of the talking, telling Mary stories of the times she had been abroad with her husband as a young woman. For the first time since the trip had been suggested, Mary allowed herself to listen and be amused (never mind whether anything being said was true or not), feeling for once no more no less than a granddaughter.

"Of course," Violet was saying as they lingered over coffee, "we all went to Paris the year your parents married and were at the Moulin Rouge just after it opened."

Mary raised her eyebrows. "Somehow I find it hard to picture you in a cabaret, Granny."

Her grandmother cleared her throat. "In that case I'd better stop there in case I frighten you with the rest." There was a twinkle in her eye.

Mary smiled over her coffee cup. "Perhaps I will be braver once I have seen the place for myself. Shall we go this week?"

"Oh, I think not, my dear! You would not want to go with me; let your husband take you – once you've got one!"

Immediately, Mary imagined herself in a dark and stuffy ballroom watching a line of can-can dancers, sitting bored next to the Italian equivalent of Anthony Strallon (shorter, darker, louder) who was far more interested in the immodestly dressed dancers than in his wife. She sighed. A cabaret probably could be entertaining in the right company but she doubted that would ever include Antonio Strallone. One had to be a little improper to enjoy that kind of thing, something husbands in her experience never were.

The ship had finally weighed anchor by the time they finished dinner. Straightaway the dowager declared her intention of returning to her cabin and going directly to bed.

"I may be an excellent sailor, but there's no need to put it to the test!" she said firmly, as if daring Mary to contradict her. She only smiled, kissed her and wished her goodnight. Gwen was summoned from the third class dining room to put her to bed and Mary, alone at last, slipped on her new dusky pink coat and a shawl and went up on deck.

It was a dark night, devoid of moonlight. The sea churning rhythmically under the bows was black and calm, only illuminated by the occasional glow from a porthole lower down. The deck hardly rocked, or perhaps Mary was used to the sway by now and did not notice it. One thing, however, it was impossible to ignore was the steady chug of the engines, audible all over the ship.

Mary pulled her fluttering shawl closer round her shoulders and leaned on the wooden rail. It was almost midnight and for the first time in what seemed like months she was quite perfectly alone. Here in the midst of the great expanse of sea there was nobody stifling her voice or putting words into her mouth, there were no expectations, no demands, no misunderstandings, no mistakes, no heartache, no past, no future.

She was only Lady Mary Crawley and she was all at sea.

Only the previous night she had been at home playing the piano for Sybil. Matthew had been there and she had felt – well, some things were best left unacknowledged even here. Still, it had seemed so terribly important to her not to part from him on bad terms, but she was not sure if she had succeeded and she could not tell if he had forgiven her or not. Yet why should he forgive her? Oh, she appreciated the misunderstanding between them: she had said she was impossible to be loved, unmarriageable – an immediate and foolish reaction to his dreadful silence – and he had thought she meant him. It was an impossible mistake to correct without saying what she could not say, not to mention the equally impossible-to-contemplate fury, disappointment and rejection she had felt which had caused her to say it. In the end though she only knew that the idea of being hundreds of miles away from him and knowing he thought ill of her was unbearable.

She stared out into the was nothing, really nothing, save the coldness of the wind on her face and the reassuring, noisy throb of the engines. What would happen if the vibration stopped? If the engines fell silent? If the boat tilted too far and there was no escape from sliding, ever sliding all the way over the edge?

Mary leaned further over the rail and peered down to where she could see the white foam curling away on the wave from the side of the ship. Cold, dark water. Always changing but never different. Unceasing in its motion. Falling into it, feeling the ice close over her head, the final surrender. Would that be what it would be like to drown? Was that what they had felt? Lost, alone, in the middle of a greater, colder ocean than this small, friendly channel, had they wondered the same thing before experiencing it first hand?

For the first time, almost two years late, she allowed herself to imagine her cousins' final moments. She wondered about the last minutes of their lives and what sort of things went through their minds. What on earth did one think about at the point of death? Had Patrick thought of her? Or was it Edith in his mind at that final point? Oh, she had known about that, of course: he had wanted to marry her but he had simply wanted her sister. They were quite different things, it seemed. Or perhaps he had been thinking of something completely different; taxes, the business in New York, his mother, what he had for dinner... She would prefer that, however unromantic, to Edith.

The water seemed to swirl around the ship more vigorously, sending little sprays of foam up into the night air. Mary almost fancied she could see faces in the patterns of the waves, faces she had not allowed herself to imagine even at their funeral, dead, blank, waxy faces. Her imagination brought them before her with alarming clarity. Patrick's rusty hair spread out round his head like a halo, his eyes staring in horror – gone too early, too early! His father was more serene and he wore his characteristic Crawley frown even in death. Mary sucked in a cold breath and stared harder, her lips parted and her eyes wide in horror as the faces changed before her as a wave washed them away, removed from view as much as the sea had taken the lives of the originals. In their place appeared another face, a face that still haunted her, a handsome face with wavy, dark hair and eyes that would not close no matter how many times she tried, replaying it over and over again in her nightmares. She shuddered and still could not look away.

"My lady?"

Mary almost flung herself away from the rail, spinning around to look into the normal, plain, slightly curious face of her maid. She was breathing hard, feeling as guilty as if she had been caught in a room she was forbidden to enter.

"What is it, Gwen?" she asked, relieved to find her voice was no different to usual. It hardly ever was.

"Sorry for disturbin' you, my lady. I only came out to say that her ladyship is in bed now so if you need me..." She trailed off, blushing.

Mary was glad she had come. She had been starting to frighten herself. Perhaps being alone was not always such an advantage. She managed to smile. "Thank you. I appreciate you telling me. I am not quite ready to go in yet."

For a moment they both paused, suspended in time with the rocking of the boat the only motion as Gwen tried to work out if she had been dismissed or not.

"Join me out here a moment. I suppose you've never been on the sea before, have you?" She indicated the rail and after a second Gwen joined her and they looked out side by side.

"No, my lady. I never have. It's very big, isn't it? Sorry, that must sound so stupid!"

"Not at all," replied Mary softly. "It is very big."

They stood in silence together. Mary refused to look down again and instead kept her gaze straight out ahead, keeping her thoughts as blank as the vista before her. There was no horizen; no way of telling where black sea ended and black sky began.

Eventually she said in a more conversation tone, "How are you getting on with Granny then? I hope she is not too troublesome!"

Gwen looked up at her, roused out of her own reverie. "Pretty well, thank you," she replied cautiously.

Mary smiled. "I am glad you are managing; Sybil always assured me you would. It did seem awfully unfair to inflict her on you without any preparation, but I hope you did not find me overly harsh these last couple of weeks. If you can manage me at my worst then I am sure my grandmother will present no problems!" She shrugged slightly, self-consciously, and then continued before Gwen could get her head around what she had said, "I meant to ask you, what would you like to be called?"

"My lady?"

"Well, you've always been Gwen to us but now we must call you Dawson as a matter of course. I suppose Granny does?" Gwen nodded. "What do you think about it? It's always seemed a strange sort of custom to me. I know I'd hate to be called 'Crawley'!"

Gwen gave her a bemused smile in return. "You – you can call me whatever you wish, my lady," she stammered.

"Very good then. Dawson in public, Gwen when we're alone, and Miss Dawson on Sundays and public holidays!" She was queen of the situation once more. The dead faces had been banished back where they had come from in the face of Mary's brilliance and power.

Gwen looked at her then back out at sea and did speak for a while. Then she said, "Excuse me, but why, my lady? Why did you ask?"

Mary shrugged. "Caprice probably, but I know you don't want to be a ladies maid."

"I do want to go to Italy very much though. And I promise to try my hardest to be a good maid to yourself and Lady Grantham."

Mary laughed at her earnestness. "Then I am sure we will all be very happy."

She stepped away from the side and walked a few steps along the deck before turning and saying abruptly, "I envy you that, you know."

Gwen frowned and shivered, the wind whipping tendrils of her bright hair out from under her cap, the only colour visible in all the black of her dress and the sky behind her. "What?"

"Your determination. I've never cared enough about anything to try that hard." Then she turned on her heel before Gwen could attempt to think up a suitable reply.

Mary led the way off the deck into the overly bright warmth of the ship's interior. As her eyes adjusted to the artificial light and she went down the corridor towards her cabin, she licked her lips and tasted salt.

Chapter 7: Saint George Abroad

Notes:

Information about the Scuola Dalmata can be found here. The painting of George and the Dragon by Carpaccio that Mary and Hettie are looking can be seen here.

There is only one way for the modern traveller to arrive in Venice and that is by train across the nineteenth century causeway from the mainland.

The dowager countess was nevertheless unimpressed. "When I went to Venice with Lord Grantham," she said to Mary as they hurried along the platform at the Gare de Lyon, Gwen and three porters following them pushing their trolleys of luggage, "we took everything much more slowly and instead of rushing there by train straight from Paris we broke the journey in Verona and then chose to get a boat from the mainland directly to our hotel on the Grand Canal. We'll have none of that elegance this time; one station is much like another!"

Mary sighed. She liked her grandmother's nostalgia better than the anticipation of arrival in twentieth century Venice as her father had arranged it. Surely the causeway must spoil the magic of La Serenissima, making it too modern, too much like the rest of the world? It clashed with Mary's image of the city drawn mainly from the paintings of Canaletto and the writings of Henry James.

"Did you enjoy it when you went before?" she asked her grandmother later in the dining car as the French countryside flashed past them in a blur of telegraph poles and stone farm houses.

"Yes, we did," she replied, then added, "if I forget about the stink from the canals."

Mary did not bother to hide her smile. It was only the two of them after all.

They had passed a productive four days in Paris; productive in terms of shopping, that is. Yet more clothes, hats, gloves and jewellery had been purchased by both travellers.

"I'm afraid we shall return to England with almost double what we set out with if we continue at this rate," commented Mary ruefully to Gwen as the latter packed up on their final day in Paris.

Mary had managed to sneak in a little culture, however, for while Violet had been to the Louvre before, she obviously had not. One afternoon while the countess was resting, she enlisted Gwen as her chaperone and they visited the gallery together. Naturally they prioritised the Mona Lisa.

"I wonder what she was thinking about," said Gwen not very originally.

Her mistress shrugged. "Probably about how boring it is to sit for a portrait and about all the other things she might be doing if only she could."

Mary was not overwhelmed by it. Moreover, they had been stuck behind a group of noisy French students and had had to wait nearly ten minutes to get a glimpse of the portrait. Still, at least she could now say she had seen it, which was surely half the point.

Anyway, after conquering Paris in this way in four days, they continued on to Italy, which they were going to reach almost sooner than seemed possible. In the early evening they boarded the night train in Paris; the following morning they would find themselves in Venice.

Mary had a compartment to herself. There was nothing unusual in that by itself of course, but she found a certain unexpected charm in a room that contained everything she could need squashed into a space that could be crossed in four, small steps. Above her bed was a hook from which she could hang her watch, and a little net basket into which she could put her book. It would obviously not be possible to survive in such cramped conditions for long (and the bed was terribly hard with only one pillow), but for one night it was really rather darling.

Sleep, when it came, however, was not uninterrupted. The rocking of the train was much greater than on the boat and more uneven and this was combined with the greater interest of looking at the countryside outside the window. Mary woke regularly when the train stopped in stations and crawled to the end of her bed, and lifted up the blind to stare out into the clear, fresh night. A deserted platform with a strange name, a lone guard stamping up and down in the cold with his lantern swinging, the slam of the train doors as they were once more closed before departure and perhaps, as the train drew out of the station, a glimpse of the hulking Alps, shadowy in the background. Once, when Mary looked out as the train had been crawling for some minutes, she saw a sign by the side of the tracks, boldly saying, "ITALIA – FRANCE". They were in Italy.

The last time she woke it was to the jangling of a bell as the conductor moved down the corridor. "Venezia Ferrovia Santa Lucia! Un'ora a Venezia! Venise Gare de Santa Lucia! Une heure à Venise!" he shouted as he roused the sleepers.

Mary rubbed the sleep from her disturbed night from her eyes, got out of bed, and shrugged on her silk dressing gown. It was light outside and when she lifted the blind, the train was speeding through a very different kind of countryside. She splashed her face, loosely tied her hair up and then, desperate to escape the confines of her compartment, went outside to the corridor while she waited for Gwen to help her dress.

She leaned on the rail and looked out of the window, drinking in her first glimpses of the north Italian countryside. It was very flat and fertile, with green fields divided by irrigation canals. The landscape was broken up by clusters of poplar trees, instantly giving it a more Mediterranean feel compared to what she had observed the previous evening coming from France. The houses were different too. They were low and white washed with stucco outsides and their roofs sported the distinctive bright terracotta tiles of southern Europe. The September sun was already shining brightly in a mostly clear blue sky and when a gust of air blew through an open window further down the carriage, Mary caught a whiff of air that was warmer and spicier than Paris.

A few doors down from her, a man emerged from his compartment. He was olive complexioned and his dark hair was sleekly oiled down. His shirt sleeves were rolled up to his elbows and he had not yet shaved. He looked her up and down openly and then grinned as she pursed her lips, blushing, and stared out of the window, regretting coming outside without being dressed first. She tried not to look at him, but her eyes kept shifting in his direction all the same.

"Buongiorno, signorina!" said Mary's first Italian politely and cheerfully enough when he had finished his thorough inspection of her person.

"Buongiorno," replied Mary quickly, and immediately ducked into her compartment as the train began its arrival into Padua station.

By the time she and her grandmother were dressed and had had breakfast, they had almost arrived in Venice. Mary returned to her spot in the corridor, leaning on the rail by the window to watch for the first appearance of the lagoon.

There was even more water now. The railway ran parallel with a widening marshy river and Mary looked keenly at the little hints that Venice was near: the flat bottomed boats moored to posts painted in bright stripes, and the occasional sight of a Palladian villa, rising white and classical out of its enclosed gardens.

The train passed rapidly through the Medieval town of Mestre and then with hardly any warning they were on the causeway. Water was everywhere, the morning sun glinting on it and catching the spray from the wake of a fishing boat that passed near to the bridge. The further they drew from the mainland, the more Mary could see of it stretching out to the left behind them until it disappeared into a haze. She turned to the right and sucked in a breath. There, shimmering on the glassy water like a mirage was the city itself. From the approaching train it seemed even smaller and more unreal than she had imagined. All that could be seen was a mass of houses and roofs of different levels interspersed with bell towers of every shape or size. Mary could not help being a little disappointed. The setting was magnificent but the city, at least on approach from the mainland, lacked the splendour she had been promised.

"La sua prima volta a Venezia?" asked her friend from earlier with a grin, watching her reaction.

Mary stared at him. It had been years since she had spoken or heard Italian and the unfamiliar sounds had not yet arranged themselves into meaning in her brain.

"Your first time at Venezia?" translated the man, his 'r's still rolled in his heavily accented English.

She flushed and looked away from him. "Sì."

On her other side, the countess peered round her to see who she was talking to, frowned, and muttered, "I wish you would not speak to strange men, Mary. It gives quite the wrong impression!"

Mary glanced at the Italian again and then back at her grandmother. "I thought that the point of this trip was for me to speak to strange men, or does it only count if they are obviously rich?"

"My dear!"

However, they were distracted. The water traffic had been increasing as they approached the city but now, finally reaching the houses, they saw for the first time the silverferrò and black prow of a gondola glide silently out of a canal into the lagoon. The front was followed by the tasselled black canopy and finally the gondolier himself emerged and turned his craft elegantly away from the causeway. Mary could not help smiling as her heart fluttered in anticipation, and at that moments the bells of Venice started to ring.

---

The first day after her sister and grandmother left for the continent, Sybil felt bereft. She felt acutely aware of Mary's absence when talking to Edith in the drawing room that afternoon, and of Gwen's absence when Anna came to dress her for dinner for the first time in weeks.

The following morning, she felt differently. Mary had been away from home many times before and in fact Sybil did not spend enough time with Gwen to make her absence really all that noticeable. She had only been inclined to dwell on the changes to the household because she knew they were so different to Mary simply going to stay with Aunt Rosamund for a couple of weeks.

By the end of the first week, however, she started to feel a genuine emptiness in her life. She had been so focused on Gwen's career for so long and more recently, on preparing for the trip abroad with her and with Mary that she did not know what to concentrate on now. She needed a new project.

She began to cast around for ideas and soon fixed on university. The letter she had received from Vivian Beresford about her cousin's acceptance to Cambridge was inspiring. If Grace Beresford could go to Cambridge, surely she, Sybil Crawley, could go as well? She already read a great deal of history (well, for a woman of her age) and some politics and she determined to read more. She might not have qualifications but she had had an education of sorts and she was blindly convinced she could get herself up to university standard if she only put in a bit of effort. She was not afraid of hard work.

Firstly, she wrote a friendly and effusive letter to Grace. She might not have seen this lady for about five years but this did not prevent her from claiming friendship. Next, she decided to try to talk to people who might know something about applying to university and about education for women. She went to Crawley House.

On enquiry, it turned out that Mrs. Crawley was still at the hospital, but Lady Sybil could come in and wait as she was expected back at any moment. Sybil gladly accepted and was ushered into the drawing room.

She had not spent much time in Crawley House since her cousins had come and despite sitting down politely as expected, as soon as Molesley had left her she stood up again and wandered round, restlessly inspecting the pictures on the wall and looking out onto the front drive from the window. She wondered what this house was like in comparison with the one they had lived in in Manchester. From Sybil's experience it was not a terribly big house but perhaps to a middle class family from a big, dirty city like Manchester (or so she had heard at any rate) it was quite luxurious.

On a table by the settee were two books. Sybil hesitated before picking one up and looking at the spine. Elizabeth Gaskell's Cranford. She guessed that Isobel was probably the novel reader here, and picked up the other. She raised her eyebrows. An English translation of Boccaccio's Decameron. Rather curious, she opened it and her eye fell on a formal dedication plate on the first page announcing that it had been presented to Matthew Peter Crawley for overall academic excellence by the High Master of Manchester Grammar School in the year of our Lord 1904.

Sybil bit her lip to hide her smile at the thought of a young Matthew going up to collect his prize at school speech day, cousin Isobel watching proudly in the audience. There was a ribbon marking his current progress in the book and she turned to it just to see what was so special about this work of literature. Her eye fell on the following paragraph:

"This horrid beginning will be to you even such as to wayfarers is a steep and rugged mountain, beyond which stretches a plain most fair and delectable, which the toil of the ascent and descent does but serve to render more agreeable to them; for, as the last degree of joy brings with it sorrow, so misery has ever its sequel of happiness. To this brief exordium of woe-brief, I say, inasmuch as it can be put within the compass of a few letters-succeed forthwith the sweets and delights which I have promised you, and which, perhaps, had I not done so, were not to have been expected from it."

"And a happy ending all round clearly!" murmured Sybil to herself, wrinkling her nose at the convoluted style. "Rather you than me, Matthew, I have to say." She put the book down with no particular desire to pick it up again.

At that moment, just as she sat back down, Cousin Isobel returned from the hospital.

"Cousin Sybil, what a lovely surprise!" she said as she came into the room. "Molesley said you were here."

"Yes, I hope you don't mind me waiting. I did very much want to talk to you."

"Oh?" replied Isobel and then asked Molesley to bring in tea.

So Sybil told her all about her latest plans to improve her education. "You see," she finished eagerly, "if I had a degree I would be taken seriously. People would have to listen to me. Did you go to university, cousin? Was that where you learned nursing?"

Isobel shook her head. "My father was a doctor, as was my husband. I learned from them. If you want to know the ins and outs of Oxford, you should talk to Matthew about it."

"I shall ask him!"

"Yes. I'm sure he'll be happy to help you."

Sybil sipped her tea and frowned pensively, then she asked with a little more hesitation, "Cousin Isobel... do you think I could do it? I haven't been to school, I haven't done any examinations; I know I would have to study very hard for one, maybe two, years, but I would do everything I needed to, I really would!"

"I'm quite sure you would, Sybil." Isobel paused a moment and then said, "I don't see why, if you manage to fulfil their entry requirements, you should not stand as good a chance of acceptance as somebody with a school education. I for one would think you would be an ideal candidate to benefit from women's admittance to university."

Sybil beamed at her over her tea cup. Perhaps even in Gwen's absence she had found a new ally in the form of her cousin. She would have to talk to her about women's rights as well. Moreover, she thought, Branson would be pleased to discover another supporter at Downton.

---

If Paris had been an exercise in consumerism at the expense of culture, Venice was the reverse. Unlike later in their trip, when they were planning to spend an extended period of time in Roman society, the Crawleys were boarding in a hotel in Venice and were there purely as tourists. By the end of the first day, Mary had already seen the inside of Saint Mark's Basilica, drunk coffee at Florian's, and promenaded up and down the Riva degli Schiavoni outside their hotel after dinner. She was pleased to realise that the city greatly surpassed her first impressions (her grandmother was right about the universality of stations) and by the end of a few days stay was in love with its narrow, dark alley ways, the quiet courtyards with their covered stone wells and water fountains, and the sound of the splosh of a gondolier's oar as he emerged noiselessly from under a bridge.

They saw the Accademia, the church of the Frari, and the Rialto. They took a boat out to the island of Murano and bought glass to be shipped back to Downton for all the family, and shivered in the afternoon sun one day as they crossed the Bridge of Sighs from the Doge's Palace to the famous prisons.

"I don't know why you want to see these!" complained Lady Grantham as she followed Mary and their guide round the dank, underground corridors, and pressed her handkerchief to her nose.

To Mary, however, this momento mori hidden away next to the glittering splendour of the palace was as fascinating as any architectural gem on the more traditional tourist trail. She wondered what the poor prisoners would have thought about it all, locked away and forgotten down here and awaiting execution at the caprice of a despot while outside the barred windows the most beautiful city in the world revelled in extravagant frivolity, its sequinned mask firmly in place.

It was the undiscovered Venice that attracted Mary. The popular sites were popular for a reason and she enjoyed seeing them all, but her heart only quickened when she saw a little passageway branching off into the unknown, a shadowy, caped Venetian disappearing round a corner at its end, as strings of brightly coloured washing fluttered many feet above.

So it was that when the lady at the hotel desk asked her if she had seen the paintings at the Scuola di San Giorgio just round the corner, which she had never heard of, she straightaway persuaded her grandmother that they should go and see them.

This small gallery had used to be a meeting house for Dalmatian immigrants but it contained some very fine paintings by the Venetian artist Carpaccio. Despite the quality of the art, however, it was little known as a tourist destination and when Mary and Violet visited late in the afternoon on their last day in Venice, there were only two other tourists there, a middle-aged and a younger woman.

Mary found herself soon standing next to the young woman in front of a large and impressive painting of Saint George killing the dragon. George, a serious figure with curly blond hair, had his eyes fixed intensely on the job in hand while his horse delicately looked the other way as his spear stabbed the leaping dragon right through the head and out the other side as it reared up. It was a gripping painting for the liveliness of the expressions of both hero and monster and the movement it conveyed.

After a few moments of silent observation both of the picture and of her equally reflective companion, Mary turned to her and asked in her best schoolgirl's Italian, "A Lei piaciono i dipinti?"

The girl looked up at her out of wide, cornflower blue eyes. They were a quite different shade to Matthew's but Mary found herself reminded of him anyway and she blinked in surprise and unease at how easily her mind had jumped to him.

"Huh?" said the girl with a distinctly American twang.

Mary smiled faintly. "Do you like the pictures?"

"Oh! You're English!" She put her head on one side. "I guess they're very nice."

Mary was not sure that she would use the term 'nice' to describe a painting in which the foreground was strewn with the dismembered limbs of unsuccessful, slaughtered knights but she decided not to point this out in case the girl had not noticed them yet.

"I wish the princess was more in the centre though," she continued. "Seems a bit of a shame that she's just standing there in the corner like that."

"Do you think? If I were the princess I'd want to keep out of the way at this point!"

The girl considered this and shrugged. "Maybe in real life but I always thought the princess was pretty important. I mean, would George even have bothered with the dragon if it wasn't for her?"

"He's a knight," replied Mary, amused. "Slaying dragons is his job, princess or no princess."

"But the story's better if there is a princess, don't you think?" insisted the girl.

"Undoubtedly, especially to women!"

They fell silent again, as Mary pondered George's motives for slaying the dragon. Was the young American art critic right and the princess had been shunted aside on purpose to give greater importance to the conflict with the dragon or was the woman swathed in a red cloak at the back of the painting with her hands clasped in prayer the only consideration in George's heart as he viciously destroyed the monster and released her from her captivity?

The girl next to her sighed. "I wish there were heroes in real life! Imagine one riding up to rescue you on his horse like that! Wouldn't it be simply thrilling!"

Mary, slightly regretting her original polite enquiry and rolling her eyes upwards, tried to remain patient. "I would prefer not to require rescuing in the first place, but if I did I cannot help thinking that a modern motor car and less heavy armour would be more advantageous to success than a horse and a lance."

The girl pouted. "I suppose you're right... but cars aren't half as romantic as horses, are they?" She blushed, as if only just realising her situation. "I'm so sorry, ma'am! I don't you know at all and here I am running along like this. Please forgive me!"

"There is nothing to forgive," replied Mary with weary politeness and turned away from the picture to the next one. She would not have spoken at all if she had thought the girl would actually respond properly, and in her own language too.

It was too late, however. The middle-aged woman had joined them and the countess was also bearing down on them. "Who are you talking to, Hettie?"

Hettie looked between the two and looked a little more abashed. Mary felt compelled to intervene, seeing no help for it now. She plastered a smile onto her face. "Lady Mary Crawley. I am here with my grandmother, the dowager Countess of Grantham."

Mother and daughter, for Mary could see a strong family resemblance now, looked at each other with identical expressions of glee. Mary fancied she could tell exactly what was running through their heads and felt very superior in her viewpoint. For once she was glad of Violet's approach at her side and her dry, "Do introduce me to your new friends, Mary."

"My name is Mrs. Bowen," said the mother, "and this is my daughter, Henrietta. We're doing all of Europe!" They both dropped deep curtseys.

"I think we might be staying in the same hotel," put in Miss Bowen, a little shyer now in the presence of aristocracy and her chaperone.

"What a perfectly delightful coincidence!" said the dowager countess even more drily.

Mrs. Bowen failed to pick up on the sarcasm and beamed. "Isn't it just! Say, would you like to join us in the Piazza for supper? We can talk better there. I get the oddest feeling in here, as if it was a church."

There was no polite way of refusing this invitation as the Bowens were clearly respectable and wealthy, judging from their dress and the fact they were staying in such an expensive hotel.

Lady Grantham left the gallery first, followed by Henrietta and her mother. Mary brought up the rear, strangely unwilling to leave. She hesitated at the door and looked back at the painting of Saint George. Most of it was shrouded in gloom now, but she could still distinguish the knight's handsome face and look of frowning determination. She sighed and turned away, trying not to admit that Miss Bowen's naïve interpretation held any appeal for her. It did, of course.

Notes:

Matthew's translation of The Decameron is by J. M. Rigg and was first published in 1903. You can read it here. The quotation is from the First Day: Introduction 004-006.

Chapter 8: The Merry Widow Waltz

Summary:

Basically a M/M one-shot involving dancing and the discussion of literature disguised as a chapter!

Notes:

Before reading, I suggest heading over to my fanfiction.net profile page (http://www.fanfiction.net/u/39177/Silvestria) and checking out the soundtrack to this chapter...

Piazza San Marco is the only place to go in the evening if you are a tourist in Venice. Lady Grantham and Mary had spent most of their evenings there during their stay and so it was fitting that they should return there on their final night in the city. This time, however, they had company. It might not have been the company they would most naturally have chosen, but it made a change and guaranteed some variation in their conversation.

Three cafes do business in the Piazza: Quadri and Lavena in competition on one side of the square and Florian on the other side. Mary and her grandmother had been to all of them and preferred Quadri so it was to this cafe they headed with the Bowens.

When they arrived it was at that delicious moment of dusk when the sky starts to take on a deeper, more luminous hue and the candles inside the palace buildings and on the tables at the cafes are lit, appearing as golden specks in the night. The warm autumnal air was filled with the polite clinking of glasses and cutlery and the excited chatter of several different languages rising from those strolling about the square as well as those dining. Underpinning all of these characteristic sounds were the strains of music from the competing orchestras. As the Crawleys and Bowens sat down at a table at Quadri the lead violinist there was attacking a czardas with gusto while the musicians at Lavena took a break. Across the square at Florian a Strauss polka could be indistinctly heard.

Over dinner, the conversation turned naturally enough to their family backgrounds.

"Crawley..." said Mrs. Bowen, tapping her forefinger against her cheek in thought. "It's a familiar name."

The dowager countess and Mary tried their best not to look too interested at hearing what she might say, and succeeded in it very admirably.

"You see," she explained presently after a few more mouthfuls of risotto, "my two sisters are both married to Englishmen. You might know Felicity, she married Sir Richard Marlborough and moves in the very best society!"

Lady Grantham shook her head. "Ah, no. No. I do not think I have ever met Lady Marlborough. Have you, Mary?"

Mary glanced up from her baked polenta. "No, I have not." She returned her attention to her food.

"I doubt you'll know Agatha. She's only married to someone in government, not the aristocracy at all, though she does like to know all the gossip, dear old thing! What was it Arnold does, Hettie, the home office? Or was it the foreign office? It fancy it was something diplomatic."

Hettie shrugged, not much interested.

"Well, never mind that then. He's very clever anyway."

"Have you been to England to visit your aunts yet, Miss Bowen?" asked Mary, rousing herself after a pause in the conversation.

"No, not yet, but we're going to London for the season next year." She grinned. "I'm so tremendously excited about it, Lady Mary!"

"Well, we will be there too," admitted Mary. "My youngest sister will be making her debut."

"That's splendid! How nice it will be have friends there. We thought that we wouldn't know anybody at all and nobody would ever ask me to dance. I long to dance!"

"I'm sure you will not lack for partners." She meant it too. Miss Bowen was pretty and presumably came with a pretty fortune attached as well.

"Americans never do," put in Violet drily.

Mrs. Bowen looked surprised. "Is that so? I was afraid we would stick out like sore thumbs."

"Not at all," replied Mary smoothly. "Sometimes it feels as if there are more Americans in the ballrooms of London than there are English ladies."

"My daughter-in-law is American," added Lady Grantham and then stopped significantly without saying anything else.

"Is she? We might know her!"

"Her family is from Cincinnati," replied the dowager after a brief hesitation. "Levinson."

Mrs. Bowen shook her head. "We don't know anyone from Cincinnati. If she'd been from New York that'd be a different matter."

"We do know a Levinson though," put in her daughter suddenly. "Minnie. She sometimes helps with the benefit dinners."

"Oh! Yes. Ermintrude Levinson. I wonder if there's a connection there."

Ermintrude. Mary dabbed at her mouth delicately with her napkin.

It took the duration of the rest of the meal and into looking at the menu for digestifs to explore Cora's family tree in sufficient detail to ascertain that it was actually quite likely that Ermintrude was a distant cousin.

"You should bring her to England," suggested the dowager countess with admirable gravity. "She should come and stay with us at Downton!"

The Bowens looked almost overwhelmed at the generosity of this invitation while Mary studiously did not catch her grandmother's eye. "What a sweet idea, your ladyship! You should write her and tell her, Hettie. I wonder if she might be persuaded to come out for the season."

"She really is an awfully nice girl," said Hettie as if she picked up at some level that her new friends needed convincing of the fact.

"Even better," continued Lady Grantham, warming to her theme, "let her meet Matthew. I dare say a marriage could be arranged there. Nothing would be tidier than that!"

"Ermintrude Crawley..." sighed Hettie. "How romantic!"

Mary almost choked on her grappa. Ermintrude, Countess of Grantham. Matthew and Ermintrude Crawley. As a combination it did not trip off the tongue. It did not, as Oscar Wilde might have put it, produce vibrations.

She stood up suddenly. "Come, Miss Bowen, the orchestra at Caffe Florian is by far the superior this evening. Will you come and listen to it with me?"

Hettie looked surprised but with a glance at her mother to ask permission stood up and crossed the square with Mary.

"Wouldn't it be so lovely to dance under the stars? If only we knew some men here!"

"If you smile invitingly enough, you might be asked all the same!" Mary replied indulgently as they took up a prime position beyond the cafe tables where they could see and hear the musicians very well, who just then struck up a new waltz.

Hettie sucked in a breath and turned to Mary with glowing eyes. "Oh, Lady Mary, it's the Merry Widow waltz! It's quite my favourite piece of music in the world. I saw it three times in New York! I – I've even got the Merry Widow umbrella and a signed poster from the actor who played Danilo; he was so handsome!" She drew breath. "Do you know it?"

Of course Mary knew it. One would have to have been living under a rock to have missed the phenomenon of The Merry Widow. She had seen the operetta at least once in London a few years ago and thoroughly enjoyed it. Hearing the music, however, brought back memories not of the show but of the last time she had heard it, which had been at Aunt Rosamund's annual costume ball during the previous season.

It had been Matthew's first and only London party.

---

The theme was Olympians. Mary had wanted to go as Minerva, but her mother had heard a rumour that Miss Clerkenwell, the debutante of the moment, had already picked Minerva as her costume of choice and advised Mary to change so as not to put herself in competition.

"Remember when it was you who got to dictate fashions, Mary?" pointed out Edith snidely.

Mary remembered very well and glared at her. "Her grandfather was a banker! It's quite insufferable."

Nevertheless, she resigned her claim to Minerva and picked Diana instead, a choice that made her mother raise her eyebrows. Edith went as Hebe, the cup bearer. This was not so ironic.

That Saturday, dressed in a white gown of the classical style (via the Regency), and a matching jewellery set of silver crescent moons, with a little bow and quiver slung artlessly (or artfully) over her shoulders, Mary appeared with her parents and sister in her aunt's salon which had been transformed into an aesthete's Greek paradise. It was to all intents and purposes a typical society ball, lifted above its fellows by Lady Rosamund's inventiveness of decoration and the effort to which her guests went to be a part of it.

Mary flitted round the ballroom, a glass of champagne in her hand, bestowing charming smiles on everyone she saw, though her particular attention was reserved for single gentlemen of high rank. This was her first season since Patrick's death and so the first season in which she lacked a marital safety net. It was also her first season since Pamuk and she was finding it a real effort. It would have been impossible for her to say whether the change was in the men who approached her or in her attitude towards them, but change there definitely was. The young and eligible seemed to ignore her and instead clustered round Miss Clerkenwell and her eighty thousand pounds like bluebottles round a gaudily polished dung heap. The men who did pursue her were not as young or titled as they had been once and the very thought of any of them as a husband made Mary shudder however much she tried to disguise it. She could imagine their beards, their stomachs, their mean little eyes, and the thought of being in close contact to them was repulsive. Not that any of them had come close to proposing to her over the three weeks they had been in London that April, though they pursued her. Nobody could simultaneously attract and repel quite the way Mary did.

Still she flitted and attempted to charm her way round the ballroom even after she had overheard some old society gossip make a remark under her breath involving the phrase, "mutton dressed as lamb." For a moment she thought this woman had heard something about Pamuk; but no, she did not need that kind of speculation to pass judgement.

Then Mary had found herself face to face with Cousin Matthew.

He had only come down to London on Friday night for a dinner at Lord Grantham's club and then for Rosamund's party. He was quite naturally a source of intense interest to society as the new heir of Downton, especially considering his origins and the peculiar way he was behaving himself. For he was dressed in ordinary white tie with no concession to bed sheets or breast plates like some of the other young men. Moreover he danced very little and without any apparent logic behind his choice of partners. (It would have been very shocking to discover that he had simply asked the ladies he liked the look of without any thought to their social background or whether they were eligible or not for marriage.) Mary had been amused to overhear more than one young woman declare him the most interesting gentleman in the room basing their judgement solely on his prowling around the edges of the dance floor looking awkward and not talking to anyone.

"How do you like your first ball then, Matthew?" Mary asked him, glad of the momentary respite from trying to be attractive to unattractive men.

"I have been to balls before, you know! Neither Manchester nor Oxford are quite the barbarian outposts I think you imagine them, cousin." He sounded in something of a snit, or maybe just bewildered. Mary did not much care which.

"Very well. How do like your first London ball?"

He smiled wryly at her. "Not as much as it likes me, I think! I have just this moment been introduced by force to the famous Miss Clerkenwell; she was very nice to me, however."

Mary could have happily strangled the blasted woman with her bare hands. "Of course she was," she replied indifferently. "She has a large fortune from trade and she wants a title."

Matthew blinked. "Oh. Well, I liked her anyway."

"Why didn't you bother with a costume?" she continued hastily, not wanting to spend any more time discussing Miss Clerkenwell than she had to. "It only makes you stand out."

"But I did!" He turned to his side, and showed off a modest scabbard containing a sword – or something that passed for one. Then, to Mary's increasing incredulity, lifted up one of his feet so she could see a pair of gauze wings attached to each of his shiny, black dress shoes. They were really charmingly discreet and adorable. Mary had to try hard not to approve of his taste.

"Hermes, I suppose?" she asked casually.

Matthew looked distinctly smug. "Perseus."

Before Mary could reply to this (and she was too surprised initially know what to say) she was accosted by Lord Blickling, one of the fattest and most middle-aged of her dwindling number of suitors.

He bowed as far as he could, which was not very, and bestowing on her an unctuous smile begged the honour of her hand for the next waltz.

Mary's heart sank. "Oh...but I..." She tried to put off answering but before she could think of an excuse or plead a full dance card, which she did not have, she felt Matthew's hand unexpectedly on her elbow.

"I'm sorry, sir," he said cheerfully, "but Lady Mary has already promised this dance to me."

Lord Blickling's smile hardly faltered even as Mary shot her cousin a frowning glance. "Then the one after perhaps?"

Mary opened her mouth but again Matthew spoke before her. "That one too, I'm afraid!"

Mary was proud of how extremely calmly she added, "I'm terribly sorry, my lord. As you can see, it is quite impossible for me to accept your kind invitation. Next time, perhaps."

These were the last two dances of the evening, and the Crawleys were to return home the following week. His lordship had to be contented with this pleasantry and he retired from the field of conquest with no very cordial feelings towards the victorious Mr. Crawley.

Meanwhile, Mary turned to look directly at Matthew. She raised her eyebrows. "So I suppose this is your attempt to deserve your costume!"

"Did it work?"

She raised one elegant shoulder and then dropped it before replying with a mischievous smile, "Lord Blickling certainly has some monstrous qualities to him!"

He grinned back at her and met her eyes in appreciation and for a brief moment she liked him very much. The orchestra had almost finished the introduction to The Merry Widow Waltz and Matthew held out his hand to her.

"I was going to ask you to dance anyway before he appeared."

"You anticipated my answer."

"Well, you can change it now if you like. Will you dance this one with me, cousin Mary?"

She placed her hand in his and sighed, making more of a fuss than she really felt. "I suppose it would look bad if I refused!"

"Very bad indeed," he murmured as he led her onto the floor, glancing sideways at her.

As the waltz proper started, he pulled her into a loose hold and guided her out among the couples already there. Mary was surprised at how competent he was but had no intention of telling him so.

"I wonder," she said after a few moments of silence, "what those people who believe that dancing equates to marriage would say about your decision to engage me without bothering to ask first!"

"Is that a widely held view then?" Matthew replied evasively.

"Among the readers of Jane Austen certainly!"

There was a little pause and then he asked, "Do you count yourself as among them?"

The dance required Mary to look over her partner's shoulder and not at his face so Matthew could not see her raised eyebrows.

"To be sure I have read her. Who has not?"

"Who indeed? But do other people go around comparing their conversations to ones in books?"

Mary shrugged. "I don't know, but I think several ladies here tonight were pinning their hopes on your declaring them not handsome enough to tempt you."

If he could not see her raised eyebrows then she could not see his blush. "I'm sorry if I gave that impression!"

"You're sorry for it? Why, Matthew, you really are new to society!"

Some shift in the way he was holding her gave her the impression that he was smiling. "Is Jane Austen a particular favourite of yours then?"

"Not very," she replied immediately, though she was surprised at the shift in the discussion.

"But you have read her."

"Of course. Ladies like me may be either well-read or exceptional at embroidery; it is hard to do both at the same time, and I find sewing very tedious."

Matthew chuckled. "I see. Who do you like reading then if not Austen?"

She thought a moment before answering. He sounded genuinely interested which was surprising. She could not remember the last time someone had asked what she liked to read. Or her opinion on anything really. So she gave him an unusually frank answer. "I prefer more modern authors such as Henry James or George Eliot. I find their psychological exploration of character more interesting than Austen's satire. There is something very dry about that, however amusing it is."

"And what of Dickens and Brontë? Are they deep enough for you?" pressed Matthew. He still sounded interested though his tone was light.

"Ah, I like Jane Eyre very much but it is a very long time since I read any Dickens. However, I remember enjoying Great Expectations and David Copperfield when I was younger."

"And Gaskell? She is my mother's favourite but perhaps she is too Mancunian for you!"

Mary laughed at that. "Far too Mancunian, I am afraid! All those descriptions of union rights and the living conditions of factory workers... It is very wicked of me, I'm sure, but I simply have no interest in it. Please don't tell Cousin Isobel!"

"Your secret is safe with me, Mary."

He spoke facetiously but her heart skipped a beat in alarm all the same. It tended to do that whenever secrets were mentioned nowadays, and she quickly moved the conversation on.

"What about you?" she asked him impulsively. "I suppose you like Gaskell, and Austen too probably!"

"Yes, I do, though I confess I prefer Dickens to both."

"Even considering his prejudice against your profession?"

"Perhaps because of it; there's a good deal of truth in it!"

Mary laughed lightly again and noticed that during their discussion they had made almost three full laps of the room. No dance had ever gone so quickly and the thought rather disturbed her.

"But come, Matthew, what are we about?" she began again overly cheerfully. "As an admirer of Austen, you must realise that we have broken a cardinal rule of engagement by discussing books in the ballroom!"

"You identify with Elizabeth Bennet then?" asked Matthew with a smile as the music drew to a triumphant close.

"Almost as much as you do with Mr. Darcy, I think!" she replied, dropping his hand and stepping away from him, a knowing smirk hovering on her lips.

Then she realised they had to dance together yet again.

---

Listening to the strains of the same waltz drift across the Piazza, Mary remembered this dance. It stood out vividly from every other one. In hindsight, it was extraordinary. Matthew had been little more than a stranger, an obstruction, a nuisance then. Sometimes a curiosity. She had certainly been curious, though she had pretended she had not been; she could admit that now that she was far away in both time and space. She admitted nothing else beyond it, however, even as the music sent her the first pang of home sickness that she had felt in the two or three weeks since she had left Downton. Had it been the Overture to HMS Pinafore or a Serenade by Elgar, she could not have been more comprehensively transported back to England, back to the ballrooms of London and thus back to Matthew.

She suddenly missed them all. With great effort she forced Sybil and Mama and Papa and even Carson and Anna to the forefront of her mind, banishing Matthew from his predominance in her thoughts. She longed for the smell of English grass, for the ticking of the grandfather clock, for the pleasing familiarity of a gentleman with hat and umbrella, for Carson bringing in the paper freshly ironed at breakfast.

But in the meantime, there was Venice and a cafe band playing a beautiful waltz and an American girl she hardly knew swaying happily beside her without a care in the world. Mary observed her unnoticed for a few moments with amusement before she realised she was the not only one thus occupied. Two young Italian men were standing a few metres away and were watching them both with evident admiration. They were casually dressed in their waistcoats without jackets and their black hair was slicked back. Mary accidentally caught the eye of one of them and he winked at her. She was shocked though not as shocked as she should have been. Looking away immediately (only lingering a second), she nudged Hettie.

"Miss Bowen, there are two gentlemen over there who will dance the waltz with us if you want them to."

Hettie looked first at her, then at the two roués, then back at her with a distressing lack of subtlety.

"Do you really think so? They're awfully attractive, don't you think?"

Handsome though they were, Mary thought they looked rather slimy. She felt jaded and old in comparison with her companion's freshness and optimism and her heart rebelled against it. So she smiled widely and replied, "Extremely attractive!"

Then she turned the full power of her most charming come-hither smile onto the two men. It had never failed her before and it did not fail her now. They sauntered up, looking their prey up and down with that casual insouciance that Mary had almost got used to in Italy, but she was no longer afraid of such looks and stood her ground.

"Signorine!" they addressed them and raised their hats.

"Signori!" replied Mary with a calm nod. Hettie's eyes were round and wide and Mary really hoped she understood enough Italian to have followed their conversation, if such it could be called, so far.

The taller of the two held out his hand to Mary with a devilishly hopeful smile. "Lei vuol ballare?"

Mary blinked away her memories of a different hand and a different dance and tilted her head. "Questa signorina vuole ballare." She indicated Miss Bowen.

Immediately the other man offered his hand to Hettie. To Mary's surprise she looked up at her as if for permission before taking his hand and being swept into a vigorous waltz. She laughed out loud from the joy of it and Mary felt a quick pang of conscience that she was somehow responsible for leading her astray by allowing her to dance with this stranger. She squashed the feeling: Miss Bowen was not her charge and a dance was only a dance.

"Allora, Lei non va ballare 'sta sera?" asked the first man mournfully.

She shook her head in apology.

"Dai, signorina..." He spread his hands imploringly before her.

The music launched into its main theme for the final time, Hettie laughed once more and Mary changed her mind abruptly, allowing him to pull her scandalously close against him and whirl her around several times before the piece came to an end. He was... he was not quite right, and her heart beat fast out of fear or exhileration or both, but he was young and active and it had been a long time since she had been in a man's arms. When he finally released her, only squeezing her hand a little longer than would have been appropriate in England, she was flushed and energised. Her "grazie" carried an unusual weight of sincerity behind it and she might even have been tempted to talk to him more, using the importance of practising her Italian as an excuse, if her grandmother and Mrs. Bowen had not joined them. The combined force of two chaperones bearing down on her partner and his friend was enough to scare them both off and Mary rolled her eyes at how harmless they had turned out to be in the end. They might not have been quite right but, Mary was surprised to realise as she watched them melt back into the night, they were not so very wrong either.

Chapter 9: A New Knowledge

Notes:

Before we hit the chapter, just a shoutout to the Highclere Awards for those of you who read and review fanfiction but are not otherwise involved in the fandom. You can nominate fanfiction you particularly like for awards up until the 29th July. Whether you nominate me in any capacity or not is of course entirely up to you and I'm not mentioning it here because I am desperate for you to do so (oh, of course not, what would make you think that?) but because the whole process works much better if lots of people are involved, not just, say, ten people from the forums who already all know each other. http://downtonabbeyfanawards.forumup.co.uk/index.php?mforum=downtonabbeyfanawards

Anyway, enjoy the chapter! This one is for Sybil/Branson shippers and is the first time I've ever written an extended S/B scene... and Sybil/Matthew shippers as well... yeah... :P

Sybil Crawley was not a person endowed with those heroic virtues of indecision, prevarication and a tendancy towards over-thinking. Having decided on the basis of very little research at all that she wanted to go to university, she ploughed on in pursuit of her objective in a single-minded fashion. She retreated to her father's library for the better part of entire days, where she would run her fingers along the spines of his massive collection of books and feel daunted. There were so many! Previously, Sybil had pulled interesting ones at random from the shelves and read them (or at least read as much of them as held her interest), but that was not suitable for the cultivation of serious knowledge.

