A/N: So, this has been kind of a fun enterprise for a while now, but thanks to my wonderful beta mrstater, I've finally plucked up the courage to just post it, because, why not? I have a thing for parallel timelines, so the odd chapters are WWII and the even chapters are 1915 onwards. The title comes from 'Death is nothing at all' Henry Scott Hollan. I own only the original characters, the others are gratefully borrowed.
1.
The Storm Gathered
September, 1939
With several impatient flicks Beatrice cast the ash into the marble ashtray and returned the cigarette to her lips. "Mama is going to be frightfully peeved you know, Alex." Her red lips curled into a smile and she arched her eyebrows in an uncanny impression of their mother. "Oh, Alexander, for goodness sake!" she intoned with a theatrical sigh.
"I knew I could rely on you not to wail and bemoan my potential death under enemy fire," her brother replied with a grin.
"I don't go in for wailing. Neither does Mama having said that, she will be cold – dismissive - and then angry," Beatrice said, a shadow flickering across her face. "She will probably cry."
Alexander shifted, resting the ankle of one long leg on the knee of the other.
"Our revels now have ended," he said.
Beatrice rolled her eyes, stubbing out the cigarette and leaning forward in the chair, her chin on her hand.
"Well if anyone has enjoyed some revelry it has been you," she smirked.
"That's rich coming from you, dear sister!" he laughed with a lightness that didn't penetrate his blue eyes.
"My life is one long party," Beatrice replied, but her smile had tightened, pulling at the fine curves of her high cheekbones. "You can always count on me to lighten the mood, that's why you told me first, no?"
"Told you what?" a voice came from the doorway and they turned to face it's owner, a golden headed boy who eyed them uncertainly from beneath a fringe that he brushed away from his eyes self consciously under their gaze.
"Nothing to trouble you, darling," Beatrice said, extending her hand so her younger brother took it uncertainly, her polished fingernails pressing into his palm.
The boy's eyes narrowed. "You are such a bad liar, Bea."
She released his hand with a pretend huff of annoyance, and winked at him. "You're wrong there, I'm a tremendously good liar."
"What's going on?" he pressed, standing awkwardly, looking between his older siblings.
"You might as well know," Alexander said, avoiding his brother's gaze for a moment to examine his fingernails. "But I don't want you to get upset Christopher, I'll have enough blubbing when I tell Caroline. I'm joining up, before I'm made to."
"You can't!" Christopher's eyes widened, and Alexander met them with some discomfort.
"I can. I must."
"Well, that isn't true," Beatrice said, a shaft of sunlight highlighting the side of her face for a moment as she turned into it, looking away from him. "You want to."
"I won't be forced. I will go because I choose to, or not at all," he replied, his tone turned heavy and stubborn as his brow creased.
"Of course, nobody forces Alexander Carlisle to do anything," Beatrice said.
"Quite so," he tilted his chin. "Oh come, Christopher, don't cry."
"I'm not crying!" he shot back, blinking away the tears that were threatening to fall. "You can't just leave us!"
"You can be the man of the house," Alexander responded off handedly, looking to Beatrice who kept her face turned away towards the window.
"I don't want to be! I'm thirteen!" Christopher's hands clenched into fists by his sides. "You are so selfish!"
His brother looked at him, his eyes at once sharp and piercing, as he pinned the child to the spot, his jaw clenching.
"Don't you say that to me," he said, his lips almost a sneer. "Don't you dare! Where would we all be if it weren't for me? We all have to grow up quicker than we would like."
"Mama won't let you!" Christopher spluttered, his lip trembling.
Alexander shook his head. "Mama has no choice, and neither do you."
"You promised Papa!"
"Stop it," Beatrice snapped. "It is done."
Christopher's lips pursed and a spot of colour flushed his cheeks, before he turned on his heel and left the room.
"He can be such a baby," Alexander said after a pause, his fingers moving to touch the crystal prisms that hung from the lampshade on the table beside him.
Beatrice watched as a rainbow flashed momentarily between his fingertips. "He is a baby."
