Hello readers! This short little piece takes place in the first episode right after Mary learns of Patrick's death and explores her thoughts on the matter. I didn't intend for it to become something more, but Mary and Cora scenes are so much fun to write and this little one just wrote itself. Hope you enjoy! As always, please review! Thanks!
Mary had heard of out-of-body experiences, and knew that they often occurred in times of serious illness or delirium, allowing the subject to view his or her prospects from above, as a ghost or spirit, emotionally removed from the situation. Mary was neither ill nor delirious, which made the feeling in her gut as she left the library all the more peculiar.
Patrick was dead. Patrick, her fiancé and cousin, was dead. Normally, in this case, one would weep, she supposed, but she found as she climbed the stairs that no tears would come. She'd been lucky enough in her relatively young life so far to receive bad news with great infrequency, so that now, in what was supposed to be a dark hour, she had nothing to compare it to, no loss with which to calculate what should be her proper level of grief.
And there was that odd weightlessness, that out-of-body feeling that made her fingertips tingle at how detached she felt from the whole situation. Patrick had been enjoyable, that much was true. They'd gotten along much better as children than as adults, but he'd been nice enough. Nice enough to accept a proposal of marriage from, that is. She remembered when he'd done it, and how she'd blushed, but not for her own embarrassment, for his. She recalled how silly he looked kneeling on the ground near the front gate of what he knew was to be his home and how she'd barely been able to contain a, "Oh, do get up, will you? You look so silly."
Mary searched her heart, searched her memories, but couldn't muster up enough sympathy to make herself shed tears. And she was struck with the unpleasant realization that her life wasn't quite what she thought it'd be at all.
"Lady Mary?" The musical voice of her ladies maid made her jump. Mary turned to find Anna standing at the end of the hall looking concerned. "I didn't mean to give you a start. Only I wondered if you'd be lying down before you change for dinner."
Heart still beating fast from her scare, Mary nodded. "I should think so. I'll ring you."
Anna dipped and turned back down the hall, but not before asking, "Are you quite all right? It's not for me to say, but you look as if you've seen a ghost."
"I feel like I am one," Mary said cryptically. "Thank you, Anna."
She turned into her bedroom and shut the door behind her quietly, her mind still on what her father had told her in the library and she couldn't cry. There was a strange feeling in her stomach, but it wasn't sadness, more like relief. And for that she felt terrible. She hadn't loved him at all, she knew that now. She'd accepted his proposal because he was a wealthy boy and she was a wealthy girl, and that was what she'd been told was supposed to happen. And now she was free. And oddly enough, she felt more confined than ever.
Like a ton of bricks it hit her, and nearly knocked the wind out of her, the unpleasant realization that her life was a business transaction, and a tear sprang to her eye instantly. Her union was to represent an exchange of goods and services, the final signatures on a legal contract of which she wanted no part.
She was ashamed of herself. She'd fallen right into the trap her parents and grandmother had set for her. Mary knew that their intentions hadn't been malicious, they were merely trying to ensure her success and good fortune in life after Downton. But now every play date she and Patrick had as children was overshadowed by niggling feelings of doubt and contempt. Every time he'd dined with the family seemed another piece of the puzzle of her life put in its place, a puzzle that wasn't being assembled by her.
She'd given up, resigned herself to marriage with a man she didn't love, and she never thought she'd be that person. Mary swore that when the next match was made, she'd choose more wisely. And if she knew her mother and grandmother, it wasn't far off.
A knock at the door startled her from her reverie and she called, "Come in," with a strained voice. For the first time that afternoon she realized she had a splitting headache.
Her mother popped her head in and said, "So your father's told you then?"
"He has."
Cora came towards her with that sympathetic, almost patronizing look in her eyes, one that Mary felt was often reserved especially for her, the eldest daughter. "Oh, my darling…"
Mary held up a hand to stay her mother's affections. "Don't, Mama."
"I thought you'd want to hear it from him," Cora said, sitting beside her daughter on the bed.
"I'd have liked not to have heard it at all."
"Of course not," Cora said in earnest. "No one wants these things to happen. But they do happen, dear."
