This is set in a very slightly alternate universe, where Edith hadn't got her claws into Sir Anthony quite so firmly. It was written after listening to A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square a few too many times and shipping Isobel studiously all week. Hopefully you won't find it too daft or out of character. Set during the 1914 Season:
The Brief Romance of Trafalgar Square
The room was getting a bit too hot, and truth be told Isobel had never quite been one for parties. This one wasn't bad as parties go- she had seen some people she hadn't seen for a long time and the atmosphere was pleasant enough- but she had always preferred being with fewer people. She left the large hall where the party was being held, made her way along the landing and ventured down into the cooler marble foyer. She declined the footman's offer to fetch her coat for her with a smile and wave of her hand and ventured into the street in her turquoise ball gown- she didn't really mind if she attracted odd looks.
She loved Covent Garden. There were areas of London that she simply couldn't stand, but she had always loved Covent Garden. Her father would bring her here when they visited their relatives in the city; she'd loved watching the street performers and looking in bright shop windows. There was always a happy buzz about the place. Isobel breathed deeply, finding herself walking further and further away from the party, down to Long Acre, feeling happy too. The evening was warm with a faint pink tinge to it.
She came to a halt at the corner. To her left she could see the church of Saint Martin-in-the-Fields; the beautiful white of the stone, dyed a little in the evening sky. She felt oddly enchanted, and somehow younger. Why go back to the party at all? She knew Cora would be staying there until late on, so there was no chance of her being missed. At a comfortable pace she made her way down towards Trafalgar Square.
"Mrs Crawley?"
Evidently, it had been too much to hope that she might have slipped away unnoticed. She turned around, waiting to see Lord Grantham, or some other man that Cora or Matthew had sent out to see where on earth she was going. But when she turned around she saw someone she knew vaguely from dinners up at the main house, who she knew for a fact hadn't been at the party, because the night before at Sybil's ball he had said he was going to the theatre.
"Sir Anthony?" she asked, making sure it was who she thought it was- after all, she must have held all of two conversations with him in her entire life.
He shook her by the hand.
"How do you do?" he enquired very civilly, "Or ought that to be "What do you do, Mrs Crawley"?"
he asked, taking in that she appeared have taken great pains in dressing up for only an evening stroll.
She smiled down at her dress; she was mildly pleased that if she had to be caught looking odd around London in a party dress, at least it was her best one.
"Cora's got me at Lady Stevenson's house party," she told him, "I was getting rather tired. There were lots of people there. I thought I might take a walk down to Trafalgar Square."
"Would you mind very much if I joined you?" he asked, almost timidly, "I should understand entirely if you said no; I'm not much one for socialising by and large these days myself, but I should feel terribly responsible if you were kidnapped because of your grand state of attire."
She laughed and turned to set off, her manner indicating that he should follow her.
"That's very kind of you, Sir Anthony. I dare say I can manage holding conversation with one person at a time."
The walked down the pavement; surprisingly comfortable with each other given their limited acquaintanceship.
"How was the theatre?" she asked politely.
"Oh, wonderful," he replied, "It was a new play, if you don't mind me telling you something about it."
"I don't think I should have asked if I did."
"It was by a fellow called Bernard Shaw. Pygmalion the play was called. About a cockney flower girl and a linguistics expert."
Isobel raised her eyebrows.
"A torrid romance, was it?" she enquired.
"Not quite. But quite radical in other ways. I don't think I'd like to be in the vicinity if old Lady Grantham went to see it."
That certainly got an appreciative snort out of Isobel.
"I shouldn't mention it to Lady Sybil, then, if I were you. No doubt their would be ructions. Was this play rather a progressive piece?"
"I should say so."
"Feminist?"
"Certainly."
"With socialist tinges?"
"Are you sure you haven't seen this play yourself, Mrs Crawley?"
Isobel laughed again.
"I promise you, I haven't but now I rather wish I could. I'm going home the day after tomorrow, you see."
"Not much one for the Season, are you? I must say, it was far more appealing when I was younger."
"I wouldn't say I ever really noticed it happening when I was younger," she told him, "My father was a doctor up in Manchester. The thought of my having been presented at court is rather laughable."
They had reached Trafalgar Square. The air was so much more open here than in the narrower streets, the sky so much bigger. There were not many people there- the time was well past nine o'clock, after all- and there was a feeling of superb peace, despite the rumbling of omnibuses in the background. He found them a vacant bench and they sat down side by side. He turned his attention to the National Gallery.
"When Maude was alive I'd have spent the entire visit in there," he indicated affectionately towards the locked gates of the gallery, "She loved painting. She was hopeless at it, of course, but she loved the colours on canvas, even if she could only look at them."