"Perhaps it's time he grew up. He can't be protected forever."
"Don't be too hard on him, Alex."
"That will depend on whether he now goes straight to Mama." He raised an eyebrow, and caught her eye.
"You know he will, he's an insufferable tell tale. But he's just a child, and for whatever reason he rather looks up to you," she said, her eyes glimmering once more, the shadow passing from her face. "Is this news going to spoil our weekend in the country? Is Caroline coming?"
"She's meant to be. I thought I'd tell her when we're there if I can, when she can't run off." He moistened his lips. "Plus there will be plenty of distractions, enough reasons to prevent a scene, and I always so enjoy the way you tease Stephen. It's such an amusing side line to every family get together."
"You are awful," Beatrice said, her lips pressed together. "Don't rely on me to detract attention from your bombshell."
"I'm awful? You're terribly cruel to that poor defenceless boy, he's like a puppet on a string."
Beatrice shrugged, letting a breath escape her lips in a dull hiss. "One must have some sort of past time. The country bores me to tears and he is sweet."
"Far too sweet for you," Alexander said with a throaty chuckle that reminded Beatrice powerfully of their father. "Do you remember that party of Brideton's?"
She flinched. "Yes. Cousin Matthew blamed you for that."
"I didn't pour the whiskey down Stephen's throat!" he replied, rubbing his chin with one hand and laughing.
"You are a bad influence."
"Our sweet cousin needed to see a bit of life and who better to show him life than us?"
"This insubstantial pageant faded," Beatrice quoted. "There will be no more parties."
"There's nothing to stop you carrying on, darling," Alexander replied. "It'll just be the girls soon enough but that could be fun."
"What about Stephen?" she said suddenly. "Will he have to sign up?"
"Probably, before long," her brother shrugged. "He should have already registered for training." Alexander unfolded his tall frame from the armchair and stood up, stretching his arms. "We should make this weekend one to remember, once the olds have gone to bed, of course."
"The corrupting influence of the wayward cousins," she said.
"Indeed." Alexander grinned. "I do so love living up to my own hype."
Mary removed the gold lame gown from the wardrobe and handed it to her waiting maid. She let her fingers pass over the sequins briefly, as the dress changed hands. It was backless, immeasurably elegant, bathing her like a second skin and she dazzled in it, emitting a light all of her own. Richard had liked it, admired the little it left to the imagination, the nearness of her bare flesh to his fingers. Can I borrow it? Beatrice asked but she had had to refuse. She felt Richard close when she wore it, his hands spanning her waist, his cheek against hers as he leaned in to whisper in her ear. You are blinding. Mary let her eyes close for a moment and she could almost smell his aftershave.
There was a cursory knock at the door before it was flung open and she turned to see her youngest child, his fingers and thumbs pressed together at his sides, the corners of his mouth turned down.
"Whatever is the matter?" she asked. "I'll finish packing, thank you, Havers." She dismissed the maid, and frowned at Christopher.
He chewed his bottom lip, an internal battle evident on his face. "It's Alex!" he blurted, snapping his lips shut again immediately.
Mary raised an eyebrow. "He's at the office isn't he?"
"No, he's downstairs with Bea."
"I see," she said, laying the dress between sheets of tissue paper in the trunk. "Are you packed?"
"Mama, he's volunteering! He's volunteering to go to war!"
Mary froze over the case and her fingers closed around the tissue, crushing it like the petals of a brittle flower. She shut her eyes and saw Richard, Alexander cradled along the length of his forearm, the perfect little head contained in his hand. Our darling boy. Her forehead prickled and nausea swayed from the pit of her stomach, so that she covered her mouth with her hand.
"You must stop him!" Christopher's voice throbbed against her temple, and she found she couldn't turn to look at him.
"I can't stop him," she said, taking a steadying breath, leaving the tissue crumpled on top of the case. "He's twenty three years old, far beyond my reach."
"But Mama!"
Mary straightened and turned to face him. "Christopher. I want you to go and make sure you have everything packed to take to Haxby."
