I. The House, 1898
"I was born here and I will die here. This house is my third parent and my fourth child; I've taken no profession, save for its upkeep and care." – Earl Leopold Blanchard, Lord Grantham
The Right Honorable Lord Leopold Blanchard, Earl of Grantham, took stock of his estates after breakfast each morning. He loved the sight of the house's Bath stone faced, its high spires pointing skyward in the morning's bright light; he loved the regular spacing of the windows and doors juxtaposed by the Gothic flair and follies dotting his rather large estate.
The Earl was a lad at Downton Abbey, playing in the fountains when his mother still had him in short pants, an he'd known no better life for all the luxuries his family's wealth allowed. Before he was Lord Grantham, master of the estate, he was king of the hill on every knoll and stray rock. The forest and great yards surrounding Downton continuously inspired him, a whole lifetime later. To preserve the legacy of this place for his daughters – that was the single object of his desire.
He used to walk more extensively, when he was a younger man, and often in the company of his first wife. From the grand staircase and peaked arches in the great hall, to the furthest cottages and fence posts, he and his Lady made vast explorations almost every day. Then, of course, in the spring of 1894 his darling Margaret was taken away. His youngest, Lady Ella, survived a difficult birthing, and she was a constant blessing – but their home lacked a mother's sympathies and doting..
They'd all taken to mourning, some would say excessively. The girls wore black a full two years, and he himself pushed the boundaries of propriety to three. He'd paid little mind to the liens and financing of his properties during those days, but he could not neglect the future of his children any further. They required a mother, they required money, and they required a male heir.
Lord Grantham must remarry – an heiress, preferably, and she must be young enough to bear him a son. The title could not pass to his eldest girl, Lady Mary Margaret, no matter how he might have liked to see her settled as queen of the county.
And so, with a heavy heart and an empty pocketbook, Lord Grantham took it upon himself to leave England with his girls, and they made for New York in search of a suitable mother-bride.
II. The Entail, 1912
"I do not intend to fight the entail. Not any part of it." – Lord Grantham
Regina loathed her husband, and she knew where to place the blame: it was a tie, between her step-daughter, her mother, and Lord Grantham himself. All of it might have been bearable, in a way, if she'd at least had her own money for security. But no. When the old man died, as he was eventually wont to do, she would be at the mercy of the heir thanks to her mother's ludicrous entail.
There was no hope of freeing her dowry from the rest of the estate, though she presumed Leopold would – at least – contemplate whittling off some portion to pass to his eldest girl now that the heirs were both dead. Tragedy. Titanic. These words were bandied about so frequently, they lost all meaning to Regina.
No. The entail was iron-clad, thanks to her mother's unsolicited meddling; Regina knew it, she'd consulted lawyers in scads since arriving at Downton. She must make her own way or risk future ruin, and Regina had no intention of living out her days in impoverished solitude. A widow's place was in London, or perhaps back in New York, and she looked forward greedily to the day she could doff her blacks and move freely through society as a dowager-Countess.
The Countess knew why her mother had done it, of course. It was the surest way to guarantee the beggarly Earl would propose and turn the Millcroft family of industrial barons into actual landed gentry. English gentry. Everything that was ambitious and American, as Mary Margaret liked to point out, about the idea revolted Regina, but that was her life now. He needed her securities, and she'd caught his eye quite unintentionally. From her mother's perspective, things couldn't have been spelled out more clearly.
She'd been foolish and naive to think she could trust Mary Margaret to keep her elopement a secret. Daniel, one of her father's foremen, was somewhere in the bottom of the Hudson Bay because of that wretched girl. To add insult to injury, when the child realized that her darling father meant to marry Regina and bring her home, her sweet attitude had changed to one of violent indignation. The eldest Lady Blanchard did not want a new mother.
Lady Grantham couldn't decide if it was a blessing or a curse that she hadn't borne Leopold any children of her own. He, of course, had expected a son. A darling little half-brother to take care of the girls when he was gone, and someone he could trust with the solidarity of their estate. He'd taken everything she had to give, and it pleased Regina that he'd not taken that final thing for himself as well. No children suited her just fine, she had enough to contend with dealing with Mary Margaret, Isobel and little Ella.
Things were changing, though. The heir-apparent, Sir Albert Spencer Blanchard and his son, Mr. James Blanchard, were supposed to inherit everything – Regina's fortunes included. Leopold had fixed it with Albert that James would wed Lady Mary Margaret, effectively cutting Regina off from her life of relative comfort and entitlement at the very moment of Leopold's, and then Albert's, inevitable passing. As soon as she donned the airs of Lady Grantham, Mary Margaret would lock her away in some dour little dowager cottage and not send a penny more than the cost of maid and rented carriage; of that, Regina had no doubt whatsoever.
They'd kept word of the engagement to James limited to just the family, thankfully. None of the public need know that the loss of both Grantham heirs meant a new push for marriage from the girls' father. Damn Albert. Damn him for dying before Leopold. They'd had an understanding about the way Downton should be run when Leopold's health began to fail, and he'd gone and run aground of some iceberg in the mid-Atlantic. They, and all her careful planning, drowned.
All of them would go into mourning, and she would begin anew – with whomever the estate lawyers found to inherit next. She would secure a place for herself, and if she played her hand wisely she might also ensure that this new heir did not engage himself or (any of his kin) to Mary Margaret.
III. The Sisters, 1912
"So he slipped the hook?" "At least I'm not fishing with no bait." – Typical exchange between Lady Mary Margaret and Lady Isobel
Belle ignored her sister, mostly; there was no love lost between the pair. Mary Margaret resented that Isobel couldn't recall their mother's face without a photograph, found her unworthy of the memory and overly-accommodating of Regina's intrusion into their lives. Of course Ella was not to be blamed, Ella was only a baby. They might have grown out of it, once upon a time, before Mary Margaret soured herself by warring with Regina non-stop for nigh on twenty years.
It wasn't just the bickering with theirs step-mother, though. Mary Margaret had, a few summers prior, flirted away Belle's finance.
Sir George Gaston was the man their father had chosen for Belle, and they'd agreed to be married after a long courtship. They might have been happy and learned to love one another some day, but Mary Margaret had divided them forever with her meddling. She hadn't even given the pretense of wanting to marry him to soften the blow. It was petty. Petty, and so typically Mary Margaret.