On Matthew's advice she tried to gain a background of politics and political history by reading Cicero's first speech against Catiline in translation, but she hardly managed three paragraphs. She was able to appreciate the rhetorical boldness of railing against the times and customs of the period (though she could not understand why the Romans' social and political problems should be more important than those of her own time), but she had barely any idea who Cicero himself was let alone Catiline. As for mentions of Tiberius Gracchus and who had murdered him, she lacked any frame of reference by which they might be meaningful. Had she been a boy and had a useful education as a child, she reflected bitterly on several occasions, she might know where to start looking, but even her cousin's recommendations for simple, preliminary reading went over her head.

Giving up on the classics, Sybil decided to concentrate on modern times and understanding the developments of the past century up to the present day. The pamphlets that Branson sometimes gave her provided a more accessible route into the subject and she took to spending more and more time in the library at Ripon reading the newspapers and modern handbooks she found there. It was a pleasant way to spend time anyway, however much she learned. It got her out of the house, brought her into contact with a more diverse range of people than she had ever seen before, and she enjoyed the drives too. Since Gwen and Mary had left, she found herself talking more to Branson than before. She did not know him that well but she felt instinctively that they shared the same values and dreams for society and she appreciated him for it. She hoped he could become a proper friend.

One day as they were driving out to Ripon, he met her eyes in the rear mirror and after asking how her reading was going said, "You know, Lady Sybil, I'm glad you're enjoying your studyies but I'm not sure going to university is the best option."

"Oh?" She gave a short laugh of confusion. "What do you mean? When I first told you what I intended to do, you said you thought it was a good idea!"

"I said I admired your spirit. Not quite the same thing."

Sybil brushed this minor difference away. "Well, what do you mean then?"

He concentrated on the road for a while before replying. "Those people who go to university go either because they want to become an academic or because they want to go into one of the professions. That's hardly the case for you."

She frowned. "Maybe it is! If I had a degree in politics, why could I not become a politician?"

"Because women aren't politicians. There need to be far more advances in equality before you would have a hope of that. I don't want to put you off, my Lady, really I don't, but I think you need to be more realistic or you'll be disappointed."

"Realistic? If people were always realistic then nothing would ever change!" She grinned at him, hoping to try to raise his spirits and was pleased to see an answering smile.

"You have a point there, I'll grant you that. But let me ask your Ladyship this; you want to change the world, but who do you want to change it for, yourself or everybody else?"

Sybil opened her mouth to reply then shut it again. He continued to hold her gaze in the mirror for as long as he could before being obliged to look back out the front. Finally she replied seriously, "I want to improve the lives of people who struggle for equality and a place in the world. If that means I also want to improve my own life then I hope you'll see that it isn't for me alone."

"But going to university, Lady Sybil, that's a selfish decision. You may read many books and learn a lot about why men go to war and conquer nations but it'll be three years at your father's expense and no guarantee that it will really help you in any way afterwards."

Sybil felt that she ought to be offended at him for speaking to her in this free way, but she was not. Mary would have been and Edith certainly would have been, but Sybil was not like them and she hoped that he would always feel able to speak openly to her. This did not mean that she liked what he said.

"I can't tell what will be a material advantage for me," she answered with some frustration, sitting forward in her seat, "but surely doing something is better than doing nothing? University and learning may not help me but ignorance certainly won't."

He looked as if he wished to smile at her but was not letting himself. She watched him tensely, his back and what she could see of his face in the narrow mirror.

"If you really wanted to make a difference-"

"Yes?" she pressed. "What would I do?"

Again he hesitated before replying, "Use your position."

"My position? I don't understand."

"You're rich, Lady Sybil, rich and privileged. I'm not sure you really appreciate what an advantage in the world that gives you."

"But it's not an advantage, Branson!" she cried, stung. "My position is a prison to me, as a woman, a daughter, an aristocrat, and as for my money, it's not my own! Why, you have more freedom than I do, for you can choose your career and how you live your life."

Now he did laugh though without any meanness. "Oh, my Lady, how much I should like to disillusion you sometimes!"

It was an unguarded remark and there was an unguarded expression of amusement and even appreciation which disappeared as soon as she met his eyes.

"Disillusion me?" she retorted with a smile. "I think I'd like you to!"

He quickly shook his head and looked back at the road. They were now driving through Ripon and approaching the library and both were silent as Branson parked. He came round to hold the door open and she looked at him and grinned as she got out stood up straight.

"I think you're wrong about me, you know!"

He shut the door carefully behind her. "If you say so, my Lady." His tone was submissive enough but there was a gleam in his eyes that made Sybil toss her head slightly as she turned away and went up the steps.

She had only gone up a few when she passed a man coming out of the library with a few large books stashed under his arm. He had already passed her before she realised who it was, her thoughts still on Branson and their discussion in the car.

"Matthew!"

He stopped immediately and turned around, pulling off his hat and smiling at her. "Cousin Sybil!"

"Shouldn't you be at work?" she asked automatically. "I mean-"

"Lunch break. Anyway, these books are for work." He shrugged at the heavy volumes and shifted them in his arms. "Definitely not my first choice of reading material!"

She smiled back but did not immediately reply. It felt a bit awkward meeting Matthew like this, out of the familiar context of Downton and dinner parties. She was not sure whether she should go on into the library or if he would like to talk more. Fortunately he resolved that issue for her by stepping up a bit closer to her and asking, "And what brings you to the library, cousin?"

"Oh, I'm often here nowadays, you know," she answered more easily. "Researching!"

"Good for you, Sybil!" He glanced at his watch and then said, "Have you had lunch yet? I'm just on my way to get some. You'd be welcome to join me if you liked, though I shouldn't want to interfere with your studying."

She had no fixed agenda and was too much of a sociable creature to turn down such an offer in order to sit on her own and read the newspaper in silence. Therefore she came back down the steps and gave him her arm, saying that she would be delighted to and asking what he normally did for lunch.

"Well," replied Matthew, "normally I just get some bread and cheese from the shop and eat it in my office but we can go to a tea shop if you would prefer. I'm afraid I am not really set up for receiving visitors such as yourself at work!"

"No, no, do not change your behaviour on my behalf. Bread and cheese in your office sounds charming!" And indeed she thought it would be, an adventure into middle class life and an opportunity to see how people lived their lives when not surrounded by the aristocracy.

"You may not think so afterwards!" pointed out Matthew with a dubious expression but he sounded quite pleased nevertheless.

Branson had not yet moved the car. Sybil broke away from Matthew to inform him of her change of plans to which he only replied with a nod and the assurance that he would be waiting to take her home at whatever time she desired. Then he watched them thoughtfully for as long as they were in view on the street.

First, Matthew took Sybil to the baker's where they purchased fresh rolls, then to the butcher's for a pork pie each (a special treat) and a slab of cheese, before finally rounding it off with apples from the greengrocer's. Sybil, who never had anything to do with food shopping, observed the process with fascination and even carried some of the brown paper bags herself, since Matthew also had his books to manage. The shopkeepers all knew him and all greeted him with fondness and respect, not because he was the heir to an Earldom, but because he was Mr. Crawley, a valued and agreeable customer. In return, he asked after their families and engaged each in conversation with an ease and lack of self-consciousness she had rarely seen in him. She felt out of place in this world and she liked it.

Finally he took her back to his office, a solid Georgian building just off the main square with a shiny brass plate by the front door announcing that it was the premises of Harville & Carter. Sybil had few conscious preconceptions of where lawyers worked, but if she had thought about it, she might have expected an office that was more dingy, more starved of light, and more manned by peculiar looking clerks with unwashed ears and Dickensian names that reflected their grasping, mercenary and incompetent natures. Such a picture could not have been further from the truth of this airy, pleasant, clean building and the smart, well-orangised, friendly clerks who worked there. Matthew's office was on the second floor, was relatively spacious and he seemed to keep it as tidy as could be expected.

Sybil immediately noticed the chair in front of the desk. "Granny mentioned your swivel chair! She called it many things, none of them complimentary."

"I'm sure she did!" replied Matthew, amused, getting down plates and mugs from a shelf. "Have a spin if you like."

She did like and she span round several times with her feet off the ground. After that she was obliged to clutch at the arms, feeling briefly nauseous. She laughed. "I don't imagine your clients do that."

"Not so far," he agreed, "though I live in hope."

He had laid out a simple dinner set with plates, cutlery and mugs for cider on his desk, and the food spread out on a platter inbetween them. Then he took off his jacket, hung it on a peg in the corner and sat down opposite her. He smiled rather nervously across the desk at her. "Well, shall I serve you, or would you rather help yourself? For the proper picnic experience, you understand."

She raised her eyebrows at him and grinned. "In that case I shall help myself!" And she did so, feeling rather daring.

"May I ask what those impressive looking books are about?" she asked after a few moments.

"Those? Oh, they're still all about South Africa. I'm working on a case for a company in the diamond trade and it's dragging on for weeks. It's rather out of my area of expertise, hence all the research." He shrugged. "I can think of things I'd prefer to read!"

Sybil wondered how far he was getting with The Decameron and admitted to herself that she would probably enjoy the books on South Africa more. She balanced a slice of cheese on a torn piece of roll as he was doing and ate it delicately, putting it back on her plate after one bite and brushing the crumbs off her fingers.

"You must be working very hard," she commented next, glancing at the folders and piles of papers which he had swept to the sides of his desk before putting out the lunch.

"Yes," he replied after a moment's pause, as if he had not really considered it before. "I suppose I am!"

"But you enjoy it, don't you?"

"Most of the time, yes, I do. Nobody can enjoy their work all the time, I don't think. I'm afraid you will think me very dull though!"

"Not at all! I think it is very commendable that you have a job and that you like it. Papa doesn't understand that."

"No." For a moment he had met her eyes with something like surprise, but now he concentrated on cutting up his pork pie and did not speak, though he had sounded as if he could have said more.

Sybil also ate in silence, her mind flitting between Matthew's office, her father's estate, the entail, and Branson's freedom to choose what he did. Eventually she said, "Back home we have been rather dull ourselves recently, though we do not have the excuse of South African diamonds. Indeed we have not had a single proper dinner since Mary and Granny went away! I wouldn't have imagined their departure could have affected us so much."

"Really?" Matthew looked up briefly before adding, "If you had seen my mother recently you would be able to believe it. She is pining terribly for your grandmother; she misses their arguments and has been obliged to take out her frustration on me!"

Sybil laughed. "Oh dear! Poor Cousin Isobel, I would not have thought it!" She shook her head. "I must pass this on when I next write. It will amuse them both very much."

"Mother will never forgive you if you do!" he replied, but his lip was twitching and she did not think he was serious.

"Have you heard from them at all?" he asked suddenly and abruptly. "Are they enjoying themselves?"

She swallowed her mouthful and replied, "Mary sent us a postcard from Paris, that's all."

"Oh?" He was peeling his apple with a penknife, concentrating on keeping all the peel in one long twist of green, and he did not look up.

"Yes. The journey was tedious, the weather warm but overcast and the Louvre very crowded!" She shrugged. "They should be in Florence by now but we have not received anything else yet. Of course, I have heard that the post is very slow from Italy."

"That must be why."

Sybil did not mention the two long letters she had already received from Gwen, one from Paris and the other from Venice. Reading Gwen's clear and observant accounts, she felt transported abroad to the sights and sounds and smells of the continent. Gwen also described as much as she was able what Mary and the dowager countess thought of the things they did and saw, which was much more helpful and interesting than merely knowing that it was not sunny in Paris.

They talked on indifferent subjects for the rest of lunch – the Mona Lisa, Matthew's progress with the cottages, the life of Cicero and so on – until a clerk knocked and came in to ask if Matthew was ready to receive his next client in ten minutes. Sybil took this as her cue to depart and after helping him wrap up the leftover cheese and bread, she took her leave, rejecting his offer to walk her back to the library.

"It's quite alright, Matthew. It is only five minutes and I would not want to put you out when you have a client coming so soon."

She was so firm that he seemed to accept her independence and let her go. She left him sitting at his desk with a frown of concentration on his face and a lock of hair falling over his eyes. She smiled slightly as she quietly closed the door behind her, feeling privileged to see him like this.

---

Back in the car several hours later, Branson asked her how her reading in the library had gone. She was slumped back on the seat and only shrugged in reply for she had hardly read anything and her thoughts had been full of Matthew. She did not think anybody else in her family understood or appreciated (or in fact cared to do either) what sort of man he was outside of their narrow, confined, and prejudiced family circle. Once again, Sybil was aware of being different to her sisters. To Mary and Edith and indeed to her parents, the important thing was to make Matthew conform to their values and lifestyle, never once, it seemed to her, wondering if it might be better if they conformed to his or even simply taking the time to wonder what those might be. It seemed a great shame and waste, and she felt she valued her cousin more for having seen this side of him.

Branson knew better than to press conversation on his mistress when she was inclined to be silent and so almost half the journey passed without any conversation, until Sybil finally spoke. Her mind had been full of class distinction, privilege, unfairness, work, and her own future. It was natural that her thoughts should eventually turn to what he had said earlier on the way to Ripon.

Leaning forward, she asked him, "When you said that I should use my position, what did you mean exactly?"

He let out a breath. "I must say I was wondering when your Ladyship was going to ask me that!"

"I'm asking you now!" she answered pertly.

"Alright." He took a moment to collect his thoughts before continuing, "What I meant was, I suppose, that charity starts at home. You're Lady Sybil Crawley, daughter of an Earl! If you want women to receive an education, found a school in the village and employ teachers. If you want poor people to get jobs, provide them with employment. They may be small things but the effects will spread over time."

"But I already-" She broke off, about to mention what she had been doing for Gwen; it was not her secret to tell and she did not know how much Branson knew. She swallowed and started again, still frustrated. "You give me more power to do these kind of things than I really possess. I don't have control over my money nor do I have the ability to do such things openly for as long as I remain as I am. I explained that this morning!"

He shook his head at her and half laughed. "You could-"

"I could what?"

He only shook his head again and kept his eyes on the road.

"Come on!" she insisted, partly playfully, partly truly wanting a reply. "You were going to tell me how I could become independent without losing my position and I would really like to know!"

"Well, my Lady, you could always get married..." He looked up at her then, his expression rueful. "You really want the power to make a difference, then marry wealth and consequence and use it. Imagine the effect on the suffrage moment if it was headed by a countess or a marchioness. As a married woman you would have freedom to choose where and how you spend your allowance; you could be an inspiration to other women of your class and you would have the public visibility and the resources to give credence and respectability to the movement."

She stared at him, open-mouthed. "You're serious!"

He shrugged and did not quite meet her eyes. "Perfectly serious. You wouldn't be following the movement, my Lady, you'd be leading it!"

Sybil sat back again. It was nonsense, though it did have a certain attraction to it. Still, Branson didn't understand. She tried to explain again. "I'm looking forward to my season, of course I am – I love to dance! but I've heard from Mary and Edith all about the sorts of men they meet in London. The lords who have the kind of power you describe don't want feminist wives!"

"All of them? I find it hard to believe. You're a charming young lady, Lady Sybil, if you don't mind me saying, and I am sure you will be able to attract anybody you choose. I cannot believe that there will be not one single eligible young man from your circle who would support you."

"I can," she replied, thinking about the ones she had met.

He shrugged. "You know better than me. All I'm saying is, don't rule it out until you've seen for yourself that I'm wrong."

"I'm still going to go to university, Branson!"

He met her eyes in the mirror. "Of course, my Lady. I would not presume to influence you."

She laughed.

Chapter 10: The Red Curtain

Summary:

Mary goes to the opera. Cue angst, subtext and a new character!

Notes:

The nominations for the Highclere Awards were published this week and I'm thrilled that CP is up for the categories of Alternative Universe, Mary, Violet, Gwen, Epic, Work in Progress, Writing Technique and Plot. Woohoo! Please go vote if you think it deserves to win any of these categories! :-)

You really are going to want to watch the video of the Act One Finale of Tosca when you reach a certain point in this chapter. I think it's very difficult without hearing the music for yourself to appreciate just how overpowering and emotional this scene is. I first came across the opera in December when my choir did the Act One Finale in a concert and I was immediately grabbed by its melodrama and dangerous passion. Acts 2 and 3 of the opera contain many more heart-rending and devastating moments but even having seen the whole thing on DVD (sadly not live yet) this passage remains for me the most chilling. So, like many things in this story, this scene has personal resonance to me and is actually one of the first I planned for the story.

Finally, please see where this chapter is posted at fanfiction.net for a special readers' competition to win a personalised story!

Impossible as it may be to believe, not very much of note happened in Florence. The hotel Lady Grantham and Mary stayed in was pleasant and comfortable and had views over the River Arno and the day after they left Venice they were joined there by Mrs. and Miss Bowen. The weather moreover was particularly pleasant for September.

The dowager countess was soon reunited with her school friend Lady Eastwick and the Crawleys went out to the Eastwicks' villa in the countryside for dinner. Mary was pleased and a little bit surprised to discover the Eastwicks to be unpretentious, kind people who thrived in their little Anglophone community in Italy, having chosen to remove themselves from the severity of court life in England. After all, as Lady Eastwick herself said, there was always an alternative if you were minded to find one. The friendship between her grandmother and Lady Eastwick seemed to be one of opposites but was no less to be valued for that. The plan was to return to the Eastwicks' villa for an extended stay after seeing the sights of the cities and to remain there for as much of the winter as they chose. Having met them, Mary felt much less opposed to this schem than she previously was.

Lady Grantham spent a good deal of time with her friend and so Mary was often left to accompany the Bowens or even go out to explore the city alone with only Gwen for company. She enjoyed this freedom and, looking back, considered Florence one of the high points of the whole trip. Hettie Bowen was a good natured girl and, if she was inclined to look up to Mary more than she deserved, well, Mary liked to lead, so it was an arrangement that suited them both.

After ten days or so of discovering the treasures of Florence and the surrounding area – for Pisa, Siena and Lucca had all been visited as day trips – the party removed to Rome. By this point the Crawleys and Bowens had joined forces for good, or at least until the former returned to Tuscany, at which point Mrs. Bowen planned either to take Hettie onwards to Greece or to make their way to England. All in all it was a convenient arrangement, for it meant that neither of the two pairs were completely reliant on their own company and the little arguments that must necessarily have arisen from spending so much time together so intensively were avoided or diffused. It was a happy development for Gwen as well. She was more of an age with Miss Bowen than Mary was and the two younger girls became, if not friends, then at least friendly. They had little enough in common save their age and their shared experience of being together in Italy, but Miss Bowen was not particular about the class of her friends, and Gwen was glad enough of companionship. It must be admitted, however, that Mrs. Bowen preferred to speak of "her daughter's friend, Lady Mary Crawley, eldest daughter of the Earl of Grantham, you know" than "her daughter's friend, Miss Dawson, a lady's maid" when she wrote to her sisters in England about the acquaintances she had made abroad.

Mary was looking forward to Rome, however. In fact, despite her occasional frustration at spending so much of her time explaining the most simple principles of history, literature or art to Miss Bowen, she was enjoying herself immensely, her bout of homesickness in Venice having been mercifully brief. A companion who was more on her own intellectual level would have been preferable but she knew better than to dwell on that particular wish, and Hettie seemed to have the useful knack of transferring her attentions to Gwen just at those moments when Mary most felt the urge to be cutting or patronising, leaving her alone to manage her frustrations as best she could. Mary did not mind this solitude; she even relished it. To wander quite alone through a gallery, if only for ten minutes, with nothing but her own thoughts and her own ideas for company, this was pleasant, this was what she had always longed for. It was a shame, it was true, that there was nobody she could share her feelings with and sometimes in the evening she would pick up her pen to write a long and detailed letter to Sybil but then she would sigh and put it down again. She did not really want to write to Sybil, not these things anyway, and pouring out her soul on paper did not come naturally to her.

There were so many things to recommend Rome above any of the other places they had visited. Mary did not consider herself to be particularly well read in the classics, but she greatly admired Ovid's Metamorphoses, that often subversive retelling of traditional myths, and she had read The Aeneid. To know that she was in the very city where Ovid and Virgil had lived and been inspired, to tread the same stones as them, to breathe the same air, were things that appealed to Mary's romantic imagination. In addition to this, was not Rome the heart of religion, of art, of government and had not the city been the setting for great novels as diverse as Middlemarch and The Portrait of a Lady? There was the Vatican with the Sistine Chapel and the great church of St. Peter's, the forum, the Villa Borghese, the many galleries and museums to explore and discover in addition to sentimental wandering.

Before all this could be seen, however, they were going to the opera on their first night in the city. It had been Lady Eastwick's idea, raised one evening while they enjoyed an aperitif on the balcony of the villa, the sun setting in a red glow over the poplar trees and golden, autumnal fields of Tuscany.

"You must go to the opera in Rome!" she had said. "My dears, you cannot come to Italy and not hear Italian opera performed in its proper ambience!"

She told them, moreover, that there was currently a revival of Puccini's Tosca in the same theatre where it had had its Roman premier just over ten years previously, the Teatro Costanzi.

"A modern opera," sighed the dowager countess. "I am not fond of modern music: it is too discordant and there are no proper arias."

"Really, Granny!" Mary laughed. "What was the last opera you heard that was more recent than Donizetti?"

She had to think about it. Finally, "We saw Rigoletto in London, I remember. But that had tunes in it!"

Mary smiled in remembrance. "Yes, including that famous one about the fickleness of women. Very catchy indeed! Papa was humming it for weeks afterwards."

Her grandmother sniffed. "Until you read the libretto. A most improper song!"

"No doubt that is why it was sung by the villain! I enjoyed it anyway."

"Then you will no doubt enjoy Tosca, Lady Mary," assured Lady Eastwick. "Indeed, it has a great number of excellent arias and is only discordant when the evil baron is on stage."

"An evil baron?" retorted Mary playfully. "How irresistible!"

With Mary so keen on the opera, Violet was forced to give in and allow Lady Eastwick to procure tickets for them. She capitulated rather easily which led Mary to suspect that she was less adverse to an evening of evil, singing barons and high melodrama than she cared to admit.

Hettie was very excited too. "The only opera I've seen is The Merry Widow and I'm not sure they are very similar!"

"I expect you are right," Mary agreed, her lips twitching, as the four ladies descended from their taxis outside the theatre, their nerves in varying states of tatters. She had enjoyed the speedy journey through the busy streets of Rome, looking out of the window with fascination as the driver manoeuvred the car down narrow alleyways, cutting corners and over taking other slower vehicles and scraping close by carriages. Her heart had pounded and her eyes sparkled as she had clutched the hand grip, experiencing a thrill of speed and danger similar to what she felt when out hunting. It need hardly be said that her excitement was not shared by the rest of the party.

"Goodness," said her grandmother, "I shall be far too terrified about the prospect of the return journey to concentrate on the opera."

"I declare it is worse than New York!" said Mrs. Bowen with a nod of agreement.

Mary slipped her arm through her grandmother's. She was in a rare moment of charity with the world, though such moments were becoming more and more frequent as her trip progressed. The drive had energised her and she was happy to be in Rome and surrounded by high society again. "Come, Granny, in that case you will hardly mind if the opera is terribly modern and not to your taste."

She sniffed. "I do not think there is any danger of my being that distracted!"

They entered the atrium of the theatre arm in arm, with the Bowens just behind them. Mary immediately unfurled her fan, glad of her red dress, her feathers, the warm glow of the candles on the golden edges of the many mirrors, and the chatter of aristocratic voices. Opera and high culture were the same everywhere and she slipped into the familiar world with relief.

Lady Eastwick had procured them a box only a few along from the central one, so it was mostly forward facing with a good view of the stage. Once seated, Hettie craned her neck round to see if any of the royal family were in attendance that night but was disappointed. "I've always wanted to see a real prince!" she complained to Mary in an aside.

Thanks to their unexpectedly rapid journey from their hotel to the theatre, the party had arrived in good time before the beginning of the opera and had plenty of leisure to observe the arrival of the orchestral musicians to the pit, and the nobility of Rome into their boxes through their opera glasses. Eventually the audience began to quieten down, the lights dimmed and the conductor walked on to polite applause. The curtain rose on a massive stage set of a catholic church and from the first immense, ominous brass chords of the opening number and the appearance of the fugitive Angelotti on stage it became quite clear to Mary's delight and her grandmother and Miss Bowen's disappointment that they had left the world of romantic comedy far behind.

The music and drama was utterly gripping from the beginning. Mary enjoyed opera though she had not seen very much of it so far but generally she was distracted sooner or later and took to observing the other people present or even murmuring to her companions in her box. There was no need to resort to gossip about the headdresses on display this time. When once she had turned towards the stage at the beginning she could not look away for the rest of the act. The music had a great power and drew her into the story of diva Tosca's and the painter Cavaradossi's clearly doomed love affair. The nobility of the poor painter and the baseless jealousy of the singer demanded captured her sympathy.

The very things that Lady Grantham disapproved of, the lack of formal structure to the opera and the raw, passionate nature of the music, were the opera's greatest appeal, at least to Mary. She found herself drawn into the imaginative world of Napoleonic Rome and offered little resistance to the alluring fantasy of it. She had, after all, always been only too good at seeing her own world in terms of heightened heroism and drama.

Moreover her already excited nerves were stimulated to an even greater degree when the love duets of Tosca and Cavaradossi were interrupted by the firing of the castle cannon and the arrival on the scene of the villainous Scarpia at last with a reprise of the opening chords. The actor playing the villain took charge of the stage instantly with the force of his presence and commanding voice. First he cowed his attendants, then he turned the force of his magnetism on the object of his base desires, Tosca herself. Mary had an English translation of the libretto in her hand and she was able to shiver in complete comprehension of his meaning as, in a strange combination of Iago and Angelo, he aroused the singer's jealousy in an attempt to gain her love for himself.

It was not, however, until the finale of the first act that Mary was really overcome. Tosca left the stage, leaving Scarpia alone to develop his villainous plans. The music began to build up to its climax as Scarpia revelled in a sadistic eroticism, made even more appalling by the church setting and the entrance of the chorus in a religious found herself clutching at the soft red velvet on the rail of her box, her lips parted and her eyes wide as she was enveloped by the combined power of the music and words filling every part of her soul.

My will takes aim now at a double target,
Nor is the rebel's head the bigger prize…
Ah, to see the flame of those imperious eyes
Grow faint and languid with passion...
For him, the rope,
And for her, my arms…

So sang the baron, standing right in the middle of the stage, his cruel, dark face in shadow, his voice filling every corner of the theatre, the air ringing with the sound of his growing, unconquerable passion. Mary's heart began to beat faster in sympathy with the tenor of the drama unfolding before her. As the choir cut off Scarpia with their unbelievably loud Te Deum, he was for a moment forced back before throwing out his climactic line with a final burst of energy: "Tosca, mi fai dimenticare Iddio!".Tosca, you make me forget God!

It was too hot, too oppressive. There was a buzzing in Mary's ears and she felt almost faint, trembling with tension. She had been far too excited earlier and too conscious of her own agreeable situation at appearing in Roman society to make any attempt to watch the work with detachment and to rein in her sensibility. The music awakened sensations in her that had been forcibly dampened for a very long time and she could not bear it.

Muttering an excuse about needing air, she left her seat as the final chords of the act came crashing down and were drowned out by applause. She pushed blindly out of the box and into the corridor. Everywhere was red and gold from the embroidery on her dress to the rich decorations and wall hangings and gilding of the corridor. There were no windows. She became assailed by a sudden sense of claustrophobia. Clasping her hand to her mouth and experiencing a panic that seemed to come out of nowhere, she fled round the corridor in search of a stairwell or rest room or some other more open space and in the process almost bumped into someone strolling the other direction.

A pair of strong hands in white evening gloves clasped her arms and steadied her. Still trembling, Mary raised her eyes to find herself being supported by a very dapper, olive complexioned Italian gentleman at least a head shorter than herself. He was well and neatly dressed and had a small, perfectly symmetrical black goatee.

"Calmi, signorina, calmi!" he exhorted her, still holding onto her.

Mary stared at him in consternation. In that moment she could no more speak Italian than she could have swum the English channel.

"Lei è amalata," he continued in a concerned tone when she did not reply. "Posso offrirsi un aiuto in qualsiasi modo?"

Recovering slightly, she shook her head faintly and stepped back. "Please, sir... Will you release me?"

He did so immediately, dropping his hands. "A thousand pardons, signorina," he replied in fluent though accented English.

"Thank you," acknowledged Mary, her eyes darting to his and then away again, as she rubbed her bare arms where his hands had been a moment previously. "Excuse me."

"But you are unwell," he insisted. "I cannot consent to leaving you. May I not acquire for you a glass of wine?"

"I am not unwell, but thank you."

Her heightened colour and obvious nervous tension, however, gave a lie to her words and, still refraining from touching her again, he somehow managed to manoeuvre her towards the bar situated on that floor. Before she knew what she was doing, she was sitting in a plush, red, velvet armchair in the corner of the bar and her rescuer was pressing a large glass of deep, burgundy wine into her hands.

"I must demand that you drink it, signorina," he said, sitting down next to her, and there was very little Mary could do but obey him.

He watched her sip slowly at the wine and eventually smiled encouragingly a little, displaying teeth that only gleamed the whiter in contrast to his Mediterranean complexion. "I regret that it is not very good wine. The theatre lacks much in that respect however I hope it makes you more comfortable."

Annoyingly, he was right. Mary was beginning to feel much calmer and the wine was helping. She was now more able to take stock of her situation and she looked more clearly on her new companion and returned his smile with a small one of her own.

"You are very kind, signore, and I apologise for the state you found me in!" She lowered her wine glass and laughed her earlier panic away, inviting him with her eyes to share the joke. He was not precisely handsome but despite his diminutive stature, even for an Italian, he possessed a kind of magnetism that attracted and inspired respect. Moreover, his manner and dress proclaimed him to be wealthy and socially confident, and Mary could see no harm in being pleasant to him.

"Your apologies are quite needless, signorina. I am only happy to have been of assistance to you."

She sipped some more of the wine and he continued to observe her until she grew rather uncomfortable under the weight of his stare and turned to him with an overly bright smile and asked if he was enjoying the opera, despite the fact that this was the last thing she wished to think about.

He nodded slowly. "Very much, I thank you. It is a particular favourite of mine."

"It is the first time I have seen it," replied Mary after a brief hesitation.

"I see. It is exciting, is it not so?"

She glanced up and met his eyes and felt in that second that he understood everything about her reaction. It was unnerving and she looked back down into her glass before saying with a quick, false smile of acknowledgement, "Oh yes!"

"I hope you are not scared by passion and murder, signorina," he continued, "or you will find the second two acts a great trial!"

Mary forced another laugh. "If I were, I probably should avoid opera altogether, don't you think, and possibly the great dramatists as well?"

He laughed with her. "Indeed. Your Shakespeare would be quite insupportable, and the classical plays out of the question. You would have to watch only Mozart and Commedia dell'Arte!"

"Even Mozart does not escape tragedy. I think nothing does, for even the greatest comedy must contain serious trials from which the characters can be delivered."

"Bene detto, signorina." He smiled at her with more appreciation and she felt herself blush. "Alas for you, Puccini is not writing a comedy!"

She had only time to frown her agreement before they were joined by her grandmother and the Bowens.

"Wherever did you go, Mary?" chastised the dowager countess. "You simply ran out of our box before the curtain had even fallen. I have never seen such behaviour."

"Are you quite well?" cried Hettie almost at the same time. "It was awfully stirring, wasn't it? I declare I almost fainted at the end!" She had never looked so full of health.

Then all three of them noticed the stranger and a silence fell which Mary did not break by replying to the asinine questions. He immediately stood up though not before all the attention had fallen on him. "Signore, signorine, I have been very remiss with my compliments. I crave your pardon for monopolizing your charming companion and must take my leave. I do not want to intrude on your party."

This was, as he probably knew perfectly well, very unsatisfactory.

"Who is he? Have we been introduced?" asked Violet directly to her granddaughter.

Mary looked between them momentarily at a loss and embarrassed, for he had not introduced himself. Again, the gentleman himself came to her rescue.

"A thousand pardons, signorina." He executed a swift bow. "Massimiliano, il conte Sciarpa."

The dowager thawed somewhat at the discovery of his rank and the Bowens looked suitably impressed, even as Mary immediately met his glance with a questioning look of her own. "Sciarpa?"

"My title is unfortunate in the context in which we meet, but we cannot help the names we are given any more than the rank into which we are born, signorina."

Lady Grantham was unimpressed with this irrelevant seeming dialogue and pursed her lips. "You have been speaking to my granddaughter, Lady Mary Crawley, Count. You may call me Lady Grantham, and these are Mrs. and Miss Bowen from New York."

"Duchessa, it is a pleasure," he said with instant civility and bowed again over her hand before addressing the Bowens with equal courtesy. Hettie at least seemed almost overcome by having her hand kissed by a genuine Italian aristocrat.

Mary watched the performance with some amusement. There was something very stylized about his behaviour, something about it that was far more controlled than the way she had seen other Italians act. It was not mocking exactly but there was something about it that appeared to subvert the very politeness he was displaying. It was intriguing.

However, there was no further opportunity for conversation for the bell was now ringing to signify the end of the interval. Count Sciarpa took Mary's hand and kissed it before hoping that she would enjoy the rest of the opera though there was a look in his eyes as he spoke that suggested he knew this might well be unlikely. Finally he very properly requested permission from Lady Grantham to call upon them the following morning at their hotel, which permission was granted. Then he executed another swift bow and left them.

"Well!" began the dowager. "I suppose he is an improvement on the dissolutes you have picked up so far in Italy, Mary."

"He was very handsome!" sighed Hettie, shooting Mary an admiring and slightly envious glance, before quickly adding for the benefit of her mother, "For a foreigner!"

"He has a title," replied Mary cooly, ignoring Hettie's comment, "so I imagine that must make him an automatic improvement in your opinion."

"I'd hardly encourage him to call on you if he did not have one. Italians are very well in their place but you must move only in the best circles, my dear."

She did not add if you want to make a successful marriage but she did not need to, for Mary understood her very well. She returned to their box walking a little ahead of the others, a sour taste in her mouth and the excitement she had felt earlier considerably diminished. She felt perfectly drained from all the emotion she had felt so far this evening and she was content to sit quietly back in her seat and wait for the second act in silence.

Forewarned by the count of what was to come, she hardened her emotional defences in preparation and was consequently able to watch both acts with very little outward expression of emotion. Even Tosca's defiant, passionate stabbing of the villainous Scarpia at the very moment of his seduction of her ("Behold the kiss of Tosca!") and her low cry of "Die! Die! Die!" failed to produce more in her than a single shudder and a momentary squeezing shut of her eyes. Later in the third act, as Cavaradossi sang his famous aria "E lucevan le stelle" telling how only on the point of death had he realised the beauty of the world and the importance of love over everything else, despite the rustling of handkerchiefs and sniffs around the rest of the house, Mary's eyes alone remained dry.

Chapter 11: Past/Future

Summary:

Mary looks at ruins in Rome while back at Downton Lord Grantham asks Matthew if he is happy.

Count Sciarpa was as good as his word and presented himself at the hotel the morning after the opera just as the Crawleys and Bowens were finishing their breakfast. In the clear light of day he was just as neat and short and magnetically attractive as he had appeared the day before. Mary found herself filled with a kind of fluttery nervousness and self-consciousness at seeing him that she did not like in herself. It reminded her of feelings and occasions best forgotten. For the first time in so long her heart and soul had been almost calm and now... they were not. All the same, as he sat down and accepted a cup of coffee from her grandmother and smiled charmingly at her and Miss Bowen, Mary was not sure whether this was not altogether a good thing. She had never had a particularly calm inner existence; or if she had, she could hardly remember now what it felt like. She was not entirely sure it would suit her.

But was she attracted to him or was she not? It was so hard to tell! And was there any point in determining the point so early in their acquaintance anyway?

"Duchessa," the Count addressed her, his eyes steady and a little amused as he looked at her, "you are lost in thought this morning. I must assume that you are either cogitating on the drama of the last night or you are anticipating what you will see today in the city."

She was roused from her unproductive reverie and gave a brittle smile. "Neither actually. I was merely thinking of..." She shook her head. "Nothing really. What would you suggest we see first? You are the expert here, Signor Conte, and more valuable than any number of Baedekers."

She had the odd impression that he knew perfectly well what she had been thinking.

"If you will permit me..." He inclined his head towards the dowager with great deference. "I will be your guide for the day. I will show you the Coliseum, the Forum Romanum, all the great places of the past. What do you say?"

It was Hettie who answered. "Oh, how fabulous! To be taken round Rome by a real Roman... Do say yes, Mama!"

"Your enthusiasm puts spurs to me to prove myself, Signorina Bowen, but you are wrong about one thing: I am not Roman. I am here in vacation only a few days."

"I have no objection if you don't, Lady Grantham," said Mrs. Bowen.

"None whatever," replied Violet. "We put ourselves in your hands, Count, for the morning at least."

"Benissimo. We start early then? Before there are too many people."

This was agreed to and he left them for the time being to finish their meal and prepare themselves for a day of sightseeing. Mary wondered at what he had let slip about his background, and asked him about it later, as they picked their way across the stones of the Forum, a little ahead of the others.

"Where am I from? I am a Neapolitan, from the Regione di Campania." He smiled brightly at her and took her hand in a firm grip to support her as she stepped down from one stone to another.

"From Naples!" she responded slightly breathlessly, and dropped his hand as quickly as possible. "Our plans are to go there after we have spent some time in Rome."

"Then you must visit me in my castle when you are there."

Mary stopped and leaned on her parasol, her eyebrows raising. "Your castle?"

His teeth gleamed in his smile. "The count must have his castle, Duchessa. You do not surely think I live I live in a tenament block in the city?" He swept his hand dismissively past the forum to indicate the kind of buildings he meant.

"No, of course not," Mary recovered herself, "but there is something particularly romantic sounding about a castle, is there not, more than what we associate with a country estate or a even a villa."

She might have been standing right in the middle of the great forum of Ancient Rome, but in that minute her imagination was far away. She had no idea what the Bay of Naples was like and her only experience of Italian castles was from ridiculous, sensational gothic novels so her mind's eye painted an equally gothic picture, inspired more by childhood trips to Scarborough and climbing up to the castle there than anything at all realistic. Her common sense told her that the Count's ancestral home was unlikely to lack those modern conveniences of running water, glass windows and a sturdy roof, but the romantic image was hard to shake.

"Do you think so? I wonder... Are you afraid of the sea?"

"What an odd question, Signor Conte! Whyever should I be?"

"Some ladies find the movement of the boat unsettling, that is all. I am glad you have a stronger constitution, Duchessa. I ask you because-" He broke off to guide her over another patch of rough ground, "- because my castle is situated on a little island, Proschia, just a few minutes from the harbour of Napoli. In fact, it is a very tiny island – proprio piccolina! – with barely more there than the castle itself and a village."

Concealing the strong impression that his description of the castle had made on her, she only pointed out that both she and her grandmother were good sailors. He replied courteously that he and his sister with whom he lived would therefore look forward to offering them hospitality when they came to Naples. There was nothing here of the gothic and Mary chastised herself for the direction her thoughts had taken – and the strange sense of longing that accompanied them.

The others caught up with them, Violet moving rather more slowly than the rest. She sat down heavily on a fallen pillar and grimaced in discomfort. Mary glanced quickly at Sciarpa before hurrying to her side.

"If they really want people to come here, they should put in some steps and a nicely paved walkway!" she complained.

"It would rather distract from appreciation of the antiquity, wouldn't it?" teased Mary in reply, but with a fond smile.

"I would rather look at the ruins than walk on them!" she scoffed, but she sounded somewhat appeased.

"What's that?" interrupted Hettie, pointing at a large platform just across the open space of the forum.

Immediately Sciarpa reassumed his prescribed mantle of tour guide.

"That, Signorina? That is the Rostra, the platform from which the great Roman lawgivers and orators made their speeches."

They all looked at this piece of ruined masonry with the vague, hopeful interests of the ignorant. Mary could not see that it looked particularly special, compared to the temples and the senate house anyway.

"If you allow me?" Sciarpa was saying, and without waiting for any reply, darted across the forum and climbed swiftly and carefully onto the Rostra. He cleared his throat, shot them a smile, and then began to recite – to declaim – to perform (there was no good word for it) in Latin. Controlled as he was, it was a Mediterranean control that nevertheless allowed plenty of scope for gesticulations and very clear diction. His spoken English was smooth, but he endowed Latin with all the musicality and fluency that only an Italian can give it. Mary had no idea what he was saying, but she could still appreciate the rise and fall of the cadences and how fitting it sounded to hear it here, in the very place the speech would originally have been given.

After a few minutes he stopped speaking, removed his hat and swept a bow before rejoining them.

"Very impressive, Count!" said Lady Grantham with a touch of sarcasm. "Are we permitted to know what it means?"

"I suppose it was Cicero," said Mary, catching his eye, and giving the name of the only Roman orator she had actually heard of. She spoke indifferently for she found something rather vulgar in the way everybody else was hanging on his words and appearing so very obviously impressed. She also felt rather annoyed with him, for however special it was to hear Latin recited in such an appropriate spot, she felt that his learning made her appear only more ignorant and consequently insignificant.

"Yes, Duchessa. You are a lady of classical learning!"

Mary's smile in response was forced. That sounded patronising. "Hardly, Signor."

"What did it mean though? I do so want to know and you understand that we are not taught Latin. Do please tell us!" cried Hettie. Mary sighed. She needed to work on her flirting techniques; she was far too eager.

Sciarpa frowned briefly at Mary before attending to Miss Bowen. "I recited for you a clever little passage getting to the crux of one of Cicero's speeches, concerning a woman, yes? A woman "non solum nobili, sed etiam nota", that is 'not only noble but notorious'! A well balanced passage from a very good speech. You hear Cicero at his finest."

"Yes indeed," said Mary, increasingly fed up, "we should have done if we had known what you were saying! You could have been reciting a laundry list!"

"Mary!" hissed her grandmother, but the Count laughed.

"Yes, it is very true. The Duchessa is quite correct. A thousand apologies. I only wished that you might rest yourselves for a moment and not be struck by ennui."

"That was very kind of you, indeed it was!" replied Mrs. Bowen, "but we are ready to move on, aren't we, girls? I want to know what that big building over there is!"

Mary jumped up and set off immediately ahead of them, since she could see her grandmother was perfectly rested. (At least, she had better be.) Girls? It was like being with a governess again.

Sciarpa joined her almost immediately. "I have offended you somehow, Duchessa. You are upset by the mention of Clodia perhaps?"

Mary did not much like being told when she was offended either. Her awareness of how unfair and difficult she was probably being in a situation that called for nothing but pleased gratitude only soured her mood more.

"Not really. Was she very notorious?"

"She was a whore," he replied calmly, "possibly the worst Rome ever saw, but if she was the inspiration for so fine a passage of rhetoric, then she has done some good!"

Mary raised her eyebrows. "Now I feel I ought to be shocked!"

He met her eyes. "Are you not? And yet, why, I ask myself, should I be surprised, when you watched with Tosca with so much composure!"

"Then your memory must be at fault. What is this building?" A discussion about her attitude to the greatest whore of Rome was not a topic she felt comfortable pursuing.

"Here? Oh, the Basilica, the central law courts where all the business and legal cases were carried out... "

The discussion became general and the tour proceeded. Mary avoided another tête-à-tête with the Count that morning and followed mostly in silence. She admired his education and found his conversation mostly stimulating but there was something about his attitude that disturbed her and made her wary. Wary, yet nevertheless curious. He was, after all, attentive, pleasant, and amusing, all things that Mary appreciated in a male companion and which she had not come across since coming abroad.

---

Matthew was used to thinking of his life as a sequence of alternating periods of calm and unrest. Judging from what the few friends he had talked to about this said, he was not alone in this outlook. Childhood had been calm. Hardly anything had happened to disturb his upbringing until change came quickly from his father's death, followed swiftly by his matriculation at Oxford. University itself had been a pleasant though challenging time, and afterwards he had settled back into another mostly unchanging routine in Manchester with his mother. Most of Matthew's life in fact had been relatively uneventful until he had received the letter from Lord Grantham which had altered everything. Since then nothing had seemed very stable. That was not to say that every moment of life since coming to Downton had been emotional (how exhausting if it had been) but there had been something about it. A brightness, a sharpness, a clarity perhaps. A way of seeing things and of looking at the world that had not been there before. The colours had seemed more intense in Yorkshire than they ever had in Manchester.

He had never thought about it before or even noticed it until these last few weeks, when he had become aware of a change; he was trying to put his finger on it. Things seemed strangely faded in his impression; the birdsong quieter, the colours of the trees paler. Maybe it was just the approaching dampness of autumn after a particularly beautiful summer. Maybe, Matthew thought, it was simply the natural settling down of his life into a pattern again after all the upheaval.

He welcomed the peace and the routine. He got up every morning, ate breakfast, kissed his mother goodbye, went to the office, worked all day, came home, kissed his mother again, ate supper, and spent the evening reading or playing cards or sometimes at the Abbey with his cousins. (Since he had first met Sybil in Ripon he had dined twice at the great house.) There was absolutely nothing in this that was different to before of course except in Matthew's attitude to it. Somehow there seemed less to think about, he was working harder, it seemed easier to reconcile his job with his role as Lord Grantham's heir... and yet it was all so much duller! Matthew supposed that he must be foolish indeed if he was going to start complaining about a comfortable, steady life being dull.

It would be too easy to blame it all on Mary. It would be easy to say that she lit up his world and in her absence everything was drear and drab. The suggestion whispered itself to Matthew at the back of his mind and he tried his best to ignore it for the matter was certainly not so black and white. He had argued with Mary, she had distracted him, she had made him miserable, she had confused him. Things were so much simpler without her.

So it was that when Cousin Robert asked him whether he was happy one Saturday afternoon as they walked back from the cottages, he delayed his answer for a long time, before finally saying that yes, he was happy.

Robert smiled. "I'm glad to hear it, Matthew. I was saying to Cora only last night after you and Cousin Isobel left how much more settled you seemed recently."

"Oh? Well," he continued, "I think I am finally finding a balance between being a lawyer and being your heir. It's been a long time coming but I do feel settled now."

"That's excellent; I'm so pleased. You are doing splendidly, you know." He waved a hand in the direction of the damp woodland to the side of the path. "We shall be able to start interviewing tenants to take possession soon."