He opened his mouth to speak, but was silenced by his mother's expression, the drawing down of blinds. As her son left the room Mary heard the sound of the front door opening downstairs and what sounded like a pile of trunks hitting the marble surface of the entrance hall. She had years of practice, years of schooling her features into cool composure, lifting up her eyes to Richard's and smiling when she would rather have cried. She must not cry and she knew if she stayed alone in this room any longer she would. Mary closed the trunk, the dress and the crumpled tissue disappearing from sight under the heavy leather lid. When she opened the bedroom door a high peal of laughter curled up from the staircase and she leaned over the banister to see her youngest daughter pulling Christopher into a bear hug, before nearly tripping backwards over a discarded suitcase.
"Flossie! You've only been gone two weeks!" Christopher panted breathlessly, extricating himself from his sister's grasp, and grinning at her as she brushed her hair from her eyes.
"It feels like an age! I've never known a train to take so long!"
"Were you driving it?" Mary asked, appearing soundlessly at the bottom of the stairs.
"Mama!"
Mary kissed her cheek, but her hand shook as she smoothed her hair.
"Are you all right? You look a bit ill," the girl frowned.
"And you look like you've been dragged through a hedge backwards. There's soot on your face."
"Oh!" Florence laughed, rubbing a hand down her cheek. "I sat in third, there wasn't much space so I had to keep poking my head out of the window for a breath of air."
Mary's eyebrows arched but she didn't comment. "Well you had better go and freshen up, we leave in an hour."
"I am glad to be home," Florence beamed, giving her cheek another impromptu kiss. "Where are Bea and Alex?"
Christopher's nose wrinkled and he opened his mouth, but thought better of speaking when he saw the pointed expression directed at him by Mary.
"Oh, darling, look at the state of you!" Beatrice said, her heels clicking on the floor as she and Alexander emerged from the arched doorway behind the stairs.
"Do you deliberately cultivate the style of Oliver Twist?" Alexander teased before accepting her embrace, lifting her slightly from the ground.
"Is Cambridge everything you hoped for?" Beatrice asked.
"Well, in a way I think. I hadn't expected things to be quite so… separate," Florence said carefully, with a quick look at her mother. "But it's better that way I suppose."
"I won't have any Cambridge cads distracting my sister," Alexander winked, giving her shoulder a squeeze.
"You're quite happy to be the cad distracting other people's sisters though?"
"Oh, Bea, you can be so hurtful," he replied with a grin. "You cut me to the quick!"
"You're there to receive a university education," Mary said, her mouth tense.
Alexander glanced at her but didn't hold her gaze, instead putting an arm around each sister. "Come tell us all about it over some tea before we make the long journey north, where talk will be of tenants, land and farming. We better hear the shocking details here."
Christopher stood stiffly, his fingers fiddling with the lining inside his pockets as his siblings laughed, heads together as they walked from the hallway.
"You come and have tea too, Mama," he said.
"No, you go. I'm fine," she replied with a smile that seemed to pinch her mouth. Mary watched her older children, the girls with an arm each around their brother's back, and thought of them sitting in a row on the cool marble at the bottom step of the staircase at Haxby, Alexander grinning between his sisters as they pressed their shoulders against his and jostled either side of him. Her heart fluttered in her chest and she felt as if she could reach out and touch them. Reach and hold them once more, as they were, dimpled cheeks and faces that turned up to hers with ready kisses. Mary almost called out. She stopped herself, their names dying on her lips.
"Mama?" Christopher lingered beside her, his hand slipping into hers, his eyes wide and anxious. She pressed her fingers to his cheek for a brief moment.
"What's wrong with Mama?" Florence asked once they were in the sitting room. She flopped into an armchair, her limbs arranged in an attitude of carefree elegance, a band of soot still smeared across her cheekbone like a kiss.
Alexander shrugged, his back turned to them as he rang for the tea. Florence's eyes narrowed and she looked to her sister who was studiously rubbing a smudge from the toe of her show. "What's going on? All of you are terribly transparent, you know. I could feel the tension as soon as Saunders opened the front door, like an Artic blast."