A silence passed during which Mary stared at her hands in her lap, unable to look her mother in the face now that she'd realized the true nature of things, of what her life was to be. She'd known since she was young, really, but Patrick's death had made her face it in a way she never thought she'd have to. And now that the truth was revealed to her in the light of day, she hardly pictured herself going back to her normal life of making calls and going to London and inviting eligible bachelors over for tea. All that seemed so false now, even though she hadn't believed in it before. It was as if someone had told her that God didn't exist, and suddenly all those years of going through the motions at Sunday service seemed even more hollow.
Cora mistook her daughter's silence for sadness, as the next words out of her mouth were, "You can cry, if you'd like to. It would be appropriate."
"I don't think I can manage," Mary admitted.
"Well, we all have different ways of dealing with grief. I know you and your sisters take news differently—"
"Are Edith and Sybil in hysterics?" Mary asked, and something in her heart turned bitter. As if the fact that they could weep made them better women than she was.
"Edith's beside herself, you know how fond of Patrick she was."
"A bit too fond, if you ask me," Mary snapped before she could stop herself.
Cora gave her an admonishing look but didn't refute her. "Do you have any decent black frocks? Anna will sort it out tonight but I don't know if she knows what still fits or not."
"I suppose I have," Mary said with a shake of her head. Suddenly she felt years older. When she'd been young, she remembered hearing hushed whispers around the house any time there was a death. A distant cousin here, an old gardener there. But now no one held back from telling her and her sisters the truth. They were grown up now, truly, and no one was protecting them from death anymore.
"I know it might feel like it now," Cora said, "but this isn't the end of the world. You're young and there are plenty more eligible young men who'd gladly snatch you up in a minute. I'm sure the moment you get out of mourning you'll have hoards of offers."
Mary gave a cynical smirk. "Is that to be my life, then? Waiting to get snatched up by some aristocrat eager to get his hands on an heiress—or rather, her money?"
Cora seemed hesitant for the first time since entering the room. She chose her words carefully. "It's too soon to talk money yet, dear. I wouldn't worry too much about that."
"What do you mean?" Mary knew that her mother's American sensibilities would only restrain her from speaking plainly if it truly was serious.
"Your father hasn't even met with Mr. Murray yet."
Over the years Mary had heard her parents throw around the name of their family solicitor but it had always been accompanied by such dull talk that she'd ignored it. Now, she was riveted. "What are you saying?"
Cora shifted uncomfortably. "There is a possibility—a slight one, mind you—of separating my money from the estate. But it seems silly to get our hopes up now when we haven't even looked over the entail—"
Suddenly Mary was disgusted with the whole thing. "Oh, for heaven's sake, this is ridiculous."
"Mary, you shouldn't get angry—"
"I shouldn't be angry? Mama, with all due respect, I've no idea what else to be. This whole day has been one piece of bad news after another and now you're talking money and estates. I've been well aware of my lack of inheritance for quite some time. It seems almost cruel to even bring it up now…"
Cora's hand was on her daughter's back in an instant, rubbing soothing circles and murmuring, "Of course, you're right, darling. How awful of me to bring it up now when the news of Patrick's death is still so fresh in your mind."
"I do wish everyone would stop talking about Patrick," Mary spat venomously, and her mother recoiled.
"Mary…"
"Oh, Mama, don't make me feel worse than I already do. You know I didn't love him."
"I knew no such thing—"
"Leave me, please," Mary ordered. "I want to be alone."
Cora rose, eyeing her daughter curiously as she lingered in the doorway. "If you don't want to come down to dinner we'd understand."
"The maiden mourns her fiancé," Mary muttered, laying a hand over her eyes. She heard the door shut but didn't open her eyes until much, much later.
The sun had begun to sink over the hills and the front of the house was dark. Outside her windows the lights by the front door were being lit. Life was going on and pulling Mary with it. With a groan, she turned over in her bed and shut her eyes until she heard her sister's soft tread in the hall. She pretended to be asleep when Sybil knocked, and during dinner when Anna came up to see if she'd like a bath or like to be changed. Once she was gone, Mary lay on her back staring at the ceiling, wondering if she'd ever see the world in the same way again.