"You think they will be ready in time for-"

"Before Christmas, almost certainly. It's enough to warm your heart thinking about them under a good, solid roof when the snow comes. This – this is what it's all about, Matthew."

They exchanged firm smiles. Matthew did feel pleased with what he had achieved and in this moment he felt as close to his cousin and to the path now set out for him as he ever had.

For a few minutes they trudged in silence through the fallen, browny-orange leaves. It was a moist October and everything seemed muted and faded and dripping. Matthew scuffed his shoes in the leaves and thought about how much pleasanter the country was to the city. How much quieter. How much more relaxed. How little there was to worry about.

"And what about outside of work?" The Earl interrupted him. "We have been rather quiet recently though I dare say we can lay the blame for that at my mother's door! I hope, however, that you are finding good ways to occupy your spare time."

Something in the way Robert said this caught Matthew's attention and he looked up. He frowned slightly.

"Why, yes; yes, I am," he replied cautiously.

"Sybil talks about you a lot," continued his cousin, almost casually.

"Does she? I – I suppose I have seen more of her lately. She wants to go to university, you know."

Robert sighed. "Yes, I know. I suppose you approve of that, as a modern man?"

Matthew felt that this was some kind of test.

"I approve of anybody following their interests, whatever they are, and I am happy to offer Cousin Sybil any advice or help that is in my power, to assist her in following hers," he replied eventually.

"Yes, I'd heard you were doing that."

Again, that strange tone of voice. Matthew frowned some more. He was starting to feel uncomfortably aware of where this conversation could be going and he wished it wouldn't. "I'm not sure-"

"Sybil's very young, Matthew. Much younger than Mary and Edith and I don't just mean in terms of their ages."

"I – yes, sir. If you want me to stop talking to her about it then I-"

"I think you know that's not what I mean."

That floored him and he could only stare, slightly open mouthed at the Earl. They stopped walking and sized each other up for a moment. Then the Earl laid his hand firmly on Matthew's arm and nodded.

"I like you, Matthew, as my cousin, as my heir – and as the son I never had." He was very serious now and held the other's gaze. "And I know that you are incapable of behaving dishonourably towards anyone, let alone an innocent and susceptible young girl, that you would never give rise to expectations you did not mean. I trust you understand me."

"Yes," he replied, his mouth dry. "Yes, I understand you perfectly."

Lord Grantham smiled then and dropped his hand and began walking again.

"Good."

Matthew blinked several times, remaining motionless a second. Then he matched his pace to his cousin's as they scuffed their way in silence through the damp, musty-smelling autumn leaves back to the Abbey. All of a sudden he had a lot to think about.

---

The new housemaid considered herself a bit above her job. It had been hard to find a replacement for Gwen at such short notice and Ethel had what Mrs. Hughes disparagingly called "attitude", an opinion expanded on at much greater length by Thomas and Miss O'Brien, much to Ethel's displeasure. It hardly motivated her to do more work.

One of her jobs, in addition to her usual round of tasks, was to go to the dower house once a week to check that everything was in order and deal with any post. In fact, the dowager Countess had received very few letters since going away, for she had told her closest friends in advance that she was going abroad and not to bother writing to her as it was unlikely she would reply, if the letters ever reached her in the first place.

This week, however, when Ethel unlocked the door and slipped inside the house to do her checkup, there were two letters waiting to be forwarded to Italy. Ethel picked them up. London addresses. Ladies' handwriting.

She opened the drawer where the forwarding address should be – and found nothing. She opened all the other drawers in the hall cabinet, then checked down the back in case the piece of paper should have fallen, looked on the kitchen table and eventually, after five whole minutes of half-hearted searching, gave up. Maybe she had put it somewhere else. Maybe she had burnt it by accident.

Ethel knew she should tell Mrs. Hughes that she had lost the forwarding address for it would be easy enough to copy out a replacement, but she was in enough trouble as it was. She held the two letters in her hands and dithered. She considered opening them and if there was anything important passing it on, but she shrank from this active wrong-doing. Anyway, it was very unlikely that there could be anything urgent in the correspondence of gossiping old ladies.

She shrugged her shoulders, stuffed the envelopes down the back of the sofa and went to put her feet up for a while in the drawing room before returning to her work.

Chapter 12: A Dream of Thee

Summary:

The Matthew/Mary v Matthew/Sybil shipping wars dramatically climax!

Notes:

Super long chapter since I'll be going off to university next week and probably won't be posting much for a while! Hope you enjoy. :)

Matthew had a lot to think about.

His conversation with Lord Grantham had put the idea of marriage to Sybil into his head for the first time; that is, the first time he had consciously been forced to consider it. He had to admit now that the idea was out in the open that only a reluctance to confront the possibility had kept him from acknowledging it to himself previously. Sybil, he had been quite sure, was only interested in him as a cousin, as someone who was willing to talk to her about university and could recommend books to her. The idea of her having a crush on him was inconceivable. Was he to be passed from Crawley sister to Crawley sister while Cousin Cora stirred the fire like the infernal Mr. Collins inPride and Prejudice? It was absurd. First Edith with her old churches, then Mary with – well, best not to dwell on Mary, and now Lord Grantham was intimating that he ought to either marry Sybil or give up her company entirely! His initial reaction was to feel that this was dreadfully unfair on them both and on their friendly relationship, and to resist it as much as possible.

Other less comfortable thoughts would intrude, however. Over the past few weeks Sybil had been spending more and more time with him. Her smiles were brighter, her ease in his company increasing from their first rather awkward meeting that day in Ripon and, if he was honest with himself, the more time they spent together the less they discussed the things they were supposed to be discussing. Oh, Oxford was mentioned and Sybil never turned up at Crawley House without having a specific question for him, but they were beginning to look a lot like excuses, and their conversations quickly moved onto other topics. Sybil was very curious about what Matthew was doing on the estate and her quick approval of and interest in his work on the cottages and other improvements for the Downton tenants flattered his ego. So unlike- but he was not going to think about that. Often she lingered so long with him that his mother would return home from the hospital and they would all take tea together before Matthew would walk Sybil back to the Abbey. Here too, she showed a selfless appreciation of Isobel's work and expressed an admiration for the nursing profession that was a refreshing contrast to the veiled scorn and snobbery coming from the rest of her family.

Sybil was easy to talk to. Matthew liked her, liked the fact that she fit so well into his life at Crawley House with his mother, liked the fact that she made no secret of the fact that she liked him. There was no second guessing her, no wondering if she meant what she said, no unpicking riddles. But there was a great gulf between liking and any warmer emotion and Matthew, with his careful, analytic lawyer's mind, knew better than to confuse the two. He was not passionately in love with Sybil. It was sometimes difficult to tell when one was actually in love with a person, and indeed Matthew had had so little experience with women that he was not entirely sure he would recognize it if he felt it, but he thought he could tell when he was not in love easily enough. At least... He did not yearn for Sybil. There was a strange, aching, uncomfortable feeling of desire that he lacked when he was with her and, if forced to put it so baldly, he appreciated its lack. Nevertheless, he also appreciated the sparkle of her dark eyes, the spirit of her graceful but energetic movements, the trimness of her figure. Who would not? he thought defensively, yet it was not until his cousin had brought it up with him that he considered her in this way explicitly.

Thinking about Sybil in this way felt wrong and forbidden in a vague and indefinable way. She was so young and innocent, not even "out" in society yet (whatever that really meant). Matthew was quite sure she was innocent. If she came to visit him more often than she should, if she talked about him to her father enough to worry him, then he was convinced she was unaware of the impression she was giving and was not doing it out of any attempt to entrap him. No. Sybil was made of simpler stuff than her sisters. If she took him to see an old church, he thought with a rueful smile, it would be because she thought he might like to see an old church. And herein lay her attraction. Still, it made it difficult to judge of her feelings.

Matthew was inclined not to do anything for the moment. He was by nature a patient man and unless action was absolutely, definitely required, he could not see the point of pushing a point and upsetting the delicate and pleasant equilibrium which was his relationship with Sybil. Robert's warning had been enough to make him aware of a potential issue, but so long as he observed no real evidence in Sybil herself of desperate love for him and carefully measured his own behaviour towards her, he could not see any reason to put an end to their intercourse.

But marriage! That was an equally drastic step in the other direction. Ignoring for the moment the thorny question of Sybil's feelings, not to mention his own, there was the issue of marriage in and of itself. Did he want to marry? On the one hand, Matthew saw no immediate need to do so. He had a comfortable home and professional life and he was not restless to change his situation. On the other hand, he had always intended to marry at some point, the idea of having a wife to come home to and share his life with was a romantic ideal that he had dreamed of frequently in years past (though not, strangely enough, so much recently) and, in an abstract way, he had always thought he would rather enjoy being a father. He was now twenty-six, many of his friends and colleagues in the legal profession were now married and extolled the virtues of their situation in (nearly) every letter and, much as he loved and appreciated his mother, there were naturally some aspects of domestic bliss that she could not provide. Moreover, ever since he had first understood his relationship to the Earl, there was the pressing sense that he really ought to marry. If he was Cousin Robert's heir, then it was no more than his duty to provide himself with an heir. But perversely, turning marriage into a duty made him less enthusiastic to embrace it and actively to look for a wife as in the back of his mind he knew he ought to be doing. If he was searching for a future bride, then that was now inseparable from a future Earl seeking a suitable Countess. It made the whole thing rather less romantic and it had made his situation with regards to Mary even more tricky than it would naturally have been. Perhaps this feeling of obligation could explain why his rosy-tinted fantasies of a wife had somewhat dried up when he had come to Downton. It was a more comfortable reason than any other.

Still, there was no hurry. Perhaps in time something might develop with Sybil, perhaps it might not. After all, she was relatively close to Mary (the thought gave him an unpleasant twinge) and now that she was gone, he was the only young person in the neighbourhood apart from Edith. There was no need to read too much into her enjoyment of his company. No doubt Matthew's decision to do nothing would have carried and nothing in fact would have been done if it were not for a strange coincidence of Sybil receiving three letters of great interest on the same day.

---

It was a Friday and Sybil had never got so much post before. There was a a reply to the letter Sybil had sent several weeks ago to Grace Beresford at Cambridge, there was a postcard from Mary in Rome, and finally there was a longer letter from Gwen, which she immediately slipped under her plate and put aside to read in private.

Mary's postcard, a grainy black-and-white view of the Coliseum, the back filled with her small, neat, sloping hand was the quickest to read.

Dear all,

Granny, our American friends, and I are enjoying ourselves a great deal in Rome. We have been to all the principal sights, not to mention sites, and I grow almost weary of distinguishing between Doric, Ionic and Corinthian. We have procured for us a most helpful and knowledgeable guide in the form of a little Neapolitan aristocrat, named Sciarpa (to be distinguished, mind, from the Baron Scarpia of the opera we saw the other week). Granny would encourage me to marry him while I have the chance but I would prefer to have more than a week's acquaintance before I commit myself for life. Nevertheless, he is amusing enough and tells us many stories of how all the best remains were looted by the English in the eighteenth century and if we want to see them we had best return to England and pay a visit to Lord So & So's country pile in –shire. By the by, did you ever discover precisely where the fourth Earl picked up those trinkets? Weather is good for October though it rained the day we went to the Vatican.

All love,

Mary

This note was significantly longer and more cheerful than any they had received so far, even if it contained tantalisingly little about what she truly thought about anything behind the polished and witty style. The mention of Sciarpa, however, caused ripples along the breakfast table.

"I dare say he's not even a real aristocrat!" said Edith bitterly. She could not help thinking that, nice as Sir Anthony Strallan and drives around the local countryside in his car were, a charming Italian showing her round some of the ancient wonders of the world under a clear Mediterranean sky might be even nicer.

"Oh, Edith, don't spoil it!" retorted Sybil. "I think it's terribly exciting. I wonder if she will marry him. She could live in a wonderful Italian palace surrounded by cypresses and fountains and have children called Marco and Francesca and we could all visit her!"

"Don't be ridiculous, Sybil!" snapped Edith.

The Earl and Countess exchanged glances.

"Your mother seems to approve of him," said Cora with a frown. "That must be a good thing, I'd think?" She did not sound entirely convinced.

"Perhaps. I shall write to her and find out what is really going on. We'll never get anything sensible out of Mary herself."

Sybil, however, had Gwen's letter to read later, and it shed far more light on the situation not that she had any intention of sharing it with her parents. Gwen wrote in detail of the impressions she had received of Count Sciarpa on those occasions she had accompanied her mistresses into society and what she had picked up from Lady Mary in passing. The Count, she said, was a handsome man who really should not be considering how short he was, with agreeable manners but she got no impression of warmth from him. She did not think he really cared about other people; he certainly never showed her any solicitude at any rate. However, she admitted that many men were like that towards servants and that it was not her place to judge him. ("Oh, Gwen!" murmured Sybil with a fond shake of her head.) Still, Lady Mary seemed happier to spend time with him than she did with Miss Bowen who was, Gwen said, a lovely girl but not very similar to her Ladyship, and they very often laughed about things nobody else understood. He was very clever and might do for her very well in the end, she concluded prosaically, the subject of the letter then turning to the dowager Countess' health and increasing exhaustion as the trip progressed.

Sybil then turned to her final letter and opened it with fingers that almost trembled. She had saved the best till last for a letter from a lady who was actually studying at university was worth even more than Gwen's correspondence at this time.

Naturally such high expectations must be disappointed and to a suitably great extent. Grace's letter was measured, sympathetic and showed evidence of a clever mind but it was not so very encouraging as Sybil had hoped. She read it through three times, walked discontented from room to room, worked herself into something of a state and eventually, as soon as she deemed it late enough, walked to the village to see Matthew, reflecting rather sensibly in the midst of her deep sense of disappointment that he would be the best person to advise her in this situation and that she was really desperate for any company before she made herself even more miserable.

He had only just got in from work when Sybil was announced and Molesley took their coats at the same time. Matthew followed her into the drawing room and waved her informally to her usual seat. But Sybil did not sit down. She continued to wander restlessly up and down, her fingers dancing lightly over the mantelpiece, the tops of the flowers on the side table and along the row of books on the shelves.

"Whatever is the matter?" cried Matthew anxiously when she showed no signs of settling.

She bit her lip and paused in front of him before pulling Grace's letter from her pocket and holding it out to him.

"Here, read this. You'll think I'm over-reacting, I'm sure, but..." She trailed off and shrugged.

Matthew frowned, took the letter and after a moment's hesitation read it. Then he handed it back to her.

He licked his lips and said carefully, "And you find it disappointing?"

"Yes!" it burst from her. "Wouldn't you if you were me? I don't want to be an academic or a school teacher, Matthew! I don't want to study women's subjects like English or History! And I don't want to spend three years receiving lower marks than men doing the same course just because I'm a woman and not allowed to be a proper member of the university."

"I don't remember seeing any of that when I was at Oxford."

"Were there any women studying law?"

"No, but-"

"Well then."

Matthew looked down and Sybil continued bitterly, "I want to go to university so that I can gain knowledge I can use in the real world, so that I can have all the opportunities a man would have. What on earth is the point of it if I will only be laughed at? They will wonder why I'm doing it in the first place since I do not have to earn my money teaching village children their alphabet at the end of it!"

"You are hard on Miss Beresford, Sybil. Is teaching so dishonourable a profession?"

"No! Of course it isn't. I don't think that at all." She bit her lip then shrugged angrily. "I thought she had nobler ambitions, that's all! To have this opportunity... but really it's no opportunity at all. And as for me – I might as well get married!"

Matthew blinked nervously at this sudden change of subject. He felt he was treading on thin ice but tried to keep the atmosphere light. "And is marriage an equally dishonourable state then?"

His teasing fell flat.

"It needn't be," she replied, finally flinging herself into her chair opposite him. "If the husband respects his wife's rights to her own life and opinions and if he supports the women's movement then I suppose it could be tolerable."

"Yes. Yes, I suppose it would be."

Sybil laughed suddenly but without humour. "You know what Branson said to me a while ago, Matthew?" He shook his head. "He said if I wanted to change lives then I should give up all these ideas of university and marry a rich man and use money and power that way. I thought it was a ridiculous notion at the time, but perhaps he was right. I'm never going to succeed on my own. I need a man, just as every other woman in the world does. Don't you see? I've been living in a fantasy world thinking I can change things and that the world itself is changing."

Matthew blinked rather helplessly. "I really don't think you should take this so much to heart, Sybil. There are little set-backs in every enterprise and you simply have to keep going. Anyway, you're wrong, aren't you?" He ventured a hopeful smile. "The world is changing. Thirty years ago you would not have been able to study at Oxford at all. Change takes time, Cousin, and I would hate for you to give up like this simply because you might not succeed immediately and in every respect. It might be tough for you at university but that's no reason for not trying, is it?"

She smiled fondly. "No... Oh, Matthew, you are a dear to try to persuade me, and I know I should listen to you, but I can't... Not now. Because this letter only makes me think of everything else. Mama thinks it's a wild goose chase, Papa doesn't take me seriously and I know Granny disapproves terribly! Maybe they are right after all. What am I fit for, what are any of us girls fit for, but marriage?"

"You really mustn't talk like this!" cried Matthew, really becoming worried. Sybil was always so optimistic, so determined, so strong. But perhaps it was the nature of those with the most buoyant self-belief to plunge the most deeply into despondency whenever they received even the slightest knock.

He pondered what to say next. He felt that to continue to argue with her while she was in this mood would be unprofitable and frustrating. Perhaps he could point out that she would surely excel in whatever she chose to do and that if that was marriage, he felt sure that she would make some man very happy, that in many ways he could not imagine a better or more affectionate wife. Before he could say anything of the sort, however, she spoke again. She was staring into the distance, frowning.

"You know, Matthew," she said abruptly and though there had been a silence, it felt like an interruption, "Look at Mary! She has always felt constrained by our life, she has always wished things might have been different, but she has resigned herself, and now I think she is the happier of the two of us. Isn't it better not to have any hope of getting what you want than wanting something only to realise that you can't have it?"

"I-" said Matthew swallowing, thrown by this sudden mention of Mary, particularly unwelcome in the context.

"She's always accepted the fact that her role is to marry well though goodness knows she's not always been happy about it. Mama's despaired sometimes." Suddenly she stopped as if vaguely aware without being quite sure why that this might not be the best topic to pursue with Matthew. She blushed. "Well, she will be married eventually to someone and I suppose she will be content."

Matthew found his tongue. "That seems likely," he managed to say in a perfectly normal voice.

"Anyway, Granny thinks she should marry this Italian which I suppose was the point of sending her abroad in the first place."

There seemed to be a sudden stillness in the room. Matthew became strangely aware of the ticking of the clock and the thump of his own heart beat. He raised his head.

"What Italian?"

Sybil looked at him properly for the first time since she had arrived. Sciarpa had been the principal topic of discussion all day up at the Abbey and she had forgotten that the gossip would not have reached as far as the village.

"I got a postcard from Mary today," she explained. "She is being courted by an Italian aristocrat it appears. He's very clever, she says, and you know what Mary's like about that sort of thing. Granny approves too so perhaps something will actually come of it this time."

Matthew did not feel the atmosphere get any lighter. The idea of Mary married abroad to a clever, rich young man who quite possibly possessed the dark, Mediterranean complexion that she had seemed to find so attractive when that unfortunate Turkish diplomat had stayed at any rate – it was only too plausible. Something inside of him burned, he did not want to know, yet he found himself continuing to question her.

"How should you like it if she did marry him?"

"I don't know really without meeting Sciarpa himself, but I wonder sometimes whether Mary might be better off somewhere else. She might have more freedom in Italy and I do think she likes it out there judging from her letters."

By which she meant: judging from Gwen'sletters.

"I'm glad she is happy," replied Matthew after a few moments in which he quickly came to the conclusion that he was glad she was happy because he could not think of a decent reason why he should not be.

"And we shall all go out to Italy to see her!" Sybil finished, looking a bit more positive.

No, thought Matthew suddenly and heavily. He did not want to go to Italy to see Mary and her caro sposo. In fact, he was pretty sure he did not want to see her ever again. She had as good as told him to his face that he was incapable of love; the thought of her entertaining different feelings for a man who appeared in his mind's eye to be the spitting image of Kemal Pamuk (simply because both were foreign) was painful. Better that she should be out of sight and that he never thought about her. He was truly happier that way. Realising this, he determined to let go of this futile, long-dead dream of her once and for all. So he leaned forwards and smiled warmly at Sybil and said firmly, "Yes, it would be lovely if we could!"

She smiled back at him but then sighed. "You see, Matthew, that is what I should be like! I don't think I can though. When I think of my mother's life – I couldn't! Always drinking tea, never allowed to have opinions of my own, just sitting around reading novels..."

Matthew could not help laughing and reached out a hand to her instinctively. "Sybil! You don't have to turn into your mother if you don't want to. And to be fair to Cousin Cora, I don't think she would appreciate her life being described in quite those terms."

Sybil's lips twitched and she admitted the absurdity. "No, perhaps not! But even so, can you imagine Papa being happy if Mama went off and joined the suffrage movement in London? He would claim it would bring Downton into disrepute and would forbid it and she wouldn't like to go against him."

"Not everyone shares your father's particularly high ideals of the aristocracy or," he added a bit guiltily, "they might have different ways of showing it."

"Like you!" she shot back, her eyes bright and clear.

He opened his mouth and then closed it.

"Yes."

Matthew had not realised just how close to her he had become during their conversation. She was sitting forward in her chair, he was sitting forward in his and their hands seemed to dangle between them, fingers almost but not quite touching. He moistened his lips and abruptly stood up, pacing over to the window. Sybil followed him with her eyes.

"Do you ever think about marriage, Matthew? I never considered it much before but it must be very hard for you, suddenly having to take Downton into consideration when choosing a wife. Of course you don't have to but I think you would."

"I've been thinking about it a lot recently as it happens," he replied abruptly, not liking to admit just how accurate her assessment of his character was.

"Why?" she asked and there was something in her tone that made him turn around and frown. "Are you planning to get married?"

She was looking at him, wide-eyed and curious and very earnest and he crossed the room back to her.

"What if I was?"

"I don't understand. Are you?"

Something was driving him on, something reckless and exciting that he had not felt for a long time. He crouched down next to her and looked at her very intensely.

"How would you feel if I did decide to marry?"

Her eyes flickered warily across his face, trying to work him out. She rested her hands on the arms of the chair almost as if she was about to stand up, holding herself in readiness for quick movement.

"It would depend on who your bride was, of course, but I'm sure I'd like whoever you picked." She smiled at him, a bit confused, her cheeks faintly pink.

He moistened his lips again, a nervous twitch. His eyes glanced down to her hand on the chair – slim, ungloved, pale – and he took it gently.

"Even yourself?" he asked breathlessly, with a bashful half-smile.

"Matthew, what - ? Please, be more explicit."

"I'd like you to marry me, Sybil."

Her lips parted and she stared at him in astonishment. Colour began to flood her cheeks.

"Me? Are you – are you quite serious?" Her tone was wondering but strong and confident all the same. "I don't know what to say!"

Matthew's position was becoming distinctly uncomfortable, not withstanding the emotional charge of the moment. He shuffled backwards, sat down on his chair again which he pulled forwards and took her hand again.

He held her gaze. "Yes, I'm perfectly serious. Sybil, you're -" he swallowed, "you are lovely and intelligent and – and any man would be lucky to have you as their wife and more than that, you would be, you will be a wonderful countess. And I don't mean drinking tea and reading novels, I mean doing what you want; taking an active part in running the estate – you already do and I'd love to have you by my side because frankly, Sybil, sometimes it all terrifies me – and going to rallies and supporting the women's rights movement. Please, I want you to do those things."

"Oh..." A strange expression that Matthew had not seen before on her crossed her face. It was more hopeful than anything she had shown so far that afternoon but softer than her usual look. She shifted a little in her chair. "You want-"

"I want you to be you!" He tightened his hold on her hand and smiled slightly. "Isn't that the most important thing that anyone can be?"

"I suppose so, yes, but this is all so sudden, Matthew!"

"Take your time," he implored her. "I know this is a very big decision for you, but I really, truly would like to marry you, and when you have decided what you want-"

She frowned suddenly and interrupted him and as she did so she turned her hand over and returned his clasp. "No, I don't need to think about it. I want to marry you."

He blinked. "You do?"

It was all so sudden, he had not expected her to – well, he had not expected to ask her in the first place. It seemed very strange to hear her say the words.

She giggled, a reassuringly normal Sybil response. "You did just ask me, didn't you?"

"Yes. Yes, I did."

They stared at each other. Matthew could not quite believe what had just happened and yet he could not be sorry for it for her eyes were a very lovely dark brown and her hand was warm in his and he really thought this was a very good idea. Lord Grantham would be delighted, his mother would be pleased, Sybil would be able to live the kind of life she wanted to and as for himself, well, he thought he could get used to her rather easily.

He stood up still holding her hand. She rose too. He didn't know what to say but when she bit her lip and looked down and gave another little nervous laugh, he acted completely on instinct and stepped forward. He brushed away a strand of long dark hair that had strayed onto her cheek and then leaned towards her and kissed her.

She gave a little gasp of surprise and then stood perfectly still. Her lips were soft and yielding. Matthew entwined their fingers together as a pleasant warmth spread through him, his heart thudding nervously in his chest. Gently, tentatively she responded to him, her movement barely perceptible.

He pulled back after a moment and they both opened their eyes. Sybil's were very wide. She licked her lips, blushing.

"I've never-"

"I know."

He smiled tremulously and brushed her cheek again with his hand. He wondered if he could kiss her again; it was pleasant. Before he could, however, the front door was heard opening; his mother was home. Sybil gasped and pulled her hand out of his just as Isobel opened the drawing room door and stopped on the threshold to see the two of standing stiffly in the middle of the room, a foot apart and expressions of astonishment and embarrassment on both their faces.

Matthew tried to recover first. He closed his mouth and glanced briefly across to Sybil.

"Hello!" said Isobel, looking curiously between them. "How are you, Sybil?"

She opened her mouth to reply and then hesitated and looked towards Matthew. He realised with a queer tremor that this would now become a natural sequence of events. He would be her husband and she would look up to him, however equal their relationship could be in other respects. She was so young! He felt himself beginning to panic.

"Am I interrupting anything?" asked Isobel.

Matthew shook his head quickly and then blurted out without any further thought, "Sybil and I are engaged!"

---

Isobel was extremely surprised but not as much as Matthew had expected. Later that evening when Sybil had left she told him that his attentions had not gone unnoticed by her and that this outcome was only shocking in how quickly things had progressed.

"I couldn't tell whether you were good friends or if there was something more to it than that." She shook her head. "I thought you would wait till after her season at least. What in the world made you propose now? I had no idea you were contemplating it."

Matthew could only shrug rather helplessly. "I suppose it seemed like the right time."

Even he did not find this a particularly satisfactory answer and Isobel pursed her lips. "You are quite sure about this, my dear?"

He glared at her, not at all appreciating the doubt in her voice.

"Of course I am!" he snapped. "And I'm going over to Downton tomorrow to tell Cousin Robert."

"You mean, to ask his permission," corrected his mother gently. "You know Sybil cannot marry without his consent."

Matthew was trying to go to bed. He paused again a few more steps up the stairs. "Yes, I know, Mother. That's what I meant."

He wished her goodnight and closed his bedroom door behind him with relief. When he had got up that morning he had had no idea that his life would have changed so radically by the evening and he felt exhausted by everything that had happened. Engaged to Sybil. He could hardly believe it. As he passively allowed Molesley to undress him, too lost in thought to talk much, he looked around his familiar room. Would they live here still? He supposed so. Would she share his room? Yes, of course, he wouldn't have it any other way. He tried to imagine the room with a more feminine touch. A hint of perfume, a wisp of gauzy material... He could almost picture it, almost smell a whiff of something fresh and complex in the air, before he realised that he was not sure that he had ever really noticed Sybil's perfume. He dismissed Molesley rather abruptly, got himself a glass of water and decided that the best thing he could do was go to bed and get a good night's sleep before his interview with Robert.

Therefore it came as rather a surprise to him when he found himself waking up several hours later fully dressed in his work clothes on the plush red sofa of the Downton library. He blinked in confusion and pushed himself up into a sitting position. The room was dark and warm, illuminated by muted lamps and flickering candles and was silent save for the occasional crackle of the fire. What the devil was he doing at Downton at this time of night? His eye caught the bed pull on the wall, fluttering as if it had been pulled or moved by an invisible wind and he turned on the sofa to look around the room.

He realised with a jolt that was not really surprise but more close to inevitability that he was not alone. Standing directly in front of him, glowing in an ivory gown only a shade paler than her skin, was Mary. He had not seen her in so long and his mouth fell open as he gazed at her. She was just as he remembered seeing her, long gloves encasing slender arms, her sleeves the barest gossamer covering, a three-pendant necklace nestling on her throat, soft waves of chestnut hair pinned up...

"So you've finally woken up, I see!" she said, and the sound of her familiar, low, smooth, cultured voice sent a shock through him.

"I didn't realise I'd been asleep. I'm sorry. It was very rude of me."

She shrugged lightly. "You mustn't let it trouble you."

He stood up, shoved his hands in his pockets and walked a few steps in no particular direction. She still remained motionless with her hands by her sides, following his progress with her eyes alone. It was rather unnerving.

"Mary," he said eventually, stopping just a few paces in front of her, "am I here for a particular reason?"

"I really can't imagine."

He met her eye, saw a gold glint deep within the brown, the reflection of the fire.

"I wish I could think of something I could do to help! I feel so useless."

She sighed and turned away from him for the first time since he had woken up then walked to one of the windows and looked out. The red curtains were drawn and a ghostly sliver of a moon poured its rays through the glass turning her hair black and her dress and skin an even paler white.

Matthew noticed her back, the way the dress dipped down exposing her skin. He found himself walking towards her as if pulled by the invisible string of his longing for her. He stopped a hair breath behind her and she sighed again before finally replying, "There's nothing you can do."

He felt tremendously sorry for her then and simply tremendously sorry. The gauze on her shoulders rose and fell with her breaths. He raised his hand and, as a fast moving cloud scudded across the night sky and briefly covered the moon, laid his palm flat on the smooth skin of her back. He hardly dared to breathe. She shivered and her head fell forwards a little, exposing the back of her neck, the golden chain of her necklace and a few strands of hair that had escaped from her headdress. He leaned forward, his hand still resting on her back, and breathed in a hint of perfume, fresh and complex.

"The wind is over the ocean tonight," she observed suddenly and he lifted his head. "I am afraid that it will not be easy to bring her back."

Matthew blinked and nodded in comprehension. "Of course. But it would still be worth making the attempt, wouldn't it?" he murmured, lowering his head again.

"You can try, if you like."

"Then that," he breathed heavily, "will be my consolation prize."

He inhaled her again and pressed his lips to the hollow of her throat, lingering there. She laughed softly, a light rustling that he felt all through him. Mary's arm curved up and her hand caressed his cheek. He closed his eyes feeling almost dizzy and kissed her skin again. She let out a breath that was almost a moan and he felt a stab of overwhelming desire shoot through him. How had he resisted her this long? How had he denied himself? He began to rub little patterns on her back and trailed his lips along her jaw. She sighed yet again and shifted, turning around against the window. His hand stayed on her back so that she ended up effectively in his arms yet their bodies were still held just inches apart. Their eyes met. Matthew hardly dared breathe and she seemed equally affected. He raised a trembling hand to brush against her porcelain cheek, observing for the first time a smattering of tiny, faint freckles, the imperfection only adding to her perfection. He leaned towards her and as he did so there was a sudden rush of cold air, a howl of whirling wind and the strong tangy smell of the sea.

Mary was pulled back flush against the open window and Matthew had to grab her arms to prevent her from being sucked out into the vortex of the storm outside. The sea crashed on the walls of the house and threw up spray into the room. Matthew's senses were assailed but all he could concentrate on was Mary: the paleness of her skin in the moonlight, the way her dress fluttered, the glint of her necklace and earrings, how the wind was loosening her hair from its chignon, the warmth and depth of her beautiful brown eyes. Her rosy lips parted and Matthew, bracing himself against the wall with one foot, pulled her towards him. It seemed to take forever to bring them together, the distance lengthening the more he pulled her until he realised he was not pulling her at all but that they were falling out of the window.

As soon as he realised this he panicked and she was torn from him. He caught sight of her beneath him: her arms were outstretched, her hair loose and floating around her and her red dress sometimes billowing, sometimes twisted round her legs. Matthew was falling a few feet above her and he reached out to her.

"Mary!" he shouted but his voice was lost in the wind.

She stretched her arms back to him but they were too far apart and Matthew presently lost sight of her save the odd gleam of gold embroidery or flash of red as she tumbled through the sky. Driving rain blinded him, hitting his body and his face and he struggled to right himself as he fell, struggled to clutch at something that wasn't there, struggled to see or hear anything other than the elements and the surging sea rushing closer and closer below him.

Then it was over. He sucked in a panicky breath, looked around one last time for Mary before he crashed through the waves and was sucked under into freezing cold water. His chest was tight, his eyes pressed shut and for a moment there was nothing but swirling confusion and blackness and dreadful, dreadful panic. He was going to die. There was no escape. This was undoubtedly the end. Still, with one final, desperate effort just as felt his lungs burn with the effort of holding his breath, he pushed his arms down and kicked and somehow his head managed to break the surface of the water.

He took deep shuddering breaths and only when he had stopped coughing and gasping and thrashing around did he open his eyes and look around. The seascape was completely different to when he had gone under. The weather had completely changed. He was bobbing up and down in a calm, azure blue sea under a cloudless sky and a brilliant, hot, midday sun. He blinked and raised one dripping arm to shield his eyes from the almost unpleasantly prickly, metallic glare. There was sea as far as he could see. Just... sea. He was lost. No Downton Abbey, no nothing. Just sea.

Suddenly the eerie silence was broken by the sharp call of a solitary seagull, a white speck against the different blues of sky and sea and he looked up and followed its progress until he had turned around to face the opposite direction. Squinting, he thought he could make out a dark speck on the horizon, something projecting out of the water. As he became aware of it, he was filled with a sense of urgency and dread and he knew that he absolutely had to reach whatever it was.

He found he was no longer wearing his shoes and socks, nor the jacket and tie of earlier. Freed from these encumbrances, he kicked his legs out and with a frown of determination set off as fast as he could in the front crawl.

From where he had started the black speck had seemed miles and miles off but whenever Matthew looked up he seemed to be gaining on it very rapidly. It was a rock, a single rock in the midst of the ocean and... Matthew stopped swimming and trod water for a moment, catching his breath and staring hard into the harsh light; there was something else, some material fluttering against the rock, red material.

He put his head down and redoubled his efforts, his chest tight and his breath coming in short gasps that were not due to the exertion of the swimming alone. Soon he drew alongside the rock and looked up. He was quite unsurprised to see that the red material had belonged to Mary's dress, now ripped and torn beyond all repair. She herself, he noted with concern though again no surprise, was uncomfortably perched on a jagged outcrop of the rock, her arms stretched either side of her and manacled to it in iron chains. She looked as fed up as could be expected in the situation and sighed heavily when she saw him in the water below.

"Oh, it's you," she said, her disgruntled voice sounding loud in this perfect, disturbing stillness.

Matthew quirked his lips at her as he tried to find footings in the rock to lift himself out of the water. It was covered in barnacles and he scraped his hands and feet several times before he managed to get a proper grip.

"Sorry about that," he responded breathlessly.

He heaved himself out of the sea, water streaming from his sodden shirt and his trousers and clung to the rock just below her. Now that he could catch his breath, he could look at her properly: take in the flesh tantalisingly visible where her dress was torn, and the way her chest rose and fell as she... looked at him? He raised his eyes to hers and saw that much as she wished to maintain the appearance of indifference, she was taking in his appearance as keenly as he was taking in hers. A coil of heat sprang up in him at the realisation that the one thing more delectable than Mary herself was Mary wanting him.

With renewed energy and purpose, he clambered higher on the rock until he was on the same level as her. Her chest rose and fell more rapidly and her eyes flickered all over his face as he came closer and closer. He was going to kiss her, he was going to – But he had forgotten the chains.

"Here," he muttered, "I have to get these off you."

"I suppose you had!" She raised a supercilious eyebrow, dominating him even when at her most vulnerable.

Matthew pressed his lips together and drew out of his pocket a knife. He began to saw at the restraints with great vigour but little success. He could feel Mary's eyes burning into his back and the effort was making him build up a sweat. His discomfort grew along with his frustration and his desire for her. She was too close! Her body brushed against his every time he moved and she did not help him focus by giving the odd little squirm as she tried to release herself from the pains of bondage.

He bit his lip hard and continued to mechanically push and pull the knife across the metal until he sawed too hard and the knife slipped off the manacle and nicked her skin, releasing a tiny bubble of scarlet blood, bright and vivid againt her pale skin.

"Ah!" she cried pulling back in pain and closing her eyes a second before her expression returned to its usual calmness.

"What is this useless thing?" he complained more to himself than her.

She answered anyway. "It's a butter knife. You do know what a butter knife is, don't you, Matthew? It's one of the knives we use at dinner to-"

"I know what a butter knife is!" he snapped, glaring at the offensive instrument before tossing it over his shoulder into the sea.

She laughed cruelly. "Matthew, you are such a dull boy! You can't even break an entail; what made you think you would be able to release me from these fetters?"

He flushed and raised his head to glare at her but he met her eye instead and her lips parted and her chest heaved, a piece of damaged red fabric sliding off her shoulder. He inched onto the same ledge she was on and stood up straight, but that meant he was standing very close to her. Their bare feet almost touched, water running off his shirt dripped onto her legs and he could feel heat radiating from her. Swallowing, he lowered his gaze darkly to her lips and leaned forwards, finally allowing his body to cover hers, and kissed her.

She sighed into his mouth, a beautiful sensation, and pushed herself as far away from the rock as she could with her constraints. Her breasts rubbed against his chest eliciting a groan from him as he tilted his head to deepen the kiss. His fingers tangled in her loose hair that, despite the salt and wind, remained silken smooth in his hands and he cupped the back of her neck to pull her closer. Under his wet clothes, he burned for her, tense and coiled with expectation and need.

Then her arms were around him too, mysteriously freed, and she was flush against him and he felt himself falling backwards until he hit the softness of his bed, his stomach clenching and unclenching with a soaring feeling that felt far better than the sea-sickness that it nearly resembled. He did not break the kiss nor did her arms unlock from round his neck. She was on top of him, sliding and squirming all over his body and his hands were on her bare back and her waist and her breasts and her hips where only shreds of that beautiful, red dress remained and she hissed and moaned and bit down on his lip and he groaned and it was all too much and he needed-

He needed to wake up.

With a supreme effort, Matthew forced his eyes open and they met the dark canopy of his bed at Crawley House. He was drenched in sweat, out of breath, and the sheets were tangled round his legs in a horrible mess. However, it was not his acute physical discomfort that made him sit up and stare blankly across the room in horror. Already the details of the dream were disappearing but the sensations remained and he was filled with a dull, sinking feeling of terrible inevitability.

He might be engaged to the lovely Lady Sybil Crawley but he was utterly fascinated by, besotted, obsessed with Mary.

---

Many hundreds of miles away from Downton Village another dreamer awoke with a start from a much less pleasant slumber. Unlike Matthew, Mary had had this dream before; not dream, nightmare. No, nightmare suggested fantasy. Call it rather memory. She recognized the start of it now and was even able to pull herself out of it before its deadly climax. Not that that helped much. That was the problem with memories: they followed one out of sleep.

She reacted with practised efficiency. She sat up, pushing away from her mind the physical weight she could feel on her chest, ignoring the stinging mix of pain and pleasure between her legs. She reached out automatically for the water on her bedside table and sipped it slowly. She took deep breaths, counting the seconds before releasing them as she had taught herself to do a long time ago alone in the darkness. Finally, when the trembling had stopped, she swung herself out of bed, stood up on the cool, marble floor and padded barefoot to the window. She fiddled with catch, eventually pulling it open and letting in a fresh gust of cold air. She shivered in her nightdress, the tear she had not brushed away freezing on her cheek, and she unhooked the shutters to push them away from her with only a small creak.

In front of her lay the city of Rome. It slumbered, even its traffic noise quiet now, very few lights breaking up the hulking shadows of bell towers, domes and of course the slopes of the seven hills themselves. It was beautiful. As Mary stood there and calmed herself down the bells of some great church began to chime, three heavy chimes for three o'clock in the morning. There were no bells like this in England and normally it filled her with pleasure to realise how foreign this country was in so many ways. Now, however, she was only aware of one thing, that however far she went, it was impossible to run away from herself.

Chapter 13: The Price of Love

Notes:

Hope you're all enjoying season two. Obviously this story contains no spoilers though I have to admit that since I have an awareness of S02 since I'm watching it and the way the characters develop in that, it is likely that I may well be influenced by it. But not that influenced! And any similarities of plot are just interesting coincidences!

The night she became engaged to Matthew Crawley, Sybil did not sleep well. She felt changed in a fundamental way from the person she had been before and it caused great restlessness, both of mind and body.

From the moment she first saw the Abbey on her walk home she felt that she was seeing the world through different eyes, through the eyes of the future Countess of Grantham. Downton Abbey was no longer simply her childhood home that one day she would leave. Now, it was going to be her home for always, a place to manage and look after, to worry over, to love and to cherish, as her father and mother did. As she sat at her dressing table while Anna did her hair that evening, she considered her reflection in the mirror and fancied that it seemed more grown up. Would Anna become her lady's maid? she wondered. Would she like it? Never one to waste time in idle speculation, she asked her straight out.

"Eventually, would you rather be housekeeper or lady's maid?"

Anna smiled as she fixed a curl. "What a question, my lady! I haven't really given it much thought."

"But you must have some idea!"

"I suppose I shall go where I am most needed."

Sybil met her eyes in the mirror and sighed. "Yes, of course. And whatever you do, I'm sure you'll be very good at it."

Anna had always been closest to Mary but things were different now. She and Mary appeared to have swapped positions: Mary had Gwen and she had Anna. Curious, that. Sybil had never thought about the latter much before, but now she wondered. What were Anna's hopes and dreams? Of course she had them. When she was mistress, she decided, she would take good care of all the servants and let them pursue whatever their interests dictated. She would discover all their stories and support them, whatever the personal cost to the estate. There was never a shortage of people who wanted to work in service so it would hardly be a problem to lose the ones who didn't. She would be a revolutionary mistress.

Filled with these magnanimous plans, she followed Edith downstairs in near silence. So much so that her sister noticed it.

"You're very quiet, Sybil. What are you thinking about?"

Her eyes had been tracking an ancestral portrait which hung on the landing, a fine figure of a Regency statesman with a stern gaze and fashionable brown curls.

"Charles, the second Earl. I was wondering what he was like. Who he married. And what happened to him."

Edith turned round on the stairs and stared incredulously at her. "What an odd thing to think about all of a sudden! He married the Honourable Miss Victoria Spalding, youngest daughter of Viscount Umberforth, you know. They had six children but only one daughter survived infancy so the estate passed to his nephew, Edgar, the third Earl. As for him, he nearly bankrupted the estate in Charles' lifetime thanks to a gambling habit, and died not long after his uncle from the pox. That's why he has such a small portrait compared to the others. Why on earth do you ask?"

Sybil shook her head. "No reason." She descended the stairs, twisting her head to look back at Charles as she walked.

The history of Downton had been something to which she had previously given as little thought as she had to its future. Now that she had a stake in the one, however, she found she had an interest in the other. Poor Charles! Sybil tried to imagine having six children and losing five of them and then seeing the estate pass not to someone upstanding like Matthew or Patrick had been but to a wastrel. To know that everything you held dear was going to pass out of your hands into those of someone who didn't deserve them... it suddenly hit her, for the first time really. After all, she had always rather liked Matthew, and as the youngest daughter she had never given the issue of succession much thought. Reason told her that in these days of modern medicine it was very unlikely either that she would have six children (good Lord!) or that they would die before their time, but it could happen, or some other devastating tragedy would fall on Downton, her Downton, their Downton.

Dinner brought additional reflections. She watched her mother as she had never watched her before. She watched the way she drank her soup, the way she interacted with her husband, the way she turned to Carson and indicated with a subtle hand gesture that she required something... Sybil tried to see herself in her mother's place, tried to imagine Matthew at the head of the table in her father's place. But would Matthew really want to maintain this level of formality just for a family dinner? She could not quite see it somehow and yet – and yet what would Downton be like without its centuries old traditions? It was equally impossible to imagine eating dinner by the fire in the drawing room, just her and Matthew. Carson would not stand for it for a start.

She turned her attention to her parents' conversation. What did a Countess talk about over dinner?

Gossip from London, apparently.

"I had a letter from Rosamund today," Cora was saying.

"Oh?" replied the Earl. "Does she want another haunch, because I'm really not sure we can spare it."

"Of course we can, Robert. Where is she going to get proper venison from in London if not from us? No, she was telling me Susan Flintshire's got a new maid and she's even worse than the old one."

"Oh dear, poor Cousin Susan." He took a mouthful of food and nodded to Carson to fill up his wine glass.

"Not a bit of it; I'm sure I'd go mad if I had to work for her. O'Brien can't stand her."

"Is there anyone O'Brien can stand?"

"Don't be nasty, darling! All I was thinking is that we should start looking for someone for your mother for when she gets home. It would be so nice for her to come back and already be settled with a good maid."

"What if she doesn't come back?" interrupted Edith. "Haven't you thought of that? I can see her settling abroad quite easily, especially if Mary marries that Italian. Mary always was her favourite."

"My mother announce her intention of ending her days in a foreign country?" her father chuckled. "Now that I'd like to see."

Sybil sighed heavily and obviously. Was her family always this tedious?

"Darling, you're awfully quiet this evening!" said her mother. "Did something happen with Cousin Matthew?"

Her eyes widened and she shook her head. "No! No, nothing at all." She put her knife and fork down as her hands shook very slightly. Did they suspect? They weren't meant to know anything until Matthew came in the morning to ask permission! What would she do if they did suspect? "Please, go on with what you were saying about Aunt Rosamund's letter."

"There's not much more to say unless you particularly want to hear the details of her social life," Cora replied with a sharp look. Sybil lowered her eyes to her plate. "They're building up to a big dinner at the Russian Embassy in a couple of weeks."

"Yes, I've been invited to that," said Robert, also glancing with a quick frown at his youngest daughter. "Do you think we should go to London for it?"

"Why bother? It'll be dreadfully dreary – these things always are, and I can't believe the food will be any good. Not with the Russians in charge of it."

Embassy dinners in which real politics could be discussed, but never were. Sybil lost interest in the conversation again. One day, would she and Matthew have to attend them? More interesting than the dinners themselves, would they discuss attending them like this? She could not imagine it. How should a modern Countess behave? Perhaps she would be so revolutionary that she would not even be invited to embassy dinners in the first place. She was not entirely sure how she felt about that.