"I'm bored of it already," Alexander said, smoothing a hand over the side of his fair hair, and shaking his head slightly.
"What have you done?"
"What makes you think I've done something? I don't deliberately set out to upset our mother."
"No-one thinks you do," Florence said, a flush in her cheeks.
He gave a short humourless laugh. "That isn't quite true."
"Mama doesn't think you want to upset her," his younger sister replied, a spark of indignation rising in her voice.
"Not Mama, no."
"Then who?" she demanded.
Beatrice turned to her. "Why, Cousin Matthew, of course. He gave Alex quite the dressing down when we were at Grantham House."
"Did he?" Florence asked, her mouth slightly open, her eyes wide. "Why?"
"It doesn't matter why," Alexander snapped. "It was a bit bloody much." He pulled himself up as the butler entered the room. "Tea, if you wouldn't mind, Saunders. Thank you."
"Very good, milord."
"Oh, Saunders, I am sorry about the mess I made of the trunks," Florence said sheepishly as the butler's staunch features softened.
"It's quite all right, miss." He nodded, before leaving the room.
"Why do the servants seem far more forgiving of your mess than mine?" Beatrice said.
"Probably because I make less of it," Florence replied. "Anyway, Alex, I think it was rather horrid of Cousin Matthew to tell you off." Her face set indignantly. "You should tell Mama."
Alexander rolled his eyes, his hand moving to turn the signet ring on his little finger. "I'm not a child who needs to retreat behind his mother's skirts."
"Why did you argue with Matthew?" Christopher asked, slipping into the room, his face wrought with anxiety.
"For God's sake, can you stop coming in halfway through a conversation?" Alexander said. "It's really starting to get on my wick! Eaves droppers never hear good of themselves, you know."
"You weren't talking about me," Christopher replied, with a little twist of defiance to his face, as he perched on the arm of Florence's chair.
"No, and we aren't talking about anything that concerns you, and even if we were I wouldn't be inclined to include you because the first thing you would do is run to Mama."
The boy's lips pursed as he shrank slightly under his brother's glare. "You treat me like a baby."
"You act like one."
Christopher swallowed, and he shrugged off Florence's hand as it moved to rest on his arm. He stood up, squarely in front of Alexander, so that he smirked at the ridiculousness of it, this child measuring up to him.
"And you act like Papa, but you're not!"
The air stilled, and the room itself seemed to shimmer in the grey afternoon light, as its occupants froze. A nerve flickered by Alexander's eye, and his jaw clenched. Christopher's bottom lip trembled, and he glanced at his sisters.
"No, I'm not," he said, flatly. "And whatever you or Cousin Matthew may think, I am doing my best for my family," Alexander paused. "Perhaps if you were less of a sniveling brat you would realize that."
"Alex…" Florence started, reaching to take Christopher's hand where it hung limply at his side.
"And how is leaving the business best for the family?" Beatrice said. Her fingers tensed together on her crossed legs, her eyes glassy with tears.
Alexander turned to her, incredulity staining his features. "I thought you weren't going to wail," he said.
"I'm not wailing, it's a valid question," she replied, her chin tilted up to look at him as he stood in the middle of the room, surrounded.
"What do you mean, leaving?" Florence asked. "I don't understand."
"I intend to sign up for the army," he continued before she could respond, looking back to Beatrice. "You're twenty-one, it's time you managed your share. With you and Mama watching over the board - maybe even taking over editorial control - I'm sure little can go wrong in my absence." He held her gaze unflinchingly, daring her to let a tear fall. "I'm hardly irreplaceable."
Beatrice bit down hard on her lip. She closed her eyes, and as she opened them to look back at him, a single tear rolled down her pale cheek.
"Christopher is right, you are selfish."
