A/N: Hello, all! This is my first Downton fic, and my first attempt at a multi-chaptered work. After watching episodes 7&8 I couldn't help thinking it was a tad unrealistic that Mary and Edith would allow Sybil to get away with almost marrying Tom with no repercussions. So, of course, I had to come up with my own explanation. Also, this is un-beta'd, so if there are mistakes...ignore them. ;) Please review!
"I had never spoken to her, except for a few casual words, and yet her name was like a summons to all my foolish blood. Her image accompanied me even in places the most hostile to romance."
- James Joyce, "Araby" (1914)
The ride home was silent save for the crunch of gravel under the tires and the occasional jostle; Edith's driving wasn't quite on the same standard as Branson's, but it was a necessary evil. Sybil was seated in the back with Anna, gazing out the cab while a few tears streamed silently down her face. She refused herself the luxury of openly sobbing; her grief was too great a beast to be seen by others, especially the likes of her mutinous sisters and her ladies maid. The resounding silence between the four women opened up like the mouth of a cavern, the space thick with the unspoken scandal of Sybil's attempted elopement.
It left her with far too much time to think, for her and Tom had managed to drive a good two hours from Downton before stopping to rest at the Swan Inn. She repressed the image of his anguished eyes; He thinks that I'm going to abandon him. Even now, after everything, he believes that I'll be swayed by them. The surety of this knowledge was as solid as the foundations of Downton Abbey itself; how was she to salvage their future? Different scenarios flittered through her mind and the combination of exhaustion and heartbreak wasn't helping matters. She needed a new course of action.
"You must all promise me one thing on our return," she began. "Swear that you won't tell Papa about any of this."
"I'll promise nothing of the sort," retorted Mary, sitting regally in the front seat, looking as though she had just ended the war single-handedly.
"Mary…" Edith turned to her older sister, trying to will her to remain calm, for Sybil's sake.
"No," She cut across Edith, much in the way she always had done at balls and dinners in order to steal what little attention her younger sister garnered. "Sybil, you have to understand that we must tell Mama and Papa first thing tomorrow. For you to think otherwise is nonsense. We just saved you from making the biggest mistake of your life, from disgracing yourself and the rest of your family. If you think that after traipsing after you at all hours of the night I'll stand by and stay silent, only to watch you try it again, well, you're more naïve than I thought."
"What if I promise not to run away again?" Sybil protested.
Mary gave a rather un-lady-like snort, "If you remember, you made a similar promise months ago, and here we are."
Sybil, wearied from the events of the night, was unable to fathom a fight with her sister over such an important matter. "I'll make a deal. Would you accept postponing telling them until tomorrow morning? I'd rather face them with a good nights sleep and a speech prepared. At the moment I have neither energy nor sense to achieve either in a few hours."
"I suppose. Not that you have any grounds to be proposing deals, but as we all won't be getting much in the way of sleep, postponing the inevitable wouldn't do any harm," Mary replied. "But know this: there is nothing you can do or say that will make me change my mind about telling them."
"Not even Tom losing his position?" Sybil asked quietly.
"Especially not that," Mary replied haughtily.
It was only after Anna had left her that Sybil allowed herself to analyze the events that had transpired. She hadn't factored the possibility of someone checking up on her after dinner into their escape plan, or that Mary and Edith would willingly spend more than a few moments confined in a car together to come find her. She was deeply worried for Tom, for the way they had left things. Would he want to speak to her? If he did, would he blame her for leaving him? I must find a way for Mary to see my side of things. I must have time to speak with him, to decide where to go from here.
She was unwilling to leave again without confronting her family and telling them her beliefs, but she worried that doing it on her own terms, with Tom at her side, would be impossible once Mary stepped in. They would throw him out as soon as the words of their elopement were uttered, and she would have better luck with letters reaching him if he were on a battlefield in France, rather than locked in her room and having all of her correspondence monitored (which she knew would be the outcome).
She was startled by a knock on her door. Getting up from the bed quickly and drying the few tears that escaped during her initial grief, she moved toward the door and opened it a crack, only to be faced with the drawn and tired face of Edith.
"What do you want? I'm tired and I'd like to get some rest before the next round of reprimands I'm sure Mary will be doling out." Sybil's typical patience and understanding was worn to the bone, and she did not desire a third confrontation in as many hours.
"May I come in?" Edith asked, wary of her sister's uncharacteristically uncivil response.
Sybil stood aside and held the door open wordlessly, beckoning her in and closing the door behind her with a huff.
"I know you've been through a great shock," Edith began with trepidation, her tone soft and placating, similar to the way she used to approach officers new to the convalescent home.
"But I just wanted to assure you that you have someone on your side, at least. Even if it is only me," Edith pronounced, shrugging her shoulders as if this bit of information had been obvious the entire time.
"I don't understand, you're saying that you approve of my choice? That you don't think I'm mad to disgrace you all by running away with the chauffer?" The irony was evident in her words; she refused to believe that her sister would have any idea what it was like to give up so much, let alone have the courage to do so. Edith always had been too complacent for her own good.
"There are a few things that you should know about me," Edith began, gathering all her courage in order to reveal the deepest depths of her heart.
"Do you remember when I used to help out Mr. Drake and his wife with driving the tractor?"
And so her story began.
"You can't be serious," Sybil giggled, the absurdity of it all overwhelming her already exhausted nerves. "You mean to tell me that you, Lady Edith Crawley, second daughter to Robert Crawley, Earl of Grantham, kissed John Drake? The farmer?"
"Yes," replied Edith. "And I'm not ashamed of it. He's a good man, and I think that if I'd had the chance, that is to say, if he weren't already married, that I would have entertained the idea of eloping with him as well."