If only they'd been born in an age of cavalry and swords instead of manners and steam engines – Mary Margaret might have fit in there, and her war with Regina wouldn't have turned to petty jabs over dinner. As it was, the only recourse she had to punish the woman who had replaced their mother was to make everyone else miserable all around her. If Regina didn't retaliate with such a flair, Belle would swear her sister a lunatic. Unfortunately, though, the constant bickering and scheming was their day-to-day routine.
Belle never felt plain in her day-to-day life. She was quite pretty, really. But she was not a devastating contrast of snow and ebony like Mary Margaret, nor a little beam of sunlight like Ella, and she did not fuss over her pin-curls excessively. Belle liked to be useful, though she wasn't as precocious about it as Ella, and spent her days in mostly domestic or scholarly pursuits.
She did quite well for herself at Downton; the crofters loved her. But when they visited London or attended one of their neighbor's formal suppers, Belle was always set aside. Suitors flocked to Lady Mary Margaret, and the compliments they paid her did not come unjustly - her sister was lovely.
Mary Margaret had the dark hair and snowy skin of their mother, and Ella had all the bright lightness of their father before he began to gray. Belle was dun, peach-blushed skin with maple hair and bright blue eyes. Her looks were simply not as stylish or as vivid as those of the other two, and though she was younger by two years than Mary people already whispered things like "spinster" and "oddity" behind her back.
Her older sister was saying something meant to entice Belle's temper, the bookish middle daughter knew. But in the throes of Kafka's newest translation, she couldn't be bothered to take the bait. They'd only been out of black for a few months – James, dear sweet man, had died aboard Titanic; Mary Margaret, the clawing cat, should show more grief and less fang.
And the new heir... Belle liked him, generally. He was affable enough, though there were rumors circulating that he'd alienated half of the serving staff already. Liked to dress himself for dinner, or something equally strange. Well, that wasn't so bad. If Belle could be rid of her maid for two hours at a time, she'd be no more presentable in the dining room than a lowly kitchen gilr, but she would have ever-so-much more time to read.
They were, all of them, preparing with extra care for dinner tonight. Not only would Cousin David and his mother number amongst their company, but Sir Rumford and her step-mother's cotillion of gentlemen meant to woo Mary Margaret would also attend.
Ludicrous, really, that Mary Margaret flitted between them in great flights of fancy – sometimes two or three in a day. It was all to make David feel things, though Belle didn't rightly know if her sister meant to make their cousin jealous, isolated or annoyed. Truth told, she wasn't sure that Mary Margaret really knew either. That scared her a bit. That was, at its core, an accidental stain upon the Lady's reputation in the making.
Ruby, their first house maid and de facto lady's maid, had her hands busy coiffing her elder sister's hair for the evening. All of them wore sleek-fitted gowns and gloves, but Mary had taken extra care to look lovely. She was saying something uncomplimentary about their cousin again – said the same several things all day on repeat, really.
"Why are you so against him?" asked Ella, finally. Belle was proud of her youngest sister – the girl adored Mary Margaret, adored Regina, adored everyone really. Of course she couldn't understand any dislike of Cousin David, but it was rare of her to question Mary Margaret so openly.
"Aside from the fact he's trying to steal our inheritance?" asked the darker-haired girl of the three.
"Your inheritance," Belle reminded her. "It makes no difference to Ella and me. We won't inherit, whatever happens."
"He isn't one of us," replied Mary Margaret. "And neither is Regina. They're not family, they're all title-seekers thrust upward by industry."
"Cousin Frederick studied at the bar," Ella chimed in, "and so has Sir Rumford."
"Yes, in London. Not in some dirty little office in Manchester. Besides, his father was a doctor, not a gentleman," Mary Margaret snapped back. Her sister really was not going to give in, Belle decided.
"There's nothing wrong with doctors, we all need doctors," Ella championed. Of course Ella would defend the working men. Ella might even defend the working women, Belle had caught her encouraging the maids to take correspondence classes in typing and post-out for employment as secretaries. Nothing about Ella's sensibilities would ever startle Belle again – she was on her way to suffragette pamphlets and parliamentary rallies, if Belle knew anything about it. No one else could see it yet, but that didn't mean it wasn't coming.
"You wouldn't have Dr. Whale at your table, would you? We need street sweepers and builders too, it doesn't mean we have to dine with them." That was Mary Margaret's final word on the matter, it seemed.
The door opened then, and their step-mother walked in, a vision in black and garnet silk with lace trim. "Who don't we have to dine with?" inquired Regina.
"Mary Margaret doesn't like Cousin David," Belle supplied, eager that the two women most at odds in her life not spend an excessive amount of time exchanging barbs before getting to the point. The dining room and parlor would only further confine them to one another's side for the evening, best that they not get a running start at ruining things.
"Ella, be a dear and fetch my black evening shawl. The maid will know which one," Regina cooed.
Damn, thought Belle, a most unladylike sentiment. Regina meant to talk to them frankly, if she was sending Ella from the room. Mary Margaret was already rolling her eyes in the mirror, and Belle wished – not for the first time – that she could simply skip the family dinners.
"Isobel, can you see that the drawing room is ready?"
Double damn, then. Mary Margaret one-on-one with their step-mother was not a scenario that could ever end prettily. She left the two of them to their bickering.
IV. The Scheme, 1913
"The girls need their own establishments. No one ever warns you about bringing up daughters. You think it's going to be like Little Women, but instead they're at each others' throats from dawn til dusk." – Lady Grantham
When Lady Regina Blanchard, Countess of Grantham, invited Sir Rumford Gold to Downton Abbey, she'd been fairly adamant in her implications that he should steal away one of her three step-daughters as a souvenir to remember the trip by. Naturally, she'd meant for him to make a bid at the eldest daughter of Earl Leopold Blanchard, Lady Mary Margaret – all sleek black pin-curls and snowy white limbs, a perennial thorn in Lady Grantham's side.
Silly little Countess. If she wanted him to play the Lothario exclusively to Lady Mary's Camilla, she should have been more specific in her insructions.
Lord Grantham was a fortunate man. He had three daughters by his late wife, the first Countess of Grantham, and each was uniquely lovely. Lady Mary was certainly the rarest of the three, her looks very much in fashion for the moment, but there was nothing about her situation that appealed to Gold. She'd inherit next to nothing, unless the entail an her father's estate was smashed, and – as a casual student of Law – Gold knew that would not be the case.