As they waited by the front door for the luggage to be loaded into the cars, the atmosphere was limp at best. Florence repeatedly adjusted her hat, her long hair inadequately pinned by a hasty maid. Beatrice eyed her, and had the fleeting thought that she must persuade her sister to get a more fashionable haircut before she returned to Cambridge. How she had survived the piercing criticisms leveled at even the most polished debutantes, Beatrice did not know, she sometimes suspected Florence was entirely oblivious of the machinations of the wider world. She had floated through her debut, feet never entirely placed on the ground. Beatrice sighed, but what was meant to sound like impatience, became more of a quivering breath and she pressed her lips tightly closed. Nothing spelled the end of a long, eventful season like a trip to Downton, and it appeared this visit might not be enlivened by the wit and camaraderie of her siblings.
"So, who wants to come with me?" Alexander asked, a thin smile on his lips as he looked around at his silent family. "Flossie? Come on, I'll let you sing."
"I'll come with you," Mary said, meeting her son's eyes steadily. "Unless of course the invitation doesn't extend to me."
"Of course it does," he replied, with a nod to the chauffeur. "Haines, you can drive the others."
"Well, they'll make a merry twosome," Beatrice whispered to Florence, as they descended the stone steps in front of the townhouse. "I'm sure the journey will fly by."
"Mama is upset," Florence replied. "We all are. Poor darling, Alex."
"Poor Alex, my foot!" her sister hissed. "Unbeknownst to us, he's been harbouring some secret desire to be a war hero. The investors are certainly not going to like it."
Florence hid a smirk behind her glove as the door of the car was opened for them.
"What?" Beatrice snapped.
"What do you know of investors?"
"I know as much as I need to. We all have an equal stake in this, you know." She settled herself into the back seat, her hands folded in her lap, as Christopher ducked in opposite them.
"Papa did like to be fair," Florence mused.
"When it came to us, certainly," Beatrice replied, raising an eyebrow.
"Papa would not want Alex to go to war," Christopher said, chewing on his bottom lip.
"Of course he wouldn't! None of us want it!" Her eyes narrowed. "But Papa is not here."
"And everything is unfair," Christopher muttered, his finger tracing a raindrop down the window.
With a quick frustrated movement, Florence removed her hat and placed it on her lap, her fingers picking at a loose strand of felt. "I miss him terribly!"
Beatrice stiffened, a prickle of perspiration beginning on the back of her neck, as she watched the windows of the car begin to steam, the rain flicking against the glass like tiny stones. She thought of her father's hand underneath her chin, and his rough thumb as he smoothed away a tear from her cheek. Florence had cried the night before her ball, loudly and angrily, her hair matted and tangled across her face, her feet drumming on the floor as she leant against the dressing table in Beatrice's bedroom. Papa was not there. He was not striding across the marble hallway, he was not bent over the desk in his study with a cigar in his hand, and he wasn't kissing their mother indiscreetly in front of the guests. There is no need to be nervous, darling. You are impossible to outshine.
"I'm dreading going to Winchester," Christopher said, his eyes on his lap.
"You've got another year," Beatrice sniffed.
"It was all I could think about on my birthday," he continued. "That next year I'll be leaving for school."
"The day war broke out and you continued to think of your birthday and the horrors of cutting mama's apron strings," Beatrice said, not entirely unkindly.
"You'll be one of the oldest in your year," Florence offered. "I think having a September birthday is an advantage academically."
"Christopher has numerous advantages, let's be honest. We all do," Beatrice said.
"And we shouldn't squander them," Florence replied, pointedly.
"I shan't squander the opportunity to have a riotous weekend in the country, that's for sure."
"It'll hardly be riotous," Christopher said, a smile dimpling his cheeks as he chuckled softly.
"And what do you know of it?" Beatrice said, a teasing sparkle reclaiming the sheen on her eyes. "I shall call for reinforcements!"
"You're going to invite your friends?" Her brother goggled, unable to conceal his glee.
"I already have, darling. They're coming up with Caroline."
"Does Mama know?" Florence frowned.
"Oh, Flossie, don't worry. She'll hardly know they're there."
"I think you should have asked, after last time."
Beatrice waved her hand. "Don't be tiresome. The end of the season is so flat; it will be a jolly boost, before…" she trailed off, her fingers waving in the air briefly and falling still.