"Oh, Edith, that's wonderful!" Sybil embraced her sister, throwing her arms around her neck and pulling her into the first hug they'd shared in years.
Edith spoke into Sybil's dark hair softly, "I'm not sure I would call it wonderful. His wife suspected us." Her voice wavered, trembling with the effort it took to hold in her turbulent emotions. When she began again, she spoke with the assertion of someone who had suffered a great loss, and was unwilling to witness another experience the same fate.
"Which is why I fully support your decision to marry Mr. Branson, even if I do agree with Mary that the way you went about it was foolish. And I fully intend to stand by you when the time comes. I don't think there is a person on this earth that deserves happiness more than you do, dear Sybil."
A declaration such as that coming from Edith was an unlikely occurrence, and Sybil had to wonder if she had ever shared such confidences with her sister, even as girls. Gnawing waves of guilt washed over her as she realized the depth to which she had underestimated her elder sister.
"Thank you, Edith. You have no idea how much strength your words give me," Sybil looked away, her eyes pooling with moisture. "But, I'm afraid that all the strength I may possess is no match for Mary's tenacity."
"Another reason why it's good that you have me in your corner," Edith's eyes gleamed wickedly. "Our dear sister is not as virtuous as she may present herself to be."
Edith produced a bundle of letters from the pocket of her dressing gown and, passing them to her sister carefully, bid her to read them. After a few long moments, Sybil looked up, her blue eyes astonished at the contents.
"Mary and…Mr. Pamuk? Oh, no." she uttered.
"Oh, yes," Edith said triumphantly, gathering the letters back into the safe confines of her gown and grinning all the while.
"I had thought the depths of your selfish depravity would have ended when you spilled my secrets to the Turkish Prime Minister, but I see now that I clearly underestimated you," Mary was glorious in her fury, and Sybil was reminded of their girlish arguments, always ending with a cowed Edith and a guilty Sybil, Mary triumphant. Looking back now, Sybil thought how foolish she and Edith had been to allow her to gang up on them; it was high time that they took a stand against her.
They were in Mary's room, Anna had just left and the three of them were about to go down to dinner together, dressed in their evening finery. The fire in the grate cast swaths of light along the floor, flowing along the carpet and stopping short of their feet.
Edith was seated at the foot of Mary's bed, gazing at her with an expression of perfect nonchalance. "It seems as though you're the most depraved Crawley sister of all; at least Sybil had the good sense to at least attempt to be married before throwing away her virtue."
"Stop this, both of you. Mary, my intention was never to hurt you by exploiting your secrets, but now that I know the truth I can't see any other way."
"You can't possibly mean to – "
"I do! If you tell Papa about Tom and I, I'll go straight to him with this. And before you say there isn't any proof, remember Edith's letters. He would have no choice but to believe it." Sybil's breathing was harsh, for she was already afraid of the outcome of such a betrayal to her sister.
Mary remained silent for a few moments, mulling over the consequences of such an occurrence. Sybil saw the wheels turning in her head; Mary always did flourish under pressure, she thought.
"What do I care a fig about all that? Of course, it would devastate Papa, but I'm already engaged to Carlisle, and he knows of what happened with Kamal. But that's a whole other affair and in of itself." She sat wearily at her vanity, gazing into the fireplace.
It was the answer that Sybil had been dreading. Mary was never down for long, and her passive response to what would be the most ruinous thing their father would endure spurred her to action.
"Then I'll tell Matthew," Sybil said, desperately. "And I know that any chance you think you may have of a friendship with him would be over as soon as he found out."
As soon as she spoke the words she regretted them, for she could see the pain they caused her sister. But she also saw the wind go out of her sails, her arguments invalid now that she had something to lose as well. It was all the encouragement Sybil needed, knowing that Mary wouldn't sacrifice Matthew in order to destroy her relationship with Tom.
"What's happened to you, Sybil?" Mary asked quietly, her dark eyes fathomless. "What brought you to this? You're not the same girl that you once were."
"Of course I'm not!" Sybil exclaimed, her frustration bringing color to her cheeks and tears to her eyes. "How could I be, after everything? After this war, after all I've seen and done? All of you want things to go back to the way they were, but I'm yearning for something greater. And I've found that with Tom, and I'll go to any lengths to keep him."
Edith smirked from the bed, "Just think how Matthew will take it, knowing that only a few months before you (nearly) accepted his proposal, you were inviting Turkish diplomats into your bed."
Mary started toward her, the light catching the beads of her dress and dancing about the bedspread as she reached her younger sister.
"I think we've had quite enough out of you. And to think, I was felt guilty over sending Sir Anthony packing, but now that I know what you're truly capable of, I can't say you don't deserve –"
"Please! Mary, I know you're furious, but this is the only way. Promise that you won't tell anyone about Tom and I. Ever," Sybil pleaded. She approached to her eldest sister, her eyes so startlingly blue and anguished that Mary couldn't help but nod her head.
Sybil uttered a thank you and, overwrought with a strange mix of elation, gratitude and self-loathing, sunk to the bed next to Edith.
"If you plan to do this, you'll be in for a hard road Sybil. One that I don't intend to help you along," Mary stated before turning toward the door and leaving the room. As she passed through the threshold, Cora appeared in the doorway.
"What's taking you girls so long?" she queried, looking between Edith's slumped shoulders and Sybil's damp eyes. "Come down to dinner at once, you've been dallying much too long."
"Yes, Mama," they stated, arising from the bed and crossing the room together.
Not to fear, our charming chauffer will be in the next chapter! :) Thanks for reading!
P.S. The quote at the top is from the short story "Araby" by James Joyce. When I read those lines I couldn't help but think of Branson, and how that might have been what he was thinking in the early stages of his feelings towards Sybil, since (at the time) it seemed rather hopeless that they'd end up together.