If he were to content himself with a woman who would have nothing, he might look to the youngest girl instead. She was all blondness and light where Lady Mary Margaret was a great contrast of coal and ice; where Lady Ella was precocious and kind, Lady Mary Margaret stood proud and – if he was honest – a bit too arrogant for one as middle-born as himself.
The middle daughter also had her charms – though her looks were more in the plain way than the other two. She was not ugly, by any means, but her looks and dress were nowhere near as flashy as the other two daughters in Lord Grantham's set. Superficiality was not his style, and Lady Isobel was undoubtedly the more grounded, well-read of the set. Unfortunately, she'd also been quite infamously jilted, and Rum had no intentions of picking up another man's leavings for himself.
Rum was not the only gentleman to make the rounds at Downton, naturally. Regina had called in bachelors – from knighted entrepreneurs like himself to high-born Dukes – in the hopes that one of them would take a step-daughter away and unburden her. It was not an entirely unworthy scheme. If the girls could be engaged before Lord Grantham's new heir was declared, Lady Grantham's well-known war with Lady Mary Margaret would, in effect, end. Lord Grantham certainly could not be long for this world – another decade or two at best, and then Regina might enjoy herself in town on the usual dowager's wage.
It was almost not worth the bother for him to visit, really. He knew Regina for a snake in high grass, a wolf among the lambs, and she knew him for the same. Aside from his almost vulgarly large fortune, Sir Rumford Gold did not consider himself much of a catch.
He limped; shrapnel from his time in South Africa had seen to that – and it was, he thought, their mutual service in the name of the Empire that caused Lord Grantham to tolerate Gold's presence in his home as often as he did. They'd that in common, even though age and rank divided them: Gold dabbled in trade – news papers and finance. That would be the Lord's greatest objection to him, probably.
But their world was a changing place. Fifty years prior, before Rum was born, a man – even a wealthy man – who mucked about in business would be considered something of a pariah by people like the Blanchards. Now though, in the new century, men like Gold held the power and cast their parliamentary votes with stunning efficiency. Power, real power, was in money and knowledge.
Respectability, on the other hand... that could not be purchased. The only way a man like Rumford Gold, reputed for his acerbic wit and mercenary business practices, could earn it was by marrying a girl like Mary Margaret Blanchard. He might spare the younger two his torments, or at least the bulk of them; they, at least, had the distinction of being gentlewomen.
Watching the eldest child of a great Earl squirm and flirt her way awkwardly around her father's third-cousin and heir pleased him immensely. Whether he proposed or not, the game of provoking her absurdities and hypocrisies could not be ignored; in fact, it suited him. And Downton Abbey suited him, too. He would stay, for a few weeks more at least, and watch their pulpy little drama first-hand.
Even tonight, the eldest had made a complete fool of herself for his amusement. It took a subtle hand, not to get caught at his games. This opportunity came easy: Rum suggested that they ride – a laugh in itself, as his leg prevented him from joining.
"Don't be ridiculous, Cousin David doesn't ride," the girl giggled back coolly.
"I ride," David insisted, looking entirely put-out by the errant claim.
"And do you hunt?" Regina inquired. Regina did love a good hunting party, the stables at Downton were full-up with her dearly bought mounts and studs.
"No, I don't hunt."
"I dare say there's not much opportunity in Manchester," Lady Mary Margaret supplied. Rum had worked very hard to stifle a laugh. This bit of baiting was playing out splendidly!
"Are you a hunting family?" Mr. Blanchard shot back, after an awkward silence. He had manners enough not to let a lady hang herself at the dinner table; that was something to be said for him, at any rate.
"Families like ours are always hunting families," the girl fired back.
"Not always," offered the Earl. "Jefferson won't have them on his land."
"Jefferson's mad," Lady Mary Margaret snapped. Oh yes, Rum was enjoying this conversation greatly.
"Do you hunt?" asked Mr. Blanchard, sparing his cousin from her own sharpness once again.
"Occasionally. I suppose you're more interested in books than country sports, like Isobel."
"Probably," remarked Mr. Blanchard. He had a bit of impishness in his own expression, and Gold found it absurd that anyone would assume a fit man in his prime didn't fancy an afternoon of country sporting.
The family fell back into their rhythms eventually, behaved naturally.
Still, Rum filed his little snippets of information away. So Lady Isobel was, like himself after injuring his leg, the token academic of the family. Perhaps he'd pay her a visit in the Earl's library one day.
V. The Heir, 1913
"You will inherit the estate. Of course you can throw it away when you have it, that's up to you." – Lady Grantham, to Mr. David Blanchard
Mary Margaret had no use for this rude solicitor from Manchester. Her father would see reason on the matter of the entail, and even if a woman could not take the family title she would inherit all the lands and holdings due a first-born child. It mattered very little to Lady Mary Margaret that the money was Regina's originally; when the old witch married her father she'd agreed to make what was hers his, and that should – in a fair world – mean it passed to her upon his death.
She loved her papa, more than anything. Protecting Downton Abbey was his life, and her best dream. Mary Margaret knew her heart was often chilly and her favors fickle, but her passion for the estate shone through clearly. When she met a man she could love as well as she loved her ancestral home, that was a man she could happily marry.
Put simply, her insidious step-mother did not feel similarly. Regina had confessed to her when they first met in New York City that she did not love her papa; swore she had no intention of marrying into their family, of replacing their mama. Planned an elopement, and it all seemed very romantic to Mary Margaret at the time. She spun a lovely lie, about a working-class man and a wedding...
It was supposed to be a secret, she guessed, but Mrs. Cora was very kind and Mary Margaret had no qualms discussing Regina's plans in the least. Mary Margaret even had it from her step-grandmother that the Millcrofts would approve of the arrangement – anything to make their only daughter happy.
But, naturally, there was no foreman and there was no clandestine wedding. She'd thought Regina a true romantic, found it fascinating to unbind the laws of society and marry for nothing more than the sheer pleasure of it.
That was the kind of mama Mary Margaret wanted as a child, not the liar who married her money to their lands and slept in her real mother's bedroom. She'd been shocked to see Regina making her vows to their father; hadn't understood any of it, beyond knowing that it was greedy and wrong. After that day, Mary Margaret never entertained illusions about fraternizing with the peasantry again.
Isobel (she refused to use their father's pet-name, Belle) followed her everywhere when they were children. She was always underfoot, always getting Mary Margaret into trouble. And, what was worse, she called the imposter "mother," and played at tea parties and smiled. Little sisters were obstacles, except Ella, who was an adventurous spirit and too young to know better than to treat Regina like part of the family. Regina was not family. Papa, Ella, Uncle Albert and Cousin James were family. Isobel too, even thought they fought.
