August, and by God the heat is sweltering. It's far, far too hot for any clothing or food or action to be either comfortable or necessary, and so George has taken to stripping down to his shirtsleeves and swimming around in the lake. Usually, Sybbie joins him, making him turn around and close his eyes while she removes all extraneous clothing and jumps in, but she is, as usual, cleaning up the mess he's made. We grew up too quickly, George thinks, us two half-orphaned children, and I more orphaned than her.
The grass down by the folly is withering and dying (fairly appropriately, given that the dreaded month of September is approaching) and the Cord Speedster that Uncle Tom and Grandfather gave him for his birthday last year is hot enough to fry eggs on. Mama hated that car, George remembers with a wry smile as tepid water laps against him, no change there. He still remembered the arguments: how irresponsible it was of Tom and her Papa, didn't they have any consideration for her? How could George be trusted with it? It had taken Aunt Edith, Sybbie and Anthony to calm her down, and even then she refused to talk to anyone for the rest of the week. Another successful birthday; George had taken to parking the car outside her bedroom window so it was there when she woke up every morning.
Saying that he wasn't his father and was unlikely to make the same mistake probably hadn't been the wisest thing to say, but shadows suit only those who are content to live within boundaries or without notice, and subtlety had never been George's forte.
Still, today's argument had made that one look like a pleasant conversation about the price of salt. But honestly, George reasons, what the hell did they expect? At the rate they were going on about legacies and tradition, they might as well have presented him with the deed poll papers to change his name to 'Matthew'. Maybe that would satisfy all the ghosts in the house- those unfortunately still around to pester him and those who, sensibly, had moved on.
Barrow, the rich blackness of his hair beginning to fade a little and his face marked with soft wrinkles from years of sneering (George always had the measure of him, much to Uncle Tom's delight), saunters across the grounds towards him and George sighs. Typical, really, sending the staff out to deal with their dirty laundry. He's tempted to hold his breath and dive under, being the immature eighteen year old he wishes they'd let him be, but it was only Carson who'd enjoyed playing hide-and-seek.
"Master George," Barrow says as he approaches the lake, slippery as an eel and about as welcome as one, too.
"Barrow," George says cordially, floating on his back and making no effort to rise from the lake. "Lovely day, isn't it?"
Thomas represses the urge to throttle the young man and smiles instead. "Quite so. His Lordship and Lady Gillingham would like you to-"
George cuts him off, as he used to do so often with Carson. "They'd probably like me to go back in time and have never been born, which would prevent all ensuing problems and deaths and leave them with the Crawley they'd really like to have around. Would you tell them I'm working on the time machine, but it's not quite finished yet?"
Thomas grits his teeth against this imposter to the appearance and home of Matthew Crawley. The tragedy came as George grew older: grew older, grew into looking more like his father and acting more like his mother, and it was behaviour and an attitude that didn't sit well with the fair hair and bright blue eyes Thomas remembers from years ago, lit by a dirty lamp and reflecting a tin mug of tea.
It is not his place to have an opinion or to speak badly of the house, but Thomas has never been one for passivity and should he be asked, he would say he is glad that the young master is rejecting his birth right and the legacy of the father he never knew. Because he is undeserving of it, spoils it, sees only his own troubles in being made into a mirror of his father and not the emotions that still run through the family when they see him.
"I'm afraid, sir," he replies with no trace of sincerity, "that I've been asked to accompany you back to the house and to wait here until you decide to come in."
George stops the little hand movements that keep him travelling through the water and the weight of his body (of this thoughts, of his emotions) drag him down into the weedy depths. So dark and so cold and so refreshing, down where he can forget about everything and everyone. He hates the shadows, loves the unplumbed depths. He is, and they can't see past his hair to see this, full of untapped potential.
He rises with mountain of air bubbles and an ocean of water droplets spray Barrow as he swims and wades his way out of the lake. "Well then," George grins as he drapes his jacket over one sodden shoulder, "lead on, my good man."
And George is once again accompanied by the butler back to the family who are calling to him, but it's not the butler he loved and it's not the sort of family he'd have chosen.
The house, as he expected, is in disarray when he returns. The two footmen by the library door aren't entirely sure what's going on, so much so that they forget to announce him, and George simply waltzes into the library, dripping lake water over antique rugs and refusing to give in.
"Master George, your Lordship," Thomas adds belatedly with a withering glance at the future Earl.
"Barrow, would you go and fetch a towel for Master George? He'll catch pneumonia if he doesn't dry off soon," Cora, still kind though the years haven't been kind to her, sends Barrow away and George's reply is heard only by the family.