It was not until several hours later, when she was sitting in her nightdress at her dressing table, Anna dismissed for the night, that Sybil considered the other side of it and gingerly touched her lips in wonder.

She had never been kissed before. She had never even thought about it very much before except as something that people who loved each other did and that had no place in her life yet. Mary and Edith sometimes talked about it but as far as she knew neither had done it yet, though it was hard to tell. The way Mary had spoken about her seasons, one might be forgiven for thinking she had been continually fighting off desirous men with a parasol. Then again, Mary said a lot of things.

Sybil felt she should be more changed by the experience of having been kissed than she was. It had been... an odd sensation, that had caused an even odder swooping feeling, not unpleasant but nevertheless strange. She supposed she would get used to it but at the moment the very idea of being like that with Matthew seemed almost unaccountable. And what then? Sybil had only very imperfect ideas of what took place between a man and his wife once they were out of the public eye but just the notion of it made her physically squirm on her chair and look at her reflection afresh.

Was she in love with Matthew?

She felt this ought to be an easier question to answer than it was. To marry without love was something she instinctively abhorred in a way she knew her sisters did not, and yet love itself seemed difficult to recognize. Having accepted Matthew, did it mean she must therefore love him? Otherwise how could she have said 'yes'? It had been an automatic reaction, a feeling, sudden and unexpected, that she wanted to accept. So was that love? She liked him, she liked him very much; she thought he was handsome and good and noble in the true meaning of the word and trustworthy and kind and certainly the most interesting person she knew – well, Branson was perhaps more intriguing but their interaction was limited by circumstance and quite different to what she had with Matthew.

But did all this amount to romantic love? For that seemed a rather necessary criterion for marriage. Sybil was very aware at the back of her mind that when she had previously considered marriage it had been in the context of Branson's plan of using her husband's power for good, a plan in which love played no part. It was all very well, however, to consider sweeping plans in the abstract: this was the here and now. Not just some future hypothetical marriage which would never happen because Branson's ideas were utterly ridiculous but her marriage to Matthew – now.

Sybil wished for the first time that she was more of a reader and that she had some kind of cultural background in which to arrange her thoughts. Mary and Edith both read novels containing heroines whom they could look up to and identity with, fictional worlds of romance and sentiment. Mary had her long, difficult novels, volume after volume through which she would plough almost every day. Edith on the other hand enjoyed Jane Austen, preferring satire to psychology. But Sybil had never really read anything but the most superficial fiction and she could not call on the experiences of the likes of Anne Elliot or Catherine Earnshaw or Tess Durbeyfield to help her understand her feelings.

What had Mary been reading before going to Italy? She had been telling her about it only a few days before her departure when she had finally finished the eighth volume, just in time. How the heroine, virtuous but not without flaws, forbidden by a clause in her late husband's will from ever marrying or even associating with the man she so desperately loved, when threatened with being separated from him forever had thrown away her fortune, independence and property for his sake. Shunned by her family for her incomprehensible actions, they were still happy in their poverty. Mary had spoken as if on some level she admired Dorothea's actions – at least, she had spoken wistfully – but was that possible? To be willing to give up everything, every comfort, every expectation, for one person; was that love in its purest form?

Sybil could not in all honesty look into her heart and declare that she would be ready to give up her life as she knew it for Matthew. Perhaps it was fortunate therefore that she would only be gaining by the marriage. She would have an enviable position not just socially but one most perfectly suited to her own interests, she would secure Downton's future for her family's descendants as Mary had failed to do, and most importantly (surely most importantly?) she would be married to Matthew who was one of the best men she knew. It could not be more perfect.

But was love really dependent on making huge personal sacrifices? Most people married and loved and did not give up rank and fortune and nobody called their feelings into question... Sybil's native pragmatism began to re-emerge. Impassioned declarations of forbidden desire during thunderstorms might work all very well in novels but they hardly resembled anything she knew in real life and perhaps, just perhaps, it did Mary no good to be such a romantic.

Suddenly desperate to try to arrange her thoughts since she had no friend in whom she could confide or ask advice, she pulled a piece of writing paper towards her, began Dear Gwen and started to write, the words pouring out of her without any coherence or restraint.

Some time later, the letter finished, addressed and sealed before she could change her mind about sending it, Sybil stood up feeling considerably calmer and stretched, before carrying her candle across to her bed. She set it down on the bedside table and climbed in, pulling the covers right up to her chin and staring out across the room. Then, almost as if she was afraid of what she might discover, she turned to the expanse of bed at her side. One day, soon perhaps, she would no longer be alone here. She wondered rather irrelevantly what kind of pyjamas Matthew wore. She hoped they were nicer than her father's which were such a dull, unappealing grey. Moreover his hair would not be quite so slicked back as it usually was, she imagined. She fancied she would rather like that. Her heart began to beat a little faster at thinking about Matthew so informally attired.

No, maybe Mary did read too many novels but the spirit of romance had been now awoken in Sybil's breast among all the other new feelings she was experiencing that night. In that final moment before blowing out her candle when for the first time in her life she was aware of being lonely in her own room, she wished that she could make sense of her feelings and she hoped with all her heart that she would be able to succeed in the new life she would be beginning in the morning as the fiancée to the future Earl of Grantham.

Notes:

I just want to say a quick word about Sybil in relation to S02. I'm worried that she is developing very differently here to how she is in S02 (the extent of this will become clear soon) but this story is entirely based on her character as we knew it in S01 and on an AU scenario taking place in 1913. I still think it's a plausible interpretation of her, just one that, unlike Matthew and Mary who I think do fit rather well with their S02 characters, is rather different to canon. I hope you think she's ok.

Next chapter: Matthew asks Robert's permission to marry Sybil, while over in Italy, Mary's situation changes.

As ever, I'd love to know what you thought - it's really so interesting to read people's varying responses to this story, and it does honestly make me more inclined to write more of it! Thank you for reading. :-)

Chapter 14: The Greener Grass

For the party in Rome, the morning after Sybil and Matthew became engaged started just like any other day. By the end of the week they would proceed to Naples and while it would naturally be blasphemy to suggest that it was possible to grow tired of the Eternal City, Mary at least felt ready to move on. Count Sciarpa had left for his castle the previous week, bidding them only a temporary farewell and, without him as a guide, Mary was forced to rely on her Baedeker to show her round the sites which was altogether far less entertaining. She had, however, become used to the Bowens. After all, human nature can adapt to anything and though they were not clever, Mary recognized that they were decent people. Still, without Count Sciarpa there to roll her eyes at over Hettie's head, she had to draw on considerable reserves of patience not to treat her to the kind of cutting sarcasm she knew would in fact be undeserved.

Mrs. Bowen had received a letter from one of her sisters in England and was deeply involved in reading it over breakfast. She looked up suddenly to say, "You are the Crawleys of Downton Abbey, aren't you?"

"Are there any others?" retorted the dowager countess as if the idea was inconceivable.

Mary couldn't resist. "There are the Hampshire Crawleys, I believe, but-"

"But we are most certainly not related to them!"

"Quite."

"What's wrong with them?" queried Hettie.

Mary's lip twitched. "Oh heavens, they're just not our kind of people, you know."

Hettie didn't know, of course, and in fact there was nothing much wrong with them at all as far as Mary was aware – in fact, she had never met a single member of that family and neither she imagined had her grandmother.

Lady Grantham was observing Mrs. Bowen with slightly narrowed eyes. "Why do you ask?"

"No reason really. I just told Agatha - my sister, you know - in my last letter who we had met out here and she was wondering if you were the Crawleys of Downton Abbey. Are you sure you don't know her – Mrs. Arnold Maitland? She seems to knowofyou at least. Arnold works in the home office."

"I thought it was the department of state or whatever you call it in England," said Hettie.

"Well, you may be right after all," replied her mother.

"No," interrupted the dowager firmly, "I am quite sure we are not acquainted."

"If he works at the foreign office he may know the Honourable Mr. Napier, who is a friend of mine," said Mary. "Perhaps he has mentioned us."

"Oh, very likely, very likely. Agatha knows everybody so it doesn't much signify in what context she heard the name."

Mary found the conversation suddenly rather tedious. She stared down at the half eaten croissant on her plate and realised she did not want to finish it. She forced herself to look up and say indifferently, "What does it matter anyway whether we are the Downton Crawleys or not?"

"I'm sure it doesn't-" replied Mrs. Bowen at the same time as Violet said, "It matters, my dear, that we are not taken to be the Hampshire Crawleys. That is all."

"- only I said how nice it was to meet you and find another pair travelling through Italy like us and she can't help being curious. You know, it's a shame your sisters didn't accompany you. You girls get along so well and there's that nice little maid of yours, Lady Mary, but the more the merrier I always say!"

The more the merrier? Perhaps if Sybil were of the party. Mary expected that Sybil might get along better with Hettie than she did herself when they met in the spring in London and it would have been nice to have her sister with her in Italy, all things considered, but Edith would only have been a drag.

She shrugged and replied, "I'm not sure you'd say that if my sisters werehere. Anyway," she continued more stridently, "if I am here to be married off like the desperate case I am, then I want as little competition as possible."

"Mary, really!" exclaimed her grandmother in displeasure, though she needn't have said anything for her to regret her words. She couldn't think what had made her say them. The Bowens were not family, however superficially intimate they had recently become, and she knew what kind of behaviour was expected of her. She gripped her butter knife as if her life depended on it even though she had no intention of eating any more.

Hettie was more friendly than the dowager countess. "Lady Mary, you're not a desperate case!" she cried. "What would make you say that? You must see that Count Sciarpa is wildly in love with you, anyone can tell, and you can go and be a countess in a castle in the middle of the sea; what could be more romantic? I'm sure if we weren't friends I'd be awfully jealous."

Mary forced a smile. "You're very sweet," she said absently, "Oh, Hettie, you should know by now that I rarely mean what I say – you really shouldn't take me seriously."

The prospect of marrying Count Sciarpa and living in a romantic castle in the Mediterranean sea should make her feel happier than it did. That he would ask her, she was tolerably sure, or at least as sure as anyone could be in the circumstances, considering he had kissed her hand when they had parted and had expressed a great desire to introduce her to his sister and welcome her to the Castello del'Isola when they came to Naples. Mary knew men, and this was a man who was interested. But was she?

She knew she ought to be and that he was really her last chance. Overlooking the fact that he was a foreigner and therefore would always be looked down upon by her relations, he was incredibly eligible: rich, attractive (for a short man), cultured, and intelligent. If it came down to a choice between him and Anthony Strallan, there would be no contest. In fact, his foreignness was a significant part of his appeal. As an Englishman, he would have been faintly ridiculous and not half so interesting. Mary liked to think that if she married him there would be a few sniffs of disapproval back home and that taking him to Downton to meet her family would have a humorous side to it. What Papa would say to this fancy, little man being introduced as her husband she had no idea but quite enjoyed imagining it.

Yet these reflections, however amusing, never lasted long and afterwards she felt despondent. Italy was lonely, not because Mary was afraid of her own company – quite the reverse, but because outside of her very small circle she really did know nobody. Her Italian was good enough to speak to servants and make basic conversation but she struggled to express herself in any more complex situation which was extremely frustrating. Reading newspapers and books was a similar challenge. It all meant that she felt a unsurpassable cultural barrier. Perhaps in time she could feel at home abroad, but as it was, while she could enjoy the idea of staying in a castle and meeting Sciarpa's sister in the short term, she could never imagine herself as its mistress, as a hostess, as an Italian contessa in the way that she could see her future as the mistress of a similar estate in England. Something was holding her back from accepting this future, some desire to put it off and avoid it or some feeling that perhaps Count Sciarpa needn't be her last chance after all.

The conversation at breakfast stopped her from painting her life back in England in too rosy colours, however. England meant the tedium found in so much of society, although perhaps if her Italian improved she would discover that it was no different here; it might only sound more sophisticated because she did not understand it. England also meant gossip and never being able to get away from her past. So long as there was Evelyn Napier and the foreign office and rumours about her virtue she would never be able to be easy. Even coming as far as Italy, it seemed there was no escape from being reminded of it. How far, she wondered, would she have to run to be free from what she had done?

Mary was beginning to feel uneasily aware of her future. The approaching trip to Naples would determine whether she would be remaining in Italy for the rest of her life or whether she would be once again returning to England single, a matrimonial failure. If she had managed to pretend for most of the trip that she really was travelling for the improvement of her mind and the appreciation of culture, these increasingly frequent references to Sciarpa and her situation from her grandmother and the Bowens, however innocuous in themselves, could not fail to remind her of the real purpose of her journey. The only reason she was here was because she had quarrelled with Matthew and dismissed Sir Anthony; this was her exile, her punishment, and her chance to atone by making a successful marriage away from home and the machinations of her relatives. As the last stop on their tour approached, Mary felt a strange sense of fatality, of an approaching point of climax that would decide her destiny for ever.

In the meantime, however, there was breakfast to be finished and the day to be planned. Hettie and her mother wanted to buy presents for their friends back in the States and they left soon after they had finished eating. Mary returned to her room to await marching orders from her grandmother. They had nothing planned and after an exhausting trip to the ruins of Ostia the previous day, she suspected that they would accomplish little more than a gentle passeggiata before dinner. A quiet day would mean more time for reflection which was to be avoided and she considered whether she might not go out later with Gwen, whatever the dowager countess chose to do.

In the mean time, she sat at her desk and contemplated writing letters. She gave up quickly. Who was there to write to apart from her parents to whom she had nothing to say or Sybil to whom she had written recently and not yet had a reply? In fact, the other day when she had seen the famous statue of Laocoon and his sons being attacked by sea-serpents, she had thought of Matthew and her silly comparison of him to a sea-monster when they had first met. She had wanted to send him a postcard of the statue with a wry comment about it being a good likeness, but she had resisted the impulse. Who knew whether he would appreciate levity from her when their truce on the eve of her departure had been so fragile and they had had no contact since. Who knew what he thought of her now.

Abandoning the idea of letters, she picked up her latest novel but had only read a paragraph before Violet entered the room with a serious expression and the clear intention of having a conversation.

What she had to say was soon said. The fact of the matter was that she was getting old. No, she was not quite on her deathbed, but the period of intense travel, intense sightseeing, and a different diet had taken more of a toll on her than she had expected or even imagined that it would.

Mary could not be surprised. More and more frequently her grandmother had rested while Mary, Hettie, Mrs. Bowen, sometimes Gwen and Count Sciarpa had gone out. When she had accompanied them, she had been slower and more reliant on her stick, though she never drew attention to it. All the same, concerned as she was, Mary's first response and first question was what this would mean for her and for their trip.

The dowager countess had made up her mind about her own movements at least. She was going to return directly to Lady Eastwick's villa, a few weeks earlier than planned. Telegrams had been sent backwards and forwards and it was all already arranged. As for what Mary did, it seemed she had a choice. Either she could accompany her grandmother back to Florence or she could continue to Naples under the protection of Mrs. Bowen.

"Chaperoned by that woman?" exclaimed Mary in horror. "Impossible!"

Violet cleared her throat and fixed her with a gimlet-eyed glare. "Mrs. Bowen was kind enough to volunteer to take you."

Mary pressed her eyes closed and sighed. "I'm sure she was, but really! It's all very well having dinner with her, but to be under her protection... I can't believe you'd agree to it, Granny."

"I did. We both thought that it would be very unfortunate for you to miss the opportunity to visit Naples and see Count Sciarpa's castle to which you have been invited and-"

"Oh, that!" interrupted Mary wearily.

"Yes, that. You have an opportunity here and you'd be a very foolish girl to let it slip simply because you think Mrs. Bowen is vulgar. If you come back to the villa straight away it will all have been for naught and you might as well have spent the winter with my sister-in-law in Brighton, as your father so intelligently suggested. You must seize your advantage; the count won't wait around for you, that's for sure."

Mary blinked at her escape. A winter with Great-Aunt Elizabeth; had that really been the alternative? Good Lord, anything was preferable. But moving on from that, there was little to approve of in what her grandmother had said next.

"Naturally I wouldn't expect him to waitbut what makes you think he wouldn't come to Florence again?" Her pride was stung.

"Humph, I don't think so. In real life, my dear, Mohammed prefers to exert himself as little as possible and leave all the effort to the mountain."

Mary did not know if this was true or not. She had never had much problem getting men to do things for her, everything apart from proposing marriage, that was. On the other hand, there was something rather depressingly unromantic about acknowledging that a man would not even get a train from one city to another to pursue the woman he appeared to want to marry. The St. George of the painting in Venice rescuing the princess from the dragon would not have thought twice about it.

It was Mary's choice, however, to continue or to return. Although an extra couple of weeks added onto their stay with the Eastwicks was insignificant considering they were going to stay with them until the spring, it still seemed like a big deal. Two more weeks spent in the country in wintertime where there was nobody of her own age to talk to was contrasted with enduring being Mrs. Bowen's charge in order to explore another city, see the ruins of Pompeii and, of course, visit the castle on the island.

In the end, there really was no contest.

*

Many hundreds of miles away at Downton Abbey, Lord Grantham and his two daughters were also having breakfast. An good night's sleep had increased Sybil's equanimity somewhat and before Anna left her to go to Edith, she had pressed Gwen's letter into her hands and made her promise to post it immediately. No going back now, she thought, straightening her back and leaving the safety of her bedroom, and she imagined the letter winging itself way across the channel, over the Alps and through the hotel window to her friend.

There was a new source of nerves about this morning, however, that only increased as breakfast wore on. Matthew was going to come and ask her father's permission. How would she behave towards him? How would he behave towards her? What would her father say? Oh, she was sure he would be pleased; how could he not be when it would be ensuring that the estate stayed in the family. Still, she had natural modesty at the thought of discussing her marriage with her parents and yet, soon, she would be. Her anxiety, however, made her peevish and fretful with herself. She was not used to feeling unsure about anything.

They were still eating and Robert was shaking his head over the international politics page of the Saturday paper when Carson came in to say that Mr. Crawley had arrived and wanted to see his Lordship.

As Robert looked up with a frown, Sybil looked down at her plate, her heart beating fast.

"Yes, of course," replied the earl. "I'll see him in the library. Do you think he'll want some coffee? He's very early considering all we're going to do today is look at drainage plans for the cottages."

"I wouldn't put it past Matthew to be enthusiastic about drainage," remarked Edith as her father left the room, carrying his cup in one hand and the paper in the other.

"There's nothing wrong with that," Sybil retorted and began buttering a muffin with unusual energy. "Somebody has to be."

Her sister stared at her. "I'm sure, but Matthew needn't be."

But Matthew did need to be because if he wasn't then how would the workers know what should be done? She drank a large sip of coffee and burned her tongue. NowMatthew would be greeting her father. Now he would be apologising for interrupting breakfast. Now her father would be offering him something to eat...

She heaved a sigh. "Oh, Edith, you don't understand!"

"Understand what? Honestly, Sybil, sometimes I think you confuse being an earl with being a property developer or something like that."

Now he would be explaining that he hadn't come early because of the cottages but because he had something specific to say. Now her father would look curious and ask him what. Did he have any idea? Could he have seen some change in Matthew's behaviour towards her? Lord, she hadn't seen anything! Had there been any change?

"A property developer?" She splashed milk into her cup and a little splattered onto the saucer and table cloth.

"I don't know. It's just that you seem to think that Matthew is doing something great and noble compared to what other landowners do by repairing some run down cottages but really he's no different from the rest of them."

Now he had told her father. Now her father was shaking his hand. They were both smiling. Now he was saying it was all he had ever wanted. Now-

The door opened and she dropped her butter knife on the floor in nervous shock.

"Goodness, Sybil, you're all fingers and thumbs today!" said Edith curiously. "Whatever's the matter? I think it has something to do with Matthew coming early. I think there's something you're not telling us."

It was Carson. "Lady Sybil, Lord Grantham wishes to see you in the library."

It was done! She stood up immediately, ignoring Edith, and walked very quickly across the room, past Carson and through to the library. Her father and Matthew were both standing when she came in. The earl was near his desk, facing away from her. Matthew had his hands clasped behind his back, was bouncing a little on the balls of his feet and it was his eyes she caught first. He gave her a closed-lipped smiled, his eyebrows raising as he did so. It was more hopeful and nervous than reassuring and warm, but it was a smile all the same and she returned it tentatively.

"Hello," she said. This was Matthew, her fiancé. Should she cross over to him? she wondered. Perhaps she had better wait to hear what her father said first.

"Ah, Sybil." He turned round and must have seen how unsure she appeared because he smiled. "Come here, darling." He held out his hand and, relieved though wondering at the same time why she should be when he could have no possible objection, she went to him.

He took hold of her arms and looked her up and down very gravely and very fondly. "Cousin Matthew tells me you have agreed to marry him."

Sybil glanced across at Matthew, closer now, who smiled more widely. It gave her confidence to meet her father's eye and nod. "Yes, I have."

"Well." He looked at her some more. "I can't say his declaration took me completely by surprise, though I didn't expect him to ask you so soon."

"Cousin Robert, I-" began Matthew but Robert waved him quiet.

"Are you pleased? Did you give your consent?" burst out of her. She could no longer keep quiet.

Her father looked at her for a long time and then pressed his lips to her forehead before standing back and releasing her. He sighed. "Yes, I did. How could I not? It is the answer to all our prayers."

All of the worry that she had not realised she had been feeling was released and she sagged with relief. "Oh, Papa!" She flung her arms round him and kissed his cheek.

"My dear girl," he murmured, his arms embracing her back for a moment, "my very dear girl." Over her shoulder he met Matthew's gaze and looked at him very seriously. Matthew in turn nodded his head in understanding and acceptance of the charge laid upon him.

Father and daughter drew apart and Robert resigned her hand, with a pointed look, to Matthew. Sybil felt more comfortable now. Odd, but comfortable, and she smiled warmly up at him as she went to stand by his side, loosely holding his hand. Lord Grantham sat down at his desk and moved his chair unnecessarily, giving them a little moment to themselves before turning back.

"Now, Sybil, I have given my consent to Matthew, but before I give it to you, I want to hear what you have to say."

"Me?" she repeated blankly.

"I want to hear from your lips, darling, not just Matthew's that this is what you want."

Matthew squeezed her hand and she felt a sudden appreciation for his silent support. "It is what I want," she said firmly, "and I shan't change my mind about it either."

Her father looked between them for a few moments and then nodded. "In that case I give you my consent too. However, I give it on one condition, a condition I should say that Matthew has already accepted."

"What is it?" She frowned between them but Matthew squeezed her hand again and did not seem overly troubled.

"Simply this: that there is no talk of a wedding until after your season, and that until then the engagement is known only within the close family."

"But, I don't-" she began protesting instinctively.

"You know," said Matthew calmly, "I think your father's right."

"You do?"

"What he means is that you're very young-"

"I'm seventeen!"

"That is quite young, Sybil, you have to admit it. You're very young and while we know that you're not going to change your mind, your father wants you to have a proper London season just like any other girl without having to worry about showing me any preference or behaving in a certain kind of way."

The more he spoke the more stubborn and resistant Sybil felt herself becoming. "What if I want to show you preference?"

His lips twitched into a grin. "Well, nobody's stopping you doing that either. I confess, I'm glad you say so. It would be somewhat galling to be stood up by one's own fiancée."

She grinned back, a little breathlessly. "I don't really understand why this is necessary, but if this is the one condition then I suppose I'd better accept!"

"Good!" said her father. "In that case, I suggest we get Cora and Edith in and tell them the news."

He went to ring the bell, saying as he did so, "Oh, and you'd better write to Mama and Mary, Sybil; they should know too."

She thought of the letter already posted to Gwen but only nodded. "I'll do so tonight."

"Good. And Matthew, considering the occasion, I think the drains can wait for now, unless you're particularly keen to do them today."

Matthew looked up quickly. "Oh no. No, I'm not particularly keen. Thank you, I appreciate that." He had been frowning at the floor, momentarily distracted for some reason.

Chapter 15: May They Be Happy

It was surprising how quickly things returned to normal after the engagement, yet the feeling of strangeness never quite left Sybil. The rest of the family took the news with almost offensive calmness and lack of excitement. Her mother pulled an extraordinary face and said she'd never heard the like, then followed it up it quickly with a kiss and an expression of happiness, before agreeing that keeping it within the family was very sensible. Edith's reaction was even more unanticipated. Sybil had expected her to be happy for her – they had always been good friends – but she had immediately become distant and even made some snide comments about her being a dark horse and made out that her interest in socialism and women's rights was all pretend. Sybil was offended, perhaps more than she should have been if she had not felt in a small part of herself that the criticism was justified. Still, it was upsetting to see her relationship with her sister sink so fast.

"You just want to step into Mary's shoes," complained Edith bitterly. "Lord it over us all now she's out of the way."

"No!" cried Sybil. "No. That – that's not at all what it's about." She was unprepared for these attacks and did not know how to respond to them.

"I suppose you imagine it's a romantic match. Do you really think Cousin Matthew is love with you? Honestly, dear, I gave you more credit."

She retreated into her room before Sybil could think of a reply, with the satisfied air of one who had won a round against an inferior opponent.

She did not know what to make of it. Matthew had proposed to her, had said such lovely things to her, she had accepted, he had kissed her. It was romantic and what business was it of Edith's anyway? She hoped she came round to it soon though; it was bad enough listening to her sniping with Mary without suddenly becoming a target herself.

Then she overheard a snippet of a conversation between her parents when the library door had been left ajar.

"What about Mary?" her mother was saying.

It was her father's exasperated reply that made Sybil pause to listen. "Oh, now you care what happens to Mary after shipping her off to Italy and practically engineering this! It's a bit late to worry about her now, isn't it?"

"It doesn't need to be, Robert... We could bring her home. It's not unreasonable with your mother unwell. Forget that mysterious Italian count!"

"But she's happy. That's what she said."

Cora sighed. "I hope she is, truly I do."

Sybil shook her head in confusion and quickly moved away. She was not the kind of girl who eavesdropped, especially on things that made no sense. She hoped Mary was happy too for it bothered her to think that she might not be, something that had never occurred to her might be the case. Still, it was too early to expect a reply from Italy, either from Gwen or from Mary.

"It's almost as if they're saying they approve but they don't," she said in an undertone to Matthew in the library after dinner a couple of nights later. Carson was observing them and since the servants hadn't been informed, Sybil felt constantly on edge, feeling as if she was doing something wrong by talking to the man she was going to marry. "They smile and say 'congratulations' but they don't mean it because it's not what they planned. But that's our sort of people for you. I hate it, you know, creeping around with a secret, as if we were doing something shameful!"

For a moment Matthew had looked oddly wistful, staring fixedly at one of windows with its looped back red curtains, then he turned quickly back to her with a reassuring smile. "I think it's alright to find it strange. It's a big change after all, but they're just trying to protect you."

"I don't need protecting, Matthew!" she scoffed. "I'm quite old enough to know my own mind. It's just... they seem to care more about this house party they're planning than about us."

The house party was the countess' idea after Robert had decided not to go to London for the Russian Embassy dinner. Invite all the important people for a weekend just after the dinner and they would surely pass on the relevant gossip without them needing to have been in attendance.

Matthew and Sybil fell silent to listen to the discussion between her parents.

"...And we can have your sister and the Flintshires as well," suggested Cora.

"Susan and Rosamund in the same room? Are you sure that's wise? And with Mama away too!"

"Yes, she will be sorry to miss the drama, but honestly, darling, these embassy officials are all so tedious – at least your relations will bring some interest to the event."

"Thank you, my dear. I'm sure Susan would love to know you think of her as the after dinner entertainment."

"I don't think it would do her any harm if she did know!" returned Cora with a bit of a smirk.

Sybil sighed and muttered to Matthew, "If they really wanted an interesting party, we could announce our engagement."

He chuckled and shook his head. "Your father is right. Wait till your season; aren't you having a ball? That would be a good time to announce it."

She brightened. The ball would be an excellent time. Still, it was so far off; she was not sure she could stand all the creeping around for so many more months. She could not really tell Matthew how desperately she missed Gwen or how upset Edith's inexplicable sudden snideness made her feel. She wanted to tell someone, and have some friend she could confide in. She wanted to tell Branson in particular, especially after all the encouragement he had given her. Why, if it hadn't been for him she probably would never have even thought of marrying Matthew!

"Yes," she said eventually, concealing her feelings behind a smile that for once was an effort. "Let's do it then. In the meantime, you'll have to remain my only ally a little longer."

He smiled affectionately back at her. "I'll always be your ally, my dear."

*

Secret as the engagement was, Sybil almost immediately began to notice a change in her mother's attitude towards her. Subtly, her importance was growing. Her opinion was asked, she was involved more, she was promoted. "What do you think, Sybil?" and "Why don't you run and ask Mrs. Hughes about it, Sybil?" If it weren't for Edith's despondency and jealousy and not being able to talk about it to anyone she would have been able to be very happy with this arrangement. She liked having things to do and being in training to be a countess had the allure of novelty.

One day almost a week after the engagement was formed, Lady Grantham requested her to accompany her into Ripon on some errands. Sybil agreed gladly, for she had not been further than Crawley House for some time. It would also be the first time she would see Branson since her engagement. As she got into the car, she caught his eye and smiled particularly meaningfully. How frustrating it was! For he simply smiled back, a little unsure. How happy he would be, she thought, to know that she was going to marry Matthew and become Countess of Grantham and use her influence for good and give her pin money to the suffragettes and all the things he would approve of and they had discussed.

In that moment she made up her mind that he would know. Never mind what her parents said – it was her affair and she would tell him if she wanted to. She sat down next to her mother with a feeling of greater firmness and agency than she had felt all week. Once they had got out into the open country and her mother had stopped going on about the account she was settling at the milliner's, Sybil turned to her and stated confidently that she wanted a new dress.

The countess stared at her. "But, darling, it's Edith's turn next and you will be getting all sorts of new things from London in the spring before your season. What do you want a new dress for right now?"

"What about for the house party?"

"I really don't think anyone from the embassy will mind if you're wearing last year's fashion."

Sybil glanced forwards. Branson's head was up and his eye on the mirror. He was listening. Her lips pressed into a determined smile. "I suppose they're not that important. What about an engagement present then, Mama?"

"Oh, Sybil-" Cora began in a pleading tone but broke off as the car swung violently to one side and both of them were forced to clutch onto the door handles for balance.

"Branson!" she exclaimed as he narrowly avoided the ditch and swerved back onto the road. "What's going on?"

"Sorry, your ladyship," he replied, his tone strained. "Fox on the road."

Sybil found her heart was beating fast from the shock of the sudden movement. "Did you miss it?" she asked anxiously, leaning forwards a little.

There was a fraction of hesitation before he replied, "Yes. It's gone anyway."

She leaned back on her seat and her mother relaxed her grip on the handle. "Well, Branson, I'm glad there's been no bloodshed today, but do keep your eyes on the road in future."

"Yes, your ladyship," he replied respectfully, but his eyes in the mirror were on Sybil and they lingered a moment too long. She was suddenly filled with the cold feeling that somehow, for some reason, she had made a terrible mistake.

By the time they had reached Ripon she was in a state of almost unbearable nervous tension from her desperation to talk to Branson and explain herself though why this was important was something of a mystery. It did not help that her mother was clearly displeased with her. The inevitable lecture would not come till they were back home but the way she had put her foot down about the new dress (not that Sybil really cared) could not have been more pointed. When they reached the milliner's Cora indicated that she was to follow, which was after all the point of the excursion, but Sybil stayed mutinously in her seat.

"I don't think I'll come after all."

The countess was too annoyed to bother arguing and with a shrug she left her there. Sybil did not care. There were more important things than her mother thinking she was being childish. As soon as she was safely in the shop, she sat right on the edge of her seat and addressed him in a low but commanding voice.

"Branson!" He turned half way round, far enough for her to know that she had his attention. "There wasn't any fox, was there?"

Now he turned as far as he could and just looked at her for a moment. She stared back anxiously, chewing her lip. She shouldn't have said anything, or not like that... Maybe her parents had been right about keeping it secret. And yet she was frustrated because she did not understand what she had done that was so terrible except that she felt it very strongly.

"You're engaged then," he said eventually. "I suppose you want me to say 'congratulations'."

"Thank you... You're not meant to know about it though, so don't talk about it, please."

"Why would I want to?"

"I don't know but just please don't!" she cried, uncomfortably aware of being flustered and defensive. "Aren't you even a little bit happy for me?" Then before he could reply, continued, "Aren't you going to ask me who it is I'm engaged to?"

For a moment she thought she saw a look of scorn cross his face but she had to be mistaken because the chauffeur had no right to look scornfully at her.

"Come on, there isn't much to choose from round here, is there, my lady? And I don't think William would've been able to keep it to himself."

"William?" She stared at him. "Mr. Crawley!"

"Obviously."

"You're really not happy, are you?" she said curiously. "I thought you would be. In a way it was your idea. I can do everything now, everything I wanted-"

"My idea!" he exclaimed, lowering his eyes a moment. He shook his head, seeming almost amused. "Do you love him, Lady Sybil?"

Her cheeks flushed and her lips parted at how abrupt the question was.

"Because if you really do then I'll try to be happy for you."

She shook her head in denial and broke eye contact with him. There was something overly intense about the way he was looking at her and it made her shift uncomfortably.

"I don't think that's any of your business," she muttered.

Now that she was embarrassed he seemed to have recovered some of his usual energy and he retorted with spirit, "I'm sorry, my lady, but you've made it my business now. So do you love him?"

Sybil frowned and opened and shut her mouth. She did not know what to say. Branson had just given up and made a kind of scoffing sigh of resignation when she burst out with the only answer she felt able to give him, "Of course I do! Why else would I marry him? Honestly, Branson, I don't know why you're being so strange about this. I thought we were friends."

Now the intense look was back and her eyes were drawn back to his without being able to stop it. They were just as blue as Matthew's, she noted, but more brilliant in some way. More powerful. They blazed with something that – Good God, they were just eyes. What was wrong with her?

"Friends, you and I?" he cried and would have continued if the milliner's door had not opened and Cora had not emerged. Sybil looked abruptly away feeling heat flush across her face and slid back on the car seat, wrapping her arms round herself. She felt odd.

Branson immediately got out to open the door for the countess, which he did with an even more rigidly blank expression than usual. Sybil couldn't look at him; she did not understand.

Lady Grantham arranged her skirts as she sat down and Branson slammed the door and returned to his side of the vehicle. She glanced across at her daughter, huddled even more resentfully in the corner and suppressed a sigh.

"I think we'd better go home, Branson, and let's try to stay on the road this time."

He nodded sharply. "Yes, your ladyship."

Sybil said nothing.

*

It was the last day in Rome and it was time for the parting of the ways. At midday the dowager countess would board a train to return to Florence and the restful company of Lord and Lady Eastwick in the Tuscan countryside. About half an hour later, Mary, Gwen and the Bowens would board a different train going in the opposite direction, bound for the south of Italy. Gwen had been up late packing for her two mistresses and she rose early to pack for herself. She was already dressed and putting the finishing touches to her suitcase when the hotel cameriera knocked on her door to deliver a letter that had arrived with the first post.

Gwen recognized Lady Sybil's handwriting and smiled. She loved receiving these letters, hearing news of the family back at home, and picking up as best she could the tangential references to the servants downstairs – Anna, William, Mr. Branson, Daisy, Lily and all the others. Lady Sybil did not write much about the new maid, Ethel, and Gwen was pleased about that. She might not want to return to being a housemaid when the trip to Italy was over, but that did not mean she wanted to know how much everyone loved her replacement. Finally, and most importantly, it brought her close to Sybil and with every letter she was once again overwhelmed to be the recipient of her friend's regard and confidence in her.

She eagerly tore open the envelope and let her eyes dart over the first few lines of Sybil's sloping handwriting which always looked as if the thoughts in her head were spilling out too fast to be committed to paper in the normal fashion. After only a few sentences, however, she was forced to sit down on her bed as the air was knocked out of her in astonishment.

Lady Sybil was engaged to be married.

In those first few moments of reaction, Gwen knew that she ought to be happy for her friend when all she felt was a strange kind of desolation. Shaking off her treacherous feelings, she forced herself to read on.

Never had Sybil written such a letter, such an outpouring, to her. Her letters were always warm and friendly but this was spontaneity and trust such as she had not seen before. Every hope and joy and anxiety was there. What it had felt like to be kissed for the first time, whether she would make a good wife, whether she was doing the right thing... It was all there in Sybil's letter. Gwen's hands trembled as she read. She did not deserve this intimacy, to be the recipient of such deep and confidential details, and on a strange level she resented it. She was used to being Lady Sybil's inferior in terms of social position, beauty, intelligence, gentleness, and, well, in every other respect too, but here was something else to add to the list. She had never been kissed or proposed to; she could only imagine these things. With this engagement, her friend was starting on a journey where she could not follow. Sybil would have love and companionship and a position and a future and suddenly in that moment Gwen felt very aware that she had none of these things and no prospect of getting them either. Once Lady Mary's trip was over, whether it ended in her return to Downton or her marriage, Gwen would need a job and she would be doing it alone, and her friendship with Lady Sybil for one thing would be at an end. She had known it would happen one day of course but this outpouring of feeling, of things happening on Sybil's end only made it more real.

She held the letter delicately between fingers and stared into space. This sudden sadness was unmerited and selfish, she knew it was. She felt glad for Lady Sybil, really she did, and an engagement should always be a celebration even if the bride seemed unsure about so many things. (That was natural too, wasn't it?) What exciting news! How wonderful a wedding would be at Downton! What a nice gentleman Mr. Crawley was! How happy Lady Mary must be to hear of it!

Right on cue, the bell rang. Gwen jumped up, smoothed down her dress as if the action could straighten her out on the inside as well as on the outside, and prepared to put on a happy face. As was only appropriate anyway.

Lady Mary was already almost dressed when she reached her room. Gwen merely had to tighten her corset and help her into a dress suitable for a day's hard travelling before she followed her to her dressing table to do her hair.

"Are you looking forward to pastures new then?" her ladyship asked, briefly meeting her eyes in the mirror.

She nodded. "I think so, my lady. It's always exciting to go somewhere new. Are you?"

She gave a light shrug, her lips twisting. "I suppose so; I'll miss Granny. It will be easier for you though; only having me to deal with!"

Gwen was not quite sure how to respond to that so she only smiled in what she hoped was a suitably winning way. There was a melancholy, she noticed, that sometimes fell over her mistress. A kind of – of not sadness really, but resignation. Gwen did not know what to make of it. She had always thought of Lady Mary as the cold one, the brittle and harsh one, but over the few weeks she had been with her, she had not seen that. She was not friendly as her sister was, of course, but sometimes she said things, things that seemed almost foolishly frank and open, assuming they were true. Moreover, she was always good to her. If the Crawleys bought cake, then Gwen always had a piece when they returned to the hotel; if she was acting as companion or chaperone on a visit without Lady Grantham then Mary always seemed to know what she was interested in and slowed to accommodate her without even having to ask her. The difference in their respective positions never disappeared but Gwen felt that if one had to have a mistress then Lady Mary was probably the kind one wanted to have. But what she could have to be resigned or melancholy about, she could not imagine. In her eyes, Lady Mary had everything.

She finished combing through her beautiful, chestnut hair and reached down to pick up a clip, saying as she did so, "You must be pleased about Lady Sybil's news."

Lady Mary raised her eyes in the mirror. "Oh? I dare say I am."

"I mean – you have heard...?" Gwen stammered. It had not occurred to her that she could possibly have received word of the engagement before the family had, that Sybil's thoughts should have turned to her before her sister.

Her ladyship frowned into the mirror. "What should I have heard?" She raised her eyebrows. "And how have you?"

Gwen felt herself blushing; she had put her foot in it. Well, there was no help for it now. "About Lady Sybil's engagement to Mr. Crawley. I'm sorry, my lady, I thought you'd know."

Her mistress' hand froze suspended in mid-air over the jewellery box. For a moment her face was a mask of blank astonishment and then she blinked and picked up an earring. "Lady Sybil and Mr. Crawley? Is this a joke, Gwen? Because if so it's in rather bad taste."

"N-no." She swallowed. "I had a letter from Anna. I think it's true, for Anna knows all about it." The lie felt cumbersome on her tongue.

"Well, if Anna knows then it must be true," observed Lady Mary. There was a kind of bleakness in her tone. "It only seems so improbable, but I suppose it isn't when you think about it."

"No," replied Gwen, putting a last few hairs into place and standing back to observe her handiwork.

Lady Mary clipped on first one earring and then the other before smiling brilliantly into the mirror. "How marvellous! Who would have thought of Sybil doing so well before she has even been presented. I suppose they must have sent our letters directly to Naples and I'll have the official report to read tonight. Papa must be so happy." She turned suddenly on the stool. "You know, Gwen, I can manage from here. You must have so much to do before we leave."

Gwen blinked and dropped the obligatory curtsey. "As you wish, my lady. I'll see you after breakfast."

Her mistress smiled. "Indeed." Just was she was on the point of leaving the room, Lady Mary added, turning again, "Thank you. Thank you for telling me. It's not your fault I didn't know beforehand."

Gwen hesitated. There was something in her voice that did not sound quite right, but it was none of her business, and she stepped out of the room and closed the door behind herself, glad to return to her own solitude and her own loneliness.

Once the door had closed behind Gwen, Mary crumpled at the dressing table, her hands covering her face though she shed no tears. There was, after all, no cause for weeping. Blinding clarity should not be a cause of sorrow. And in the second following Gwen's casual announcement, Mary had experienced one of those rare flashes of blinding clarity that could even be termed an epiphany.

With a sharpness that felt like the quick stab of a knife blade she had become suddenly aware of one simple fact: that she loved, desperately and irretrievably loved, Matthew. Then with a wrenching twist of the blade she realised another: that she would never, ever have him.

The feelings should not have surprised her for they were not new. They did anyway. Only at the point when they could no longer hold any meaning or lead to anything, was she able to acknowledge them. How typical.

Mary did not know what to face up to first. The depth of her feelings for Matthew stunned her. She was able to recognize now that her anger at him before she had left England had been at his perceived abandonment of her and not because she truly disliked him. For a while she had thought he had liked her, more than liked her even, and she had relished his attention, had enjoyed their flirtation without having ever suspected (or been willing to suspect) how deeply her own heart was engaged. But first he had walked away from her at the dinner party without hearing her own side of the story and later, when she had straight up given him an opportunity to say he loved her, he had made no reply. How foolishly, how unbearably foolishly she had behaved! For now she saw everything clearly.

He had never meant anything by her – of course he hadn't, he'd been against a marriage between them from the start, as much as she had – and it had always been Sybil. Now that she forced herself to think of it, she could see the signs. That last night before her departure when Sybil had been singing, had not Matthew been watching her with admiration? Had he not encouraged her to sing again? And more than that, had he not always supported her in her eccentric political and social aspirations? Oh, it made so much sense! Dear Matthew, who would have a job in defiance of everything and darling Sybil, always trying to improve other's lives – they were perfect for each other. Mary's imagination leapt to the future. What a liberal pair they would make, what a devoted Earl and Countess they would one day be, how carefully they would look after the estate and everyone on it, how perfectly they would bring Downton into the twentieth century and breathe new life into it. Her breathing came more rapidly and only now did she feel a prickle behind her eyelids.

She could feel no anger. Perhaps it would have been better if she could have done so that her misery could have been released in some more productive way, but how could she blame her sister for falling in love with Matthew when it was so easily done? And how could she blame him for recognizing the very real worth of her youngest sister? Sybil had always been a better person than she was and she deserved every happiness. She even deserved him. And Matthew... how could she finish that thought? He deserved everything he wanted and more.

She forced herself to sit up and examine her reflection, dabbing uselessly at the corner of her eyes, just in case. Life went on, it had to. And yet everything she thought of, everything she remembered or looked upon was now tinged with her new self-knowledge. She realised now with a sick jolt that she had missed Matthew without knowing it for the entire trip. She had missed him dancing in Venice. She had missed him tilting her head as a joke at the famous tower in Pisa so that it appeared straight. She had missed him looking at innumerable busts of Greek poets in Rome.

She hardly knew him, she realised, not really. Not as she now understood she wished to. What did he think of the Romans? Would he have enjoyed Tosca? With a painful smile she remembered how much more interested he had been in church architecture than in his hopeful guide when Edith had been stupidly making a play for him when he had first arrived. That being so, she could only imagine how much he would love to visit the ancient cathedral on the island of Torcello, or wander around the Baroque excesses of Saint Peter's in the Vatican. She wanted him to do these things, she wanted to see his face as he experienced them, she wanted to know what he thought of them and whether he might share her responses. She and Matthew did not always agree, in fact they rarely did, but, she thought with a pang, their disagreements were always interesting and always intelligent. What she would give to have an argument with him over the meaning of some silly ancient relic, if only to have him there!

It was all futile. Matthew would never come to Italy and see these things or if he did, she would not be there to share them with him. He would, however, always be in her life – as her brother. Now she did gasp and press her hand to her mouth. She couldn't – There were some things she could endure and knew she would have to endure, but the prospect of going home, of seeing them together, of living her life feeling as she did and always having the reminder of what she couldn't have was more than she could bear. And to see their happiness – It was impossible.

In that moment she knew exactly what it was she had to do.

In the mean time, she lowered her hand and picked up her perfume bottle, gave herself the customary two sprays on either side of her neck and once on her wrist before rubbing them together. She put the cap back on, picked up her bag and stood up. For a moment she simply stood there in the middle of the room, feeling the world settle into place around her once more, albeit a little off-kilter. Then she went down to breakfast.

Chapter 16: That's Amore

"That won't last," said the dowager countess flatly when Mary calmly broke the news of Matthew and Sybil's engagement over breakfast. "Sybil's far too young to know her mind about anything important, let alone marriage. That," she added, "is why girls have seasons and chaperones: to make sure that someone knows what they're doing because the young people themselves never do."

Mary sipped her hot, bitter coffee. "I think they're very well suited."

"For organising a cake sale at church in aid of the less fortunate, perhaps," her grandmother replied with a sniff. "Marriage? Well, I shan't be putting any of my lira on them."

Mary shook her head and concealed a sad smile. She would miss her grandmother terribly when they parted later that morning. Especially as Miss Bowen's reaction was to sigh in delight and say, "How romantic!" and ask if Mary would be a bridesmaid.

This was not something she really wanted to think about. "It's a possibility," she replied cautiously. "It depends if we have returned from Italy in time."

Violet coughed slightly. "Gracious, Mary, I am sure they will wait that long! I for one have no intention of missing the weddings of any of my granddaughters. Unless you think there might be a reason for haste? Now that I really cannot believe."

Mary shook her head, flushing. "Of course not," she murmured and gave up speaking for a moment. No amount of coffee and rolls could fill the hollow inside her, a hollow she suspected she would carry with her from now on.