She wouldn't go so far as to say she hated Isobel, but there was no love lost between them. She broke Mary Margaret's toys, got show-offish in front of their tutors and governesses, and intruded upon Mary Margaret's solitude in London by coming out in the same season as her older sister, and then there was the laughable matter of the fiance...
It wasn't much to ask, that her sister wait another two years for parties and cocktails so Mary Margaret could have her triumphs to herself for a change. For Ella, at least, the transition into society was not marred by sisterly rivalries.
To Mary Margaret's chagrin, Isobel was infatuated with David much the way she had been with James. Their papa said it was simply her sister's nature to be kind to everybody, but Mary Margaret knew that was not the case. Lord Grantham, for all his wisdom, did not have the discretion of a woman's intuitive gaze. Ella, at least, was too young for the heir that fate had foisted onto the estate.
One night, nearer to the start of their "heir-apparent" charade, Regina had cornered Mary Margaret as she readied for dinner, sent the other two girls from the room, and they'd been forced to speak frankly.
"Glad to catch you alone," Regina opened. That was a laugh, a mockery. She'd only just sent the other two off on simple chores at opposite ends of the house.
"You've driven the others away."
"Well of course I have," the older woman smiled. That was Regina, to a tee. All poisonous smiles and deadly simpering. "The point is, my dear, I don't want you – any of you – to feel you have to dislike David."
"I dislike the idea of him. So do you. He'll come between you and your precious dowry."
"That was before we met him. Now he's here, and there's no future in thinking that way. Your father will not break the entail, nor could he if he chose to try – I'm convinced," said her step-mother. Regina was changing tactics, it seemed.
"How can you think that a woman can be forced to give away all her money to a distant cousin of her father's? Not in the twentieth century, it's too ludicrous for words."
"It's not that simple. That money was mine before it was yours, and it's still not yours to claim. It's part of the estate. Why should you inherit it over David?"
"It's not something-"
"For once in your life will you please just listen!" snarled Regina. Good. It was time that her claws started showing. "I believe there's an answer that would secure your position and give you a future. Sir Rumford..."
"You can't be serious."
"Just think about it. He would certainly accommodate you with an estate nearer the Abbey than anyone else we know, and probably furnish you with a generous allowance to keep up your father's properties should your cousin fall below the mark." The other woman was back to her smiling masque again. "I'll see you downstairs in half an hour."
That had been a fortnight ago, or maybe longer. She would not marry Sir Rumford Gold, no matter how much property he held. Mary Margaret had rather marry David, if it came to that. Neither man was what she intended for herself – David could barely hold his knife like a gentleman. Regina was an American and an outsider, she didn't understand these things, all she cared about was money.
David may look handsome and wear his tuxedo well, but he was not a gentleman. He did, however, make a better facsimile of one than the limping, brooding Gold. It wasn't just the misfortune of his birth that turned her from their charming cousin – it was his flippant attitude about the whole thing. Like he didn't want to be taken from his small cottage and made into something.
Mary Margaret heard her third cousin remarking, casually, to her step-mother that he did not want Downton. And Regina, of course, told him he would have it and do with it as he pleased. They'd no sense of preservation or pride, it was the basest kind of scoundrel-fodder. Regina would have him wrapped around her little finger, and then she'd insert her hand into the estate coffers barely half a minute after her papa was dead. Mary Margaret never doubted that would be the case.
She made it her mission to find the most advantageous marriage offer she could muster. The Duke who'd visited them was a bit of a wastrel, but since they'd taken off their mourning garb three weeks ago the house had been full of gentlemen callers seeking her favors. Some thought she would inherit once her father broke the entail, others simply loved her for herself. All of them infuriated Cousin David, and the longer she could keep him on his toes with jealousy, the longer she could keep him out of her step-mother's grasp.
He'd thought she would marry him, as a matter of principle. Well, David was certainly going to be sorely mistaken. He may take the title and sully it by working on industrial law in the village, but the final word was not yet said on the matter of who would keep Downton Abbey.
VI. The Scandal, 1913
"No Scotsman would dream of dying in someone else's house, dearie - especially somebody they didn't even know." – Sir Rumford, joking with Lady Isobel
Mr. Sydney Djinn was not what anyone had expected. Mary Margaret thought he'd be a dreadfully short brute with a gap-toothed grin and too much pomade in his hair to keep a hat on his head. Instead, he'd been something of a dandy – a very charming, charismatic, and exceptionally kind dandy. That he rode like a proper cavalry man endeared him to Regina, which Mary Margaret did not like, but she did like the way his special attentions to herself set the rest of the gentlemen's teeth on edge. They should all keep on their toes, Cousin David was not heir to Downton yet.
And the hunt had been lovely. Regina, of course, rode way out in front with the hounds, taking fences and hedgerows at an astounding gait, with both legs splayed across her stallion like some roving cowboy. That irked Mary Margaret, but she remained with Mr. Djinn and his company, all smartly dressed in their red coats, while she made quite the silhouette in a fitted navy riding habit – seated properly, sidesaddle, across her horse's back.
Cousin David did not like to see herself and the Turkish Ambassador so thick, but he seemed determined to keep up with her step-mother in the pack. No matter how fine he looked upon a horse or how well he rode – and he did ride very well, perhaps only a smidgen less brilliantly than Regina herself – Mary Margaret was determined not to like him. For the duration of his stay, she'd resolved to like Sydney Djinn instead.
Limping Sir Rumford and poor, dull Isobel had made a day of touring the local churches or something equally boring. Ella was off shopping in town, leaving Mary Margaret quite alone to flirt with her handsome guest from Tukey.
"Isobel. Isobel. Isobel, wake up!" Belle rolled over in her bed, trying to ignore Mary Margaret's midnight prodding.
"Isobel, Mr. Djinn is dead."
"Wha...?" Belle roused herself, finally, to see what all the bother was about. Mary Margaret and their maid, Ruby, were standing beside her, looking expectant.
"He came to me in the night, and we were... together. But he's dead, I know he's dead..." The elder sister was past rationality.
"In your bed?" Belle began to see the bigger picture of Mary Margaret's raving. "He didn't... force you?"
"No! No, he didn't... force me. But he's dead, Isobel. Oh please. Please, please say you'll help me. Ruby and I can't lift him on our own, he's too heavy."
