Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness
"When you consider things like the stars, our affairs don't seem to matter very much, do they?" – Virginia Woolf, Night and Day, (1919)
"Life is a game in which the player must appear ridiculous." – The Rt Hon Violet, Countess of Grantham
"I'll book my crossing as soon as I hear back from Grandmama."
"Will you be gone long?"
Mary looked down. She recognised the playful tone of a man in control all too well. There was something almost ironic in Matthew's expression, some meaning in his words of which, as always, she understood everything and nothing.
"I don't know", she said carefully. "I'll have to see."
Matthew twirled them both around the floor for a few moments in silence, his thumb ghosting contemplatively over the skin beneath the strap of her dress.
"Where will you stay?" he asked after a pause, regarding her with the same, faintly quizzical, expression.
Mary realised she had been holding her breath. "New York. Grandmama keeps an apartment on Park Avenue. Then Newport, for the summer, perhaps Cincinnati after that."
"Cincinnati?"
"Mama's family."
"Quite an adventure."
"Yes, I hope so." She smiled dutifully, but something in her voice had surely given her away. The dull parties and social calls of which she had spoken to Anna now somehow seemed even less attractive. She had thought that by holding the idea, still fresh, of her Atlantic escape in front of Matthew she could force him to show a little more of his hand, but – as always – she had succeeded in revealing the extent of her own misgivings. Perhaps she was merely trying an outfit she had yearned for on for size and finding it no longer suited her.
"I'll truly be a New Woman by the time I come back", she offered. Out of the corner of her eye she caught a glimpse of Thomas dancing happily with Edith and gave a wry smile. "I'll gain a taste for-"
"Politics..."
"Liberty."
"And feminism", and a part of him was not quite serious. His hand slid tentatively down to her waist. "You'll be unrecognizable."
Mary smiled serenely. "Perhaps I will bob my hair."
"You wouldn't", he said, his voice suddenly low.
"Well, why not? When it would save so much time?"
"I've always thought long hair would suit you. Does suit you, I mean." Not quite meeting her gaze, he added, "Anyway, that's more Sybil than you, isn't it?"
"Lady Sybil chose to get married", she reminded him gently. "Before me. I'd say our roles have been reversed, wouldn't you?"
"So you're planning to rebel? Throw Perseus over for a sea monster?"
"The world is changing, Matthew", she said, catching his meaning immediately. "Andromeda can't always do what is expected of her."
He sighed abruptly. "You will write, won't you? Whilst we're apart?"
She leaned into him then, a loose strand of her hair brushing lightly against his nose as they kept in step. She was taken at once with the familiarity of him, the scent of mints and blue ink and old-fashioned shoe polish and good manners. She was only faintly aware that this could be their last conversation. After all that they had been through together, the idea of them communicating only by transatlantic telegram seemed absurd.
He already knows more of me than anyone, she thought. "You could visit. If you can spare the time, of course."
"I've always wanted to see New York."
She raised an eyebrow. "You have?"
He grinned. "You assume the horizons of a lawyer from Manchester are confined somewhere between Yorkshire and Cambridge?"
"Between Yorkshire and London, perhaps", she answered quickly, catching his eye. Then, more softly, drawing closer to him again, "I visited, once, when I was seventeen. For my grandfather's funeral."
He remained quiet, sensing that what she was about to tell him was important.
"Ten years ago. In the summer, so we didn't see much of the city, of course, but on the eve after the service Papa took all the girls for a carriage ride through Central Park. This was before we were…before Patrick. Perhaps there is only one part I remember clearly, though-" She trailed off and he spun her round.
The image she carried of her seventeen-year-old self, in fact, was burned into her consciousness: indignant, clever, quick-witted, and utterly, utterly, sure of the world and her place in it. 'Before Patrick'. Before she had begun to be angry.
"Go on?" Her fingers were at the nape of his neck, her perfume all around them.
"The stars", she said simply. "They were…brighter, somehow, in the city. The whole place seemed alive with possibility. Of course", and she gave a small, sad smile, noting that the sentence had rung hollow, even to her own mind. "Everything will be different now."
He dipped her ever so slightly at the next turn. "With the tycoon who won't read the papers?"
"Assuming he exists. I meant with you. Moving away from Downton."
And abruptly there was a searching honesty in his voice. "I thought you saw this as a new chapter? As a chance to rewrite the script?"
"I don't know, Matthew. Isn't marriage just as much an ending, as a beginning?"
"Surely it depends upon whom you marry. Upon whether or not they can match you in terms of-"
"Property?", she said archly.
"-Of intellect."
"Lack of a profession?"
"Or wit."
"Propensity for scandal?"
"Or ambition."
She glanced away for a moment, aware that, once again, he knew he was offering her a solution. He had sensed she lacked resolve. 'Will you be gone long?'
"When you consider things like the stars", she said suddenly, "our affairs don't seem to matter very much, do they?"
He observed her steadily, an unreadable expression on his face. "I don't know", he said, finishing the quotation. "I don't think I ever do consider things like the stars."
Mary looked at him, surprised, as the music came to an end. Swallowing her next quip, and aware of the myriad pairs of eyes attentive to their every move around the room, she unclasped her hand from his and bowed her head. Matthew returned the gesture, a smile playing on his lips.
Turning away from him reluctantly, and at the same time avoiding Thomas's predatory advances as the musicians took up again, she crossed the hall and slid into the long sitting room, glad to find it cool and empty. Standing in front of the mantelpiece for a moment, she took a deep breath, inhaling at once the scent of her mother's perfume, Violet's flowers, Edith's books.
An Englishman's home is his castle, she thought. But women make it so.
Was Aunt Rosamund not right all along, she wondered, now that matters had aligned themselves once again. Could she really have resigned herself to marrying Matthew whilst not knowing whether she would have to sacrifice everything?
But now the opportunity to reinvent herself, forge a new path, had presented itself once again. She would be happy in Chicago, she realised, in New York, or Boston. But happier still at Downton.
Which of the many versions of her life had she chosen tonight, she wondered. And did it matter now that she had found an intellectual equal to share it with?
Shivering as the cold hit her bare arms, she opened the glass doors and stepped outside into the snow.