The parting between them at Rome central station was not as affecting as it might have been if Mary had not been trying so hard to stifle her emotions. She did not want to expose herself to anything that might make her stoicism harder to maintain. Still, it was difficult because there was something in her grandmother's parting embrace that seemed particularly fond, almost as if she understood everything Mary couldn't say, and for a moment they clung together. With Violet returning to Tuscany, Mary felt terribly alone. She would never be able to confide in Hettie Bowen or her mother; they would never understand her.

Alone was what she always would be now, she reflected as she watched the Italian countryside fly past the train with unseeing eyes. She had lost Matthew before she had even had him, she took that for granted, but she had also lost her favourite sister in the process. Much as she loved Sybil, much as she knew instinctively that she would support her as Matthew's wife and the future Countess of Grantham, any possibility of future confidences and of a truly open relationship between them was now an impossibility thanks to what Mary could never tell her. And to be sure, speaking of it to anyone else was equally out of the question. There was nobody.

Sybil's engagement also put her own future in jeopardy even as it secured the unbroken Crawley line at Downton. She was quite sure that Matthew would be far too kind to force her, her mother and Edith from the house on her father's death in the event that she was still unmarried but it was not a risk she wanted to run. The idea of being dependent on Matthew and Sybil's charity was deeply unpalatable. She could not allow it.

No, she needed to marry and as soon as possible. Since she would not be marrying for love it really did not signify whether she liked her husband much; this would make it much easier. She considered with a little wonder that as she had never anticipated romantic love being part of her life, she should not now regret the lack of it, but she was beginning to feel that she was not quite so self-knowledgeable as she had liked to think herself. Was this a general error in her understanding of herself or did this weakness she felt only apply to Matthew? If he had not become engaged to Sybil would she have ever felt this tight ache in her heart as if her very soul was weeping? Would she have gone through life not knowing what it felt like and would she have been happy in her ignorance? She did not know, and it was too late to wish things were different.

Hettie pulled her out of her reverie, forcing her to take notice of her surroundings. To their left, the countryside was getting wilder and wilder as they went further south down the boot of the country. The Apennines rose out of the plains, bare and craggy, ancient ruined castles and fortresses and breathtaking hill-top towns and villages clinging to their sides.

"It's just like one of those gorgeous landscapes we looked at in Florence," sighed Hettie. "Or the illustrations of an old novel. Do you think bandits live up in the mountains?" She turned to Mary eagerly. "Isn't Naples meant to be run by criminals? Do you think it will be dangerous?"

"Not the parts we're going to," said Mrs. Bowen firmly. "Stick close with me, girls, and nothing bad will happen."

Mary rolled her eyes. "If we are captured by the Mafia then we can always beat them off with our umbrellas," she reassured them and across from her she saw Gwen stifle a smile.

It was hard to be scared by Naples' reputation when she knew they were staying in the finest hotel in the most modern part of the city and that they would only follow the most traditional of tourist routes. There could be no risk in visiting Pompeii, the various old palaces and churches in the centre of the city and the quaint, coastal villages just to the south. Moreover, Count Sciarpa had frequently reassured them that his home city was really no more dangerous than any other place and that he would take care of them and provide expert guidance all the same.

Count Sciarpa. By the time she had reached the breakfast room she had decided to marry him. She believed he meant to ask her, for everything in his pointed attention towards her and his evident enjoyment of her company proclaimed it, and when he did she would say yes. She was able to accept her decision with equanimity and by the time the train was passing through the shabby, crowded outskirts of Naples she was even able to find things to anticipate about it.

She would still be a countess and would live in a castle. Moreover, she really did love Italy and felt able to say that some of her happiest experiences of recent years had been on this trip. She did not believe that she would ever be able to become truly Italian herself but there was something exciting about the prospect of living such an independent and different life in this strange, beautiful country. Furthermore, as Contessa Sciarpa she would be able to reinvent herself and there was a distinct appeal in that. Nobody here knew her past or her family or could judge her based on anything except the persona she chose to present to the world; that would be even easier without her grandmother present. Then as for the man himself... he was educated and interesting and Mary believed she could learn a great deal from him and that they could enjoy many years of visiting art galleries and attending operas. Women had married for less and she thought that perhaps one day she might even be able to care for him in a lukewarm, friendly sort of way.

By the time they arrived in Naples, Mary had recovered sufficiently from the shock of Gwen's news to be interested in her surroundings. As far as distractions went, indeed, Naples performed excellently. Despite the darkness of a winter evening and a light rain shower that made the pavements gleam in the lights from the still-open shops, the city glittered with fascination. It was noisier than Rome, busier, smellier, shabbier and somehow even more brilliantly alive. The culture felt subtly different too, the people spoke a more heavily accented Italian, and the traffic as the taxi took them to them to their hotel was hair-raising. Shouting pedestrians and cyclists wove indiscriminately among the hooting cars and old fashioned horse-drawn carriages, all moving at almost impossible speed. Mary had to admit she was glad her grandmother had not joined them; it would probably have given her a heart attack.

Their hotel was in the most spacious and modern part of the city, as promised, and provided an oasis of calm away from the madness. Mary's room was palatially large with elegant gold and white fittings and a marble floor. Large windows looked out over the bay with Vesuvius hulking in the distance and she would enjoy the view over the sea, sparkling in cold sunshine, in the morning. For now, the heavy red curtains were pulled tightly closed.

As soon as they had all disappeared to their own rooms and Gwen had finished unpacking, Mary flung herself down on her bed, feeling grimy and travel worn, and homesickness abruptly hit her hard, much as it had in Venice. She resisted it now, however, for she distrusted her memories. Was she homesick for home or did she simply long for Matthew? Had it been Matthew she had truly been missing in Venice? She suspected now it had been. Everything she associated with home returned to him: Downton, England, her family, the cedar tree in the grounds, afternoon tea, the hospital, a warm fire in the library, the hall in the village, the music room, riding Diamond, dancing, everything... What kind of relationship had they even had before she had left England? They had flirted and they had disagreed but sometimes... sometimes there had been something else. When she thought of him, she thought of him coming to see her the day after Pamuk had died, or the way he had clasped her hand so firmly and warmly in the library when he could not break the entail, or the way he had looked at her the night before her departure: he had heard her sing even when she had barely heard herself.

And yet she had been mistaken. He did not love her and he was going to marry Sybil. Tears welled up now for the first time and she buried her head in her hands before turning over and sobbing bitterly into the soft, unfamiliar pillow, one lone figure sprawled on an immense, snowy bed. What she would have given in that moment for her mother or father or Carson or even her grandmother! Of course none were forthcoming and she had no intention of showing weakness before Mrs. Bowen. She would simply have to get used to being alone.

Despite the tears and bleakness of the previous night, Mary woke well-rested to a beautiful winter's day the following morning. A weight might still rest over her heart never to be removed but that was no reason not to make the best of sunshine in the bay of Naples. Hettie was in high spirits and after breakfast the three of them set out to explore the shops in the Galleria Umberto. Consumerism clearly came before culture when Mrs. Bowen was in charge and Mary did not mind the aimless wandering very much in the end for it was a beautiful, airy building, with a troupe of musicians playing lively folk music in the centre of it. She realised that she was taking in the city with the eyes of a future resident, approving of the fashions on display in the shops, calculating the distance from one street to another and so on all through the day.

They met the count himself for hot chocolate in one of Naples' most distinguished cafes that afternoon. Mary allowed herself to be a little warmer towards him than she had been up till then even though she felt no particular emotion beyond resignation at seeing him. The small frisson she had felt sometimes in his company was now muffled by the novelty and impossibility of the discovery of her feelings for Matthew. Fortunately, if she had any skills at all, it was how to be appealing to men, and she took note of Hettie's open admiration of her with grim satisfaction. The girl could do with a few lessons in that area. Artlessness and naivety would only go so far and she was no Isabel Archer.

The meeting concluded with an invitation to them all to pay a visit to Castle Sciarpa on the island of Proschia in two days time where the Count's sister, Donna Alessandra, would be happy to show them around. Mary considered that day a moment of vital importance in deciding her destiny. She did not suppose she would change her mind about marrying Sciarpa if she hated his home and his sister, but that did not mean she could not hope that she liked them both.

The boat ride from Naples harbour lasted about forty-five minutes. Despite the blue sky and sunshine it was bitterly cold and the sea was choppy. Mrs. Bowen suffered a little but neither Mary nor Hettie were sea-sick and they eagerly awaited the first glimpse of the island and the castle, which sat on a rocky outcrop connected to the mainland by a causeway. Eventually Proschia swam into view, rising out of the sea. It was a small island with a trio of low, wooded hills in the middle. The village nestled round the curve of the harbour and a long street ran from the centre of the town above the beach and round to the castle. The far side of the island was mainly uninhabited. Sciarpa was awaiting them in front of a row of pretty, brightly coloured houses with Donna Alessandra, a tall and grave aristocratic woman whose only similarity to her brother was in her dark complexion. She was muffled up modestly in a high-necked black gown and wore a cross as a pendant. Mary wondered if she had remained unmarried for religious reasons.

Donna Alessandra spoke very poor English and so she confined her conversation, such as it was since she was very reserved, to Mary who could understand Italian. The count charmed the Bowens and translated as necessary but they were still somewhat excluded.

They walked through the town, past palm trees swaying in the wind and glossy lemon trees peeping over the high walls of private gardens, out across the causeway, and through the heavy gates that the count explained were always left open.

"It is a gesture of good will towards the villagers," he explained with a good-humoured smile, "now that Proschia is peaceful and it is unlikely that the castle will be attacked."

The castle itself was more of a complex than a single edifice. A cobbled road wound uphill past artisans' cottages to the main building which was constructed in the old medieval Aragonese style with rounded arches, airy walk-ways and odd, Moorish towers and domes. It was a far cry from the ruined castles of northern England with which Mary was familiar.

Inside, Donna Alessandra gave them the tour, explaining the history of the rooms quietly and simply. Mary found herself more intrigued by the woman than by the castle itself. She could appreciate reserve but she fancied there was wariness and coldness towards her as well, though no outright hostility. Perhaps she disapproved of her brother's attentions. Perhaps she simply did not relish the prospect of being replaced as mistress of the castle by a stranger, and a foreigner at that. Mary could understand that so she accorded her a courtesy she might not have thought necessary a few days previously.

As for the castle itself, it was not a terribly homely place. Ancient to a fault, it contained many fine if shabby tapestries and carpets. Its current owners had modernised the principal apartments but much of the sprawling, old building had been neglected. Some ancestor had been a collector though and the place was stuffed with Greek and Roman antiquities, probably of great value. Mary realised with a little shock that whereas such a display in an English house would have required a great deal of effort in terms of transportation, here the statues and pottery had probably been gathered from the sides of the roads.

The entrance hall beyond the inner gate (not kept unlocked) contained a very fine mosaic depicting the abduction of Proserpina and the courtyard was home to several identical busts of Antinous. The parlour overlooking the bay back towards Naples, where they retreated after the tour to drink local limoncello and eat biscuits, contained a life-size statue of the emperor Augustus, his hand pointing towards the ceiling with characteristic authority, and the rest of the castle contained a similar jumble of objects.

By the end of the visit, Mary was as much Donna Alessandra's friend as she felt she could be on a first meeting. Her cautious politeness and knowledge of the history of the area made her a refreshing change from Hettie at any rate. Despite her coolness of manner, an invitation to spend some days at the castle at a convenient time was nevertheless forthcoming from her, supported heavily by Sciarpa. Indeed Mary suspected that the invitation was from him and that his sister was only his mouthpiece for propriety's sake. This was gratifying for it showed a continued, strong interest in her. It was issued to Mary alone and therefore she accepted it without reference to Mrs. Bowen. She might be her chaperone, but Mary had no intentions of deferring to her in matters that concerned her own life. The sooner she brought the count to a definite proposal the better.

 

*

---

Back at Downton plans proceeded apace for Cora's dinner for the guests of the Russian embassy party. Invitations had been sent and accepted, the prospect of having both Lady Rosamund and Lady Flintshire in the same room was addressed by a clever seating plan, and Mrs. Patmore and Mrs. Hughes debated a suitable menu at length.

The countess tried to involve Sybil in her arrangements but found her daughter bored and resistant. This was not what Sybil had wanted. She had no interest in fancy dinner parties and all the tedious minutiae of planning them. That was not what being mistress of Downton was about! She wanted to help people and use her position to improve the lives of the less fortunate, not to debate the wisdom of serving fois gras to Sir Albert Torrington considering his heart condition. All of this... it was such a waste of time and nobody seemed to understand it, even Matthew who just shrugged with a smile and said that it couldn't hurt to throw a really good dinner every now and then. Sybil had to walk away from him then because the last thing she wanted was to argue with dear Matthew.

Despite being surrounded by her family, she had rarely felt so lonely. If only Gwen were there to rant to! Or even Mary. Her sister would disagree with her but Mary's stubbornness only made Sybil stick to her own opinions with either greater justification. She wrote about it to Gwen and put the letter in the post even though she had not yet received a reply from her to her last; perhaps they had left Rome before the news about her engagement had arrived.

Then there was Branson. She had not had an opportunity to talk to him since they had been interrupted in Ripon and she felt that they had unfinished business. He would agree with her about what was really important about her role as future countess, she knew, if only he did not seem so moody and angry whenever she happened to see him. She felt terribly guilty about offending him in some way and then she felt resentful that he should be making her feel guilty when she hadn't done anything. She spent far more time worrying about him than she had any right to.

Finally two days before the big dinner, her opportunity came. She had spent the afternoon with Cousin Isobel helping her to take a stock check of supplies at the hospital, a pleasant and welcome interlude of actually being useful, and when it was time for her to return to Downton, the pouring rain made walking an impossibility. Isobel ordered the car and within half an hour, Branson was driving her back through the cold darkness in a tense and stony silence, made only more obvious by the noisy drumming of the raindrops on the roof.

Sybil twisted her hands anxiously in her lap until she could bear it no longer and burst out with, "My God, Branson, you know how to bear a grudge, don't you? I still don't know what I've done to offend you so much! I wish you'd tell me so I could explain myself."

He did not even look at her. "Offend me, my lady? I'm not offended."

She tossed her head in irritation. "Of course you are! You won't talk to me, you won't meet my eye – you won't even look at me. What have I done?"

He did not reply but she fancied she could see the outlines of his face settle stubbornly in the mirror.

"I can only assume," she continued, "that you are angry about my engagement to Matthew, and that bothers me."

"It bothers you, does it?"

"Yes!" she cried, sitting so far forwards on her seat that she was obliged to clasp the back of Branson's seat to steady her balance. "It bothers me. It bothers me because... because I miss our conversations and now we never talk about anything, let alone anything important."

Because he was her only friend at the moment. Because he understood and supported the things she wanted to do. Because she did miss his friendship terribly.

He was silent for what seemed like hours. Sybil was about to give up in miserable disgust when he replied, "Alright, you want to talk about important things. What important things would your ladyship like to talk about then?"

"You're mocking me!" she shot back immediately, hurt and surprised.

"Well, maybe I am." He stopped the car abruptly

"Why?" Her fingers gripped the leather back of his seat harder. "What have I ever done that deserves that? Branson, I want to know! And why did you stop the car?"

He turned round and met her eyes with his piercing blue ones that made her almost physically cower back. "Because we're back. Shall I open the door for your ladyship?"

Sybil turned abruptly to look out of the windows. In the dark, she had not even noticed them draw up to the house. She shook her head with a frown and waved him forwards. "No. No, I'm not going to leave this here, not this time. You can drive round to the yard and I'll go in through the back when we're finished."

"As you wish," he replied sullenly and released the hand brake rather violently.

"Well?" she insisted as the car moved off again round the side of the house. "You were going to tell me what I've done that's so terrible. Go on, I'm listening."

"What you've done?" He lowered his head and chuckled suddenly. "Let me see... you talk about this great friendship we apparently have in which you give me orders and I call you 'my lady'. I don't call my friends my lady!"

"Then call me Sybil when we're alone!" she exclaimed. "If that's all there is-"

"Can't you just leave it alone?"

Sybil felt anger course through her and welcomed it. It was pleasant to feel something stronger than listlessness and frustration. "No, I can't. And what's more-" Something occurred to her. "What's your name then? Your Christian name, I mean."

He hesitated a second, then, "Tom."

"Tom." She rolled it round her mouth, getting used to the sound of it, and smiled suddenly. "It suits you, Tom Branson. Alright, I'll call you Tom and you can call me Sybil and we'll be equal."

Again he braked the car far harder than was necessary. "I don't think there'll be room to open the door on your side in the garage," he said in a strained tone. "You'd better get out here."

She blinked, shocked into silence by his sudden and flagrant breach of etiquette. She did not care, of course she didn't, but he probably should... She grasped the door handle, pushed it open and stepped into the cold, damp night, slamming it behind her. Wrapping her arms around herself she ran after the car into the shelter of the garage, jumping over a puddle as she went.

She was waiting for him breathlessly while he parked and opened the front door for him, grinning, before he could reach for it himself. "See? I can open the door for you too sometimes. I'm not afraid, Tom."

He stared up at her as if he was torn between laughter and something else she could not identify and her smile faltered again.

He got out of the car and without looking away from her he pulled off his driving gloves, put them deliberately on a shelf and picked up a rag with which he wiped his hands. Sybil's gaze followed his movements as best she could in the half light of the garage with a kind of strange fascination.

"So you think this makes us equal, do you?" he said eventually, flinging the rag away and shoving his hands in his pockets. "Calling each other by our Christian names and telling me how you're going to double the wages of all your servants and give them a two month summer holiday every year when you're Countess of Grantham... it doesn't work like that, Sybil. We're not equals."

"You're mocking me again," she replied seriously. "I want to be. Do you know how hard it is for me at the moment without my sister and with-"

"Damn it!" he exclaimed making a sudden movement and she froze into silence. He closed his eyes a moment. "Damn it," he repeated more quietly, "but it's never hard for you! You're the daughter of the Earl of Grantham and you're engaged to his heir and you never act as if you were anything but that with your dresses and your dinner parties and your charity for the poor. It's insulting to pretend you consider yourself my equal. I'm your father's servant!"

"You said yourself you wouldn't always be a chauffeur," she replied, standing her ground though she was starting to tremble, from the cold most likely.

"Fine! I won't always be a chauffeur, and when I'm not and when you're willing to stop being a fine lady, then we can talk about equality!"

He was getting worked up again, however much he was trying to swallow down all the things he had no right to say, and had taken a step towards her. Her feet refused to move but she swayed backwards, her eyes flickering over his face, trying to understand him.

"You approved of that!" she said. "It's what you wanted – for me to use my position for good. Are you saying that you were wrong?"

He pulled his hands out of his pockets and pushed them down at his sides, fists clenched. "Yes, I was wrong, Sybil! It happens. Why on earth did you listen to me in the first place?"

She opened and shut her mouth in confusion. "Why- why? Because – I mean that isn't why I - Why is it so important to you anyway?"

He passed one hand over his face and shook his head. "You can be a bloody dense woman sometimes, can't you?"

Her jaw dropped. "I beg your pardon?"

"I beg your pardon! My God, Sybil, I – I'm in love with you. Hopelessly in love with you."

For a moment the world seemed to shift on its axis and a rush of embarrassed warmth swept through her body just at his words alone, her cheeks flaring with colour. Her heart pounded and it almost seemed as if she could feel the blood rushing through her veins. In love with you. Hopelessly in love with you. In love. Love. Those words she had spent so long desperately trying to understand repeated themselves like a caress through Sybil's mind and without any conscious decision to do so she took a step forward and touched his cheek with her fingers, meeting his eyes and feeling another unexpected wave of heat pass through her as she did so.

"Not hopelessly," she whispered. "Never hopelessly."

Something flashed across his face, a look of desperation or joy or release, she couldn't tell, and then his arms were around her waist, he had pulled her flush against him and was kissing her, his lips moving firmly and purposefully over hers. For a moment she flailed and then she clutched at his shoulders with both her hands, afraid her legs might give out from under her. Her head span and all she was aware of was the soft yet demanding feel of his lips and the way his arms encompassed her, moving restlessly over her back, exploring her. She did not know what to do, for nothing could have prepared her for this – and then suddenly she did and she was kissing him back with all the passion and ferocity she had not known existed in her. She wound her arms round his neck and pulled his head down to hers as one of her hands slid into his hair, gripping tightly. In response he only pulled her closer and somehow, impossibly, the kiss deepened and became even more intense and there were his lips – and her tongue – and his mouth – and her teeth – and she could not breathe and it was all too much and she was gasping for air and so was he and they stared at each other, breathing hard in the aftermath.

Her lips remained parted and her eyes roamed over his face. In love with you. Still the words repeated themselves. He was in love with her. And kissed her and... goodness, was that a kiss? And if it was then what...? All he was doing was staring at her with a look that made her feel... she did not know, and Sybil had no idea what to do. What should she say? What happened now? God, Matthew! Her heart was pounding too hard and she felt almost sick from nerves or worry or guilt or something more powerful and wonderful than all the rest.

She did not know what to do, for in a moment her life and everything she had thought she understood had been overturned, so she did the only thing possible. She broke from him with something that was almost a sob, her hand over her mouth, and dashed from the garage into the rain, splashing through the puddles unheeding. Sybil, who prided herself on her courage, on being a pioneer, on confronting the truth of things, was running away.

Chapter 17: A Future Worth Having

Sybil ran from the garage, through the yard, into the house through the servants' quarters, past a surprised Anna carrying a basket of linen, out of the green door and straight up to her room. Her heart pounded so hard she felt it would burst out of her chest, her lips tingled pleasantly and her mind was a complete fog.

She slammed the door of her bedroom behind her and dropped her wet coat on the floor in one movement before flinging herself onto her bed and lying on her back staring at the canopy as she caught her breath, remaining still for the first time. After a moment in which the only movement was the rise and fall of breast, she raised one trembling hand and touched her lips and smiled. Then she laughed and hugged herself and bounced restlessly before flopping back again.

She felt warm and excited and changed and unsure about everything in the most wonderful way possible. Who could have thought that a single kiss could effect such a change in her? When Matthew had kissed her – but no, she did not want to think about him. Not just yet. It was not just the act of the kiss, however, but everything else as well. It was Branson – Tom, she thought with a broader smile – and he was in love with her. Nobody had ever been in love with her before, not even her own fiancé, and she had never thought it mattered so very much. Now it seemed as if nothing else in the world mattered; not politics, not friendship, not her family, not her personal aspirations. All of these were lost in the joy of being beloved, of feeling strong arms around her and the fire of passion. And as for her own feelings...

All the questions she had been so confused about were now answered without any effort. It was all so terribly simple in the end; for she loved him in return and the world was luminous with the miracle of it.

However, all good things come to an end and after half an hour or so of reliving the scene in the garage with most of the argument edited out and the kiss itself embellished, some amount of reality had to intrude into Sybil's mind. As Tom had so correctly pointed out, she was Lady Sybil Crawley and he was a chauffeur. While she did not think that these had any real value, they were nevertheless obstacles to their love. And then there was Matthew.

In a way, Matthew was the easiest issue to deal with. Whatever became of her and Tom, she could not marry him now in good faith. It had been acceptable to accept him when she thought she might have been in love with him but now that she knew she wasn't, the thing was impossible, unfair, dishonest. In the midst of her excitement, she could not even feel particularly guilty about it. After all, how could Matthew possibly be in love with her? He had kissed her on the lips only once and it had had all the intensity of – she had to laugh again. Poor Matthew! Perhaps he, like her, had no idea of the force of passion and thought that what they had was true. If that was the case, then it was up to her to undeceive him.

As for the rest... This was more difficult and her heart beat hard for she knew automatically that whatever resulted from the decisions of this hour would determine the rest of her life. Had she been putting it off all this time? While she had thought she was moving forwards and being terribly firm about everything, it occurred to her that she had been more of a coward than she had believed. Marriage to Matthew would mean that she would stay at Downton forever and that was not what she wanted. What she wanted, what she truly wanted was...

She sat up straight on her bed, her head swimming. She loved Tom; Tom loved her. That was all there was to it, all there should be to it. When two people loved each other desperately, when kisses were of fire and heat, then nothing should part them: not class, not inevitable parental disapproval, not money, nothing. And yet, what she was considering was a change in her life of a magnitude she had never even dreamed of. Give up everything for love: could she do it?

Suddenly, Sybil remembered that book Mary had been reading before leaving, Middlemarch. She had last thought of it the night she had become engaged to Matthew and had dismissed the heroine's decision to give up her inheritance to marry the man she loved; such things did not happen in real life, she had reflected with comforting blindness. Yet here she was, faced with just such a decision. She stood up, smoothed her dress, and then left her room and walked to her sister's. She felt strangely as if every step she took brought her closer to a point of no return and her throat felt tight with incipient decisiveness. Why it should be in Mary's room, she was not sure, but so it was. She opened the door and was hit by a musty smell. The curtains were closed, so she turned on the bedside lamp to disturb as little as possible and climbed onto the bed. Sitting cross-legged with her skirts spread around her, she found from the neat pile on the table the appropriate book. She flicked to the very final chapter, her fingers trembling.

There was a great deal about two people called Fred and Mary about whom she had no interest, a doctor who died when still in his prime after marrying the wrong woman (it was so very important to marry the right one!), the fate of his wife who appeared to thrive despite being selfish and vain, and then came the fate of Dorothea. Sybil took a deep breath, associating, she knew not why, her own fate, with that of a character in a book she had not even read. Still, a decision had to be made somehow.

She never repented, for she had the kind of strong love that comes along but rarely, her husband did well in his profession and she was able to be useful. Though separated from her family at first, the parents eventually came round and accepted them into the family, and children followed, as they inevitably would. Indeed it was Dorothea's son who came to inherit her father's estate in the end. This was all rather beautiful. Only one sentence gave her cause for worry, that people said it was a shame that such a great woman became so subsumed into the life of her husband through marriage. Was that what marriage meant, Sybil reflected, struck with the thought for the first time. Would her own self cease to exist when she changed her name? She was rather fond of her own self and her own ideas. Yet when her husband was such a one as Branson, who agreed with her in all the important matters of principle, when she loved him so much, would that be such a terrible thing? If she was absorbed into him, would not he be equally absorbed into her? It was only a momentary hitch in her reasoning, a hitch that she could ignore for the simple reason that she wanted to.

Slowly she replaced the book on the table and stood up from the bed, feeling unsteady and drained. The world had changed and so had her place within it. She would be brave and strong and daring. With a smile of the purest joy, Sybil walked to the door of Mary's room and her future. It was time that she became a heroine in the story of her life.

 

*

---

Matthew had spent most of the morning staring out of the window of his office and pretending to do filing. After the big South African diamonds case which had occupied the entire firm for several months had been finally concluded the previous week, everything had been extremely quiet. He almost wished that complications had arisen and he had had to be sent abroad to investigate further. A break wouldn't be unwelcome... December in England was drab and wet and grey and there wasn't even a speck of snow on the horizon to give the place a bit of Christmas cheer; Matthew's spirits reflected the weather.

He was about to take his lunch break half an hour early for lack of anything better to do when his secretary poked his head round the door and announced that a Lady Sybil Crawley was there to see him. Matthew started up in surprise as she brushed past the clerk into the room.

"Sybil!" he exclaimed. "I didn't expect to see you here. Come in, how are you? Won't you sit down?"

She laughed and ignored his offer, coming to stand right by his desk in front of him. Matthew looked her over and felt that something was indescribably different about her. There was a glow to her, or a purpose, or a confidence – or a something. Whatever it was, it made Matthew feel on edge. She was smiling at him in such a knowing way, and then she looked away around his office.

"I haven't been in here for so long," she murmured, "not since that day we ate bread and cheese. Do you remember?"

"Of course I do."

"I liked you so much that day, you know."

Matthew thought this was a rather strange thing to say and frowned slightly. "Well, I'm glad to hear it, dear."

She met his eyes again, hesitated and then took a step forwards round his desk. "Kiss me, Matthew," she said firmly, still wearing that strange smile.

He blinked and opened his mouth. "I-"

"Don't you want to?" She laid her palm on his chest.

"It's not that but..." His eyes drifted over to the door of his office. "I don't think this is the best place. Sybil, I'm very glad to see you but why are you here?"

"Oh, Matthew... If you won't kiss me then I'll have to do it for you!"

Before he could respond or object or even anticipate her, her hand had cupped his cheek and she stood on tip-toes and pressed her lips to his. She slid her hand round the back of his neck and pressed herself against him trying to replicate the fervour she had felt the previous night – but nothing. He was not Tom and already kissing Matthew felt like a betrayal; as for his hesitant and subdued response (at least there was one, she supposed)... well, she clearly was not for him as well.

Eventually she pulled away and let her hands drop. She shuffled backwards and perched on the edge of his desk, her feet swinging with nervous anticipation. "Well, Matthew?"

He closed his mouth. "I, er, well what?"

"Do you like kissing me?" she dared to ask.

He took a step backwards and almost tripped over his chair. "That's a very – very – I mean, that's-"

"Because you haven't kissed me since the day we got engaged so I can only assume you don't enjoy it. I think if we're going to get married then this is something we should discuss."

Matthew raised a hand as if to stop her. "Good Lord, Sybil, I – I'm sorry! I've been very busy with all the..."

He trailed off as Sybil laughed merrily and stared at her, feeling rather offended and above all confused.

"Matthew, Matthew, I'm surprised you ever win any court cases if this is an example of your eloquence!"

"I don't know what's so funny. You've taken me completely by surprise." He frowned at her and then softened his tone. "What are you really here for? Is everything alright at Downton?"

"Oh yes." She looked away and bit her lip. "Yes, everything's alright. Only – Matthew, please look at me seriously and answer this: do you want to marry me, really?"

Matthew felt as if he had fallen down the rabbit hole. He tried to smile reassuringly at her but it was not quite working. "Of course I do," he blustered. "I asked you!"

She nodded slowly. "I see. Well then, I'm sorry, but..." She took a deep breath. "The problem is that I don't want to marry you."

For a second he could not breathe. He did not understand. "What?" He sat down heavily.

"I don't want to marry you. I want to break the engagement."

"Sybil – I -" He was still lost for words. At the same time, however, he became aware of a strange feeling rising up in his heart and dominating every other. It was a lot like relief but that was surely impossible. It would be terrible if that was truly his reaction. "Why?"

She leaned forwards and continued very earnestly, "Because I'm not in love with you, that's why, and I don't think you're in love with me either."

"Oh, my dear..." Matthew caught her hand, feeling quite unable to say anything else, let alone give her the reassurance he knew he ought to at this moment.

Sybil did not seem to mind and continued without withdrawing her hand. "Perhaps we could have made it work for a while, I don't know, but the fact is that love, romantic love, what that kiss proves we don't have, is important! Are you embarrassed by what I'm saying? I might have been once but I'm not any more. We both deserve the chance to experience it. Perhaps you don't understand me now but one day I'm quite sure you will and then you'll thank me."

Matthew had not been able to look away as she talked but at her final statement he could not maintain it and his eyes slipped away as he swallowed, terribly conscious that he understood her only too well. She squeezed his hand and he squeezed back with almost trembling intensity. His mind was in complete confusion.

"I've been terribly wrong, you see, Matthew," she continued and when he looked back up to her there was a kind of luminous beauty about her that he had never seen before that was something between sorrow and profound joy. The kind of expression of which even a great actress giving the performance of her life might have been proud. "I've been wrong about so many things but I've changed and now I know what is right to do."

"And marrying me is wrong?" he managed to say since he had to say something, however inadequate.

"Yes, it's wrong, and I was stupid never to realise it. We both were."

Matthew moistened his lips. He had to take control of the conversation somehow but he felt paralysed between what he felt he ought to say and what deep down he wanted.

"Sybil, dear Sybil, I would like to be married to you. I think – I think we could do very well together. I still do."

She expelled her breath in a rush. "I don't want that, don't you see? I don't want to do very well. Honestly, your argument would make much more sense if you took me in your arms and said you loved me. I want the real deal and so should you!" She gave him a tremulous smile.

A warmth of gratitude and affection washed over Matthew, stronger than anything he had ever felt for her before. He squeezed her hand again and let his eyes wander over her face.

"I'm sorry," he said eventually, "so very sorry."

She leaned forward and a few strands of escaping hair brushed against his face as she kissed his cheek. "Friends?" she asked with a sweet smile as she leaned back.

He nodded. "Always." As she jumped down from his desk he caught hold of her hand as she turned away. She looked at him questioningly. "I do care for you, you know, very much."

"I know."

"And if there's ever anything I can do, anything at all, you must just tell me. It's the least I can do."

She laughed suddenly as she broke from him and walked to the door. "Oh, you don't need to make promises like that; you have no idea what I might ask you!"

He smiled back warmly, allowing some of the tension to leave him. "Why, are you planning anything very extraordinary?"

She raised her eyebrows and grinned widely. "You never know!"

At the door she hesitated. "Well, goodbye, Matthew. I'll have to tell Mama and Papa, you know."

"Yes. Would you like me to-"

"No, it's alright. I want to do this. I'll see you tomorrow then."

He stared. "Tomorrow? What's tomorrow?"

"The Russian embassy dinner of course!" she replied, rolling her eyes. "How could you forget?"

They shared a smile and Matthew felt glad that they could, even as this reminder of the real world penetrated into his office and this surreal scene. "Until tomorrow then."

Within moments she had left the room with a quick, confident step and Matthew released his breath as if he had been holding it all the time. He slumped forwards and put his head into his hands.

What now?

 

*

---

Sybil had taken the horse and trap to Ripon so that Tom would not know what she was doing until she had done it; she wanted to surprise him. The journey back to Downton, however, seemed to take forever even as she pushed the horse to go faster. She felt like running or skipping or even flying. She was free! She had not been aware till this moment how much her engagement to Matthew had depressed her. It was not that she did not love him, for she did, only not in the right way to make up for the fact that being the future countess of Grantham was not at all what she had thought it would be. She could not step into her mother's shoes and she did not want to. Perhaps if Matthew had been nothing but a lawyer that anxiety would have been less but, she realised with a rueful smile, if he had been nothing but a lawyer she would not have thought to marry him to exploit his title. And there would still be Tom! Her heart beat more quickly as she thought of seeing him, of what she would say, of kissing him again, of hearing him say he loved her... She had broken from him too quickly the previous night but there would be time now to make it up to him. All the time in the world. She urged the horse faster.

Arriving back at Downton, she left the trap in Lynch's capable hands, and set off straight for the garage where she knew she would find Tom. True to form he was there, doing some tidying it seemed. For a second she paused just outside to admire him. He was so handsome! How had she never realised it before? His arms, the pull of his jacket over his shoulders as he bent down, the way a piece of hair flopped over his face – As she realised the direction her thoughts were taking, she flushed and shook her head quickly before walking purposefully towards him.

"Tom!" she cried, not concealing her smile.

He spun round at the sound of her voice, his expression open but startled. "Sybil! What are you-" He looked around as if worried someone might be spying on them.

"Coming to see you, silly!" She stopped in front of him, her heart bursting with joy and delight to see him again. "Aren't you glad?"

"Of course I am... but I thought..." He still seemed wary though his eyes were very warm as they met hers. She could feel it all through her and she curled her toes in appreciation.

Her smile faded a little and she stepped forward again until she was so close she could take his hands. She looked at him soberly and took a deep breath. "I'm sorry about last night, the running off, I mean. Not the rest of it!" She beamed at him, unable to hold it in. "Never that. I was-" She ducked her head, blushing. "I was overwhelmed and I hadn't realised... I hadn't realised how much I loved you."

"Oh, Sybil..." he exclaimed softly, almost as if he could not believe it, and for a moment he met her eyes and it was perfect. He pulled his hands out of his pockets and touched her cheek. "Do you really?"

She melted into him.

"Really and truly! I love you, Tom, I love you, and that's all that matters now. I was so blind not to have understood before but then I've been blind about so many things."

He leaned forwards, his thumb caressing her cheek and the kiss was inevitable even if he did seem strangely hesitant at first. Sybil was expecting it this time and able to appreciate it better. Her eyes fluttered shut instantly and she clasped his shoulders to pull him closer. There was a sweetness and poignancy about it and a lack of urgency that was different from the previous evening which somehow made it even more delicious.

His arm crept to her waist and she could not help a little sigh of delight escaping her. Then he pulled away from her abruptly. Languidly, she opened her eyes to find him staring at her with such intensity that she shivered involuntarily. She could only stare back. Oh, but this was silly! She did not care. She was drunk on love and freedom and on him.

"There's something I have to tell you," said Tom.

"There's something I have to tell you too," she replied with a giddy smile.

"You go first."

"I've broken my engagement! I'm free, absolutely free, and we can be together. That's why I didn't come before; I had to be quite sure of how I felt and then I had to see Matthew – I took the trap to Ripon, you know – and now I'm here and – and what's wrong? I thought you'd be pleased!"

He had stepped away from her as she had been speaking, dropping his hands from her and passing one over his face. He looked the opposite of pleased and Sybil did not understand. She followed him further into the garage.

"Look, Sybil, there's something-"

"And why aren't you wearing your uniform?" she cried, only now noticing his unusual, civilian attire.

He stopped and simply looked at her, shoving his hands back in his pockets. "Since you ask, I handed in my notice this morning, resignation effective immediately. I'm no longer your chauffeur."

Her lips parted but no sound came out.

"I'm sorry, but what was I supposed to do?" he exclaimed. "I kiss Lord Grantham's daughter and then you run away in tears before I can explain myself and we can discuss it. What else was I meant to do but resign before you could tell your papa and get me fired?"

"Get you fired? Good God, do you really believe I'd do that when I – when I-" The very idea was preposterous.

"How should I know? You said yourself you had no idea how you felt- how was I meant to? You weren't exactly forthcoming, were you?"

"And you couldn't have waited one single day?"

As he shrugged bitterly, she wilted, her sudden anger dissipating as quickly as it had arisen. "But this is good, isn't it?" she suggested tentatively. "You're no longer a chauffeur and I – I'm ready to not be a fine lady any more."

He frowned. "What are you suggesting?"

Now was really the time for bravery and she rushed at it headlong. "I'll come with you. Tonight if necessary. I would have done anyway, I just wasn't expecting it to be so soon... but I'm ready!"

"Sybil..." his voice was half caress, half remonstrance as he took her hands in his, "you don't know what you're saying."

"Of course I do! Tom, I love you; haven't you been listening? And last night you told me you loved me. What more is there to it? Now that you're free there's nothing to stop us from running off right now. We could – I don't know – we could go to Italy and join Mary!"

His lips twitched. "Are you proposing marriage to me?"

"Oh!" She bit her lip. "I suppose that's your job really. Sorry."

"I don't mind you proposing, Sybil; I like it. I like you... but, God, I wish I'd never said anything!"

"Why? If you hadn't we'd never-"

"And what now?" He broke from her once more and began pacing. "I have no job, I don't even know where I'll go. How are we meant to get to Scotland let alone Italy on my final wages? And you- you're only, what? Eighteen, seventeen? Underage anyway."

"Seventeen, but my birthday's in only a couple of months," she protested, not seeing what this had to do with anything.

"My God, but you're so young! Don't you understand?"

"I suppose I don't. What of it?"

"I mean that it's impossible, you and me. Not now anyway. What would you do? How would you live?"

"I'd work. I want to. It's sweet that you're trying to protect me, Tom, but it's unnecessary. Everything here – it doesn't matter to me! What matters is you and me and doing our bit. My engagement showed me that. I'm not cut out for a life of dinner parties and dressmakers however much money I could give to women's rights movements. I want what's real."

"You've no idea what's real so how can you possible want it?" He came back to her, speaking forcefully and almost wildly. "And you sound ridiculous, talking like this!"

She took a step back, gasping in physical hurt as if he had slapped her. She felt a kind of panic welling up and threatening to stifle her. "I sound ridiculous? I soundridiculous? You love me and you can say that to me?"

"I can't tell you how much I-. If you knew how long I'd watched you and wanted you and dreamed of saying those words to you and held back because I knew it couldn't possibly come to anything... but you have to understand how wrong it would be for me to accept. Your parents would never forgive either of us and I don't think I'd forgive myself either."

"For what? What should that matter if it's what I want?"

"You think it's what you want now. But what'll you be saying after a year of poverty and drudgery and no contact with your family?"

"Then let me find out and stop telling me what I feel!" she almost shouted out of pure frustration. "Tom, this is our chance to do all the things we've talked about – and together. Are you going to throw away all of that because you think I don't know my own mind? Yes, I was wrong about Matthew but it was one mistake and nobody's hurt by it. Why should that dominate everything? Doesn't everyone make mistakes? And it's true, I don't know about the kind of life you're describing but how am I ever going to learn anything at all like this? Please, I want to make more mistakes; it's only by doing things than anything ever happens. And that – that is right!"

He closed his eyes in pain. "If you were a few years older, if you had even a month's experience of a different kind of life then perhaps I could do it – but I can't. You don't know how much I wish I could."

"So what now?" A deadly calm was now settling over her, a weight landing on her chest and growing heavier every second. Desperation, it seemed, took other forms than blind panic. "You are going to leave without me."

He nodded once. "Yes."

It was all too much as she caught his eye and with a sob that was wrenched from deep within herself Sybil flung herself at him into his arms. His arms went around her immediately and he clutched her to him, burying his face in her neck.

"I won't accept it!" she cried, her voice muffled in his shoulder. "I'll run away and follow you!"

"No, you won't. Darling, don't throw away your life for me. There's so much you can do. You can be wonderful, you know. You have such – such talents and possibilities. I love you... but there are far greater things for you to dedicate your time to than being my wife."

"And what if that's what I want more than anything else?"

"Then..." She could feel him swallow. "Then there's time for that too. I won't go back to Ireland yet- I'll get a job in England and – who knows what will happen."

"What will you do?" she asked, raising her head, curious despite herself.

He shrugged. "Journalism maybe, politics if I can get into it. The world's on the brink of change and I want to be right there at the front when it happens. Give me five years," he added with a twisted smile, "and maybe I'll be the kind of husband even Lord Grantham would approve of!"

"Five years!" she exclaimed. It seemed like a life-time. "Anything could happen."

"Yes, and the sooner the better in my opinion. What will you do?"

She shook her head blankly. "I don't know. I can't think. There are so many things I thought I-. I don't know. Do you have to leave today?"

"Yes. I'll stay in the inn tonight and move on tomorrow. York, I think, first of all."

Her hands were smoothing his shoulders obsessively, touching him as much as possible while she still could. "I will see you again, Tom, you know! I'm not going to let you go. I'll – I'll prove everything. And then you'll see!"

His hand brushed her cheek. "I'll be true to you."

She smiled and almost believed him. Already she felt the pain of parting, of sorrow, of inevitability and somewhere, hidden under more pressing feelings, of anger. They remained some minutes more together but there was very little else to be said and Sybil found that after living off adrenalin for an entire day, she was mentally and physically exhausted to the point of shaking.

Her walk back to the house from the garage was very different to the dash of the previous night. She ascended the stairs slowly, her feet heavy, unable yet to process what had happened. She closed the door of her room behind her and took off her coat and hat carefully, folding them with mechanical neatness and placing them on a chair.

Then she undressed and crawled into bed, shivering, and pulled the covers up high. She felt in shock. Too much had happened in too short a space of time and she had not yet caught up with it. No Matthew and no engagement on the one hand; on the other, no Tom. Love on its own was not enough; the books had been wrong.

No Tom. Now it finally began to sink in and after a few false starts of hardly knowing how to articulate this new kind of painful, heart-broken loss, she eventually wept. She wept for the frustration of every scheme she had ever started, for the impossibility of achieving what she wanted, for the love that was over before it had begun. What was the point of talking about five years? Foolish hope had made her hold onto it as possible but she saw now with clarity that it was nothing but another unrealistic dream, just like all the others. She missed him already and now she resented him too for not taking her with him, for foiling her, for rejecting her. What would she do? How would she live? She pressed her pillow to her face and cried even more bitterly, for the loneliness she had felt previously was nothing to this.

She would never love again, she was quite certain of it, whether she saw Tom or not. She would die a spinster – and that would show them! She was not sure who... or why... or what... But she knew she wanted to show somebody something. If only there was a way of doing it!

Oh, how right Mary had been! There was no hope for women like them. What was the use of pretending otherwise? She was as stifled and confined as anyone else, blocked and mocked at every turn. Mary had understood the uselessness of trying to change anything long before she had. How naïve she had been! How amusing she must have appeared! How hopeless, how silly, how unproductive all her plans seemed to her now. They would all have failed. Get Gwen a job? She was still a maid. Go to university? With what qualifications? Be the Florence Nightingale of countesses? It would never have worked. Marry the man she loved from a different class? Even he thought it impossible! There was nothing left for her. She was out of ideas and out of optimism.

She had played all her cards to win and instead she had lost everything.

Chapter 18: The Tongue Has Its Desire

Notes:

Chapter title from W.H. Auden's poem "At last the secret is out".

Sybil did not go down for dinner that evening, pleading illness. Instead she had Anna bring her a cup of sweet tea and ate half of the jar of biscuits on the fireplace. Her mother found her curled miserably in bed later on, having cried herself to the point of exhaustion, and sat down beside her, stroking her hair. The usual questions followed: was she unwell? Was she hurt? Had she received bad news? Had she quarrelled with Matthew?

Sybil denied all suggestions but on the last question raised her head and met Cora's eyes with an adult bleakness that was quite new. No, she had not quarrelled with Matthew, she explained, but she thought it only right to inform her mother that they had broken off the engagement.

"Oh," she replied. "Oh, I see." For a moment the hand stilled and then the countess heaved a sigh, adapted to the change, and continued to pet her. "Have you told your father?"

"Not yet. I'll tell him tomorrow, I suppose." It was not something she was looking forward to, though she felt adamantly that since it was all her fault that the wedding would not be taking place it should fall to her to break the news.

"Will you let me do it tonight?" said Cora, however. "Tomorrow he'll want to be focussed on the dinner so let's give him a night to sleep on it, shall we?"

Sybil could only shrug her assent. After the countess had ascertained that it was a mutual decision, that her daughter's heart was not broken (if only she knew), that Matthew wasn't to blame, and told her that everything would be alright eventually, she kissed her head and left her to be soothed by sleep.

Lord Grantham did not take the news particularly well. Cora sat anxiously by the fire in the library while he paced up and down and tried to make sense of it.

"I really thought-" he began. "I really thought Matthew was falling for her. Properly that is, not that – that infatuation he had for Mary or we thought he did. They're very young," he consoled himself, "they may get over it. Lovers' tiffs, you know."

"Not really. We were well married before that became an issue, if you'll recall, my dear."

He shook his head affectionately at her but only resumed his pacing. He burst out a few moments later, "And if they don't, what then? Are we to assume he'll decide at some point that it's Edith he wants? No, if not Sybil then I think we must resign ourselves to seeing Downton pass out of our hands."