Belle was completely stunned. She'd never, in all her life, expected Mary Margaret to do something so skull-shatteringly stupid as take a foreign ambassador to bed with her. She knew without asking why they'd come to her – they needed someone who would be compelled to keep the secret from the public and their father. Clearly Ruby hadn't trusted any of the maids, nor Mary Margaret their step-mother. That left herself, or Ella – but Ella made a poor secret-keeper, and Belle would rather die than let her father find out what his eldest daughter got up too after midnight.
"We'll talk about this later," Belle whispered to her two co-conspirators. "For now, we need to get him back to his own room." She had no choice. A scandal of this magnitude... it would ruin Mary Margaret, and the rest of the household would suffer along with her. So, she threw on her dressing gown, and did what she had to.
"I hope you know," Belle told her sister, "that I don't think I can forgive you for putting us all through this tonight. But I hope, at least, that I will become more merciful."
"You won't tell papa?"
"Of course not, it would kill him. But I'm keeping this secret for his sake, not for you."
She'd expected Mary Margaret to behave with her usual disregard and flippancy, but instead her sister threw herself into Belle's arms and the pair of them retreated to Belle's room for the night. Even Ruby stayed, as much a friend as a maid for the night, leaving only when the rest of the servants were due to awake.
Later, after the tumult of emotions had run its course, the two sisters lay in bed together, having their first really honest conversation since they'd been nursery-aged. It was time, Belle had decided when they began, for her sister to get a small dose of reality.
So they talked about men as the sun began to rise. It wasn't the serious conversation about responsibility and family that Belle wanted, but it kept their minds off the mess they'd encountered in Mary Margaret's bed that night.
They even discussed the matter of Sir Rumford Gold. Mary Margaret called him a wicked old sea monster, and painted herself some sort of virgin sacrifice – an Andromeda in chains. Of course, she drew the same parallels to their cousin David, so the whole thing was becoming a bit trite.
"I suppose I shall have to marry Sir Rumford now..." moaned Mary Margaret.
"You're not really going to marry him," chided Belle, wishing desperately that her sister would stop with the melodrama and focus on covering up her own illicit scandal.
"No, I suppose not," her sister sobbed. "Sea monsters only like virgins."
That was quite enough self-pity for Belle's liking. "He'll have to marry someone, though. I quite like him," she confessed, trying to change the subject. They had to make a decent presentation of themselves at breakfast in a few hours; the body should be discovered by then.
"There's always A.H.," teased Belle, trying to get her sister talking again. Belle knew the man had been wooing her sister, in a very timid sort of way. She'd seen the love letters, always signed A.H. instead of with his full name.
"How do you know about that? Have you been poking around in my things?"
"I may have seen something," the maple-haired sister confessed. "The Right Honorable Archibald Hopper. He was very nice this afternoon, wasn't he? Not quite a Perseus, but..."
"You think I should attach myself to him now, after flirting all day yesterday with his friend?"
"I don't know what I think anymore," replied Belle. "But I do know that you're going to be un-made if something comes of tonight before you're married."
Mary Margaret sobbed in earnest again, and wrenched a pillow against her face. Of course she hadn't thought any of this through – hadn't considered that she might get pregnant, or be caught by some visiting snoop. It wasn't Belle's pleasure to be cruel, though she thought her sister deserved as good as she gave, but the reality could not be ignored. Even if the scandal did not leave the halls of Downton, they wouldn't know whether or not they were really safe for another month or so.
Alas, the secret would not stay locked away in Downton. They'd had an audience to their maneuvers in the hall way – one neither of them would discover until it was too late.
VII. The Chauffeur, 1913
"You can change your life if you want to. Sometimes you have to be hard on yourself, but you can change it completely. I know." – Mr. Thomas Herman, to Lady Ella
"I think it's terrific that people make their own lives, especially women," Ella told the house maid. Astrid desperately wanted to become a secretary, going so far as to take correspondence courses and spend her money on typewriting machine.
Ella direly wanted to go to school. The only things one could learn from a governess, besides how to hide behind the drapes quietly, were French and a graceful curtsey. Her father would not hear of her going off to academies, and especially not to university. She envied Astrid, in her way. Astrid, at least, was free to follow any dream she chose – though time and money sometimes got in the way; but Ella knew that, on the other end of the staircase, time and money in overabundance could be a dire obstacle too.
Ella didn't bother much with the daily dramas around Downton Abbey, preferring to spend her time working on more important things like women's suffrage and progressive workers' rights. Her sisters were both worked into a tizzy over the death of Mr. Djinn the other week, but seeing Astrid happily employed – outside of service, if that's what she liked – interested Ella far more than any Turkish man's dead body.
"You can name me as a reference," Ella continued. "I can give it without ever specifying what, exactly, your work here has been."
Astrid thanked her, and they parted ways.
Despite her efforts to make over the rules of their society, Ella was still obligated to fill the role of the Earl's dutiful daughter. She had a fitting in town in a few days, to get another boring dress for endless nights of sipping champagne and dancing uselessly. The new chauffeur – Mr. Herman – was something of a wild card. A student of politics and history, and something of a progressive himself if memory served.
That, at least, might prove interesting. Certainly more interesting than corsets and fancy-dressing.
Ella frequently saw her oldest sister and their cousin whispering in the hallway, always clandestinely. She dared not say anything to them about it, since she visited Astrid in the same clandestine hallways.
Once, without meaning to, she'd overheard them openly discussing the business of the entail. Ella hadn't meant to spy, but she knew also that their words mean things at Downton really were changing.
"To break the entail we'd need a private act of Parliament?" Her sister sounded incredulous; not a good color on one as milky-white as Mary Margaret.
"Even then it would only be passed if the estate were in danger, which it's not." Ella thought David was doing a good job of being kind about it, but Mary Margaret's response begged to differ.
"And I mean nothing in all of this?"
"On the contrary, you mean a great deal. A very great deal."
It thrilled Ella to see the buds of romance forming, not that Mary Margaret would deign to see it that way. She loved her eldest sister, perhaps better than she loved Belle and Regina, but the twit could be so ridiculously caught up in her old grudges and prejudices that she didn't see the good things, even when they punched her on the nose. Whatever the pair of them said next, Ella missed it; she'd already overstayed her welcome, so she crept away without announcing her presence.
She could speak to Astrid another day, when less obstacles blocked the way. In the mean time, she quite fancied a trip into town. Perhaps to the hospital, to see what could be done. She'd ring Mr. Herman, have him bring up a car for the day.
