I think I'm probably taking spectacular liberties with history; I think I've cancelled the first world war. It's AU anyway, so I think can. I intend to make the most of this; these fics are so fun to write. I hope you like it.

-Prologue-

"So," Sybil consulted her list, "That's everyone from the first scene cast."

Edith snapped back to the here and now.

"Excellent," she replied hurriedly, as if she had been listening to her sister all the while, "So who are we still left with?"

"Juliet... The Nurse... The Friar...-"

"Not Romeo?" Edith asked.

"No," Sybil looked at her pointedly, "Do try to keep up Edith, Cousin Matthew's going to be Romeo."

"Oh. So who's going to be Juliet?"

"I am."

"What?" Edith hissed, caught between being appalled and thrilled by the idea, "Mary will never let you!"

"Ah, but Mary's not the director, is she? You are."

Edith was quiet for a second, a look of ill-disguised glee spreading across her features.

"Yes, I suppose I am."

"I'm glad we've established that," Sybil shuffled through her notes, "Now, for my nurse-..."

"I heard that Mrs Patmore is trying to lay a claim to that role," Edith told her, "O'Brien, I think, mentioned it."

"Well she's too late," Sybil told her flatly, "I've already held the audition for it."

"Oh," Edith hadn't quite realised that when she'd asked Sybil to give her a hand with the direction that she'd be quite this helpful, "And who have you chosen?"

"Mrs Hughes."

"Mrs Hughes? But the Nurse is supposed to be very loud, and gossiping, and rambling, and comic. Surely-..."

"You've never heard Mrs Hughes when she's talking to Cousin Isobel, have you?" Sybil asked. "Anyway, she's a good enough actress and what I did was I asked her if she remembered the day I was born and she said she could. If I'm Juliet, Mrs Hughes has to be the Nurse."

Edith did not point out that Sybil didn't have to be Juliet, in fact she scarcely heard the latter sentences at all.

"What is she doing?" she wanted to know.

Sybil was puzzled.

"Who?"

"Cousin Isobel."

"Oh goodness, Edith! I'm sorry to have say it, but I'm starting to agree with Mama and Mary. It really is time you got over that business with Sir Anthony at Christmas. You know very well she didn't even agree to marry him!"

Edith settled back down into haughty silence; evidently, she wasn't going to get over it any time soon. Sybil sighed.

"If it matters so much to you, she's playing Lady Montague; Romeo's mother. I'm going back to the Macbeth principle that if you have as much of the cast as possible playing themselves it makes everything a lot easier. And she's doing the costumes, of course," she added as almost as an afterthought.

"You said we still had to cast the Friar?" Edith asked, eager to steer the discussion away from her "rival".

"Not exactly. I've already done the audition for that too."

"Who?" Edith asked, growing more and more irritated with this pattern that was emerging.

"Carson."

"Carson?" Edith repeated.

"Yes, Carson. You know, our butler. I took the liberty of asking him to read a passage of the Bible to me after he'd served the drinks last night. He sounded very holy."

Edith snorted.

"That's almost as ridiculous as asking Branson to play Tybalt."

"I have, now you mention it."

"What?" Edith laughed out loud, "I thought you said you want people to play themselves! You can't have a socialist pacifist playing and violent aristocrat! Tybalt is a villain!"

"Mr Branson is a villain," Sybil replied calmly, trying not to smile, "So much so that recently Mrs Hughes has come to call him "The Cad.""

"That's apparently because he winks at her a lot, or so I've heard," Edith told her dismissively, "Honestly, Sybil, I don't want you to ruin my production for me before it's even begun by being too risky with the casting!"

"Don't worry," Sybil replied smartly, "Edith, the first thing I've learned about this sort of thing is that you have to live outside the box- not just think there. And you have toruffle a few feathers."

-Chapter 1-

There was a knock on the front door of Crawley House. Visitors were certainly expected; many visitors, in fact. Quite as many as there had been the last time; and as a result the inevitable commotion had recommenced. All persons considered properly suitable for answering the door were ensconced in this commotion upstairs.

"It's alright, Molesley," Isobel called up the stairs, "You and Matthew keep going. I'll get the door."

Ignoring Molesley's protests, Isobel proceeded down the hallway. It would only be Matthew's friends: they had seen her playing tennis a year ago on the modest lawn in the back garden- sleeves rolled up, nostrils apparently flaring in exhilaration- the sight of her answering her own front door would hardly kill them.

"Hello!" she cried, taking the handle with spirit and swinging the door wide open, expecting to James' or George's grinning face to greet her.

Lord Strallan stood on the doorstep, with his suitcase at his feet.

"Hello," he replied quietly, smiling a little- presumably at the ridiculous display he had just witnessed. They stood there in silence, neither really knowing what to say next, looking at each other's ears and blinking gratuitously. She had known that this would happen- not just the blinking, but all of it- and that was why she had advised Sybil so strenuously against it. "Sybil," she had said, "I beg of you not to send him here. I beg of you. I implore you, Sybil. Keep him up at the main house!" But her protests had fallen upon deaf ears- as such protests so often did when they were aimed at Sybil.

In spite of this, however, it was her who recovered first.

"Lord Strallan," she offered him her hand to shake.

He kissed it.

"Mrs Crawley. I do so hope this won't be awkward."

At that remark, she thought she probably deserved a small chuckle.

"You hope it won't; but no doubt it will."

Thankfully, he also seemed to see the funny side of it.

"Yes," he agreed.

"At least you shouldn't be forced into a ridiculous costume this time," she told him, "Who is it you're playing, by the way? I don't think Sybil's told me."

"Er, a chap called Lord Montague, I believe. Might I ask who you're playing, or is it just the costumes again?"