"I resigned myself to that long ago," replied his wife, holding out her hand to him. "And don't you trust Matthew? He'll probably pick a perfectly nice girl when he does decide to marry."

"I don't believe Matthew knows his own mind. I only wish he did!"

"Robert, please."

He sat down next to her. "I wanted it to work, that's all."

"I know."

They were silent for some time before the earl started again on a new tack. "It's lucky we didn't announce it publicly in the end; the last thing we want is people talking; that kind of thing could have made it hard for Sybil in London. I just hope there won't be any awkwardness tomorrow night."

"From Sybil and Matthew? I don't think so. They're not children."

"Sometimes... sometimes I forget that."

---

Lord Grantham need not have worried; there was no awkwardness from the parted lovers. Sybil had spent the entire day preparing herself for the role she would have to play that evening. Acting did not come naturally to her and she knew it, but she looked on the dinner as a test of a fortitude she felt she needed to pass. Something she was good at was meeting challenges so she threw herself into this one with her usual enthusiasm. It was a good distraction anyway.

At breakfast Robert had lamented the great inconvenience Branson's abrupt departure had caused. A man from the farm who could drive tractors was being employed at short notice to collect the guests from the station.

"But it's really not quite the thing," the earl complained. "There isn't a uniform to fit him and it looks so bad. I don't see why Branson couldn't have waited. Must be the socialist streak in him; I suppose I should have seen it coming."

Sybil clenched her knife and her teeth and opened her eyes very wide to prevent any possibility of tears. None came and she even managed to hold her tongue until the danger passed. She was proud of herself for that. She next endured a conversation with Edith who had been told about the engagement being broken. She was probably trying to be kind, Sybil acknowledged afterwards, but it came over as overly curious and just a bit gleeful. Once again, she responded with silence and clipped answers leaving Edith frustrated and herself restless. An hour's solitary walk around the grounds did nothing to help her feeling of confinement and misery. She walked all the way to the boundary of the estate and looked at the road winding off into the distance; she walked to the lake and stood alone on the shore. In the end they were just a road and a lake and she ended up sitting rigidly on the bench under the cedar tree, hands folded in her lap, back so straight she almost trembled. It was only a couple of months ago that she had sat there with Mary and tried to solve all her problems by means of feminist pamphlets. Her naivety made her wince now. What had her sister thought of her? It was a miracle she had not laughed in her face but of course Mary knew how to control herself. And what of them both? Mary was who knew where on the other side of the channel and she was.. she felt as if she had gone on an equally long journey without having once left home.

It was December and cold. She eventually returned to the house having accomplished nothing except wearing herself out physically. Perhaps she had worn herself into docility. Dressed in her best clothes and glittering with jewellery, she prepared to descend to meet the guests as the charming daughter of the house, a little reserved but no more than a woman should be. Nobody should suspect a thing. One more push, she told herself. She could not think beyond the end of the evening.

Matthew was also quiet. He was perfectly polite, it was impossible for him not to be, but he was also tense and brooding with a frown of which he was never quite able to rid himself, as if he wished he were back at home on his own. Sybil hoped when she saw him that his attitude was not her fault and she felt quite guilty for five whole minutes until he naturally drifted towards her in an effort to avoid making polite conversation with anyone else. He was distracted but not, she felt, upset – at least not with her – and she was forced to conclude with relief that his thoughts were elsewhere. They placed themselves in an out of the way corner until socialising became unavoidable.

It was soon clear, however, that the dinner had greater problems than Sybil and Matthew being out of sorts. From the arrival of the first guests it was clear that something was a little off and it could not even be put down to the Skeltons being eccentric and the Flintshires unpleasant. As the guests assembled in the drawing room before dinner there was a palpable and growing sense of unease though it was not obvious where it was coming from.

Nobody was making an effort to socialise beyond their own little group, conversations were taking place in undertones and quickly hushed if the earl or countess joined them on their rounds about the room. Edith was taking the opportunity to monopolize Sir Anthony, Isobel was making friends with an equally bemused Mrs. Skelton, and Sybil and Matthew felt that since nobody else was making an effort they could be excused.

"Isn't your aunt meant to be here?" asked Matthew after a particularly long silence between them.

Sybil shrugged because she had not been paying attention and didn't care anyway; then she remembered her resolutions and straightened up. "Yes, I think so. She's dreadfully late; we'll have to start without her at this rate. I don't suppose Papa will want to delay any longer, the mingling isn't going terribly well."

"No... who's that important looking trio over there?"

Sybil followed his gaze to three men with medals on their dinner jackets and thick beards. All looked as if their wine was poisoned, the room smelled of something unpleasant and the carpet itself could turn into a boiling sea of writhing snakes at any moment. She leaned closer to him. "The one in the middle is the Russian ambassador himself. The one on the left is another ambassador, I think, I'm not sure of where, and the third gentleman is an advisor."

"Friendly looking people," muttered Matthew in her ear and for a moment they managed to be amused.

Lady Rosamund arrived just as Robert had finally decided to serve dinner anyway. She appeared to be a state of distress or at the very least abstraction.

"I can offer absolutely no explanation, my dear," she told Cora in a hurry as they all went into dinner. "I left London late and so arrived here late as well."

"Never mind that now," replied the countess, "you're here now and I'm very glad you are."

"Yes, and I really must talk to Robert as soon as possible, but I suppose you know all about it."

"All about what?" asked Cora anxiously but they were separated by the seating plan before her sister-in-law could reply.

Sybil found herself between Matthew thankfully and a middle-aged man from the foreign office who introduced himself as Mr. Maitland. He seemed nice enough but not inclined to talk much.

"Your mother's American, I believe," he said to Sybil during a lull in the conversation.

"Yes."

"My wife Agatha's American too." He nodded his head in the direction of a blonde woman further down the table who was talking into a void. Mr. Maitland seemed rather depressed by the whole thing. "So I know what it's like."

Sybil was not sure how to reply to that so she said nothing.

Once the ladies left the table, she found her arm taken by her sister. Their earlier sniping seemed forgotten in solidarity against this peculiar atmosphere.

"Some thing's terribly wrong," Edith began fretfully, as once again the drawing room divided itself up into little, secretive, whispering groups.

"I feel as if they're all judging us but I don't know what we're supposed to have done," replied Sybil.

"Nor I."

"Where's Aunt Rosamund, Edith? She's disappeared again."

They scanned the room but didn't see her. Cora approached them a few minutes later and they put the question to her.

"Oh, she had to talk to your father urgently about something. Goodness, girls, I hope Matthew doesn't keep the men in the dining room long. It's all a bit unbearable, isn't it? I'm not sure how we can make things any better though. They seem so determined to be unfriendly!"

"Has Matthew been left in charge then?" asked Edith in surprise.

However, before the countess could reply, there was a sound of door slamming in the hall and a raised voice. As if they had been waiting for this very moment, everybody in the room fell silent. Cora started forwards as the door was flung open. "Robert, what-"

Sybil gasped out loud for she had never seen her father wear such an expression of disgust and rage before. Behind him was Aunt Rosamund looking actually afraid, and milling in the hall were the gentlemen who had also heard the door slam and had left the dining room to see what was going on.

"Out!" he shouted. "All of you, out!"

"Robert, what is the meaning of this?" cried his wife, becoming very angry. "How dare you-"

"No! How dare you?" He pointed his finger round the assembled company and turned to include the men as well. "How dare you abuse my hospitality in this disgraceful way? You come here, you eat my food, you smile at my daughters... I must say you all have some nerve!"

"Robert!" Cora seemed to be standing on tiptoes to make herself taller and give her more authority as she glared at him.

"If you think you can enjoy my house for a moment longer then you are very much mistaken. I want you all to leave and right this instant."

Now Matthew was at his side. "Sir, if I might suggest-"

"You might suggest nothing, Matthew. How dare you try to tell me how to run my own household? Out, all of you, out!" There was a moment of pure silence in which the company remained frozen in shock before the earl roared a final time, "OUT!"

Pandemonium broke out as the guests milled around trying to sort out what was going to happen.

"But where are we going to stay?" wailed Mrs. Maitland in shrill tones above the clamour.

Within minutes the Skeltons and Sir Anthony who lived close enough to be able to return home that evening and had sufficiently large houses had volunteered their hospitality and cars were being ordered to take the guests away.

Meanwhile, the whispers became mutters became audible speech until a wave of words and speculation and gossip and lies and truths broke over the whole company. Sybil and Edith clung to each other in a corner where they were soon joined by Cousin Isobel. She was ashen.

"What's happened? What is it? Why is Papa so angry?" they demanded. "Do you know?"

She looked round the room and seemed reluctant to speak. "I – I heard something about it, yes, but I really think-"

"It's whatever Aunt Rosamund said, isn't it?" cried Sybil eagerly. "I have to find her!"

"Sybil-"

But she had darted away. She had to do something. Trembling all over with nerves and fear, she felt as if she were on the precipice of something large and terrible, far bigger than herself. She was scared of her father and scared for him. At least she did not have to pretend any more.

If the drawing room had been uncomfortable then the saloon was worse. Servants swarmed everywhere as guests were ushered out, some of them helping, most simply there to enjoy the crisis, whatever it was. Carson was too busy overseeing the arrangements to discipline them. In a corner were Robert, Cora, Rosamund, Matthew and Lady Flintshire, her father's cousin. Sybil approached them automatically and hovered on the edge of the group.

"Well, how was I supposed to know Aunt Violet wasn't going to receive my letter?" Cousin Susan was complaining. "I took her silence as confirmation! And then when I heard they were in Italy, well, what other conclusions was I supposed to draw? Of course it was an exile!"

"You didn't need to blab every single thing you heard on the grapevine to that notorious gossip, Agatha Maitland!" snapped Rosamund.

Susan shrugged. "She was the one who told me in the first place last month."

"How on earth did she-"

"Enough, please!" broke in the countess. "None of this is getting us anywhere."

"What's happened?" interrupted Sybil, putting her hand on Matthew's arm for support. His face was turned away from her but she caught a glimpse of a down-turned mouth and an intense stare into space that was blacker than she could have imagined.

"Sybil, I think you should go to bed," said her mother. "This doesn't concern you."

She shook her head. "No! No, I want to know what's going on." She felt suddenly even more afraid. "You mentioned Granny and Italy – what is it? Tell me! Mama? Matthew?"

There was a silence. Then Lady Flintshire shrugged and replied, "Your sister's been a rather naughty girl, I'm afraid, Sybil."

"Susan, I forbid it!"

"Do be quiet, Rosamund. She'll find out soon enough."

"Find out what exactly?" continued Sybil, clenching her fists in an effort to remain calm.

Her aunt looked at her very seriously and then said calmly, "There is a rumour in London, Sybil, that Kemal Pamuk, the Turkish diplomat-"

"Attaché. And where I come from we don't tend to call them rumours when they're true."

"Whatever he was!" snapped Cora.

"I remember him," replied Sybil, not sure where this was going. "How could I forget?"

"That Mr. Pamuk did not die in his own bed." She paused but Sybil continued to stare at her so she was forced to continue, "That he died in Mary's."

"But what- Oh." Vaguely, she was aware of a movement at her side as Matthew shifted from one foot to the other. "Oh. Oh God."

She felt sick quite suddenly and clamped her hand over her mouth, hardly aware of her mother quickly coming and putting an arm round her shoulders.

"Excuse me," muttered Matthew and slipped away quite unnoticed.

She could not stop thinking, or perhaps she could not start; her mind seemed both frozen and overactive at the same time. Mary and Mr. Pamuk. Mr. Pamuk in Mary's bed. Mary and Mr. Pamuk like – like that. Mr. Pamuk dead. Dead in the middle of - When? How? How had they got him back to his room? Mary must have carried him. Imagine...

"How horrible..." she whispered.

"Yes, it's horrible. Now will you go to bed, Sybil?" said her father. The fight seemed to have gone out of him and he simply sounded incredibly weary.

"No. No, I can't." She found she was breathing more quickly. The images could not stop coming to her now but they were interwoven with her own memory, of kisses and hands and heat and fire – and coldness and despair... She shook her head to try to clear her mind but nothing could remove the ache in her heart as if she were weeping in empathy. "What are you going to do?"

"I don't know," said her father with a sigh. "Getting rid of the guests was the first step. To think we actually entertained the Turkish ambassador under this roof!"

"You must start damage control immediately," said Rosamund quickly. "It's a shame I didn't arrive earlier. Your behaviour tonight will only add fuel to fire."

"It may not be too late to discredit it altogether," suggested Robert with more hope than realism.

Sybil was confused and shook her mother's arm off taking a step away from them towards the stairs. "No. No, that's not what I meant. I meant, what are you going to do about Mary?" The distinction seemed obvious to her but apparently not to anybody else.

"Well, that's what your father means about damage control," said Lady Flintshire eventually, speaking to her slowly as if she was stupid. "Making sure the rumours are contained and that we do everything we can to salvage our reputations before the whole thing gets out of hand."

"But what about Mary's reputation?" She still did not understand why they were not answering her questions.

"Sybil..." began her mother in a warning tone.

This only riled her further and she raised her voice. "Who cares about our reputations, what about Mary's?"

"My dear, by now Mary doesn't have a reputation to salvage," said her aunt gently.

Sybil began to shake as the full horror of it began to come crashing down around her. "No!" she exclaimed taking even more steps backwards. "No, I won't accept that. And – and isn't it ridiculous that you're all talking about her like this and she's not here to give her side of the story? She – she's in Italy!"

"That is the only good part of this, that she is safely out of the way," her father nodded.

"How is that an advantage? Papa, you must see – She's all alone! She's all alone and she's had to bear-" She broke off and swallowed; she could not continue.

"Sybil, please, darling, you're making a scene. There are still people here. You must go to bed now."

She did not care. "No!" she kept repeating more and more loudly as they continued to watch her, dumb and useless. "No, no, no! You have to do something; you have to bring her back!" At some point she had begun to cry without realising it. "You don't understand; she's all alone and how can she bear it? What are you going to do about that then? Don't you care at all? How can she bear it?" Her voice spiralled upwards.

"Sybil," said the countess in her most dangerous voice, "I am ordering you to go to bed right now."

Anna and Miss O'Brien, summoned by their mistress with a few nods, took hold of her and encouraged her firmly, still sobbing and shaking, up the stairs.

"But what about Mary!" she almost screamed over and over again at her insensible and cruel parents below, resisting as best she could, until her tears choked her.

---

The morning cleared up much of the confusion of the previous night. The rumours, it seemed, had originated in the Turkish embassy itself. Apparently they had conclusive proof of the truth of the gossip in the form of a letter to the ambassador though neither Rosamund nor Susan could shed any light on its provenance. Investigating that would be a priority. Agatha Maitland had heard of the rumours through her husband at the foreign office but had thought nothing of them until she had become aware of the name 'Crawley' being familiar to her both as a connection to her friend Lady Flintshire and because her sister Mrs. Bowen had written to her of meeting with a young lady of that name on her travels in Italy. That the heroine of such a sordid tale should have been sent abroad in disgrace and exile made only too much sense and added substance to the gossip. Susan, who was not troubled to get too involved in it, had done the minimum in writing to her aunt for clarification on the subject and received no reply. Indeed, she could not have done for the letter remained hidden behind the back of the sofa at the dower house where it had been stuffed by the new maid after losing the forwarding address, and Violet had never received it. Having done what she perceived to be her duty and receiving no denial of the allegations, Susan gave herself up to her love of scandal and did nothing else to stop the flow of the rumours. Rosamund had not been aware of just how advanced and wide-spread the gossip was until the night of Russian embassy dinner a week previously. This had brought together, as the repeat dinner at Downton had done, Mrs. Maitland, Lady Flintshire, Lady Rosamund and the Turkish ambassador himself. Stories were inevitably swapped and what had previously been a flicker became an inferno that swiftly rushed through London society.

Such had been the spread of the story. This was distressing enough for Robert to learn but as yet there remained no conclusive proof of its veracity. This had to be provided by his wife who confessed all of her involvement the following morning. To say that the earl took it badly would be a gross understatement. Amidst his disappointment in his daughter and his fear for the reputation of his entire family was added the feeling of betrayal from his wife. They argued long and bitterly, resolving nothing, and the interference of Rosamund and Susan only made things worse. The latter left later that day, having created about as much mischief as it was possible to create.

Lord Grantham shut himself up in his study accepting no company but Pharoah's and occasionally Carson's. Left to their own devices Cora and Rosamund talked incessantly about what was to be done, quite without any power to effect anything. Of Matthew and Isobel there was no sign. They had left the house quietly before Sybil's hysterics and neither had approached the family since. Nobody made any move to include them; after all, this was a very personal crisis and in the end they were only distant cousins.

Everybody considered it a very good thing that Mary was out of the way. Let her stay in Italy as long as possible until it blows over – perhaps for good, was the general consensus. At any rate, her presence and her opinions could not complicate the matter further while her fate was being determined. That she would have to be punished was obvious. To overlook such transgressions, even if Robert had been inclined to do so, would be unacceptable to society. The least Lord Grantham could do was take charge of his family later rather than never.

On the third day Edith dropped her bombshell. It was hard to say why she did it. Perhaps it was guilt and remorse, perhaps it was a plea for attention when she was being ignored even more than usual, perhaps it was simply another piece of terrible judgement. At any rate, she announced after dinner in the drawing room that it had been her who had sent the letter to the Turkish ambassador and started the rumours, and that Mary deserved everything that she had coming to her. Fortunately the only servant in the room at the time was Carson and his loyalty could be depended on, if no-one else's.

Such a blow, on top of the others, was too much to bear and the countess took to her bed with a migraine. Edith's offence was not as severe as Mary's but the earl's fury and disappointment was magnified by having her actually before him and Lady Rosamund immediately whisked her away to London. She would have to be punished too but not in such a way as would draw attention to the fact. Robert decided that the best way to deal with her would be to send her on an extended visit to Great Aunt Elizabeth. A cold winter spent in a boarding house in Brighton in the company of a deaf and bad-tempered spinster of ninety would surely be miserable enough even for a girl who was a confessed sneak and tittle-tattle.

And what of Sybil?

She too was left completely to her own devices and she took advantage of the solitude to reflect. And reflect she did. She was shocked by Mary's story, shocked and upset. The most prevalent emotion that she felt, however, was sympathy. She truly felt for her sister in her absence as she had never felt for anybody in her life before. Until this moment her desires had been selfish. She had not looked beyond what would benefit herself or her narrow and ignorant ideas of what was right. She had never considered that alternative points of view could exist and be valid.

Even her sudden passion for Branson seemed selfish from this elevated point of view. She missed him constantly, his voice or appearance flashing into her mind unexpectedly at all times of the day, but these feelings were muted by a rage of love and sorrow for Mary.

For what, after all, was Mary but a reflection of herself? What mistake had Mary made that she had not made? They had both loved – and lost. They had both known passion – where they should not have done. They both had to live with the understanding and grief their behaviour caused them and nobody else. They had both gone against society's rules, only where Sybil's secret and minor infraction, kissing the chauffeur and proposing an elopement had brought and could bring consequences only to herself, Mary's larger fall from grace would make her a pariah and bring ruin on them all. It seemed terribly unfair for there did not seem to be any real difference between them. She did not deserve it and Sybil could only imagine what she must have felt for over a year, shouldered with the burden of such a secret, what she must feel now as soon as she knew that the truth was out. Yet she could imagine it because for the first time she understood her sister and in doing so she understood herself.

With understanding came determination. It was too late to be happy herself, she knew that, and in other circumstances she might have wept more for the loss of Tom, but she had a cause now that was greater than herself: Mary had to be saved. From the wrath of a father, the neglect of a family, the judgement of society, from all these things Mary had to be saved. She had made mistakes, but didn't everyone? And the idea of punishing her simply to make a point to the population at large was so unpalatable it made Sybil feel physically sick. Charity began at home and she finally realised that saving the world had to begin with saving individuals.

Yet how to do it? She was in one country and Mary was in another. In fact, she was not even sure what she was doing now for there had been no postcards for a while and the last time Gwen had written it had been directly on their arrival in Naples. There had been nothing since. What did it matter anyway? She had no money of her own, she had no agency, she was a woman. While her father tried to save Downton from the comfort of his study and her mother was fed cake on a tray, neither of them speaking to each other, she paced round and round the silent, frosty gardens, penned up and held back by her inability to act. If Tom had stayed perhaps they could have gone together – but no. He had no money either. They would not have got to Gretna Green, he had said, let alone Italy.

Never had the limitations of her life and upbringing been more frustrating, never had they seemed more insurmountable. What a waste it was, she thought angrily, that someone like herself, born to do things and not sit around thinking about them, should be so continually thwarted. The practicalities of life ruined every human and romantic impulse at every stage. All she could do was write three letters a day to Gwen and Mary in Naples telling them what the situation was and begging them simply to come home whatever Papa said, though she did not know if he had even written at all yet.

In her heart of hearts, however, she knew that this exercise was probably of more use to herself in terms of passing the time than to Mary, yet there seemed to be nothing more practical that she could do.

Until one morning, about four days after the dinner, she realised that there was.

Chapter 19: The Castle on the Rock

It was just another breakfast time in the glittering dining room of the Hotel Vittorio Emmanuele Napoli. Coffee, rolls, and croissants were laid out on the table along with the morning papers in all the major European languages. Mary had her guidebook open at the table and was reading up on Herculaneum, the destination for today, when the post was brought in.

"Oh, a letter from my sister!" announced Mrs. Bowen. As she often received letters from one or other of her sisters this produced little reaction and her two companions continued their breakfast without much curiosity.

The silence continued for several minutes and might have continued for longer if Mary had not looked up from her book to signal to the footman to bring her more coffee and caught sight of Mrs. Bowen's expression. The hand that was not holding the letter was pressed to her breast and she looked quite distressed.

"Good heavens," cried Mary in concern, "I hope you have not received bad news."

She quickly looked up and folded the letter away, shoving it under her plate. She avoided meeting Mary's eyes.

"No, no, not bad news. Thank you," she replied with a worried and distracted look that did nothing to dispel Mary's anxiety.

Her daughter looked between the two. "Who's it from and what does she say?"

"Aunt Agatha sends her love to you, sweetheart, as always. She hopes you enjoyed hearing that violinist last week. She says that she heard him on the London part of his tour and liked him very much."

"Oh yes!" replied Hettie. "It was quite the most beautiful thing I've ever heard. I shall write to her directly we get back this afternoon. When is Count Sciarpa coming for us, Mary?"

"At ten," said Mary, still eyeing Mrs. Bowen.

After breakfast was over, they all retired to their own rooms to get ready for the outing. Mary had almost finished arranging what she needed for the day when a knock at the door announced Mrs. Bowen.

"May I talk to you?" she asked coming into the room.

Mary turned round on her stool. "Of course."

Mrs. Bowen sat down and for a few moments was at a loss what to say. Eventually she sighed and explained, "I really don't know how to say this, Lady Mary. Perhaps you should just read the letter."

She held it out but Mary hesitated before taking it. "Are you sure?" she asked.

"Yes. Just the – the second paragraph on the second page. You don't need to worry about the rest."

She took it with a quick frown and bent her head to read it. Written the morning after the Russian embassy dinner in London, the paragraphs in question told of the prodigious gossip that was all around London concerning a certain Lady Mary Crawley, an adventuress and seductress, who had killed a member of the Turkish embassy in the most shocking and intimate way, who concealed her depravity and impurity under a cover of gentility and finally who had been sent abroad to hide her shame. The section concluded with asking whether this woman was or was not the young woman currently travelling with her darling niece, Henrietta.

"Is it true?" said Mrs. Bowen.

For a moment Mary could not speak. She felt faint and sick at the same time. There was a roaring in her ears and it felt for a moment as if she was drowning in stifling air. The words swam before her eyes, meaningless dark marks twisting on the page in front of her.

Depravity

Impurity

Shame

Then with a shaky breath she blinked and her vision cleared and it was just a piece of paper with words on it and Mrs. Bowen sitting in front of her with her lips pressed into a thin line.

"I wouldn't have expressed it in quite that way myself," Mary found herself saying, her voice seeming to come from a long way away, "but in essentials I suppose it is true."

"I see." Mrs. Bowen was quiet but in a contained, tense way. Then she burst out, still reigning herself in as if it were a great effort to keep her voice at its normal pitch and volume, "And how would you express it then? That – that poor man was your lover and he died in the most ignoble way it is possible to die in the arms of-"

Mary held up her hand and interrupted though her voice trembled, "When you put it like that I see there is no other way to express it."

"Lord, child, I don't know about where you come from but we have morals in America – and religion! I don't know how you manage to show your face in society, I really don't, after what you've done." She shook her head, her fingers restlessly tapping on the chair arm.

At this Mary raised her head. "Oh, perhaps you'd prefer it if I had been introduced to you wearing a scarlet A on my coat so you knew from the beginning what kind of person you were dealing with."

Her riposte went ignored. "This puts me in a difficult situation, you must see that, in terms of my daughter."

"Of course," murmured Mary, lowering her head again. She was not sure she could see anything at all.

"Henrietta is a nicely and properly brought up girl. She is an innocent!" She paused to give added emphasis to her statement. It missed its mark, however, for Mary did not react, so she continued, "And I cannot have her exposed to- to corruption and bad influences. I want her to make a good marriage when she goes to London, associate with the right sort of people; you see what I am saying."

"That I am not the right sort of person any more, if I ever was."

Mrs. Bowen emitted a little, hysterical laugh and immediately squashed it. "Oh, I shall make very sure not to associate with anybody of the name of Crawley!"

Mary stood up suddenly. "Why wait until London?" she exclaimed with cold frivolity. "Precious Miss Bowen must not be exposed to such pollution any longer. I do hope that she will recover from any unintentional contagion to which she has already been exposed." She held out her hand towards the door. "You will not be bothered by me from now on."

Mrs. Bowen opened her mouth but was powerless in the face of such icy authority and shut it again. She stood up.

"I suppose," continued Mary as her companion reached the door, "that you will not be joining us today? Such a shame; Herculaneum may not be as extensive as Pompeii but I understand the remains are quite extraordinary."

"Yes; yes, we shall not be joining you," Mrs. Bowen managed to say faintly before leaving.

Left alone, Mary found she was breathing hard as if she undergone some great exertion, but there was no time to wallow in self-pity. In fact, she realised with some surprise, she felt more excited than upset. Now that the initial shock had worn off she felt as if in some way she had been waiting for this moment since she had clamped her hand over Anna's mouth all those months ago. Defences stripped bare, nothing remained but the truth and Mary felt as if there was a reserve of desperate strength within her stored up for just such a moment.

She pulled on the bell and summoned Gwen.

"Pack everything up!" she ordered, her eyes bright and almost feverish as she surveyed the apartment. "We'll be leaving soon."

"My lady?"

"We'll be leaving this evening."

Then she swept from the apartment to keep her appointment with Count Sciarpa.

---

The Count expressed no surprise at Mary's flat explanation that Mrs. and Miss Bowen were both ill and would not be accompanying them that day. In fact, he seemed pleased. Kissing her hand, he smiled at her and said, "But they are only in the way anyway, duchessa. Now I shall have no distractions from you at all."

Mary forced a smile and for the duration of the journey responded as best she could to his stream of pleasantries and commentary on the neighbourhoods they were passing through, which looked increasingly unsavoury the further from the centre they got. It was something to think about anyway.

Herculaneum as an archaeological site was tiny compared to Pompeii which they had visited only a few days previously, but the awe of walking down streets on which the ancients had walked remained. There were still the grooves from ancient wagons, steps with a hollowed centre from the repeated tread of ancient footsteps, and some truly spectacular mosaics and paintings on display.

"What Ercolano is truly famous for," explained Sciarpa after they had been wandering around and poking their noses in houses and bath complexes for about half an hour, "is its wood."

Mary looked up from aimlessly sticking her foot into the remains of a lead drainage pipe. "The wood?"

"As you will know, when the volcano erupted, Pompeii was buried in ash, but the same was not quite true for Ercolano. It was a thick mud that covered this city and what does mud do?"

Mary stared and shook her head.

"Mud preserves!" He smiled at her as if this was a great discovery. "Duchessa, the wooden timbers of these houses were buried in mud and they are still here. Vieni, guarda!"

He took her arm and led her towards a door frame and pointed. Against the stone was a thin strand of dusty brown wood.

"That, duchessa," he said in a hushed, reverential voice, "is almost two thousand years old. Can you conceive of it?"

Even considering her mental and emotional abstraction, Mary was struck by this. She reached out a hand and touched the wood with her finger. Her glove came away with an orangey stain on it. She stared at it.

"How incredible," she whispered. "Two thousand years old and it has endured all this time." She brushed her hands together to get rid of the dust, suddenly uncomfortable in the presence of such silent antiquity.

Sciarpa had perched on a low wall. He observed her with his head tilted to the side, the smile gone. "Mia duchessa, I know what they are saying about you."

Mary's eyes flew to his, startled. "What are they saying? Where? Who do you mean?"

"I think you know what they are saying; as for the where and who, there is an embassy in every country and, magari,diplomats talk as much as any other person."

Mary nodded in near stupefaction. Notorious not only in London but all over Europe as well, it seemed! The adrenalin of earlier, for that was all it had been, was wearing off now and leaving her feeling terribly empty and quite unable to reply. She leaned back against an ancient wall and felt for the gaps in the stones with her fingers, digging them in until it was almost painful. Nothing in her life felt real.

"Then it's all over for me," she reflected out loud, raising her eyebrows to the floor. She had not been able to think clearly before, but now it seemed that her directions to Gwen had been premature. She was not sure if she had meant to conceal the rumours from Sciarpa until he had married her if she could have done but since he already knew them, rescue from that quarter seemed impossible. Nobody but nobody would marry her now in any city of any country. A wave of frustration washed through her at how fatuous it all was – didn't people have anything better to do than destroy her reputation? But the anger was muffled by growing despair. How much money did she have left? Not much to be sure for she had hardly tried to save – why should she have done? Her only hope, she thought, would be to try to get to her grandmother in Tuscany by some means. But what if Granny had heard? What if- She did not want to think what would happen if her grandmother rejected her. She could be sure of nothing.

The Count's voice cut through her thoughts. "I think not, duchessa. A reputation is... only a temporary impediment. You will enjoy yourself very well without one."

"No, I don't think so," said Mary. "I'm not that sort of person. Sometimes I like to pretend I am, but in the event it turns out I'm not so brave."

"Are you sure?" Suddenly he was very close to her and his finger touched her cheek, forcing her to look down at him. Her eyes widened. "I hope very greatly that you will still be my sister's guest on Proschia."

Mary's eyes flashed across his face, unsure whether to suspect a trap or not, but she could not read anything in his expression. "I-" she began, rather unsure. Then with a sudden, cold, heavy feeling, she realised that nobody was going to make the decision for her. She was on her own.

"Of course I will be," she said and lowered her eyes in some embarrassment that she could not explain. "If you still want me, that is. I'll understand if you don't."

Nobody else did.

He chuckled and shook his head at her. "Duchessa, duchessa! Do not underestimate your fascino, your - your fascination."

For some reason this reassurance failed in its objective and she drew back warily though she did not break eye contact. "In that case," she said rather breathlessly, thinking him far too close to her, "may I come to you today?"

He smiled and caressed her cheek. "I was hoping you would."

Then he leaned forwards and pressed his lips to hers. Her eyes, which had been wide and staring, closed anxiously for a second in an automatic response to being kissed, but she felt nothing, nothing at all. As he stepped away from her she could not help wondering if she would ever feel anything again. He offered her his arm in silence and she took it in equal silence as they left the empty ruins.

By the time they reached the hotel again Gwen had packed all of their trunks and with the help of Sciarpa and several porters they were conveyed down to the port and put on his boat. Mary's anger against Mrs. Bowen had softened into a sad resignation by this point and she knocked on her door to say goodbye but received no answer. She suppressed a sigh of regret and had turned away to go downstairs when the adjacent door opened a crack and Hettie peered round.

"Mary!" She beckoned her closer and continued in a whisper. "Mama says I'm not allowed to talk to you but I want you to know that I don't care two straws about what people say. I think you're completely splendid!"

Mary blinked and touched her arm through the door. "You're a darling, Hettie, but you mustn't think that. Please."

"But I do!" continued the girl earnestly. "You've been such a good friend to me and – and I think Mama's wrong about you and about everything."

Mary shook her head but could not reply. She felt suddenly terribly guilty for how she had patronised Miss Bowen since the beginning of their acquaintance. At this moment a warm heart and genuine, well-meant sympathy was worth more than any amount of cleverness and sophistication could ever be.

"Where will you go?"

"To the island," she managed to say after a moment, glad to be speaking of practicalities. "Count Sciarpa has been very- very kind."

Hettie's face cleared. "Oh, I'm glad of that, at any rate. See, you will be a countess yet and when you are I'm sure Mama will come round."

Mary only smiled sadly.

"Is there anything I can do? I know there probably isn't, but if you write to my maid then she can get a letter to me without Mama finding out."

It was on the tip of Mary's tongue to reply that if Hettie really wanted to be useful she could intercede with her mother but she knew it was useless. It took a special kind of courage to stand up to a domineering parent and she did not think Miss Bowen possessed it nor would she wish family discord on anybody else.

"No, I don't think there is, but I'm very touched that you asked."

"Well then, I guess we'll meet in London then," finished Henrietta, after a pause in which Mary had squeezed her arm in gratitude.

"Oh, my dear, I don't think I shall be returning to England soon," she replied. "Goodbye, Hettie."

"Goodbye," she whispered.

The door closed behind her and Mary was left alone in the hallway. This meeting had overwhelmed her in its simplicity and she covered her mouth with her hand, swallowing down tears that had no place in a hotel corridor. For a few moments she remained there trembling and wondering if she would be able to hold herself together. Then she succeeded, as she always did, and she dropped her hand, raised her chin, and continued out to join the Count.

The sea that afternoon was calm and Mary could not help contrasting her feelings to the previous occasion. How differently had she approached the island then! She felt envious of herself from only a week previously, even then with her feelings of regret over losing Matthew. Good God, Matthew! She had not thought of him once yet that day and now she felt an even greater sinking feeling. He would know the truth by now. He would probably be congratulating himself on having picked the right sister to marry. Oh, but she was glad he was engaged to Sybil. Her marriage prospects would be materially affected by the scandal and to know that she was already engaged and to such a good man as Matthew provided the only source of comfort she had felt all day. Moreover, she knew Matthew's sense of morality and honour and while she hoped his reaction would not have been articulated as Mrs. Bowen's had been she could not pretend that she imagined it to have been materially different. She was glad she had not been there to witness it; she was not sure she could have born it.

Would she have told him eventually if things – if things had been different? She could not say and anyway they never would have been different. She was not fit to be the wife of such a man as Matthew and she had not been from the moment she had failed to scream when Kemal Pamuk had entered her bedroom. She could never have accepted him even if she had realised the extent of her feelings earlier.

With such thoughts as these the boat trip seemed to last a remarkably short time and before she knew it she was alighting at Proschia harbour in the dusk. Fishermen were rounded up from the nearby houses to carry the luggage and Sciarpa and Mary headed the procession through the village to the castle. In the gloom of the evening that deadened the cheerful colours of the houses and made the faces of the villagers who came to their doorways to see what was going on appear ghostly and pale, Mary felt as if she was entering a strange kind of spirit world, something that was not quite real. The sea lapped against the causeway as they crossed it, a high tide, and in front of them loomed the castle, a hulking, darker mass of antique masonry against the dark sky.

Her arrival was a surprise. The servants eyed her askance as they were sent into recesses and down passageways to prepare her room and deal with her belongings. Lady Alessandra holding aloft a candle appeared when summoned. She seemed more nervous than she had been previously and there was little in her hurried, Italian greeting of Mary to make her feel particularly welcome. Dinner was immediately ordered. It was an uncomfortable meal held in an uncomfortable, draughty, great hall lit only by firelight and candles, for electricity had not yet made its way to the castle on the island. When she was mistress, Mary decided, proper lighting would be her first change to bring it into the twentieth century.

By the time dinner was over, her room was prepared and it being late after a very long day nothing more was said and she retired immediately for the night. Her room was in a tower at the furthest corner of the courtyard, up a steep and narrow spiral staircase. From what she could tell in the dim candlelight it was a good sized room kept warm by tapestries and containing a large collection of art works and cumbersome chests. It was not a homely room but the bed was large and comfortable looking at least and Mary's one desire was now to forget as best she could in sleep.

As Gwen undressed her, Mary broke the silence eventually.

"Well, you haven't deserted me yet," she commented drily.

"No, my lady."

"It's only a matter of time," she continued in a deceptively light tone. "Do you think you could give me a day's warning for when you do intend to leave?"

Gwen handed her her nightdress. "I don't intend to leave you, my lady, not unless you want me to." She paused. "It seems to me that it's none of my business what you did or didn't do in the past. An' I'm far too sensible to give up a good job if I don't have a better one to go to."

Mary laughed with a sob. "Oh, Gwen, I fear you've been rather overlooked. Pragmatic and kind too! No wonder Sybil's so fond of you."

"I suppose we all have our secrets an' I – I think they should be respected, whatever they are."

"How right you are."

They were both silent for a few moments. Then Mary spoke again. "Well then, what do you make of this place?"

Gwen hesitated. "Honestly, it's rather gloomy for me, my lady."

"Mm, I agree." She caught her maid's eye and her lip twitched but she sighed immediately, suddenly feeling dreadfully tired. "Anyway, never mind that. At least it's something."

A gust of wind whistled round the tower and through the cracks in the shuttered windows. Gwen shivered and then grinned ruefully. "Very true. I better be getting off to my own room now unless you want anything else; it might take me the whole night to find it!"

"No, thank you. Goodnight. And – and thank you."

After Gwen had left, Mary padded across the floor wincing as her bare feet touched the cold stone in the places not covered by rugs and slowly turned the large, heavy key in its lock. The door was solid wood and she laid her hand on it, feeling oddly reassured, before making her way to her bed.

---

Mary slept badly, disturbed not just by the rising wind and the rain and the usual creaks and little noises that accompanied sleeping in a castle, but by her recurring nightmares of Pamuk. They were extended and developed and changed from what she was used to. Sometimes it was no longer Pamuk with her but Sciarpa and even once, disturbingly, Matthew. Sometimes she was unable to pull herself out of the dream before its inevitable conclusion, leaving her sweaty, tangled in her sheets and with a heart pounding from fear. She had not been sufficiently prepared to have a glass of water with her that night either so she was forced to try to calm herself without one.

She finally woke later than her usual time to get up to discover miserable, grey light sneaking through the slats in the shutters. It had to be mid-morning if not lunchtime already. Her head ached and her limbs felt heavy as she dragged herself out of bed, feeling completely unrefreshed. It was now possible to take in more of her surroundings, however. It was a curious room, round as the tower, and seeming to be half guest bedroom and half junk room for storing those priceless antiquities for which there wasn't space anywhere else. Opposite the bed was a statue of one of the later Roman emperors, Mary could not identify which, missing half an arm. Propped up against the wall was a large mosaic of a pair of doves. Finally, on almost every free surface were beautiful red and black figure vases, almost certainly of incomparable value. Still blinking away her sleep, Mary trailed from one to the next, studying them; it was preferable to concentrate on that than on anything more personal.

Some athletes competing for a prize on one, Ulysses tied up and resisting the sirens on another, something that might have been the abduction of Proserpina on a third, Orpheus charming Cerberus on his rescue mission of Eurydice on the next... Myths surrounded her like ghosts on all sides as she made her way in a full circle of the room. Having satisfied her curiosity here she padded over to the window. Throwing open a pair of long shutters she found herself looking out onto a balcony. The key was in the lock and she opened the doors and stepped out.

It was bitterly cold that day and drizzling with rain and all she could see in all directions was the grey, wintry sea. Her tower was on the furthest corner of the keep and so she could see nothing of either the rest of the island or the mainland in the distance. Peering down and leaning as far over the parapet of the balcony as she dared, she followed the sheer, stone walls down to the rocks at the bottom; they were sharp and irregular and surrounded the castle on the sea side. Waves crashed and hissed against them. Nobody, she thought, in times gone by, would have attacked the castle from this angle. At any rate, the view was uninspiring and, surrounded by the expanse of grey sky and grey sea, she only felt more alone than she did anyway. She might have been the only person in the world with nothing but a solitary seagull or two for company. The wind over the sea was blowing her hair into her face and her white nightdress round her legs. Shivering, she retreated into her bedroom and closed the balcony doors.

There was no bell to be found anywhere. How on earth was she to summon Gwen? She unlocked her door and peered down the staircase but did not dare go down dressed as she was. "Hello?" she called into the emptiness, then, "C'è qualcuno?" She received no reply to either plea and eventually went back to bed, utterly defeated.

Her situation was dire and this place was detestable, but it was her only way out. Count Sciarpa was the only person who seemed to care what became of her but she was miserable enough to almost wish he didn't. A countess she could be but to be mistress of such a place as this...! Anything seemed preferable. Of course, anything wasn'tpreferable and it was this thought that forced her out of bed once more to attempt her own toilette without Gwen. She could not spend the entire day in bed! It was so difficult... Every movement, every time she lifted her arms to add another item of clothing felt an effort. There seemed so little point to it all if she was just going to waste away her life shunned by society in this prison without bars on a rock in the middle of the sea.

She had managed to dress herself simply but had not had a chance to do anything to her hair when there was a knock on the door. Her heart pounded and she hesitated a moment before calling, "Come in!"

It was the Count. Her heart sank but he seemed pleased to see her and asked how she had slept. She lied but had the uncomfortable feeling, as she often had with him, that he knew it.

"I must say though," she added, trying to assert some limited authority over her situation, "that it would have been rather easier to manage last night if there had been more light. Perhaps you would consider installing electricity?"

He smiled. "Cara duchessa, can you imagine the difficulties of doing that in a building such as this? It would be quite impossible! And don't you think it would ruin the atmosphere? Romantic, is it not?"

"I would take a hot bath and a lack of draughts over romance any day!" she snapped back and immediately regretted it. She sank down onto a musty couch situated under the watchful eye of the Roman emperor.

"A thousand pardons," said the Count and seated himself by her. "We must find a way of keeping you warm in that case."

"I'm sure," she replied, drawing back a little, "that it should be possible to fix it eventually."

He caught that instantly and fixed a bright, intense gaze on her. "Eventually? How long are you intending to stay here then?"

She searched his face and frowned. "I-" She swallowed. "I was under the impression that you liked me, signor conte."

"Di sicuro, yes, I like you." His arm was resting on the back of the couch and his fingers now took hold of a piece of her loose hair and began to play with it casually.

"Well then." She continued to look at him warily. "It seems you are the only one now. And I thought that, this being the case, you might..."

It was very hard to balance pride with desperation; Mary felt she was doing neither emotion justice, especially since a prickly fear had now been added. She did not like being so very alone in this high turret with nobody but Count Sciarpa. She had a feeling that if she cried out her voice would simply be carried away by the winds.

"I might what, duchessa?" he replied, raising his eyebrows.

She was suddenly very tired of this silly game. They were both adults and should behave as such. She turned her head away, rolling her eyes to the ceiling. "That you might marry me. Why else do you think I am here?"

"Marry you? Marry you?" The hand in her hair tightened a little. "One does not take your sort for a wife!"

"My sort!" she cried and jerked backwards, feeling the tug on her hair and wincing.

"You please me, Maria, I don't deny it," he repeated, pulling her back towards him and speaking in a hot whisper, "because you are smart and beautiful and passionate too-" She jerked away from his hand which caressed her side; she found his touch increasingly disgusting. "But, Santo Cielo, you must be more jejune than is possible, to think that you are qualified to be a wife to anybody let alone il Conte Sciarpa!"

"Your behaviour to me," she replied in breathless, hopeless outrage, squirming away from him on the couch, "gave me leave to expect – what was I to suppose you wanted if not to marry me? Back in England I am sure that-"

He followed her, clasping her round the waist. "Don't make play that you are the Madonna with these big eyes and convincing surprise; you belong with the other Maria and you know it!" With one hand on her waist and the other in her hair, moving to her neck, she could not stop him from kissing her, but she twisted her head and pulled away. "And I will have you!"

Something in her snapped at his last words and that forceful, unwanted kiss. With the energy of anger and desperation, she pulled herself out of his arms and stumbled to her feet. Only at the moment when she had no longer anything to fight for did fighting become a possibility.

"You think that I am a whore and a slut and a – a – I don't even know the words in your language, but I'm not," she cried, rage making her stand up straighter and taller even though she trembled to do so. She took a breath. "Yes, I took a lover – once – and he died in my bed! Do you think that was pleasant for me? Do you think this is what I wanted, Count, what any woman wants? I know full well that no man will marry me now but you are mistaken, you are very much mistaken if you think that gives you any right to treat me in this way. I am not some plaything you can have your way with and then dispose of when you are tired of it, because I see now that this is your intention. I have done nothing wrong – nothing – to justify this breach of hospitality. Oh? That touches you, does it? Good, because I had learned that the Italian race was a hospitable one, something they inherited from their ancient ancestors and until today I thought it true, certainly more true than of my own countrymen." She flung her arms out. "I am punished by the world and I accept it; why must you add to it? I don't deserve that, not from you, not from anybody so completely unconnected to me!"

She was free! Free at last from the burden of society and the expectations that had dogged her all her life to say what she thought even if it was to someone who probably did not care and would not listen. That did not matter; what mattered was that it was said, that she could say it at all. The words, the truth, her truth – it was all out there in the open, swirling and echoing around the turret of the castle on the rock in the sea and immediately the dreadful weight on her heart lifted and her spirit soared free. He jumped from the couch, pulled her to him and forced her back down, pressing her back on moth-eaten cushions, but she continued to talk all the time, irrepressible.

"Maybe I won't marry, maybe I'll never move in polite society again," she cried as he stroked his hand along her neck. "Maybe I'll never go back to England," she mumbled against his lips, turning her head from one way to the other. "Maybe I'll never have any money-"

"Ma basta! Will you not be quiet!" he muttered angrily at her as he pulled her hands apart and pressed them down at an awkward angle on the couch causing her to cry out in sudden pain. But even that cry felt like a triumph to her.

"None of that is important," she finished, glaring proudly at him, "because I have a life, Sciarpa, and I intend to live it! And that is something nobody, certainly not a pathetic, desperate, little man like you, can take away from- Ah!"

Words were powerful weapons but he was a powerful man in the prime of life and he had pinned her legs in such a way that she could not kick him as she wanted to. Her outburst over she was forced to concentrate on the pressure on her legs, of his body, of his face too close to hers, of the grip of his hands on her wrists and she was overcome with sudden, panicky fear.

"No! No, I don't want this," she cried, but opening her mouth again only gave him an opportunity to kiss her more forcefully and deeply and she was at too much of a disadvantage to resist successfully.