As it happened, Astrid found her instead. She'd finally heard from a prospective employer – the bright little maid had an interview!
Ella swore to cover for her, to help her fake some small illness, and they parted ways.
When that day came, Ella pretended on Astrid's behalf, and then dashed out the door to go to her dress fitting. If she was not at home to be questioned, then her orders to the servants would stand – no one was to disturb Miss Astrid's rest today.
As they motored along the road, Ella's mind racing with high hopes for Astrid, Mr. Herman spoke to her.
"Will you have your own way with the frock, do you think? I heard you talking to Lady Grantham before, and it sounds like you support women's rights as well."
"I suppose I do," Ella replied. It was not acceptable for him to address her so freely, but it was exactly what she wanted for her life – equality. Aside from being a bit startled, Ella was determined that she should speak to Mr. Herman like a person instead of an employee.
"Because I'm quite political. In fact, I brought some pamphlets that I thought might interest you about women and the vote." He passed her a handful of pages from one of his jacket pockets.
"Thank you! But please don't mention this to my father. Or my step-mother. Or my sisters, really. It seems unlikely, a revolutionary chauffeur."
"Maybe. I took this job because my last one was boring," Thomas confided in his charge. "The mistress was a nice lady, but she only had one car and she wouldn't let me drive it over 20 miles an hour." They were silent for a moment, then he added: "And I won't always be a chauffeur."
Later that week, Ella was pleased to present her family with their seamstress' newest creation: a cocktail dress, made of gossamer and satin, ending in a pair of billowing harem pants. Her father nearly had a stroke, and Regina seemed torn between horror and amusement, but Ella liked it. She liked it very well, and – she decided – she liked Mr. Herman very much too, as he peeked in at her debut from outside the garden window.
"My corset is tight. Ruby, when you're done with Mary Margaret's hair, will you be an angel and loosen it for me?"
"That's the slippery slope," remarked her oldest sister. Belle had the decency, at least, to look ashamed.
"I'm not gaining weight," Ella insisted. "I don't know why we bother with corsets. Men don't wear them, and they look perfectly fine."
"No all of them," snapped Mary Margaret.
"She's just showing off," replied Belle. "She'll be on about the vote in a minute."
Well, that sparked an entire debate. But, happily, the corset stays were – at long last – loosened slightly.
Ella meant to bring it up again, later, when she visited Belle's room before bed. Instead, she heard Mary Margaret sobbing, and Belle doing some small comforting.
"Of course papa won't fight the entail, why would he? He's got a son now, it's all David-this and David-that. He's given up on me."
"Papa loves you very much," Belle was saying.
"He wouldn't fight for me-"
"He wouldn't fight because he knew he couldn't win!"
"Oh, you don't care. You don't care that he wouldn't fight, because you don't think I'm worthy to inherit at all. You and Regina, you're just the same. I wish you'd admit it – I'm a lost soul to you after that night!"
Ella did her best to sneak away. Whatever those two had between them, it was more important than making a few new arguments in favor of women voting.
It slipped her mind, though, when she finally heard the good news from Astrid. Astrid, darling Astrid! She'd done exceptionally well at the interview. The job was hers, and Ella meant to fit her out in new clothes so she could make a real go of it as a professional woman.
Astrid, sadly, was having second thoughts. She didn't think she could do it, felt horribly under-qualified.
"People rarely hit the bulls eye with the first arrow, Astrid," Ella told her. "You have a great opportunity, I'd hate to see you lose it. You can change your own life."
It was just like a fairy-tale, everything working out so nicely. Ella didn't want to take credit for the other woman's accomplishments, but she couldn't help feeling a little like a fairy godmother. Astrid would do wonderfully, and the house could always find a new maid. She hoped, really hoped, that her involvement in her servant's life would never be taken as anything other than what it was intended – a kindness.
Astrid smiled, and wiped away her tears. She'd give her notice at the end of the week. She was going to be a secretary and start a real career! They all bid her adieu, and life at Downton returned to its usual restless routine.
Whenever Ella needed to travel now, she was always careful to reserve Thomas' services with her father. It happened, once, that she snuck off to a political meeting with a horse and open carriage. Well, the poor beast fell lame and she'd come back barely in time for dinner, caked in mud, and nearly ruined everything.
The family could understand a certain degree of eccentricity among their youngest daughter, but Ella knew they would not tolerate her sneaking off to rallies and speeches unescorted. She also knew no one would escort her without putting up a massive fight.
Mr. Herman would, though. He'd take her where she liked, keep her safe, and talk to her on the way like her opinions really mattered.
No one else was like him, not even Belle and Mary Margaret. Their feelings on politics could be summed up neatly with the lame horse story. Belle felt badly that Ella had to walk back from the last outing, didn't like to trod on anybody but didn't see a lot of need for change; Mary Margaret felt the horse was in the wrong for going lame, and wasn't sure she'd have left the carriage seat at any rate. Neither of them meant to walk everywhere intentionally, for the rest of their lives, as Ella sometimes wanted to do.
Regina and her papa did not understand, and it would be on her own head if they ever discovered her double-life as a political radical.
It was only Thomas who she could talk to, and Ella didn't mind their little chats in the garage at all. In fact, she looked forward to them. He wanted to be a politician, wanted to give women the vote, and wanted to end the gap between the aristocracy and the poor – wanted to end Ella's way of life.
That scared her, frankly. Socialism could be frightening. But she thought she wouldn't mind so much if that was her future, as long as she had Thomas there with her.
VIII. The Prank, 1913
"Rumford Gold is approaching middle age, sly as a snake and twice as likely to bite. I doubt very much that Mary Margaret wants to sit next to him at dinner, let alone marry him." "She has to marry someone, Leopold. If rumors are spreading in London, then she has to marry soon." – Private exchange between Lord and Lady Grantham
Sufficient time had passed since the debacle with Mr. Djinn that Mary Margaret was back to taking claw-swipes at Belle. Belle, for her part, could not say she was surprised. Mary Margaret had got it into her head, somehow, that Belle was making a play for David. It was ludicrous, really, and Regina's input on the matter was not helping. She liked her step-mother, liked her very well. But the tension between her older sister and Regina was fast reaching a boiling-point, and Regina was only exacerbating things.