Isobel was flabbergasted for a moment, putting two and two together.

"Lady Montague."

"Ah."

Another pause.

"Won't you come in?" she asked, needing desperately to escape this new level of awkwardness to which they had sunk and realising that they were having this conversation on her front doorstep. She got out of his way, and he picked up his case.

By this time, Molesley had extracted himself from shifting the upstairs furniture and took Lord Strallan's coat and case, directing him into the sitting room. Isobel- flustered- allowed her a moment of rest, leaning back against the closed front door. Then came another knock, causing her to jump a little.

"I'll get it, Molesley!" she called, "I'm there anyway."

She opened the door.

"Hello, Mrs C."

Suddenly, though of course she was happy to see her young lodgers-by now their presence was almost ordinary-, she felt utterly exhausted.

"Hello George, James, Christopher," she got out of the way of the door again, "Everybody in."

…...

"On the stage? At the gaiety?" Really, if Sybil had thought she'd heard her grandmother sound appalled before now, she had been mistaken, "Me? Sybil, my dear girl, you must be out of your mind! It's preposterous!"

"I don't see why," Sybil's mother chipped in- albeit timidly- from the corner, for which Sybil was rather grateful, "We are all going on. And it's proper classical drama; it's hardly what I'd call the gaiety. Oh, Sybil dear, thank you! I've never been on the stage before!"

Mama sounded almost like a little girl on Christmas morning.

"No one better to play my mother than my mother," she pointed out levelly.

"Well, in that case, why cannot I play your grandmother?" Granny wanted to know.

"Because Juliet's grandmother doesn't appear in the play."

"Precisely."

"Oh, Granny," Sybil was growing quite tired now, "You're only the Chorus-..."

"The what?"

"The Chorus. You make two speeches and that's it."

"Well, then, why don't I have more? If I'm to be involved in this ridiculous pantomime I should like to have plenty to do!"

Really, Granny was impossible.

"Well, then, move your face around a lot or-..."

"I haven't said anything about agreeing to this!" Granny reminded her stoutly.

Sybil sighed; she had to admit, Granny's temperament was best when it didn't affect one's own plans. Her mother, however seemed to have an idea, if the look on her face was anything to go by.

"Cousin Isobel is taking part," she told her.

This, to Sybil, was certainly an odd approach; and only likely to make Granny want to distance herself even further from taking on a role.

"My dear Cora, not wishing to beat about the bush, I don't care if she's singing Madame Butterfly at the Royal Albert Hall!"

Though so, Sybil thought, wondering what tack her very brave mother might try next.

"I'm sure you don't. Only one wouldn't like to be outdone. That's all."

Sybil bit her lip to stop herself from grinning. Mama might as well have taken off her shoe and flung it at Granny's face for the effect that statement had on her.

…...

"So you've been alright?" Elsie asked, "It hasn't been too awkward?"

Having fancied the walk, and getting away from the house- where the young men who were going to have to fight on stage were being instructed in the rudiments of duelling-, she was accompanying Isobel back to Crawley House. It was a nice evening.

"It's been three days," Isobel reminded her, "Two of which we've spent rehearsing until we're blue in the face anyway. But he hasn't asked me to marry him again, if that's what you mean, and nor do I think he will," she chuckled, "At least, not in a hurry."

"Rehearsing playing man and wife," Elsie reminded her, "I must say, it makes rather a change that it's not me having to do that."

Isobel cast her a rather amused glance at this latter thought, before saying that she had grown to sympathise with her more about this recently; at the moment she could quite happily kill Lady Sybil.

"She just enjoys being impertinent," and then, at the risk of being so herself, added, "It runs in the family."

"I can't think what you mean by that," Isobel told her, "No, Lord Strallan is much the same as ever he was. Before all this business occurred, I mean. It's rather nice. I can live with it, at any rate."

They continued to walk down Downton Village's main street.

"Would you like to stay for a cup of tea?" Isobel offered when they reached the front door, "The young rabble all stayed to learn how to kill each other, and I think Sir Anthony is learning his lines and establishing the nature of the enmity between himself and Lord Grantham. Though they're probably playing billiards or some such by now."

"That would be nice," Elsie took off her hat and handed it to Molesley.

"Tea, ma'am?"

"Yes, please, Molesley."

"The post came late today, ma'am. It's on the sitting room table. And there was a note left. With no address on it."

"How odd," Isobel remarked.

Elsie followed her into the sitting room and took up her usual chair. Shifting through the post, Isobel found the offending note, turning it over in her hand and inspecting it with interest.

"Someone must have dropped it off by hand," she surmised, opening the envelope and reading the paper inside.

She took her time, reading it through twice, as if to ensure there had been no misunderstanding. Her face was paler than usual and her expression one of perfect surprise.

"What's the matter?" Elsie asked, so taken by this change in Isobel's expression that she had neglected to notice that the tea had arrived, "Isobel, whatever's wrong?"

Wordlessly, Isobel passed her the letter. She read it quickly. And then, realising exactly why it was that Isobel had read it twice, did so again. She could not quite believe it.

"Lord Strallan?" she asked, in little more than a fervent whisper, "Again?"

Isobel nodded, shakily. A smile was breaking across her face.

"It says he apologises for not saying this to you in person," Elsie read aloud, unnecessarily, "But he was rather afraid he'd lose his nerve. That he hasn't quite been able to readjust to living alone after Christmas and that he's made enquires about a small farm just outside the village. That he'd very much like it if you'd reconsider."

Isobel was smiling rather broadly now.

"Yes."

Still surprised, Elsie really could think of nothing else to say other than:

"My goodness, he's keen."

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