Then there was a sudden thump below as if a door had slammed. Sciarpa raised his head. Clearly this was unexpected. Mary took the opportunity to make a face and try to wipe her mouth on her shoulder.

"Caspita, che cosa c'è?" he muttered, as footsteps were clearly heard on the staircase below them and Mary's heart began to pound. If it was only a maid it would be enough to distract him – he wouldn't dare continue – if it was Gwen better still, though they sounded too heavy for hers – and she could get out. She would run, she would swim to the mainland if need be, she would do anything -

These thoughts passed through her mind in the space of a second and that was all the time she had. Taking advantage of his one moment of distraction and a slight loosening of his grip, she cried out as loudly as she could, "Here! Per piacere, entrate, please!" and freeing her hands she pushed him with a strength she had not known she possessed. The door was flung open with such force that it slammed against the wall and ricocheted back as Sciarpa overbalanced and rolled inelegantly off the couch and Mary leapt to her feet, only then able to turn round to see who it was.

Standing in the doorway, brandishing an ordinary, black umbrella before him as if it were a sword, was Matthew Crawley.

Chapter 20: Matthew, Packed

The week following the catastrophic dinner at Downton would have been the perfect opportunity for Matthew to bury himself in work. Only there wasn't any. He tidied his office, did all the paperwork that had built up over the past few months, made many cups of tea and abandoned them half drunk – and had plenty of time in which to think.

When Lord Grantham had called him into his study, his composure almost slipping, and told him the worst, he had been stupefied and had not known how to react. In fact, he was not sure he knew how to react even now several days afterwards. There was a block in his mind which he could not break through no matter how many times he shifted in his chair in the office and stared out of another window or leaned his chin on a different hand. Perhaps the truth was he did not want to. It was easier to be horrified and dismissive and in a continuous state of shock and denial than to actually examine his feelings and analyse why he was so affected. It was a dreadful blow for the family of course and he really had been awfully fond of Mary, attracted to her even, but after what she had done, how could he support her, how could any of them? After she had – It was at this moment that he would shift his chin from one hand to the other and break the train of thought. In the end, he had been enough of a disappointment to the family himself when his relationship with Sybil had failed to feel that his interference would be welcome, even if he knew what to do anyway. If he was forcing himself to be honest with himself about this one thing, he had disappointed himself too for entering into the engagement in the first place. Sybil was not, had never been right.

Eventually one day Mr. Carter came into Matthew's office at lunchtime and told him to take the rest of the day off.

"You must have many things you'd rather be doing at home in the run up to Christmas than sitting in an empty office. "

Matthew really hadn't and he had no idea what they would be doing at Christmas. The idea had always been to spend the day at the abbey but in the current atmosphere and with only Robert, Cora and Sybil at home this seemed more and more unlikely. Perhaps he and his mother would go to stay with Uncle Peter in Manchester over Christmas and New Year...

He went home anyway and found Sybil sitting in the drawing room with a cup of tea, leafing through a book. He had not seen her since the night of the dinner and his jaw dropped as he flung his coat on the chair.

"Sybil, what – what are you doing here? Are you waiting for Mother? She's... I don't know where..."

She jumped up as he entered the room and hardly waited for him to look around him and trail off before she interrupted, "She's at a friend's and anyway it's you I came to see."

"Well, I – I hope you haven't been here long."

"Oh no, just half an hour or so and Molesley has been keeping me well fed and watered as you can see." She gestured to a tea tray and a plate of Eyemouth tarts.

"Oh, yes, I see. Well, won't you sit down? It's good to see you, Sybil. How is-"

"I'm worried, Matthew," she interrupted him again as she sat down abruptly. "I'm worried about Mary."

He could only open and shut his mouth as a cold pang shot through him at her name. He swallowed and managed to bite out, "You are?"

"Aren't you?" retorted Sybil, looking both sad and frustrated. "All alone there and nobody telling her what's going on and doing who knows what..."

"I'm sure she's perfectly alright," mumbled Matthew awkwardly. "She is with your grandmother after all and she's going to be married-"

"Oh, do keep up!" she snapped and Matthew raised his head in surprise. "Mary hasn't been with Granny for a couple of weeks now; she's with these – these Americans we don't know anything about! And as for being married, it was only ever a possibility and do you really think she will be now?"

He blinked. "I – I don't know."

"Really? You can't bear to hear her name mentioned and yet you think that some strange Italian is going to marry her without a reputation?"

Matthew shrugged helplessly. "If he loved her-"

"Oh, cousin..."

They both lapsed into silence. Matthew felt helpless and uncomfortable talking about Mary. He wished her well – how could he pretend he didn't? - and yet he was aware of a deep and burning resentment inside him at the very thought of her and of what she had done even though it really had nothing to do with him at all. Yes, that was it, he realised suddenly. He was angry with Mary. He had been angry with her for a long time but it was only now that he finally had a reason or, more properly, an excuse to admit it. Before he could follow through with these thoughts, Sybil was speaking again and demanding his attention.

"It's horrible up at the abbey," she was saying. "Mama and Papa, they only talk to argue. Papa took it very badly – Mama's involvement, you know – but the more he blames her the more stubborn she is."

"She stands by Mary?" said Matthew, forcing himself to take an interest.

"Well, she tries to. She doesn't know what to do, none of us do. Papa threatens terrible things, never welcoming Mary back, disinheriting her, all sorts of things. I don't know if he means it."

"That seems rather drastic," he replied with a frown. "How would she manage without a fortune?"

"Well, that's what I think and, oh Matthew, it gets worse and that's why-" She shook her head and then leaned forwards, using her hands to add weight to her words. "This morning I overheard them arguing again – I didn't mean to but that's all I'm good for now, sneaking around the house and eavesdropping – and you know what Papa said?"

He shook his head.

"He said... he said that Mary was going to be punished because of me. So that my season and my chances of making a good marriage aren't ruined, Mary has to be punished. That's what he said! And I – I can't bear that!"

"Did you say anything?" replied Matthew.

"Oh yes!" she cried. "I rushed in and told him he was being ridiculous but Papa said I should keep out of it. He said I was being silly and didn't know what I wanted, but I do. I do know my own mind, Matthew!"

He met her eyes. "I know you do," he replied quietly. There was a great injustice going on here; he could see that, whatever else he felt.

"You know me, you know me as nobody else here does," she continued growing ever more passionate, "and you know that I would never consider marrying a man who is only paying me attention because my sister has been disinherited! If Papa does this then I really will run away and I'll do it properly too before you say I'm being melodramatic, taking money and plenty of clothes and everything. But he won't listen to me and I thought – I thought he might listen to you."

"To me? I'm not sure I..."

"My God, Matthew, I've made mistakes and that's why Papa thinks I'm not to be trusted. I don't blame him, not entirely anyway; I must appear flighty to him and perhaps to you too, but if I was wrong before I want to make things right now. That's all I want and I won't see my sister punished because of me! I couldn't live with myself."

Matthew looked away and frowned, finding her intensity unnerving. "But Sybil-" he began and then stood up abruptly and walked to the window, staring out at the garden with unseeing eyes. "Sybil, don't you think that Mary-" He swallowed as her name stuck in his throat, "I mean, what she did was – don't you think that something should be-"

God, he wanted her to be punished. Because -

"How can you say that, Matthew?" cried Sybil, jumping up and grabbing his arm and pulling him round to face her. "The only thing that should be done is to bring her back and love her! Don't you think she's been punished enough without adding my father's cruelty into the bargain?"

"Punished enough!" he cried, her anger making him angry. "With a nice trip to Italy and balls and concerts and-"

"And sold in marriage to some foreigner none of us have even met! Yes, it's a charmed life; have you any idea at all, Matthew? Are you really so blind to our lives and our characters as all that? This is Mary!"

"I know it's Mary," he said stiffly, jerking his head away.

"No, I don't think you do! Some women might pretend nothing had happened but I know my sister and she's incapable of it. I used to resent her for her pessimism but it wasn't, not for her. It was realism."

"What do you mean – that she wouldn't have flung herself at any available man even without a reputation because we both know that's not true!" he sneered, though he was no longer exactly sure what he was so angry about.

That dinner party. The dinner party that had started it all. Anthony Strallan. Games, always playing games.

Sybil took a shocked step backwards. "Not at anyone she cared about, no! And my word, Matthew, what's it to you? Anyone would think you're upset because she didn't throw herself at you!"

Matthew blinked and shook his head automatically. But that was precisely why he was upset: because she had not thrown herself at him. Only...

"Mary ruined herself, Matthew! She knows what she's done as well as we do and I – I for one don't know how she can live knowing she can never allow herself to tell the truth because look what happened when we found out! She would rather make us believe the worst of her, I'm sure, than consciously deceive us. And you think she should be punished more, do you, when she's been doing so well by herself!"

"No..." said Matthew slowly because somehow what she was saying struck him and forced a memory to the surface.

Mary had not thrown herself at him but she had given him the chance to throw himself at her, and he had not responded. She had insulted him – he remembered because the conversation was engraved on his heart – she had said that he was incapable of love and perhaps he had resented her so much afterwards because it was true. If it wasn't true, why had he been unable to answer – because he was scared to admit the truth of her power over him? But whether that was the case or not, he realised with a flash of devastating insight that he had completely misunderstood her.

She had meant herself. She had meant that she was incapable of love. Something intrinsically wrong with such a person to make love impossible for them, as she had said? What else could she have been referring to but a deep-seated belief in her own worthlessness? He burned at the injustice of it and how terribly wrong she was. She had been trying to protect him from knowing the truth, but what could be a greater act of selfless, if misplaced, love than that? If he was angry with her now it was only for terrible, superficial reasons. She had hurt him when it was his fault for not listening properly to what she was saying and then she had had the temerity to have a life, a past and a love that did not involve him.

"No," he repeated more strongly as his anger began to be deflected off Mary and onto himself. "No, she does not deserve it."

So she was not who he had thought her? That did not justify his scorn when it had been his mistake in the first place. He had failed her on every possible occasion, allowing petty resentment to overrule all his better feelings, but no longer. It did not matter now what she believed of herself, it did not matter that he loved her and had loved her for longer than he cared to imagine; what mattered was righting this terrible wrong. The rest could come later.

"What do you want me to do about it?" he inquired of Sybil with deceptive calm. Inside, his heart was pounding with realisation and resolution.

Her eyes flickered over his face, noticing the change but not quite sure what it signified. "Just talk to Papa! Make him see how wrong he's being since he won't listen to me. Make him write to her and bring her home where at the very least we can all talk about it sensibly. If he's going to disinherit her he should at least do it to her face, don't you think?"

"At the very least," said Matthew grimly. Abruptly he turned and crossed the room. He grabbed his coat and flung open the drawing room door. "At the very least," he repeated. "Coming, Sybil?"

She hastened to follow him out. "You're going now? Oh, Matthew!"

He felt a kind of controlled energy welling up in him that could only be satisfied by action. He walked faster than normal and his fists clenched and released at his side. He could not get over what a fool he had been; a blind, self-deluding, resentful fool. He had put Mary on a pedestal so that he could worship her jealously from afar and as soon as the pedestal had been even slightly shaken he had knocked her off and blamed her for it. But those qualities that he had worshipped – her beauty, her effervescent charm, even her scorn for him which was always couched so wittily that he could not help admiring her even then – those were not what really made up her character.

As he strode through the village so fast that Sybil could hardly keep up with him his mind was filled with other recollections of Mary, ones that made his heart contract and his lips turn up in affection despite himself. Mary, who could hit every coconut without even trying; Mary, who sometimes seemed more at ease wandering alone round the estate than making small talk after dinner; Mary, giggling into her napkin at a salty pudding; Mary, reading Boccaccio and pretending it was all about the plague; Mary, singing with her sister when she thought nobody could hear her... This was the real Mary and she was the woman he truly loved.

"Matthew, stop a moment!" panted Sybil and he pulled himself out of his thoughts to stop walking. They were half way down the drive to Downton and she was jogging up behind him. Sybil... How could he ever have proposed to her? Had he wanted to prove to an absent Mary that he was capable of love so much that he had tried to persuade himself that he was in love with her sister? Utter madness, and he had not really believed in it himself after the first day. After such ridiculous folly and lack of self-awareness on his part he could not possibly blame Mary for anything she might have done in the past.

"I'm sorry. I was caught up in-"

"You don't need to apologise," she interrupted drawing up to his side. "The sooner you talk to Papa the better from my point of view."

He gave her a half-smile. "From mine too."

"But there's something else I haven't told you."

"There is?" He wondered what could be worse than what she had already said.

Sybil sighed and caught her breath. "You see, I said I was worried about Mary and then I got distracted telling you about what Papa said which is horrible and everything but at least it's preventable..."

"Preventable?" Matthew felt suddenly cold.

"Matthew... if I tell you something will you promise not to say anything to anyone?"

"Of course."

Her expression relaxed. "I knew I could trust you. You see, Mary's a terrible correspondent – she hardly ever writes and when she does she never says anything-" Matthew found himself smiling even though Sybil was being perfectly serious. It was such a perfectly Mary-ish way of going about writing letters. "So we've learned nothing from Mary's letters but I – I've been writing to Gwen, her maid, you know."

"Yes, I know who Gwen is."

"And she's been writing to me and unlike Mary she actually says things. She doesn't like this Count Sciarpa Mary's planning to marry and she doesn't think Mary does either. She doesn't think Mary's happy or has been for several weeks."

Matthew closed his eyes briefly. "Go on."

"But more than that, I haven't had a letter from her since – since I wrote to tell her of our engagement. Matthew, the truth is I don't really know what's happening in Italy because I've been relying on Gwen. Mary wrote to Mama to say they had arrived in Naples but that's the last we've heard of them. And now there's the scandal and there's just – silence! Matthew, I'm so worried!"

"And you can't tell your father your fears?"

She rolled her eyes. "Tell him I've been corresponding with a housemaid? Oh, I'm sure that will go down well, especially now! To be honest I think he's glad Mary hasn't written because it saves him the trouble of deciding how to reply."

"Yes, how very comforting for him," replied Matthew grimly. He frowned at the ground a moment and then raised his head again and turned back to the house.

Sybil grabbed his arm. "Matthew, please – don't tell him about Gwen."

"Don't worry, I won't."

This was the least of Matthew's concerns. A sense of deep unease and worry was settling over him and being combined with the swirling anger that had been building since Sybil had first come to see him. No, earlier. He had been angry for a very long time. By the time they reached the house his mind was focused on only one purpose and that was to make his cousin see sense and ensure Mary's safety.

He pulled the doorbell with a vigorous jerk and then pulled it again for good measure. Carson materialised sooner than usual but Matthew ignored him and strode straight into the hall, removing his hat but not his jacket.

"I want Lord Grantham," he said and even his voice sounded strained.

Carson did not bat an eyelid. "His Lordship is in the library, sir. Shall I-"

"Thanks."

Without another word to Sybil standing in the hall, he pushed the door of the library open unannounced.

The earl was at his desk, Pharaoh at his feet, staring out across the room and not really paying attention to his papers. Lord of all he beheld, thought Matthew with an inner sneer that could not be repressed.

"Matthew!" Robert exclaimed, looking up in surprise when he saw him. "I was wondering when we would see-"

"Are you going to disinherit Mary?" he snapped.

The words rang out round the library into complete silence, the only sound the crackle of the fire. Robert sat down slowly, for he had half risen when Matthew had entered the room. His eyebrows contracted.

"I don't know what you think you've heard, but-" he began eventually.

Matthew took a few steps forwards. "What I've heard is that instead of finding out what's actually happened to your daughter who is all alone and unprotected in a foreign country, you're planning ways to make her life even more impossible than it already is."

"Matthew – Matthew, please calm down! It's true that I have been considering various options of how to deal with Mary, but-"

"How to deal with Mary!" cried Matthew, turning away abruptly to the window. "Good God, sir!"

"No, listen to me!" Robert raised his voice slightly. "You mustn't jump to conclusions like this. You're not seeing it from my point of view."

This was so startling than Matthew turned back to face him and shoved his hands into his pockets, staring at him.

His cousin continued. "You have to understand that ultimately it doesn't matter what Mary's done. That is, of course it matters to us but that's neither here nor there. What matters-"

"Neither here nor there!" What the earl was saying was making so little sense that Matthew could not help repeating him incredulously. "It's everything!"

"To you maybe but you're young and, dare I say it, hot-headed. No, let me finish."

"Sir." He turned away again.

"What matters is what people think happened and unfortunately they think the worst."

"Then deny it. I really don't see-"

"The worst is the truth, Matthew," said the earl heavily, "and there are enough people who know that to make any attempt at denial look desperate."

"What does it matter what it looks like?"

"Because that is the way the world works! This family's reputation has been severely harmed by this scandal and I have to be seen to do something." He looked up at Matthew almost pleadingly. "You must see that. If it was just Mary – but I have two other daughters to think about as well, two unmarried daughters. I have servants who depend on me for references and on whose loyalty I depend. Downton is-"

"Oh spare me!" interrupted Matthew.

The earl slammed his hand down on the table making them both jump and he stood up. "Why should I spare you? Let me make something very clear to you. When you inherit this title, when Downton is yours, when you have children of you own-"

"If I am blessed with children of my own then I should never sacrifice one of them to the false idol of family honour!"

Robert drew back in deep offence as Matthew continued. "I understand what you are saying perfectly and I reject it. If this is what you believe to be right then, God help me, I look forward to the day when I can prove you wrong."

"You will regret saying these things later, Matthew."

"Will I? I'm not so sure. Since I've come here you and your family have done everything you can to turn me into something I'm not and right now I'm very glad you've failed!"

"We have done everything we can to make you and cousin Isobel welcome and I have tried – and I thought I was making progress – to help you fit into your new life."

"I don't need help!" exclaimed Matthew, flinging out his arms and laughing suddenly. "I know how to be an earl – exactly how I am a lawyer: trying to do what is right in an imperfect world. And this, whatever way you look at it, is wrong."

"Matthew-" Robert's voice was taking on a weary, warning tone.

"Let me tell you, sir, something you seem to have forgotten. There's a very obvious way Mary can be dealt with, to use your own words, much as they disgust me."

"Please, do enlighten me, since I appear to be very stupid."

The sarcasm was almost too much. "What about giving her the support of a great and powerful family? Have you thought of that? Oh, I wonder where we could find one of them! What about integrating her so thoroughly within a family that loves and protects her so that the combined forces of all Europe could not get to her?"

"And if she had been already married with the protection of a husband it's very likely the scandal would not be half as great as it is, but she's not! For goodness sake, try to be realistic!"

"I am being perfectly realistic!" shouted Matthew, pushed beyond endurance. "If you're not willing to stand up for your own daughter then you should at least be glad there's someone who will."

"You are not head of this family and you-"

"You're right! I'm not head of your family but I'm head of my own and my father's. And if that's good enough for Mary then it will damn well have to be good enough for you! Good day to you."

"Matthew," began his cousin, coming round the desk, his voice trembling with anger, "If you leave this room now like this, I'll-"

He spun round. "You'll what? Disinherit me as well? I wish you luck in that! Tricky things, entails, at least so I've found."

"You will no longer be welcome in my home," Lord Grantham finished with sober finality. "And neither will your wife."

"Frankly," said Matthew, breathing hard, "I can't imagine wanting to be."

He cast one last look around the library, at its comfortable red sofas, at the fire crackling in the grate, at Pharaoh with his head lifted off his paws at the raised voices, at the windows with their little curves of condensation on them, then he turned his back on it all, flung open the door and strode out leaving it open behind him. As he left, the earl sank down into an armchair with a deep, unhappy sigh and passed his hand across his face. After a few moment, Pharaoh padded round and laid his head sympathetically on his master's leg.

In the hall Matthew hesitated and in that moment, Sybil leapt up from the stairs where she had been sitting and rushed towards him. There were tears in her eyes. He had barely time to notice them before she was in his arms. He embraced her awkwardly, her emotion fitting so badly with his own adrenalin and rage. Gingerly he hugged her back.

"Dear, dear Matthew!" she mumbled into his collar. "It is good to know I have one relation I can be proud of. I heard everything you said in there, you know," she added, lifting her face and pulling away from him. "Well, most of it. I went upstairs to-" She stepped out of his arms and held out an envelope. "Here. This is Mary's latest letter to Mama from Naples. It says where she's staying and everything. I thought you might-" She broke off as he touched the letter but did not take it, frowning at the clear direction on the front in Mary's elegant, curved handwriting. "That is, you are going to do what I think you're going to do?" she insisted.

Matthew blinked and took the letter from her, his fingers sliding over the creamy notepaper before putting it carefully into the inner pocket of his jacket. He tilted his head back and cast his eyes round the saloon, taking his time to find the words, as if the decision had not be made a long time ago already.

He looked back at her, anxious and waiting, and suddenly smiled. "Well, I'm going to try."

She clasped his arm warmly. "Don't let me keep you then. And – and good luck; so much good luck!"

He touched her hand briefly and nodded and then left her, unable to reply again. Outside, the world seemed different. Leaving the house, he felt as if he were emerging from a dream into the cold and clear sting of reality. His mind whirled with ideas and schemes and determination and by the time he was almost running up the drive of Crawley House again, he was half way across France.

He unlocked the door and slammed it behind him. "Molesley!" he yelled, flinging open the drawing room door without looking inside and then starting up the stairs. "Molesley!"

His mother emerged from the drawing room. "Matthew? What are you doing home? Is everything alright? What are you-"

He ran back down the stairs. "Mother, I'm-" He was what exactly? He blinked to clear his thoughts. "Mother, I need to know when the next train to London leaves. Molesley!"

"Why, are you going away?"

"Molesley! For God's sake, where is he? Please, just find it, mother. You always have Bradshaw to hand."

"Sir?" He appeared on the upstairs landing, holding one of Matthew's shirts, as Isobel disappeared shaking her head back in the drawing room to find the timetable.

"Ah, good. Pack your things, Molesley!"

"Sir!"

Matthew rolled his eyes as he took the stairs two at a time. "No, not like that! I mean, we're going away. Pack my things too."

"Very good, sir. How long for?"

Matthew followed him into his bedroom and shrugged, even as he started opening cupboards and pulling out shirts and throwing them on the bed. "Oh, I don't know. Just pack a suitcase!"

There was a little hesitation before the next, "Very good, sir." Then, "Will you be needing your dinner jacket?"

Matthew paused and stared at him. As if that sort of thing mattered! "Just – just pack some clothes and hurry up about it!"

He dashed onto the landing again and called down. "Mother?"

She was waiting for him. "There's a train from Ripon in an hour which you could get if you hurry. Matthew, may I ask-"

"Later!" Next stop was his study and a quick gathering up of important documents which he shoved into a satchel. He poked his head out of the door. "Ready, Molesley?"

"Nearly, sir."

"Good man."

There was little else he could do now other than go back downstairs and pace up and down the drawing room, watched anxiously by his mother.

"Will you be away for long, Matthew?"

"Probably not. I don't know." He was starting to feel guilty about the horrible position he was leaving her in in relation to the rest of the family. Well, his mother could handle herself; at least he had no qualms on that score. And she would understand.

"Would I be right in thinking..." she began very gently as if she already knew, "that you are going abroad?"

He met her eyes briefly. "Yes."

She nodded. "I wondered. Matthew, promise me one thing; write when you reach your destination, so I know you're safe."

He smiled. "Of course I will."

From the hall came the sounds of Molesley manoeuvring several suitcases down the stairs at once. Matthew moved towards the door and then turned back. "Will you promise me something too, Mother?"

"Anything at all, dear."

"Go and talk to Sybil sometimes. I don't think anyone's looking after her at the moment and I think she could do with a friend."

Isobel smiled. "That's easily done and will be a pleasure. Now, don't you have a train to catch?"

He grinned in relief and kissed her, lingering a moment and fighting a strange sadness that came over him at the thought of parting from her. She looked so old suddenly. "Take care of yourself, Mother," he added and then closed the door behind him before he could put it off any longer.

Molesley was trying to manage all three cases. Matthew slung his satchel over his shoulders, grabbed his hat and umbrella in one hand and picked up one of the suitcases in the other.

It wasn't until they were actually on the first train to Ripon, sitting awkwardly opposite to each other in an empty compartment that Molesley said, "I don't mean to pry but... where are we actually going, sir?"

Matthew had been staring out of the window, resting his chin on his hand. He looked round then and felt for the first time a fizz of excitement. "You'll like it, Molesley – we're going to Italy!"

Chapter 21: On Wingèd Sandals

They made the connecting train to London with only seconds to spare and ended up sitting opposite each other in an empty second class compartment. Molesley had instantly headed towards the third class part of the train but Matthew really couldn't see the point of them being separated. First class seemed extravagant so second class it was.

As the train chugged steadily, but too slowly, down the country, they made plans. Molesley would have preferred to spend the night in London, possibly somewhere comfortable like Lady Rosamund Painswick's town house, and continue the following morning but Matthew wasn't having any of it. When they arrived in London they immediately crossed the city to Victoria and got the next train to the coast. They did not even stop for supper.

The journey to Dover on a small, stopping-train seemed to last for ever. By the time they made it with all their luggage to the port, both were weary, hungry and bad tempered and the sun had long since set. Here there was a further setback for the last crossing had already left. In fact, said the harbour master with a bit too much enjoyment of their predicament, if they looked out of that window just to the left, they'd be able to see the lights on the ship as it sailed off to France without them.

There was nothing to do but be very polite and book tickets on the first passage of the morning at great expense due to the late notice. Fortunately Matthew was happy to give up the privilege of a cabin and his companion had little choice but to go along with him. None of the nice hotels round the port had vacancies, at least not at the price Matthew was willing to pay, but after traipsing around the back streets for almost an hour they found a small inn with a room which also offered a hot supper, even at that late hour.

Nourished by a greasy but filling stew and several pints of beer, Matthew and Molesley escaped the curious stares of the pub's clientèle of sailors and approached their dingy bedroom and its single bed with more optimism than they had previously felt when the landlady had first ushered them up.

It probably helped that Molesley turned out to be rather bad at holding his alcohol and no longer seemed bothered by their sleeping conditions. He flung himself on the bed with a rather too liberal grin.

"Rather fun, isn't it, sir?" he said bouncing slightly.

Matthew sat down on the edge of the bed and slowly began to unlace his shoes. "I suppose so," he replied. Every inch of him craved movement and action but there was nothing they could do that night, short of swimming the channel.

"I've always wanted to go on an adventure," continued Molesley thoughtfully as he stared vaguely up at the ceiling. "We could be like that pair who went round the world in that book– who were they again?"

"Phileas Fogg and Passepartout," put in Matthew, forcing himself to focus as he gingerly slid himself onto the pillows. Unable to remain completely still, however, he picked up his hat from the table and began to fiddle with it.

"Yes, them! Or Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson."

"But which of us is Holmes and which Watson, eh, Molesley?"

"You're Holmes of course, sir!" replied Molesley staring at him just a little out of focus.

Matthew raised his eyebrows at his hat as he twirled it on one finger. "Right. Well, better get myself a deerstalker then," he murmured.

Molesley made no reply and when Matthew glanced across at him a moment later, he saw that he had fallen asleep. He rolled his eyes and after a second of hesitation placed his hat back on the table, linked his arms behind his head and sighed, staring out into the gloom on the room. Apart from the sound of Molesley's breathing and the occasional shout from the street below, all was quiet.

What was he doing there? What kind of ridiculous wild goose chase had he embarked upon and dragged his servant with him? Perhaps Phileas Fogg wasn't such a ridiculous comparison after all. He stood up and padded across the room in his socks to the window, pulling back the threadbare curtain and staring out down a dark and unlit cobbled street. At the bottom of it between the houses could be seen a glimpse of murky water and a crescent moon above it. Matthew leaned against the cold window frame and sighed.

Assuming he made it to Naples and that he met Mary – then what? Would he immediately bring her home, home to a father who wanted to disinherit her? What about her grandmother? What if she did not want to come? It occurred to Matthew that Sybil might have got it all wrong; there was a good chance that Mary really was going to marry a count and was very happy about it. He was probably a terribly nice sort of fellow – nice and handsome and not too picky about his wife's reputation. Matthew clenched his fist at his side as he wondered if he'd been taken for a fool. It was a ridiculous thing to do, rush off across the continent because Sybil's servant friend had not written to her recently. Mary would surely not appreciate the interference in her life and he would have broken with her father for nothing.

Shivering and sleepless in the darkness of the small hours, Matthew repented his haste and doubted his judgement. Somehow by the time he had left the library, it had seemed to be all decided between him and his cousin that he was going to marry Mary. In fact that had not quite been what he had meant by saying that the scandal could be combated if she had the support of a powerful family. She already had one! Marrying him would not alter anything if her father only stood by her.

But her father had chosen to abandon her instead and now Matthew turned frowning from the window and began to pace. Too much of Mary's life had been decided for her already by men sitting in libraries and he felt perfectly convinced of perhaps only one thing, that she would marry whom she wanted and for no other reason than because she wanted to. She deserved that at least and if she wanted to marry Sciarpa, or indeed nobody at all, then so be it. Disappointment in this area was no more than he deserved after his stupidity, after all, and if she was happy and his journey unnecessary then that would really be for the best. If she did not want to marry him, however, or if her situation was not so comfortable (and he hated himself for almost wishing this might be the case) then he would – Matthew swallowed – he would make sure there were no more misunderstandings between them.

It all depended on Mary though – and this was completely as it should be. It seemed that finding her would be only the beginning and that was hard enough. Suddenly Italy seemed terribly far away. The afternoon he had spent tracing Mary's route in an atlas seemed so long ago when he was faced with the reality of repeating it himself. He had, after all, never been abroad before. His French was rusty and his Italian was more like Latin than anything else. It would probably be easy enough to get a train to Paris but after that, what would be best? Overnight to Milan or Verona or Genoa before preceding down the boot, but he could not be sure. He felt completely out of his depth.

Stumbling back to the bed in exhaustion he sat down again. He knew he ought to try to get some sleep if only for a few hours but it was hard to settle and he wished Molesley had packed a book. Then, with a sudden flash of inspiration and hope, Matthew pulled open the bedside table drawer. No matter how insalubrious an inn was, one thing was always going to be a constant and that was the presence of a Bible.

He lay down on the bed and hunching over the light of the single candle let the book fall open at random.

He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

Matthew closed his eyes for a moment after a few verses and forced himself to calm. He took a few deep breaths and then read on.

Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day; Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.

It was a familiar text to him and he felt every muscle in his body relax as he allowed himself to believe in it.

For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone. Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet.

Matthew did not know what the morning would bring or how he could possibly be prepared to meet it, but by the time he carefully replaced the Bible back in the drawer and finally blew out of the candle, the darkness no longer seemed quite so unmanageable and even Molesley's steady breathing beside him seemed reassuring. Eventually he slept.

---

The travellers were up again before dawn and by the time the winter sun was burnishing the cold water of the channel a brilliant red they were afloat. Molesley had disappeared below immediately with his hand clasped over his mouth, but Matthew was made of stouter stuff and he strode up and down the deck taking deep breaths of salty air and feeling the wind whip through his hair. The white cliffs of England faded behind him in a cloud of mist and waves and Matthew felt only a passing pang. Did not everyone long to travel? Moreover, he felt that there was more to be anticipated at the end of his journey than to be regretted in what he had left behind. He turned firmly towards the bows of the ship and kept a keen look out for the first appearance of France.

The journey to Paris was subdued. The morning train was busy so Matthew treated them both to a first class compartment and both were finally able to get some sleep. Consequently they missed their entry into Paris, awakening only when they arrived at the Gare du Nord and were ejected into the bustle of a French station. For a moment Matthew felt completely lost before he sprang into action and managed to procure directions to the Gare de Lyon through a mixture of hand gestures and broken French and English. Having stumbled into the métro on one side of the city and stumbled out of it on the other side, they found that they were in luck, for a train was leaving imminently for Milan and within an hour of arriving in Paris they were departing from it.

"Seems a shame we didn't even see the Eiffel Tower," commented Molesley as they left the last of the suburbs behind them.

Matthew shrugged. "I'm sure we'll visit France again."

He was soon wishing for a book once more. After they had eaten their baguettes there was really nothing to do but stare out of the window. The countryside with its different style of roofs and field boundaries and church steeples was interesting for a while but soon even the surprise of seeing motorcars drive on the wrong side of the road became rather monotonous. It was dusk when they began to climb up into the Alps and the scenery changed again. Dinner was another sandwich purchased from a shop on the station platform of some deserted mountain village and by the time they arrived in Milan and Matthew was trying to find out if there was a sleeper train to Naples or at the very least an official who spoke English, both were thoroughly sick of the journey, each other's company, and wished they could be safely back in Crawley House with a hot cup of tea, some of Mrs. Bird's strawberry tarts and the prospect of a good night's sleep in their own beds.

Eventually they found an off-duty governess who spoke English and was able to help them buy tickets on the late train to Naples. By this point they felt more resigned than fortunate and this feeling only increased when they realised that they would be sharing a couchette compartment with four other men. As Matthew tried to make himself comfortable on the middle bunk between two middle-aged men who were conducting an animated conversation over his head, he reflected with a bitterness born out of exhaustion, that Mary would have had a compartment all to herself when she had got the night train. It wasn't as if they meant to be disturbing, he thought as he waved away the offer of a piece of one his companions' dinner of garlicky sausage; Italians just seemed to talk more loudly than Englishmen. He wondered what Mary made of the country and its people and realised with a leap of his heart that he might well be able to ask her in person the very next day. Now that he allowed himself to feel it, he longed for her and her company more than anything in the world; he drifted off into an uneasy sleep to the accompaniment of incomprehensible foreign chat in one ear and the rumbling of the train in the other with her face and smile constantly before his mind's eye, shining as brightly as a guiding star.

Naples, when they eventually arrived the following morning, was cold, grey, rainy and not altogether dissimilar to the London they had left. So much for the southern European climate! mused Matthew as he emerged from the central station and put up his umbrella.

It was at this point that the real difficulties of their mission began. Armed with maps from the station office, they hired a cab to take them to Mary's hotel as the first port of call. It was a terribly grand place – and also had no vacancies. This was a problem, and Molesley was despatched to procure rooms elsewhere and meet him back at the hotel as soon as he had done so.

Left alone, Matthew enquired at the reception whether Lady Mary Crawley was currently resident there. On hearing that she had checked out the previous day, he did not know whether to be frustrated that he had missed her or pleased that he was on the right track. Further enquiries, however, were unforthcoming. The clerk at the desk either did not like to talk about Mary or did not like Matthew's battered and travel worn appearance and refused to discuss her any further. Asking after Mrs. Bowen was more productive and Matthew sank down into a luxuriant sofa in the hotel drawing room while a chambermaid was sent for her.

Mrs. Bowen, accompanied anxiously by her daughter, descended shortly afterwards. Matthew sprang up immediately.

"Mrs. Bowen, Miss Bowen," he began earnestly, "I beg your pardon for disturbing you so rudely like this when I have no right to any of your time and you don't even know who I am-"

Mrs. Bowen held up a hand to stop him. "No, no, you are Mr. Matthew Crawley. We've heard of you, and you mustn't apologise to us."

Indeed, Matthew found himself faced with a very contrite mother and daughter who were only too glad to see him and pour out all their troubles. Shortly after Mary had left them the previous day, they had argued, a confrontation that had taken place in public, much to their own subsequent mortification. Mrs. Bowen's anger against Mary had sunk as quickly as it had risen and she had soon become aware of the great error in her own conduct, in letting her leave for Proschia without a chaperone when she had been left in her charge.

"If Lady Grantham cuts us in London society this spring then it's no more than we deserve," she concluded as Henrietta shook her head miserably.

Matthew was truly angry with them but he swallowed it as something not worth troubling himself about. Besides, Miss Bowen's concern for Mary and joy at hearing that he was not engaged to Lady Sybil after all were quite clearly genuine. She had changed overnight from believing that Mary's marriage to an Italian count and living in a castle was the most romantic possible outcome to thinking that a devoted cousin rushing across Europe in pursuit of his one true love trumped everything else in fiction or real life.

"I don't suppose you have a white charger waiting outside?" she sighed at him, her face shining.

"Er, no..." he replied, a little unnerved. "I came by train."

Mrs. Bowen swiftly dismissed her daughter to her room to get over her nonsense, though not before Henrietta had pressed his hands with her own and beseeched him to go and bring back Mary as soon as possible from the clutches of that horrid man.

Alone with the mother, she told him more worrying information that she had kept from her daughter. Their argument of the previous day had been overheard by a Neapolitan civil servant who understood English and he had later approached Mrs. Bowen to share what he knew about Count Sciarpa. He had worked all his life in the records office of Naples and had no contact with the aristocracy except what he saw in the archives but he had distinctly remembered this particular name, he had explained. Many years ago, he had said, Alessandra di Sciarpa, countess in her own right and sole heiress and mistress of Castello Proschia, had married a plausible fortune hunter of no family whatsoever. He had made love to her and she had been young, naïve, and unsupported by any relations. No sooner had the marriage papers been signed and the lady's estate and fortune handed over to her husband than he had set himself up as the real Count Sciarpa, made his wife totally dependent on him and proceeded to live a life of hedonism to which his new rank and fortune entitled him, often concealing her existence altogether.

"Was this true?" Matthew gasped in horror.

Mrs. Bowen shrugged. "According to this man's brother's wife's cousin who knew all about it at the time – well, you know what these Italians are like."

He stood up abruptly, frowning away from her in fear and frustration.

"But," she continued, "he said he would swear on the Holy Mother herself that he had seen the marriage certificate himself so that bit's true at least. Mr. Crawley, if Lady Mary is with this man, she won't be marrying him, that's for sure." She hesitated and then touched his arm to get his attention. "I can't approve of her, sir, but what's done is done and in the end, she's only a girl, isn't she?"

Matthew could not reply. Part of him, the part that worked in a lawyer's office in Ripon, wanted to go to the records office himself and prove the story he had just heard so that he did not go into a potentially awkward situation unprepared. This temptation was squashed, however, by Mrs. Bowen's anxious reminder that Mary had already been at the castle one night; it was not necessary for her to be more explicit, and rooting around in dusty archives no longer seemed like a priority.

Leaving a message at the reception that Molesley was to send on their luggage to their hotel and follow him as soon as he arrived, Matthew set off on foot for the port which was fortunately not too far away. It took a good three-quarters of an hour, the production of many official looking (but entirely irrelevant) papers and finally the promise of being paid far more than the job deserved, to find a fisherman willing to take him to the island in such indifferent weather and Matthew had just completed the transaction when Molesley ran up.

In the boat, they filled each other in on their respective mornings before Molesley was obliged to lie down in the bottom of the boat and groan among the fishing nets. Matthew let him be as he reviewed the situation, hardly aware of the motion of the sea at all. Molesley had performed admirably, booking rooms for them both in an out-of-the way pensione in the old town. He had even reserved a third room – in case. It was not, he said, the kind of place to which Lady Mary would be accustomed to staying, but the landlady seemed kind and discreet and it was at least clean. So close to Christmas, none of the larger hotels had been able or willing to take such last minute bookings.

As the little fishing boat approached Proschia, Matthew noticed none of its prettiness nor did he feel particular awe at the size of the castle. The closer he approached to his destination, the more narrowed his focus became on Mary and getting her out. He had no proof of Sciarpa's villainy, but he wouldn't deny it if pressed – would he? And his wife could be of some help, wouldn't she? Or Mary herself, if she was sufficiently capable of – but no, he was not going to finish that thought. His mouth set into a line of grim determination, he clutched his hat in the wind and waited impatiently for the boat to dock in the harbour.

The route to the castle was obvious and Matthew set out through the town and across the causeway at a brisk stride followed by a gasping and ill-looking Molesley. The castle soon loomed up in front of them. It was an imposing edifice now that it was close up and Matthew turned to his companion with a nervous laugh and exclaimed, "Shall we need a battering ram, do you think?" The front gates were very definitely closed.

"I suggest we ring the doorbell first and see what happens, sir," replied Molesley.

Matthew flashed him a wry smile and felt suddenly very glad of his support. When they returned home he would be getting a pay rise – but thinking of returning home was probably not something to be encouraged at this stage. There were too many variables.

There was no bell pull and after surveying the heavy, wooden gates for a few moments, Matthew stepped forwards and banged on them. The sound reverberated but there was no sign of anyone having heard within. He cleared his throat.

"Open up!" he called, his voice sounding feeble and instantly lost. "Aprite!" He cleared his throat again. "Sono Matthew Crawley, sono di Brittania e venio per mia – mia relative Mary Crawley!"

Still nothing. He glanced at Molesley again who shrugged. "Perhaps you could knock a bit harder, sir."

Suddenly Matthew was very angry. The doors seemed to be mocking his pathetic attempts to gain admittance. It was ridiculous to have come so far only to be defeated by the castle itself. He took a step forward again and thumped as hard as he could, over and over again on the door. Then he stood back and gazed up at the smooth, impenetrable walls rising above the gatehouse. He took a deep breath.

"My name is Matthew Crawley, I am the cousin and heir of the Earl of Grantham, I have come all the way from England, I've barely slept in two days, and I want my cousin!"

He almost shrieked the last phrase and quickly removed his hat and wiped his forehead. There was an unpleasantly clammy, misty feel to the air that was making him come out in a cold sweat. He gave the door a final thump and then stepped back, breathing heavily.

Several minutes passed during which time Matthew reviewed every decision he had made in the last few days and came to the conclusion that he would be feeling much better at this moment in time if he had a pistol. Not that he knew the first thing about firearms, but it would have been a reassuring thing to have on him all the same. Anyway, he had neither a gun nor any more time to regret that fact, since a small door within the larger one was being unbolted and presently opened a crack to reveal a dark haired woman looking out curiously at them both. She was too finely dressed to be a servant and Matthew approached her immediately and bowed politely, holding his hat in his hand.

"Contessa Alessandra di Sciarpa?" he queried her gently and watched as suspicion turned to embarrassment and presently to relief.

She replied in a stream of whispered Italian which he did not understand but contained Mary's name and seemed to end on an interrogative. So he nodded enthusiastically and took another step towards the door. In return she opened it more widely and stepped back to let him pass.

Once inside the courtyard, they all stopped and Matthew turned to his silent guide.

"Veni con noi, Contessa," he said awkwardly but very earnestly. "In Britannia posso, erm, posso protect te."

She frowned a moment as she understood him and then stood up a little straighter and shook her head once with resignation and dignity. "Dai, Signore, è nel torre. Fa presto." She pointed to an open door in a corner turret.

Matthew could only thank her with a glance before hurrying off. He wished she would let him help her but ultimately she could not be his priority if she chose to stay. Half way across the courtyard he stopped abruptly, causing Molesley to almost run into him.

"Go and find Gwen," he ordered him in an undertone, "and when you've got her go straight to the boat and wait for me there. This place seems deserted now but who knows-"

"And yourself, sir?"

Matthew glanced at the open doorway. "I'm going to get Mary," he stated grimly. He clapped his valet on the shoulder and hesitated. "I appreciate it, Molesley."

He nodded. "Thank you, sir."

It was an odd moment to have between them, and then Matthew broke from him and entered the tower, accidentally slamming the open door against the wall. He had barely started up the spiral staircase when he heard a cry coming from above. His heart almost stopped and he gasped out loud, steadying himself against the stone wall. It was Mary's voice, he was sure of it, and it chilled him to the bone. Such horrible and vivid proof of everything he had feared! He paused only a moment before setting up the stairs at a run, taking them two or three at a time until he reached another wooden door at the top. Indistinctly, he heard Mary's voice again and he pushed at the door without bothering to knock. It was unlocked and he applied so much force that it bounced off the wall with a clang.

He saw her immediately, in the very act of pushing a dark, suited man off a saggy, red couch and stumbling to her feet. Her hair was loose and her dress rumpled but he only saw her parted lips and wide, shocked eyes and the fact that it was her and she was alive and real and breathing and in the same room as him for the first time in what seemed more like years than months.

"Matthew!" she gasped, taking one tiny step towards him. "Is it really-"

He could not help it: he grinned, his face almost cracking with the strength of his smile. He was simply so happy to see her in any circumstance and since he felt it and knew that he felt it he could not have hidden it if he had tried. And now she was smiling back, or almost smiling in a kind of anxious, disbelieving, breathless way. He took a step towards her – and found his path blocked by an incensed Sciarpa.

"Ma per il diavolo chi è Lei?" he cried with expressive hand gestures. "Who are you and what are you doing here interrupting a private conversation?"

Matthew was reluctant to look at him for he only had eyes for Mary, standing stock still against the wall.

"I've come for my cousin," he retorted and waved his umbrella in what he hoped was a menacing way. "Do get out of my way, please. Come on, Mary, we're going."

"This is trespassing! Signore, I do not care if you are cousin to the King of England himself but you cannot simply walk in here and-"

Matthew stared him down and frowned. "Your wife let me in," he said crisply and briefly met Mary's eyes as he heard her gasp before looking back at Sciarpa. "If we're going to discuss petty legalities then I don't think I'm the one who needs to- Good God!"

He jumped back as Sciarpa suddenly pulled a sword out of a decorative bracket on the wall and flourished it in front of him. "Now who is high and mighty!" he cried.

"Stop this at once; please!" cried Mary faintly, backing against the wall.

"You're mad!" exclaimed Matthew, holding up the umbrella in front of him with both hands. "Completely and utterly raving mad!" He was speaking for the mere act of saying something. No words could really express any of the thoughts going round inside his head. He sidestepped, jabbing the umbrella forwards and was rewarded by the sword slashing at the material and cutting it.

"I really think," continued Matthew in little pants as he tried to avoid being backed towards the staircase again, "that you should just let us go. I can't imagine why you would want Mary so much in the circumstances that you're willing to fight me for her, and you see, I want her a great deal!"

He glanced behind him, aware that if he stepped any further back, he would be in danger of tumbling down the stairs. The whole situation was surreal and quite outside of his comprehension. What place did swords and duelling have in the life of an English gentleman? If it weren't for the sword he would have been tempted to simply punch the fellow – Count, indeed! There was nothing aristocratic about this man that he could tell.

"This puttana is more trouble than she is worth but you have discovered my trick and so-"

Matthew did not have to know the precise meaning of the word used to know it was bad, but Mary, hitherto frozen in shock and horror, did. She acted so swiftly Matthew was hardly aware of her seizing one of the many Greek vases that decorated the room and of her bringing it down on Sciarpa's head from behind until she had done it.

He crumpled instantly to the floor and in the same moment the vase slipped out of Mary's hands and shattered on the stone beneath, pieces of priceless antiquity skidding in every direction. Neither Matthew nor Mary dared to breathe and for a second there was complete silence. Then their eyes met slowly over the body and both began to breathe more quickly all of a sudden, as if to make up for a previous lack. An ache of admiration and love rose up in Matthew so strong it almost choked him.

"Is he dead?" murmured Mary suddenly, breaking the heavy silence and he dropped to his knees and felt Sciarpa's pulse at his neck.