Mary's eyes flickered as the street crawled by outside the window, the smell of exhaust seeping into the interior of the car as they came to a halt close to the vehicle in front. Alexander exhaled in irritation, his lip curling and his fingers drumming on the steering wheel. He glanced at her but her head remained turned away from him. There was much he could say, and a great deal of it turned over inside his mouth, eager to spill out and fill the stuffy atmosphere of the Rolls Royce. As a child, Alexander had chattered, often incessantly, desperate to impart every thought in his mind to those around him, to share everything. He did not like silence. The one sidedness of his own internal monologue had sometimes seemed to swell and press against the edges of his skull, prickling and tugging until he felt overwhelmed with the multitude and power of his own thoughts. Now, he wrote everything down. Not a diary, nothing so clichéd, more of list, which he destroyed after writing it, crumpled into his palm and then tossed into the hearth. If he didn't write those thoughts down, where would they go? He could not speak them. Alexander spoke in facts, in the truth; he did not deal in fears.
"Shall I open the window?"
Mary turned to him. "If you wish to get wet, then by all means, do."
Alexander slid open the window slightly to temper the steam that was beginning to build on the glass. "I shall have to let Stephen take it for a spin," he said, pressing a smudge from the walnut dashboard with his thumb.
"I'm sure he would enjoy that," Mary replied, looked down at her gloved hands in her lap. "And what of the Bugatti?"
"I said he should take it out, keep it ticking over. I hate to think of it gathering dust in the garage at Haxby. Perhaps we'll drive back in it."
"100 mph all the way from Yorkshire to London?"
"I think you have a secret desire to be driven at high speed, Mama," Alexander said, accelerating as the distance between the car in front lengthened and the traffic slid forwards.
"I do not have a desire to die in a gruesome road accident, secret or otherwise."
"I am a very careful motorist. Cautious Carlisle, that's what they call me."
Mary raised her eyebrows in amusement as she regarded her son. He looked to her and smiled, the dimples beneath his high cheekbones evident.
"Is that so?"
"How would you describe me?" Alexander asked.
You are just like your father; so much that it stings my eyes. "Prone to recklessness," Mary replied, tilting her chin up, and glancing at him out of the corner of her eye.
He nodded. "A fair assessment, but not wholly accurate."
"I see, so after twenty-three years I still don't have the measure of my own son."
"I'm not sure you understand what motivates me," he replied, his thumbs tapping absently on the steering wheel.
"I don't know what motivated you to get Stephen so drunk he vomited all over my grandmother's antique silk rug," Mary said.
Alexander snorted. "He is not a child, and I am not his father. My aim on that particular evening was to enjoy myself, and I did."
"And the casualties?" Mary asked.
"Stephen is no different from anyone else, we all wake after a party filled with regret…"
"And stinking of vomit?" Mary interjected.
"Not in my case. Must I always be responsible for others?"
His words were sharp and Mary flinched imperceptibly. "There are duties in life."
"Taking care of my family is not a duty." His eyes flickered to hers. "Nor is it an honour," he said with a twitch of his lips. "But it is all that matters to me, my family are all that matters to me."
"Alex…" She closed her eyes briefly, and her chest clenched.
"For some reason I love every last one of you, even Christopher at his most aggravating." He swallowed. "The war is a duty, and it may well be an honour, but I won't do it for love. I will go because I have to."
Mary wanted to take his face between her palms, and kiss the centre of his forehead as she had when he was a child. I don't believe in doing things in the name of duty. Mary could feel Richard's hand in hers, his thumb chafing across her fingers. Not in the name of love then, surely? The lines around his eyes smoothed, and she didn't know if his flash of surprise was real or in her imagination. Not if that isn't what you want to hear, he said. At the start Mary hadn't known what she wanted to hear from Richard, but it certainly hadn't been talk of duty and honour, so that at least was something. A promise, a declaration made by Richard came cast in stone, he did not stand to be misinterpreted and Mary had never known anyone be so direct with her – until Alexander.
"When did your life stop being about duty?" he asked.
"The day I married your father."
"You married him because you wanted to."
"Yes."