In Belle's opinion, Regina was not doing enough to mend the bridges they'd spent their adolescence burning down. She seemed happy to push any man except David toward Mary Margaret, Mary Margaret rejected each one in turn, and since about mid-summer Regina had been conspiring to ship her older sister off to their neighbors' homes for a string of silly house parties.
Regina did not approve of Mary Margaret's reactions to Mr. Djinn. "One can't go to peices at the death of every foreigner," their step-mother said. "We'd all be in a state of collapse whenever we opened a news paper."
At least Regina had a sense of humor about it. Belle liked that, a little darkness to laugh at, as long as the mockery wasn't too severe. Sir Rumford had that kind of a wit, and she liked his company very much – when he could be pried away from Mary Margaret and David's flirtatious train-wreck.
For her own piece of the domestic disruption, Mary Margaret had stumbled upon the brilliant (or brilliantly silly, as Belle saw it) idea of hiring their Cousin David's law firm to break their father's entail and disinherit himself. That was bound to end poorly, though David was certainly honest enough to do the task some justice.
David wouldn't wish to benefit at Mary Margaret's expense, simply because their father had decided not to pursue the matter of the entail further. He was a decent sort of fellow, one Belle would like to see happy – even if that meant he inherited everything.
Regina retaliated by hiring him to preserve the blasted thing, and he'd had to walk away from both ladies, leaving the pair of them snarling. Her step-mother, for all that she'd raised three girls who were not her own to the best of her ability, really baffled Belle at times. She could understand not wanting her dowry to go to Mary Margaret, who was always picking fights and raising hell for them at home. The idea that Regina and her father wouldn't have a son hadn't even occurred to most of their immediate relatives at the time of the wedding.
But they hadn't. And then Sir Albert and James had died, leaving no heir to replace them. No heir, save David. And David couldn't very well prosecute and defend both sides of the same case. The whole thing made Belle's head spin. She much preferred the quiet company of Sir Rumford Gold, when he was visiting, and the relative solitude of her father's extensive library.
Sir Rumford visited them frequently, usually at Regina's request, but sometimes their father sent him a card if he'd planned a meeting amongst his old war regiment. Belle wasn't sure what to make of the man. He worked in newspapers, dabbled in law, and had as fine a fortune as anyone could hope for short of ransoming a member of the royal family. His manners were impeccable, despite his industry, and he was generally accepted in all the first circles. He'd lost a wife to childbirth and a son to malaria, somewhere in India on a military operation, and hadn't any need for traveling outside the country since.
She liked him, liked him very much. But he gave no indication of preferring her to her fairer and lovelier sister. The only time they spent in close company was if he joined Belle in the library, or if they took a stroll through the village when everyone else was away hunting. Those interludes were far from romance and wooing – he seemed genuinely interested in what she was reading, in the architecture and stone-masonry of the clergy.
Belle liked all those things too, didn't find them as boring as Ella or Mary Margaret would, but they allowed her no room to maneuver as an eligible lady would.
Her step-mother seemed to have redoubled her efforts to settle Sir Rumford with Mary Margaret. Her sister, she knew, thought of the whole thing as absurd. Remarked regularly that, if she'd turned down a fit specimen like David, why would she accept a crippled old thing like Gold? Belle hated that. His limp was hard-won, and it did not inconvenience him greatly. So he chose to drive himself rather than to ride; driving seemed a great adventure, when not stuck looking at the back of your chauffeur.
Alas, tonight was to be the courtship of Lady Mary Margaret Blanchard by Sir Rumford Gold of London or Regina would die trying to make it that way. There was a rumor in London that Mary Margaret was not a virtuous lady. Belle knew it to be true, but their parents were, fortunately, ignoring it. Rum could not be ignorant of it, close as he was to the city community.
Sir Rumford certainly didn't seem to mind, though how he didn't burst out laughing at the whole thing (when she knew his fondness for exaggeration and cutting quips from their frequent little library chats) still baffled Belle. Instead of spending her night gawking and wondering, she simply tried not to behave jealously; Belle did not want a repeat of the feud they'd fought over a man previously – even if that man was Belle's first and last fiance.
Their dinner party made her want to scream. It was a large affair, with everyone pairing off into the usual escort combinations. Sometimes Rum would take Belle's arm for dinner, but he'd been paying attention to Mary Margaret all night. Belle felt, at first, that he must be playing some elaborate joke on them all. He was talking of farming. Mechanized farming, the furthest thing from his own profession and Mary Margaret's interests. Her eldest sister kept making cutting asides to Cousin David, but Rum just kept at it.
It was all too much; he must be serious, because even his own penchant for causing trouble – something Belle appreciated more and more as she got to know the man – wouldn't go quite that far. Would it?
"Blast it all!" he'd shouted, Scottish burr thick, in the middle of dessert. That was the most spirited thing he'd done all night, and he was usually so animated that Belle didn't mind it. Everyone else was looking appalled.
"Terribly sorry, my Lady," he said to Regina after gulping down some wine. "I've just had a mouthful of salt."
Belle sampled a tiny portion of her own and nearly gagged. The plates were sent away, and Mary Margaret fell into a fit of giggles with Cousin David for company. Clearly they'd been co-conspirators in the prank, one for which the kitchen staff would ultimately pay. Belle spoke politely with Rum to cover for her sister's laughing fit, and could have sworn he'd winked at her when making his reply. They made polite conversation, eyes locked, while Mary Margaret took a few moments to recover.
Finally, the ladies adjourned to the parlor for drinks. The men would join them, later, but in the mean time it only provided Mary Margaret with another forum in which to sharpen her claws. She accused Belle of trying to seduce Gold, Belle accused her sister of giggling like a child in the school yard, and Regina – who could never keep her mouth shut – thanked Belle somewhat condescendingly for looking after their guest. Their other ladies present could only be pitied for having to witness such a thing.
Belle wished she hadn't taken the bait so openly. Now Mary Margaret was treating Rum like her own personal property. She didn't want him, didn't know him, didn't even like him, but he was rich and she a beauty. Wealth and good looks paired together as well as port and pudding. Every time Belle took it upon herself to speak to the man she was, after all this time, beginning to see as at least a friend, Mary Margaret drew him away again. So that was it. She was the plain sister, jilted again; she might as well just stop trying to intrude.
Instead, she spoke to David. But David, seeing Mary Margaret so interested in Gold, left the parlor abruptly and walked back to his cottage in the night. They were a regular set of misery, each one measured out evenly.