He looked at her and stood up again. "No."

She almost wilted in relief. "Thank goodness. A murder trial would be-"

"Oh God, Mary!" He could not help it; the urge to touch her and reassure himself of her reality was too strong and he reached out to take her hand but she shrank from him unexpectedly and looked away, biting her lip. Matthew swallowed. Too hasty. He forced himself to think sensibly.

"We need to get away. He's out for now but he'll come round soon enough and we want to be off the island by then."

She frowned at him and flung out her arms. "What about my clothes? My trunks! My hair!"

He almost laughed but stopped himself in time. "Mary, please, come on! Never mind all that. You must see it's more important to get away."

She blinked and pulled herself together. "Yes, of course." Turning away from him she grabbed her blue coat from a hook and shrugged it on, also picking up her hat. As she did up the buttons, her fingers shaking ever so slightly, she stared down at Sciarpa with pursed lips. Matthew, impatient to be going, held his hand out to her.

"Mi dispiace per rompere il vaso," she said in a flat tone. Then she tossed her head, stepped delicately over the body and, with a glance at Matthew that was almost unsure, put her hand in his.

Getting her out of the room had been the difficult part and the rest was easy. He pulled her down the stairs so fast they were dizzy by the time they reached the courtyard, urged her at a run across the cobbles and out of the main gate, and did not allow her to stop running till they reached the end of the causeway, encouraging her with a hand on her back if she appeared to be flagging. She seemed happy to run, however, and when they finally paused on the mainland her hair was tangled and her cheeks were flushed, but she was smiling even as she gasped for breath. She had never appeared so utterly perfect. Once they were more recovered, he urged her on again through the village to the harbour.

"You have a boat?" she asked at one point, breaking their silence.

"Hired one," he replied with a sideways smile.

At another point she stopped altogether with an exclamation of distress. "Gwen!" she exclaimed. "I forgot her; we have to go back."

He reassured her in that too. "It's alright, she'll be there; Molesley's getting her."

It was Mary's turn to smile tentatively and nod. Indeed both Molesley and Gwen were waiting for them by the boat and the smiles and looks of relief on all sides were only matched by Matthew's desire to be away from the island as quickly as possible. With reluctance, he resigned Mary's care to an affectionate and relieved Gwen who took her arm and did not seem inclined to let it go. In fact, he thought as all four of them were safely stowed in the fishing boat and the moorings were finally cast off, Mary seemed almost unnecessarily cool towards him compared to her sudden fondness for Gwen, as if she did not quite know what to say to him. He shrugged inwardly; perhaps that was not to be surprised at, but he regretted it all the same and longed for the moment when he could speak openly to her.

Notes:

Matthew quotes Psalm 91.

Chapter 22: Coming Home

It was dusk over the sea now and the low sun struggling through the clouds made the water shine silver. The mountain in the centre of the island was soon no more than a dark silhouette that got gradually smaller as they pulled further and further away. A chill breeze rose up and increased the swell of the waves. All shivered and Matthew made to take off his jacket but Mary waved away his offer with a tight smile.

"Don't be ridiculous, Matthew; I shall be good for nothing if you freeze to death." She chewed her lip and then asked lightly, "I suppose Sybil sent you?"

Of all the questions to ask this seemed the oddest and he stuttered in reply, "I – I suppose she did in a way, yes."

She forced a smile. "Dear Sybil!"

As she replied, everything became clear and Matthew's heart leapt into his mouth. Falling to his knees in the bottom of the boat, he grabbed her hands where she sat opposite him.

"No!" he exclaimed. "No, Mary, you've got it all wrong! Sybil did send me but not because we're going to be married – because we're not."

Her eyes widened and her stomach leaped – or perhaps that was simply a reaction to the motion of the boat.

"Oh," she murmured and pressed his hands without quite meaning to. "You're not?"

"No. It was all a – I won't say it was a misunderstanding because that's not really true, but it was a mistake. For both of us."

His eyes as he gazed up at her told the story far more eloquently than any words could have done if only her mind had been sufficiently capable of reading them at that moment. She felt – she felt a great many things, but her thoughts were all confusion.

It was uncomfortable kneeling amid the fishing nets and Matthew straightened up and sat back down opposite her. She was staring fixedly at the point where he had been and her eyes landed on his umbrella.

"I'm sorry," she said after a moment had passed, giving herself a little shake. "I'm sorry it's ruined."

Matthew picked it up. "This? Oh, it's nothing." He smiled at her in reassurance; she looked so serious.

"A casualty of battle," she said, meeting his eyes for a moment and touching the slashed material with tentative fingers.

"It fought bravely but was taken by surprise."

Now she smiled back, genuinely amused. "Fortunately an intrepid piece of pottery was on hand to help."

"Most fortunately." He wanted to take her hand again but the distance between them was too great without making a big deal out of it.

Gwen interrupted them forcing Mary to break eye contact. It was rather a relief for she had not known how to look away or what else to say.

"My lady, I've found some pins in my pocket. Would you like me to try to do somethin' with your hair?"

"Oh, yes, if you can! Thank you."

Mary took off her hat and clutched it on her lap, turning to the side to allow Gwen better access. Matthew cleared his throat and stared out over the sea. It was probably ridiculous but he felt that to watch Mary have her hair pinned, even if it was outside in the wind on a boat, would be an intrusion.

They arrived at the harbour, Matthew paid the fisherman an exorbitant amount of lire and Molesley found a cab while Gwen and her mistress stood quietly to one side, arm in arm. Mary knew she had no need to be frightened of Naples after all the time she had spent in Italy, but she nevertheless shrank into the corner of the cab as it rushed off in a different direction from the port to the one going to her previous hotel. The streets got narrower and more crowded and the smells more pungent as they dived into the old town. Fortunately, the journey was short and they were soon dropped outside a dilapidated but palatial building just off a bustling square. A passage through a massive stone archway brought them into a courtyard. Matthew was briefly distracted by staring round at the architecture.

"You can see the Greek influence," he muttered, turning on the spot. "Almost reminiscent of Mycenae in the size of the stones."

"Sir!" called Molesley from the entrance to the reception.

Matthew blinked and focussed. There would be time enough for this... well, he really wasn't here as a tourist! Mary, still hovering in the entrance passage with Gwen, watched him, her head tilted to one side. She felt strangely relieved to have a moment to observe him unnoticed. A wave of unreality washed over her as she realised once more that Matthew was truly here in Italy, enthusing over its history just as she had thought he might. She shivered suddenly, feeling incredibly weary and cold, and quickly followed Molesley inside.

The landlady was not particularly communicative though that was to be expected considering she spoke no English and the only member of the party who spoke Italian was Mary. She was polite and asked no questions, however. She had also clearly never come into contact with any members of the aristocracy, either Italian or English, for she called Mary "Signora Crawley" as she showed her to her room along a darkened fourth floor corridor. After opening her mouth to correct her, Mary closed it again. In the end, it was a thing of very little importance.

Her bedroom was gloomy and still a little clammy though a fire had been lit and was now burning merrily in the grate. The window opened onto the courtyard and two heavy chairs and a table were arranged at the foot of the bed by the fire. A crucifix hung over the bed at a slight angle. It was, however, clean, anonymous, and the door locked. Mary would have been satisfied with a lot less in the circumstances. After a cursory inspection of the room, her eyes were drawn to a milliner's box on the bed. She advanced cautiously, having glanced at Gwen in question and received only a shrug in response, and opened the box to discover a nightdress and other necessary toiletries. She ran her hand over the soft silk, torn between confusion and simple relief.

"My lady, there's a note!" said Gwen and held it out to her.

It was short and to the point:

Lady Mary-

I hope you can find it in you to forgive me for what I said to you. It was never my intention that you should be exposed to any danger.

Yours most sincerely,

Rebecca Bowen

Mary sighed and shook her head.

"A woman without a protector must always be exposed to danger," she murmured as there was a knock on the door.

Gwen opened it a crack and then more. Matthew said tentatively, "May I come in?"

Mary dithered a second before putting the note down and crossing to the door. She smiled at him. "Of course, Matthew."

He advanced round the door with so much hesitation that her smile relaxed further and she beckoned him in. His eyes glanced round the room. "Are you sure, Mary? Isn't it rather improper, my being here? Only..."

"I suppose the advantage about not having a reputation is that I can invite anyone I choose into my bedroom without a chaperone and nobody will bat an eyelid."

Matthew frowned instinctively and then smiled tightly before looking away quickly. Mary sighed again at her hasty words and shivered. She felt almost light-headed and gripped the bedpost to steady herself.

"Come in, Matthew," she repeated, swallowing nervously. "And, Gwen – will you go and find some tea and something to eat? Some sandwiches or – or anything really."

She had not eaten anything all day.

As Gwen curtsied and left the room, closing the door quietly behind her, Mary released the bedpost reluctantly and found her way to one of the chairs. Matthew followed her and sat down slowly opposite her.

"Well," he said, and no more. He had not eaten either and the exertions of earlier were catching up with him. It was almost impossible to understand, now that he had finally stopped moving, that two days ago he had been at Downton and now he was in Naples. Moreover, he was in the same room as Mary, who was observing his bewilderment with placidity, or maybe it was simply exhaustion. There was so much that needed to be discussed, so many things he needed to tell her, so many things he wanted to ask. And yet this hardly seemed the time when she was no doubt in shock and he was barely aware of what country he was in.

"Tell me about your journey," Mary asked him suddenly. She was white and drawn but still managing to look interested. A rush of deep affection and admiration for her passed through Matthew suddenly.

"Alright," he replied and leaned back in his chair, trying to relax. He started with his sudden departure from Crawley House with Molesley and continued doggedly all the way to their arrival on the island. By reliving it, Matthew felt as if he was finally catching up with himself. It was, moreover, a factual (if edited) account and cost him little to tell it or her to listen to it.

She was an engaging auditor too. She responded only with the odd quirk of her lips or raise of her eyebrows but her eyes on his face were bright and steady and she made encouraging comments whenever he seemed to be flagging.

"We never got to Milan," she commented at one point, "but I've heard it's a lovely city. The cathedral is meant to be exquisite."

"I'm sure it is but I'm afraid I didn't see anything beyond the train station."

She smiled back ruefully. "I suppose you didn't. Perhaps on the way back-" She broke off abruptly and twisted her hands in her lap. Matthew quickly continued his narrative.

He was just explaining how he persuaded the fisherman to take them to the island, trying to make it sound more entertaining and less frustrating than it had been when Gwen entered with refreshments.

She had a tray with a metal pot of tea and two tea glasses. There were also two plates with a steaming hot pizza on each. Mary's mouth watered just from the smell and Matthew looked from the food to her in confusion, not having ever seen anything like it before.

Mary laughed. "Oh, Matthew, it's a pizza! Street food, really."

"I asked for sandwiches," explained Gwen apologetically, hovering over them. "I'm not sure she really understood me though, but she went out an' got these from some local place all the same."

"Thank you so much, Gwen," said Mary.

"Will that – will that be all then, my lady?"

"That will be all." She bit her lip and then reached out and touched her maid's hand. "Go to bed, Gwen; get some sleep, you deserve it. I'll manage."

Her maid's eyes flickered between Mary and Matthew then she nodded. "Yes, my lady." She hesitated at the door again, as if to check she really was safe now.

As soon as she had left the room, the atmosphere felt oddly thicker. Mary felt an uncomfortable prickle on her spine as the shadows in the room seemed to close in around her and Matthew and the fire and their little supper.

"Have you really never seen a pizza before?" she asked quickly to cover her awkwardness.

"Where should I have done?" Matthew spluttered in reply. "How does one eat it?"

"Well, I did say it was street food..." With a mischievous glint in her eye, she picked up a slice delicately in her hands and took a bite. Matthew's mouth fell open and he gawped at her as she ate it, his eyes lingering compulsively on her fingers as she brought the pizza to her mouth and...

"Aren't you hungry?" she accused him, her cheeks pink, and he snapped his eyes away.

"Of course I am!"

She wiped her fingers on a napkin and took her revenge in watching him attempt to eat in a dignified fashion. Soon, however, their hunger overtook everything else and they ate quickly, the only noises in the room save the crackle of the fire being the rustle of napkins and the unavoidable little sounds of satisfied eaters. Both became warmer and more content as the hollow inside them was filled. A three course banquet could not have been more welcome at that moment.

When she had finished eating and had wiped her fingers and lips on the napkin, Mary poured tea for them both with as much grace as if she had been in the drawing room at Downton Abbey. The comparison occurred to Matthew and his face fell as he recollected. It wasn't really tea as they knew it in England, more an infusion, but it was hot and comforting which was the main thing.

They had both been silent for quite some time when Mary eventually looked up over the rim of her glass and asked him, "Do you think it was true, Matthew, what Mrs. Bowen said about Count Sciarpa?"

He had not been expecting such a direct question so soon though he immediately chided himself for imagining Mary to be the kind to beat about the bush.

"That he is married, yes. The rest of it, I wouldn't like to say for sure."

Mary closed her eyes a moment and looked down with a sigh.

"I'm so sorry!" he burst out. "God, I wish-"

She waved it away. "Don't be. It wasn't your mistake. I just pity that poor woman so terribly."

"I wanted her to come with us," replied Matthew, "but she wouldn't."

She shrugged. "He is her husband." The words hung in the air. Mary took another sip of tea and continued very reasonably, "She could have been me, you see, if I had been an heiress. Count Sciarpa, the Duke of Crowborough – what difference does it make in the end? Women like that are pursued and bought by the highest bidder, that's all there is to it. It's not such an uncommon story."

Matthew did not know who the Duke of Crowborough was and was not sure he wanted to. He looked at her sympathetically for a moment and then, just as she glanced down and stirred her tea, replied quietly, "I would be very sorry if that were indeed true."

She made a sharp movement of frustration. "Oh, Matthew."

He put his glass down and licked his lips, pondering for a moment.

"When I saw Mrs. Bowen earlier," he began a few moments later, "she was very sorry for what she said to you."

"I know," replied Mary. "She bought me a nightdress and asked me to forgive her."

"She – she did?" stammered Matthew, his mind catching on the first part of her sentence. The issue of Mary's lack of wardrobe was not one that had even crossed his mind since they had left the island. Mary rolled her eyes rather fondly at him as he blushed and he coughed into his hand, remembered what was the salient part of the sentence and added cautiously, "And – and do you think you could, one day?"

Mary blinked, suddenly unsure not of her answer but of his question. This was skirting dangerously close to the one subject she was too afraid to broach.

"What is there to forgive?" she answered coolly. "I would probably have reacted in the same way."

"Would you have really?" he challenged her with great concern. "Then you are kinder to others than to yourself."

He leaned back in his chair and suddenly she could not bear to be looked at with such compassion when she was not being kind, only realistic, so she put down her glass and rose only to kneel down in front of the fire. She jabbed at it with the poker rustling the coals until fresh, bright sparks leapt into the air, and finally sat back on her heels and looked up at him again, turning away as soon as she caught sight of the open mouthed intensity with which he was observing her perform this uncharacteristic, domestic task. Her breath came more quickly and she stood up immediately. She asked him the first thing that came into her head.

"Did you – did you break it off with Sybil?"

He opened his mouth and then shut it again. "No, she did."

Mary had met his eyes in passing as she sat back down. She was fidgeting a little, just twisting her hands together on her lap. Her lips formed an "Oh" shape but she did not say it.

"She ended it," he continued hastily, "but I was glad she did. That is, I'm not sure – I'm not sure I could have done it but I admit I felt relieved when she did. I'm rather ashamed of that," he added with a frown. "I care for Sybil very much but not-" he swallowed, "not as a wife."

"You would have married a woman you are not in love with rather than disappoint her by terminating the engagement." Matthew opened his mouth to reply but she exhaled in a rush of relief or mockery or weariness and shook her head. "Oh, what does it matter anyway? I'm glad, really, that it was her. It means she will be suffering less than the alternative. You haven't mentioned my father, Matthew, or any of the rest of them."

He was once more taken aback by her sudden shifts in the conversation, but this was too serious and uncomfortable a topic to waste on his surprise.

"No, I haven't." He had not prepared for this; he ought to have done, but he had not. He had not prepared for any of it really.

He held her gaze until her eyes dropped to her lap and she sighed in deep resignation, no response necessary. Suddenly she seemed diminished somehow, a terribly fragile, tired women engulfed by the chair. Matthew leaned forward and took hold of her cold hands on her lap, speaking to her very earnestly.

"Mary, there are so many things we need to talk about and decide; there are things I need to – want to say to you, but it's late and today has been – do you understand, my dear? Let us discuss these things tomorrow in the daylight when we have slept."

Her lips parted and she nodded her assent. As if by mutual, unspoken agreement they stood up together and he relinquished her hands with some regret for then they simply became two people standing together in the middle of a room, the very air of which seemed to be holding its breath. Even so, the connection between them was more palpable than when they had been touching. They were there in this room, but beyond that they were quite alone and separated, it seemed, from the rest of the world by the divide of a half-empty hotel, a seething, pulsing foreign city at night and the barriers of mountains and seas. The world seemed a large, unfamiliar, and desolate place and in that moment they would willingly have clung to each other a minute longer.

Mary moved slowly to the door and he followed her with equal reluctance. Beyond the immediate circle of the fire the room was dark and cold and by the time she turned to him with her hand on the door knob, it was hard for her to suppress her trembling.

She gave him a tremulous smile which he returned in silence and for several long seconds they simply looked at each other in the dim light. Words had not helped them much in the past and they did not need them now. Mary felt a warmth begin to spread through her despite her shivers as she gradually allowed herself to hope a very, very little.

"You were quite the champion today, Matthew," she said eventually very softly, her eyes shining at him. She touched his hand briefly where it hung at his side.

"Not really," he replied in the same tone. "You seemed to be managing quite alright by yourself."

"No." Her smile wavered. "No, I'd have been lost without you."

He blinked at her and stepped forward, clasping her hand again. He understood what she was telling him and it only increased his tenderness towards her.

"It's alright, Mary," he murmured, caressing her fingers, hardly aware of what he was doing. "It's alright."

Her throat felt tight, her heart fluttered and she pulled open the door very suddenly even as she nodded sharply, not trusting herself to speak. The corridor yawned in front of them, black and empty. Matthew looked at her and finally stepped out of her room.

"So, goodnight," he whispered with a rueful smile. "I'm so very glad that – well, I hope you get a good night's sleep anyway."

She nodded several times more and tried to smile but her lips were trembling too much. Her expression communicated all that was necessary, however.

"Goodnight," he said again quite pointlessly.

She could not bear it any longer and with one more non-verbal plea to him, she shut the door, turning round to lean limply against it. She pressed her hand to her mouth and closed her eyes. Silence instantly pressed against her with such force that she was almost overwhelmed by it. She was hit by a stab of profound loneliness and she longed briefly but intensely to open the door of her bedroom, run after him and ask him to remain with her. If they were going to be lonely, at least they did not need to be alone.

The feeling passed though or at least diminished and after a few minutes she felt strong enough to open her eyes, adjust the brightness on the oil lamp, and prepare for bed.

---

They met for breakfast the following day in a cavernous room on the piano nobile, hesitantly, for it seemed an uncomfortable thing to be drinking their morning coffee opposite each other at a table for two. It was also rather delightful though and the initial discomfort soon faded into something altogether more delicate.

The night had refreshed them both and they had left their rooms with ideas of what had to happen next which they shared with the other over the meal. Mary intended to write to her grandmother and anticipate the postal delivery with a telegram. She felt strongly that she should not remain a day longer than was necessary in this hotel, dependent on Matthew as she currently was. She did not know how much her grandmother could know of the scandal, if anything at all, but her first action of the day had to be telling her the whole affair and seeking immediate refuge with her and the Eastwicks. It was not a letter that she relished the prospect of writing but it was necessary.

Matthew, careful not to muddy the waters by talking of more long term plans, agreed with her and suggested she delegate the sending of the telegram to Molesley, a proposal she accepted without quibbling. In the meantime, he intended to return to Proschia and recover Mary's trunks, taking Gwen with him to deal with packing the clothes.

"Is that wise?" cried Mary, her eyes flying to his.

"Legally speaking, I can do much worse to him than he can do to me and he must know it." She still looked unconvinced so he smiled as broadly as he could (for he had to admit reservations to himself). "I promise I'll take care, Mary."

She pressed her lips together but quickly returned his smile with a bright one of her own. "Well then. I won't try to persuade you not to."

The morning passed just as planned for Mary at least. The letter to her grandmother had to be one of the most difficult things she had ever written, however plainly factual she made it. She was accustomed neither to begging nor to expressing her feelings openly on paper. Despite numerous drafts, the finished product still seemed stilted to the point of coldness. It was painful enough to write down the bare truth of the matter as she understood it without trying to add emotions to it. In the end she simply had to rely on the dowager countess' own pragmatism being greater than her propriety and hoped that she would arrive in Tuscany in person before the letter did.

Arriving back from posting the letter, she opened the door of her room to find Gwen surrounded by all her luggage. Tears started unexpectedly to her eyes at the sight of the familiar boxes with the Downton crest on them. Moreover, it meant that Matthew had succeeded. The amount of relief she felt in that moment was terrifying.

Gwen helped her change into new clothes and she made her way downstairs to meet Matthew half an hour later with renewed energy. Nothing he could say about her family could be worse than what she had already imagined, her future was already far brighter than it had been at this point the previous day and though she could not be entirely sure of him, she felt an increasing, fluttering anticipation that no amount of common sense could squash.

She found him in the atrium studying a street map and touched him lightly on the arm to make her presence felt. He looked up immediately and smiled in appreciation at her refreshed and calm appearance. He seemed more relaxed than the previous day too, so she simply asked, "Would you like to go for a walk?" and when he said that he would, took his arm as they left the hotel together.

It was another cold, grey day but the wind had dropped a bit and there was no rain though the streets were still wet. Mary remembered a pleasant promenade by the sea near her old hotel and with the help of Matthew's map they set off on foot in what they hoped was the right direction. It turned out that the two hotels and areas of the city were not so far from each other as the crow flies and after half an hour of weaving among the narrow, dark streets, they came out in a broad boulevard leading to the front. While they were still in the old city conversation had been limited to observations on what was immediately before them but when they emerged into light and space, there was no longer any excuse.

Slowing her pace to match those of the other people taking their afternoon passegiata by the sea, Mary glanced up at her companion and then looked away again.

"Matthew, you can't put it off any longer. Tell me what my father said. I cannot believe that gossip which has reached the south of Italy is unknown in Yorkshire."

Matthew turned his head away towards the sea as if it might provide inspiration. "Mary, I don't-"

"It can't be worse than what I've imagined. Don't keep anything back from me, please; you must have spoken to him."

He took a deep breath, chiding himself for being so ridiculous. It was Mary who was affected the most, after all. "I did talk to him before I left. Mary, you have to know – he loves you very much!"

She stopped and forced herself in his path, facing him. "Spare me. I know my father loves me but I also know, and better than you do, that if it comes down to a choice between his daughters and Downton, I will always be a slender consolation for his lack of sons."

Matthew could think of no way of protecting her. She stood before him, brave and unbeaten, and there were no words he could think of to express everything he felt for her. Swallowing and gently taking her arm again, the only suitable gesture allowed to him, he told her as calmly as he could, "Your father is very disappointed and angry with you."

She rolled her eyes. "Naturally; I'd hardly expect him to be proud. What of it?"

"He wants to disinherit you," finished Matthew in an embarrassed rush, and looked away in a mixture of unnecessary guilt and embarrassment.

Mary's eyes widened and she expelled a rush of air. Of all the things she had thought might constitute her punishment, she had not expected anything as drastic.

"Well," she said as normally as possible, making an effort to pull herself together, "I must admit I didn't think he would go that far. The next few years with Great-Aunt Elizabeth in Brighton was what I – My imagination is lacking, it seems."

"You couldn't go to Brighton," said Matthew in a rush, feeling almost as distractedly wretched as she did. "Edith's there."

Now she looked up at him in astonishment. "Edith? What on earth for?"

He opened his mouth and closed it again, finally admitting, "She started the rumours. She admitted it. Mary, I'm so..." He trailed off. "...sorry."

This was a new blow and she could not rally so easily a second time. Turning abruptly from him, she leaned on the parapet for support, her fingers digging into the hard stone, ruining her dark gloves. Far below, the waves washed backwards and forwards against the wall, only increasing her sudden nausea.

"Edith..." she murmured. "I cannot believe this. Why would she- I deserve many things, but not that, not from her."

Flawed as her relationship with her sister always had been, Mary felt more upset than she could have imagined to learn of Edith's betrayal. They had sniped at each other, played stupid games (some more dangerous than others) but this was on quite another level. When had she done it? Why had she done it? For she inevitably shared in her sister's disgrace, as they all did. At her side, Matthew had also turned to face the ocean. After a moment of hesitation, he silently laid his hand lightly on her back in support.

"Edith, banished; myself, disinherited," she murmured, turning her head abruptly towards him. "What has happened to our family, Matthew? And all because I – all because I-"

He shook his head, pleading with her. "Mary, don't say it. It doesn't matter."

"What?" she shot back, taking a step backwards, her heart pounding. "How can you say that it doesn't matter? Don't talk nonsense!"

He stepped towards her and enveloped her hand which was resting on the wall in his, holding it very tightly. "It's not nonsense. Do you think you are the only person who ever made a mistake? It doesn't matter, not in any real way, not to anyone who truly loves you."

Her eyes flickered over his face almost warily. "And do you love me?"

He blinked several times and licked his lips but did not at least make the mistake of delaying his response too long. "I'm here, aren't I?" he replied. "And I can't think of anywhere I'd rather be."

She shook her head, frowning at his hopeful smile. "Yes, yes, very well. You have won the race and strung the bow – and are here to claim your reward. Yet I'm afraid that once you've stripped the gold off your trophy, you'll find nothing but tin underneath."

"No!" cried Matthew with more energy, holding onto her hand when she would have withdrawn it. "You're no prize to be won by me or by anyone. I'm here because I love you not because I expect anything from it. That wouldn't be right."

Her lips parted in wonder. "You would – you would go home then? And leave me?"

"If you wanted me to, yes," he replied earnestly. "I – I don't want to go anywhere now, not without you at any rate, Mary, but it's your choice."

She stared at him. "My choice?" she breathed. She glanced out over the bay and raised her eyebrows. Her hand under his flexed restlessly. "And how am I meant to choose?" She returned her gaze to his face. "When I do not know what I am being offered."

"Marriage, Mary! What did you- I'm asking you to marry me."

Only the smallest flicker across her face as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other betrayed the tightness of her heart. "Even now?" she queried, however. "Even when my scandal will drag you into exile as well as myself and when you know what I have done? Can you really dismiss that so easily?"

Matthew licked his lips before replying carefully and a little breathlessly, "I can. I can dismiss it because I've thought about it and I understand it completely. Oh my darling Mary, I can never be to you what – what you would be to me but I've made my peace with that. You see, it doesn't matter that I won't be your first lover only, if you can, I'd so much like to be your last."

She blinked at him several times and though her chest rose and fell rapidly she seemed unable to make any reply. Eventually, she broke his gaze and spoke with hasty embarrassment, "Every girl dreams of the proposal of marriage they intend to accept and how they will answer it." She met his eyes again. "But now I find that I have forgotten all the words I planned to say."

"It's not a difficult question," he replied, a wave of irrepressible joy building up within his heart and threatening to spill out. He trembled all over and his smile was too broad. "I'm asking if you want to marry me."

Mary closed her eyes briefly and when she opened them again, her expression meeting his was radiant. "Oh Matthew, more than anything in the world!"

He let out the breath he had not realised he had been holding and took her other hand in his, threading their fingers together. If they had not been in public he would have kissed her. As it was, eyes had to take the place of lips and though only their fingers touched, after several long moments of standing too close together, they were just as breathless and flushed as if they had actually been able to embrace.

For the rest of the afternoon they wandered at random through the city, getting wonderfully lost and poking their noses into every old church and open palace courtyard they passed, admiring architecture and antiquity without any real notion of what they were looking at. By unspoken agreement they spoke of nothing unpleasant for the rest of the day. Matthew told her about the South African diamond case that had occupied him so exclusively for the last few months and she had the good grace to at least appear interested. In return Mary told him of everything she had seen and done in Italy, sharing her impressions and reactions openly as she had not been able to do with anyone so far. However, if their conversation did seem to revert more often than not to the state of their own feelings, being the subject of greatest interest to them at that time, they probably should not be blamed for it.

When darkness fell and they were tired from all the walking, they found their way to one of the many lively and welcoming restaurants found in the squares of the old city that advertised local red wine and the best pasta they would ever taste. Whether that was strictly true or not was debatable but both swore afterwards that it was. They returned to the hotel late and about as warm, full, and content as it was possible to be. Matthew collected their keys from the landlady as they passed through reception and walked with Mary to her room on the way to his.

Once again, they found themselves alone in that silent, black corridor, the door open behind her, but this time there was no holding back. Their eyes gleamed as matching beacons in the dark and then, moving at the same time, they were in each other's arms. There was none of the hesitation that might be expected of a first kiss though; nothing but joy, relief and the understanding that accompanies tried and tested mutual love. It felt like coming home.

Chapter 23: Epilogue

Matthew and Lady Mary Crawley were married a little more than a week later by special license in the Anglican church in Florence. It was a plain, short service though it lacked none of the essentials of the ritual. The bride wore an ivory evening gown only worn once to a ball in Rome with a veil that had previously belonged to Lady Eastwick. Lord Eastwick gave her away and she was attended only by her maid, Miss Dawson, and her friend, Miss Bowen. Mr. Molesley acted as best man and the ceremony was witnessed by the only family member present, the dowager Countess of Grantham, as well as Mrs. Bowen, Lady Eastwick, the church wardens, and several curious bystanders who drifted into the church to take refuge from the cold. As for the ring, it was no family heirloom, but a plain band of gold purchased two days before from a shop on the Ponte Vecchio with the financial assistance of Lady Grantham.

After the ceremony was over, the wedding party including the chaplain drove out into the countryside to the Eastwicks' villa where a feast had been prepared for them and a number of the hosts' friends and neighbours. The bride and groom were not at all acquainted with any of these people but they added to the party atmosphere and all brought best wishes and token presents for the dear granddaughter of their dear friend's dear friend and her new husband. News travelled slowly in the countryside. Local musicians had been persuaded to come and in fact did turn up eventually, three hours after they were expected, refusing to play until they had had their dinner too. As the December night fell early in the afternoon those who were up to it after the banquet took to the floor following the example of the happy couple and did the best they could to the accompaniment of a surprisingly competent trio of violin, mandolin and accordion.

Escaping the heat and noise of the room for a moment, Mary was drawn to the French windows and stepped out onto the terrace. In the summer these doors would be left open and the company would spill out, to gaze over the green hills, the cypresses, the vines. Now however all was dark save the white glow of a hard frost. Pulling her white, fur stole more tightly round her and suppressing a shiver, she leaned on the wooden rail and watched her breath cloud in front of her in the crisp, cold air.

A footstep sounded behind and she turned quickly. It was her grandmother, leaning more heavily on her stick than she had been known to previously.

"I thought you were Matthew for a moment," Mary said with a soft smile as Violet joined her at the rail.

"I'm sorry to be such a disappointment, my dear. Your husband, I'm afraid, is engaged inside in analysis of that avalanche of a cream cake-"

"A delicious avalanche, you have to admit!"

"Yes, yes, certainly in small doses... At any rate, I thought I would take the opportunity of catching you alone."

Their eyes met. "I'm glad you did," replied Mary quietly and she did not just mean coming outside that evening.

The dowager stepped closer and covered her granddaughter's hand with her own, squeezing it.

"You surely didn't imagine I would have abandoned you to the ravages of the gutter press, especially a foreign one."

"Well, I'm very glad you didn't."

"More people than you might think, my dear, blot their copy book at some point or another. Your only misfortune was being caught."

Mary smiled faintly, wondering idly whether her grandmother was speaking from personal experience and if so of what. Then she decided it did not matter in the slightest what had happened in the past.

"Your father is a great fool not to realise it," continued Violet, "and my only regret is that I won't be there when he receives my letter on the subject." She chuckled suddenly to herself.

"You'll make me feel almost sorry for Papa at this rate!" cried Mary, surprised at the intense longing and strange sadness she felt thinking about him.

"Never mind, dear, he will come around eventually. Anyway, you have done the best thing possible in getting married. Nothing smudges out those little errors quite so successfully as a good marriage. If you had not arrived engaged I would have done my utmost to see that you became so immediately."

Mary laughed ruefully. "Oh, Granny, I did not marry Matthew to salvage my reputation."

"Well, I dare say your motives are your own and do you credit."

Both smiled and looked away. Presently Violet cleared her throat.

"My dear," she began, "in the absence of your mother I feel I – hem – I should offer you some advice."

Mary frowned. "What kind of advice?"

The dowager countess pursed her lips. "Believe me, it is many years since I have spoken of these things but it occurs to me many things might be improved if we talked about them more..." She cleared her throat again. "Today, Mary, is your wedding and tonight is-"

She was interrupted by a burst of embarrassed mirth, quickly stopped by a dainty, gloved hand. "I'm sorry, Granny, only you really needn't bother with this!"

"Needn't I? So you know exactly what to expect?" Mary fell silent, her heart beginning to beat faster, her thoughts transported to a different country and a different year. Her grandmother continued in a softer tone, "Forgive me, but I thought you might want some reassurance. You see, it is not every woman whose first lover perishes in flagrante."

She held her gaze until Mary was forced to look down, vulnerable and embarrassed. Faced with her grandmother's wisdom and openness, it was almost pleasant to feel so young and ignorant again.

Violet waited for her point to sink in before she spoke again. "All I will say is that you've got the worst of it over already which gives you an advantage over most brides. I dare say Matthew doesn't know what he's doing but if you trust each other you will probably find the conclusion an improvement on last time."

She squeezed her arm affectionately while Mary opened and shut her mouth, her cheeks crimson. To think of hearing her grandmother speak of such things! She was caught between nervousness and an outgrown modesty that she had not thought she could feel any more and an ache of love and deep sorrow for the family of her childhood so strong it nearly choked her; for in every beginning, even one so happy as a wedding, there was found an ending as well.

She forced herself to reply lightly. "Is that – is that all?"

"Really, I think you can work the rest out for yourselves!"

With this parting shot, she nodded pointedly. She pressed her hand another time before walking slowly back towards the door. Mary watched her go inside and shivered again, suddenly very glad to be alone for a moment. She was very happy, tremendously happy, and she longed for him though he was only one room away; that man she suddenly felt she knew hardly at all, to whom she'd pledged her love and her life only several hours previously, yet – was it allowed to be a little sad and a little afraid as well?

---

The room allocated to the bridal couple faced towards the city. Mary, standing in her nightgown at the window, could see gleaming pinpricks of light in the surrounding blackness that marked Florence in the distance. She hesitated over closing the shutters and blocking out the view when a soft knock at the door was followed by Matthew's entrance in pyjamas and dressing gown from the adjoining room. She turned quickly, heart pounding, and clasped her hands tightly in front of her. They stared at each other across the room in silence and then she risked a tentative, tremulous smile which he returned.

"I was going to close the shutters," said Mary, gesturing behind her, "but I'm not sure I want to."

"Leave them open then," replied Matthew, crossing the room to her. His voice was as low, warm and reassuring as the fire that roared in the massive grate. Mary smiled more sweetly at him. He stopped in front of her and after a momentous hesitation placed his hands on her arms and peered into her eyes.

"Did you enjoy today?" he asked her softly. After all, they had not had a moment alone together since the ceremony apart from the car journey from the church to the villa and that had been a strange, awkward, broken, happy, nonsensical, silent sort of conversation.

"Yes." She broke off, not quite sure why she was hesitating.

"I suppose," continued Matthew after a moment, "it can't have been the wedding you'd dreamed of."

She shook her head, turning away towards the window again. "No, it wasn't. It wasn't at all." Glancing up at him, she touched his cheek and pulled him towards her. "But it was better. Sometimes the unexpected is a good thing."

He laughed shakily. "I suppose I'm glad of that at least!"

Sliding his hands down, he wrapped his arms gently round her waist, breathless at how close he finally was to her. She leaned back and melted against his chest, silently daring him to hold her even more tightly.

"Let me tell you how I dreamed my wedding would be," Mary said suddenly.

Matthew blinked. "Are you sure that's wise, my darling?"

He could feel her smile in her next words. "Yes. I want to tell you."

"Alright then." He pressed a kiss to her soft cheek. "Tell me about your dream wedding!"

"It was in the church in the village of course," she began in a quiet, pensive tone, taking her time over it. "It was packed with everyone I'd ever met in all my life but those people who could not fit inside the church were lining the streets of the Downton to throw rice after my carriage. There was bunting strung up on the green and it was a holiday for the entire county."

"The entire county?" murmured Matthew and pressed a kiss to her ear.

"The entire county - not just the West Riding. My dress was the source of much internal debate, as I'm sure you can imagine. It changed, you see. It was naturally very different in 1910 to what it had been in 1905 and afterwards there were pictures of it in every fashion magazine both sides of the Atlantic for six months at least."

"At least!" He brushed a few strands of dark hair from the back of her neck.

"Edith and Sybil were bridesmaids of course. To be quite frank, I didn't want Edith to be a bridesmaid but it seemed terribly unfair not to have her. Besides, it was my wedding day and-"

"You could afford to be magnanimous," finished Matthew, nodding his head.

"Exactly. Well, the party afterwards was the greatest Downton had ever seen. Oh! I forgot – everyone cried during the ceremony and the ring had four real diamonds in it. Four or five, I forget which. More than Edith had at any rate – she only had three, you see. Anyway, the party... Papa had hired a professional orchestra from London and there was dancing outside under a marquee until the small hours, because the weather was perfect and warm."

"It sounds rather exhausting," said her husband into her hair.

"I think it must have been!" Suddenly she covered his arms with hers and he shivered at the touch of her fingers on his bare wrists. "But, oh Matthew, don't you see what was missing in all this?"

He pressed a lingering kiss to the back of her neck. He thought he did but he wanted her to say it so he only replied, "I don't know. It seems you covered every eventuality very thoroughly."

She knew he knew and her shoulders shook against his chest. "Every eventuality except for who I was to marry. My husband had no face and no name even during the ceremony itself, though you can be certain that he had a title."

"He'd have to have," Matthew dared to joke, pulling her even closer, "to afford the five diamonds and the honeymoon in New York."

"However did you know about New York?" Mary cried in amusement before sobering again. "But you see what I mean, don't you? I dreamed so much about the wedding, I forgot all about the marriage."

"And now, darling?"

She turned in his arms, resting her hands lightly on his chest and looking up at him, her eyes luminous with love.

"It was a beautiful day, truly, but oh dearest, I think it's time to stop dreaming, don't you?"

His lips parted and he could only nod. His hands trembled as he raised them to frame her face. Brushing his fingers against her cheeks he became aware of a light dusting of freckles, tiny, beloved imperfections. His eyes flickered over her face as she smiled up at him, breathless in her anticipation, before he finally closed the gap between them and kissed her.

---

The outcome of Lord Grantham's plan to disinherit his eldest daughter is something that will never be known. Before he could come to a final decision on the subject, she married and her fortune passed to her husband. The importance of this to Matthew and Mary cannot be underestimated considering they had no other source of income once Matthew had been sacked from Harville & Carter for walking out of the office without so much as taking leave of absence.

They spent Christmas and New Year with the Eastwicks and the Bowens and despite the lack of goose and games of charades probably had a better time than the heavily reduced party at Downton did. Robert, Cora, Isobel, Rosamund and Sybil was not a combination that led itself to jollity in the circumstances, especially when Matthew's letter announcing his imminent marriage arrived on New Year's Eve and the earl refused to raise a toast to his daughter and new son-in-law at midnight.

Not wanting to trespass on Lord and Lady Eastwick's hospitality any longer than necessary, January saw the party break up. The Bowens continued their European tour, moving on to Greece and the younger Crawleys took an apartment in Florence for several weeks. They did not stay anywhere long, but instead moved about the country, going exactly where and doing exactly what they wanted. They saw the cathedral at Milan, attended the Carnevale at Venice, as well as other places, some of which Mary had already seen; others were new to them both.

By the middle of March, however, even the sweetest of exiles was becoming tiresome and both wanted to go home. The political situation in Europe was becoming more and more of a worry, Mary's dowry was only finite, and they missed their mothers terribly. Moreover, Matthew was mindful of his wife's condition and wished them both to be established in their native country before many more months had passed and travelling became more difficult.

They sprang into action immediately. A return to Downton in the circumstances remained impossible but Matthew had contacts in London through his work and managed to find a place in the firm of Rowling, Gardner & Swire who dealt with property law. In the meantime, Mary wrote in confidence to her aunt who had taken their side through the whole affair, though they were not convinced she was not more interested in fighting with her brother than in supporting them. Putting all their affairs into Rosamund's hands, she charged her with finding them somewhere to live and making it presentable.

So it was that on a bright spring morning in April, Matthew and Mary parted fondly at King's Cross Station with the dowager countess who had made the return journey with them, greeted Aunt Rosamund, and directed the porters to take their luggage to an unfamiliar address not far from the British Museum.

It was an elegant terraced house on a quiet square, smaller than Crawley House and rented, but it was their very own and it was going to be home. It had three bedrooms and was just the right size to be managed by one maid and a manservant, along with the cook Rosamund had hired. The front room was on the cramped size but it didn't feel it, for it was light and prettily decorated, especially when there were fresh flowers on the table in the window. The house also had a little garden at the back, no more than a couple of flower beds and room for a pair of chairs. Much to Mary's surprise she discovered as the days got longer and the sun shone more brightly that there was a kind of gentle pleasure in planting and watering and watching the development of her seedlings.

She was very often alone at the beginning while Matthew was at work for she was a persona non grata among her old circle, but soon after their return she made the acquaintance of the only daughter of Matthew's boss. Lavinia Swire was a quiet, sweet girl of about Sybil's age. She was not an exciting companion but she did not care about Mary's past and even seemed to admire her, a pleasant and much needed boost. She also seemed far more knowledgeable about needle work and babies than her new friend was and was already combining the two interests by sewing a beautiful sampler in preparation for the autumn.

One afternoon in early summer when Mary was alone, the front door bell rang and Molesley entered the parlour to admit Lady Rosamund and -

"Well, Mary, I've brought you a visitor you might like," said her aunt smugly without any preamble and stepped aside to allow Sybil to enter the room.

Mary jumped up in delighted amazement and within a single moment the sisters were in each other's arms, clutching each other tightly.

"Why ever didn't you write and tell me you were coming to town?" cried Mary, leading her to the sofa, not letting go of her hand.

"It was a last minute decision really, to find a dress for my ball as there's absolutely nothing worth having in Ripon and well, I suppose I did want to surprise you a little too," replied Sybil with a grin. She glanced down. "You look – well."

Mary laughed. "Do you really think so? So do you. And – are you, darling?"

"Oh, I'm always well!"

Hands clasped tightly in the other's, they now took the opportunity to study each other more closely. Rosamund meanwhile gestured to Molesley and ordered tea.

"But are you happy?" insisted Mary after a moment. "You've had a horrid time of it this winter, I'm afraid."

Sybil tilted her head to one side and gave this real thought. Then she smiled. "Yes. Yes, I believe I am. It's not always very pleasant at home and I do miss you and Edith terribly but I've been spending most of my time at the hospital so I have plenty to occupy me."

"Yes, so I heard. How very kind it was of Isobel to take you under her wing like that." Mary squeezed her hand. "How do you like nursing?"

"Oh no no, I don't do any actual nursing- can you imagine Papa ever consenting to that?- but Dr. Clarkson lets me observes some of the minor surgeries and I keep records of the supplies and help out with paperwork." She shrugged. "Someone has to do it and I'm happy to do whatever's needed. It's enough for the moment anyway."

Mary smiled almost painfully at her little sister who was no longer quite so little. "But no more plans to go to university? Matthew told me all about that."

Sybil forced a laugh. "Not this year. That is," she continued earnestly, "I haven't given up on it but I really don't have the experience or knowledge to apply yet. I would like to go – in fact I think all women who can should – but there's no reason at all why I can't apply in 1915 just as well as this year, when I am better prepared."

"None at all," replied Mary approvingly. "And in the meantime?"

"In the meantime I'm going to enjoy my season!" She sat up and looked a bit more important. "And you and Matthew are going to come to my ball, aren't you?"

A shadow crossed Mary's face. "Oh, darling, I'm not sure..." She glanced over at her aunt, but received no help from that quarter.

"You promised! When we were children, you promised me you would be there when I made my debut. Mary, I don't care what everyone says, you shouldn't be ashamed of anything and honestly, you'll never make up with Papa if you never go anywhere! You know Cousin Isobel is determined you have the baby back home with us and I-"

Mary was saved having to negotiate this delicate issue by the arrival of tea. On seeing Sybil, Gwen almost dropped the tray, only saved by Sybil's quick action in leaping up to grab the sugar bowl.

"Steady there, Gwen!"

"I'm sorry – I'm sorry, my lady!" cried Gwen, her cheeks flaming with colour. She managed to put the tray down and immediately had her hands taken by Sybil.

"Oh, it is good to see you again!" she cried enthusiastically. "Though I have to admit I'm sorry to see you still in service. You didn't find any rich Americans needing secretaries then?"

"I'm afraid not, my lady."

"There's no need to sound quite so sorry about it!" said Mary drily, her lips pursed to hide her amusement.

"I'm sorry, my lady, I don't-"

Her mistress rolled her eyes, dismissing the apology, and turned her attention to the tea tray. "Milk, Aunt Rosamund?"

"So tell me all the news from Downton. How's Anna? I've missed her so much," asked Gwen, taking advantage of Mary's distraction.

"She's alright. Mooning over Bates though she thinks none of us notice. He's a good man," observed her friend, "but he's not handsome."

"No..." replied Gwen and then met Sybil's eyes. She chewed her lip before daring to ask, "And what of Mr. Branson? You wrote that he resigned back in December." She had written a good deal more than that but it was impossible to speak of that then.

Before Sybil could reply, Mary interrupted, "Oh yes, what on earth was all that about? I can't imagine what could possess him to give up a steady job at the drop of a hat. Did you ever find out what happened to him, darling? Here, do sit down and take your tea."

"He got a job with a newspaper. In Derby. At least," she added, swallowing, "that's what Anna says anyway."

Mary pulled an incredulous face. "Journalism! Well, good for him, I suppose. Pratte is the new chauffeur, isn't he?"

"Yes, but he-"

Suddenly Mary heard the familiar and welcome sound of a key in the front lock. Her face burst into a radiant smile.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, cutting across her sister. "Matthew's home." She nodded at Gwen. "We'll need another cup; Mr. Crawley will be joining us for tea."

THE END

Notes:

Thank you so much to everyone who has read all 100,000 words of this story. I love every one of you for doing so!