That was one of Isobel's questions answered for her. For some reason she had been looking at a way to ask if there had been a Lady Strallan. And there had been. She felt on more of a level pegging now.
"I don't suppose I should have been much good at it either," she told him kindly- he was looking a little bit wistful- "Anything that requires grace or elegance, I'm afraid I'm much better giving over to someone else."
He looked at her rather sharply then, just for a second but for long enough for her to catch him. Then he looked at her turquoise dress. If she hadn't known any better, she'd have said she saw disbelief in his face. Deciding to ignore it, she pressed on.
"I was always more of an academic. You'll think that's very churlish of me, but it's true."
"I don't see why," he told her rather softly, "I don't see why women shouldn't be academic."
She glanced at him sideways. He had spotted what she meant. She didn't like to make long indignant speeches about the suffrage- they had Sybil for that- but it had been something that had nagged at her all her life; watching her brother take his medical training with envy growing in her poor young heart. She smiled, feeling now as if she was enjoying Sir Anthony's company a little more.
"Maude never expressed an interest in academics, but if she had I would like to have think I'd have encouraged her."
She smiled again.
"Do you think there will be a war, Sir Anthony?" she asked, surprising herself with the change of topic, "Don't worry," she assured him, "You needn't worry about sparing my feelings. I want your honest opinion."
A sombreness- though it was not severe or over-whelming- set in over them both. Isobel was used to this feeling when the taboo word that everyone said came up, but somehow now it seemed to be magnified.
"I hope there won't," he told her quietly.
"I think we both know that's not the same thing," she told him gently.
"You said you wanted my honest opinion, Mrs Crawley."
"I know. And I hope there won't, as well, of course I do. I don't think I'd like to say what it would do to Matthew if there were to be."
He fixed her with a sympathetic gaze.
"I'm in the fortunate position to not have to consider that for myself. Your son, he's going to marry Lady Mary, I understand?"
It wasn't the first time that week she'd been asked that this week and the familiar weary feeling came over her.
"In theory," she replied judicially.
"Ah, yes."
She suddenly remember that this was the man Cora had once intended for Mary, and more pressingly, the one Edith now intended for herself. And here she was, their considerably older cousin, on a bench with him for no conceivable reason in the middle of London, discussing romance and theatre. And she felt no inclination to move at all.
He was watching her still. Perhaps he was thinking the same, counting up her relations that he'd pursued before her. She looked out across the square, feeling the pleasant breeze on her face, watching the multitudes of pigeons squawking and shuffling in their way over the pavements. It was hard to believe in conflict this evening.
"Perhaps there won't be a war," she suggested, knowing how quixotic it was even before it left her mouth, "Perhaps we're all fretting over nothing."
Though earlier she'd all but told him not to patronise her, but now she dearly wished he would; just to preserve the calm, the lack of dread.
"Perhaps not," he agreed.
She could have kissed him, in that little moment when he humoured her with his naivety. Hopefully, it didn't show, but that was how she felt. It swooped through her like a curtain falling in a dying breeze. How did they get to this point?- she asked herself. One moment they were walking down from Covent Garden, and the next they were sitting side by side and she wanted to kiss him. None too cautiously either, she might care to add. Perhaps it was the evening; it had an innocuous, sleepy quality to it that was seductive in the extreme.
She heard a clock chime in the distance. Her feeling of youth had rather faded, thinking of herself in comparison to Edith and Mary.
"I must get back," she told him, perhaps a little too sharply- a look of hurt passed across his features. She added more gently, "Cora will miss me."
"Of course," he stood up, offering her his arm, chivalry fully restored, "Allow me to escort you back to Lady Stevenson's house."
"In case I get kidnapped?"
"In case you get kidnapped," he obviously saw the remainder of a glint in her eyes, "I should fear for your kidnappers."
She took his arm and followed him back past the church. They walked silently; neither Isobel nor Sir Anthony felt the need to speak. All of her concentration was centred on the feeling of her arm resting on his. Neither was entirely comfortable, a tension seemed to spring up from the contact, binding them together. She allowed him to lead her back along Long Acre, pleased by the slow ambling pace of their gait, but wishing somehow it was slower.
When they reached Lady Stevenson's door, Isobel was dearly dearly wishing that they could have walked on just another street. Putting a brave face on, she turned back to him.
"Thank you, Sir Anthony. I do hope I shall see you again back at Downton," and she meant every word of it.
Her heart- foolish old heart- nearly stopped, when he took her hand in his and brought it to his lips. Though she was wearing her dinner gloves she could have sworn she felt it tingle. She kept her eyes low, lest she give away what she was feeling by looking at him wide-eyed and flustered.
"Good evening, Mrs Crawley."
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