"Honestly Granny, it's thirty degrees out there. I'll dry off before he can bring a towel down," he says, but there's an instinctive tenderness in his voice whenever he talks to her and despite the morning's events, she smiles at him.
"You're dripping on the rugs." And there it is. The voice that offered only temporary comfort and a million unspoken apologies throughout his childhood, and now it's icy cold and unforgiving. What a surprise.
George wheels round to face his mother, standing straight-backed by her father and betraying no hint of weakness brought on by the heat. She is, as he will always remember her, marble faced and severe. Gone are the odd days when she would bring him onto her lap and they would talk quietly about Papa.
"Then I'll stand by the window, Mother. Heaven forbid I drip water onto a rug that Bastet has already chewed into threads." All tenderness is gone from his voice when he addresses her and he walks so forcefully towards the bay windows that the floorboards tremble in his wake.
Tom, seated, as is usual, just off-centre from the rest of the family, grins involuntarily and George is close to grinning back and cracking his icy expression. Sybbie rolls her eyes; darling, dearest Sybbie.
"Now, let's talk about this calmly," Robert starts, wheezing and wrinkled, but his eyes are still sharp. "It can't be too late to change your application. Or you could start a year later; what with all this talk of war, things may have settled down a little by this time next year. I've written to Christchurch, they would be glad to have you."
Next to him, Mary nods encouragingly. Where once, when George was tiny and his pudgy fist was wrapped around an old cologne bottle, she had told him to do as he pleased because we live with our mistakes, now she lays out a straight line and expects him to follow it. Things, George feels, must be easier for James; still a second son to his mother, but at least his father's still alive. No such half-orphaned status for him.
George breathes deeply, sneaks a glance at Tom and Sybbie. They're Irish, they're different, they do what they want because it's in their nature and no one really minds. Sounds to George like being Irish is the best thing he could be.
"But I don't want to change my application, or start late or go to Christchurch," he says measuredly and he sees his mother grit her teeth and lock her jaw. "Why do you all assume I want to follow in everyone's footsteps?"
"Because, by God, it's the done thing!" Grandfather is shouting now, never a good idea for someone in health such as his, and George sighs. So much for the calm conversation.
"I've done the 'done thing'," he says quietly, and his voice echoes throughout the room. Footsteps creak on the floorboards in the hallway and George knows Barrow has, as usual, been listening at the door rather than coming in with the towel. "I've had governesses and French tutors and I've been to Eton and captained the Eleven and First Fifteen and I've had enough of everyone trying to make me into who they want me to be!"
He's never commanded the house as he does right now and Granny Cora is crying silently and even Grandfather is looking at him tenderly, so George faces his mother head on. "Maybe this is my fault. You know, when I spent years trying to collect every little piece of my father I could get my hands on in that bloody suitcase. I don't know, maybe if I hadn't done all that… But it's not fair, making me into him and the harder you try, the harder I'll resist. Because I'm not him. I never knew him and I won't ever know him and it's about bloody time you realised that. I am sick and tired of you, Mother, forcing me into a dead man's shoes."
Mary's lips part and her façade is shattered, and Sybbie is crying and Tom needs to clear his throat more often than usual, and even Grandfather seems to be staring at the floor more than usual, but George stands firm. Sunlight beams off the windows and blinds him, covers his face, and once more there is a blond Crawley in the library doing things his own way. Not in shadows, in the light.
"Why do you have to throw everything back in my face," Mary whispers and for a moment George feels some sort of sympathy for her, imagines how difficult it must be. His- and her- only consolation must be that Anthony and James, at least, are spared this. But then he remembers cold greetings and perfunctory hugs and a little cologne bottle given to him then retrieved in the dead of night from a locked suitcase and eyes that look back into the past when they see him, not the future. And he refuses to be bowed.
"Because you never gave me anything. It was all shoved down my throat," he replies in a whip-crack of a voice and finally tears roll down her marble face. "You told me, once, that I was the biggest piece of him you'd ever have. And then you forgot all about that. But I didn't and I won't. And if you won't fund Cambridge then I'll do it myself. And if you don't want to see me, I'll stay down in London until term starts. Because I'm going and I'm doing what I want to do when I want to do it, for once in my damned life."
The library door swings open and Barrow finally appears with a towel. George looks around the room, at the tears and the eyes full of apologies and the proud smiles, and nods softly to himself.
"Well, if that's settled, I'll be outside," he says quietly, and winks at Sybbie on his way out. The towel slips through Barrow's fingers as George yanks on it and then he's outside, back in the late August heat and the lake water, thinking about Classics and Cambridge and how maybe this birthday will be better than the last.