A/N: My first Downton story! About one of my favorite characters, on screen or in writing. I hope this story plays tribute in some part of Lady Mary's complexity and depth.
The trouble is not that you are sad, but that you are so very happy.
Happy because he walks again, and lives again, in his own heart as well as everyone else's. Happy because he smiled without bitterness, and you, you can remember how that felt, in times long past—
The trouble is not that you are alone, but that you are lonely. Because you smile and tug on fresh silk gloves and smile enigmatically as you always have, but there is no real mystery left, no pleasant secrets—there is only your soul, stripped bare, to anyone who still chooses to look at it.
You scold Sybil and you favor Branson with an icy glare, but you envy Sybil (though for all the world, she would not know why). You envy Sybil because Sybil still believes she can escape this.
Maybe she can.
You remember those days, when you cared for dresses and scorned the young men who complimented them (though you danced with them anyway). You remember the days when he first came, and you could not bear his country manners.
Was Grandmama once like this? Or Aunt Rosamund? Or even Mother? Did they laugh at the world once, before it held them fast forever?
You do not know, and there is no one in whom you can confide. They have other cares now, and they turn their eyes away, all but Sir Richard.
His eyes never leave you. Snake's eyes, and cold hard lips, possessive on yours. You know what will come after, after the wedding, and you would dread it if you did not hold back every thought, behind the enigmatic smile that you hold so very dear.
(Sometimes you wonder if it is all you have left).
You have an enemy for a lover, and you have sent away all of your friends. You were cruel to Carson, to Anna—and it stings the heart you pretend is far from broken (when you're not pretending that you don't have one at all), because Carson loves you, Carson raised you—
But you did not think he would leave you, too.
You scorn him because Sir Richard must not know, and you let him kiss you, let him question you, while Matthew Matthew Matthew runs through your mind, links in a secret chain of something too broken to be love.
Love?
Love?
Perhaps you will laugh at it again someday, when you no longer remember how to care.
But for now it is enough—it must be enough—to tug on fresh silk gloves, to draw on your enigmatic smile.
For you are Lady Mary Crawley, and you never stay down for long.
(The secret is, of course, that you have fallen as far as you can already, but you hold your head so high that no one ever knows).