Her papa leaned down to Regina's ear and whispered something, but Belle caught the gist of it. Lord Grantham thought her sister a child for thinking that, if she set her toys down and walked away, they would still be waiting when she came back to play. Regina played it off innocently, claiming ignorance to any wrong-doing, but Belle, for her own tuppence worth, was inclined to agree.
They spent the next day ignoring one another at the county's flower show. Mary Margaret and David were at it again – he wanted her when she didn't want him, and now she wanted him when he was resolved not to have her. Belle thought it was funny, and would have remarked the same to Rum if she could find him.
So things returned to normal, and Gold returned to London. Ella and the chauffeur had some trouble about a political rally, but all that was set to rights again and their father didn't sack the poor man. Belle did worry about Ella's penchant for progress, but their blonde-haired sister was firmly Mary Margaret's pet. Between her and Regina's doting, Ella wanted for nothing.
Word was spreading faster now about the affair with Mr. Djinn, and Belle knew she's be implicated too if the whole story ever escaped. Even with the risk of an inquiry looming, she felt entirely up to her ears with her older sister; didn't mind so much that it left Mary Margaret's disposition less than sunny.
Then, one day, sitting in the parlor, Sir Rumford paid them a call. Regina immediately sent for Mary Margaret, and Belle supposed that she wished them well. Her own infatuation was ending; bitterness and quarreling put her very much out of the romantic mood.
"Sir Rumford, how nice," Mary Margaret greeted Gold, wearing her riding habit and a pair of fitted boots. "We all thought we drove you away with that horrible, salty prank."
"No indeed, dearie," the man replied. He looked at pains to present himself affably today, Belle noted. "But I have been away."
"He's been in Austria and Germany," Belle added. She would love to travel and see that part of the world some day, but it was odd for Rum to do so. Except he'd wanted a motor, and - she assumed - to do a bit of politicking. The car was the reason for his visit that day.
"Gold stopped by to show you his new car," Regina crooned.
Mary Margaret looked less than enthused, but asked the polite follow-up questions anyway. He drove an open Rolls Royce, wanted to know if she'd like a turn around the countryside that afternoon. Of course she did not, and begged off to go horseback riding.
Their step-mother did her level best to get Mary Margaret to reconsider, which was daft – that was the least likely thing to convince her. Rum sat down to tea, and Belle finally found her bravery. "I don't suppose that you would take me driving?"
Rum looked a bit surprised, but obliged. They had a wonderful drive, talking about politics in Europe and poetry, but he seemed very tense to her. Not at all at ease as he had in the library. He returned her to Downton Abbey, and Belle vowed not to foist herself onto the man again. Let him limp along after David and Mary Margaret. Any fool could see the pair of them were about to collide – either with a marriage or a murder, but that remained to be seen.
Then, one night, as they all sat in the parlor, a footman came in and announced Gold unexpectedly. He greeted them, and then addressed the room.
"I've two tickets for a concert in town tonight, so I thought I'd pop by and take a chance-"
"Oh, I'm terribly sorry," replied Mary Margaret, interrupting him. "But I simply can't-"
"Well and good, dearie," he interrupted in kind. "I am actually here for Lady Isobel."
The room was momentarily stunned, but Belle made her farewells, asked her father's permission, and the pair of them left straight-away. When they were a safe distance from the Abbey's gate, Belle finally chanced a look at him. He had the same sly grin he sported during their talks in the library, looked a bit like the cat who caught the canary.
"You didn't really think I meant to court your older sister, did you dearie? You've looked quite put-out with me for the past fortnight."
"As a matter of fact," murmured Belle, "I did. You... you planned all of this? Why?"
"My own little prank on your poor sister, I'm afraid. She's been vicious little thing, though I suppose you don't need to worry about it."
"How do you mean?"
"Well, I'd think it's obvious. She's like a child at play, Lady Mary Margaret; I found all of it hilarious at first, but then – I hadn't quite counted you into things."
"Me?"
"Aye, you. You're a brilliant, lovely, little thing. I meant to spend more time with you in the library once all that ugliness with your family and my little prank played out, but you're a braveheart, Belle. Looked me right in the face and demanded that I take you driving when Lady Mary Margaret turned me down. I've never been more surprised, or more pleased - that was what let me really hope you might... well, now that Lady Grantham and your sister are off of me, I was hoping you would deign to be escorted around the county by an old cripple?"
"You're not a cripple!" Belle insisted. "And, if you mean to flatter me... I think you're doing splendidly. Did you really talk about mechanized farming all night just to put a bee in my sister's bonnet?"
"Do you disapprove?"
"On the contrary, I approve whole-heartedly."
"You won't give up on me, even though I'm twice your age and mired knee-deep in industry?"
"I'd have to be quite a fool to give up on a man who makes me laugh and calls me lovely," said Belle, and she leaned in to press a chaste kiss to Rum's cheek.
IX. The Party, 1914
"I didn't tell anybody, you're like a sister to me. I'd never betray you, m'Lady." "Well then you're not like my sisters." – Conversation between Ruby and Lady Mary Margaret Blanchard
Everything was about to change. The assassination of the Archduke left the entire continent at war, but things had not escalated quite as far as everyone had feared. Yet. As her cousin David kept reminding them, things were not escalating terribly yet.
The English would just stay out of it, if they'd any pride. That was Mary Margaret's take, anyway. Besides, she had more than enough to do on the home-front at Downton Abbey without worrying about all of France, Germany and Austria. Ella was recovering, and if there was any justice in the world their father would give Mr. Herman the sack.
No decision had been passed, months had elapsed, but he should not have taken her to the reading of the ballots without their father's permission. That Ella had tricked him into it was his single saving grace. Mary Margaret thought, after the initial shock the family felt at seeing Ella becoming political, that her forays into public squares would end. Imagine the horror of seeing David carrying her darling little sister's body, forehead bloodied, into the house. It was a miracle he'd been in town at the time. An act of providence, to hear the house staff tell it.
But David... he would not be satisfied playing the charming knight to Ella's damsel, oh no. He'd gone and proposed. To Mary Margaret. Marriage. He was quite the man of the hour when it happened, and she'd begged a little time to consider. They were due in London for the season, he'd have his answer when they returned.
Well, they were back now. London was not hospitable to Lady Mary Margaret this year, word of the Mr. Djinn scandal spread like wild-fire. Mary Margaret trusted Ruby second only to herself, and if she and Ruby hadn't told... it could only be Isobel.
Isobel - who'd stolen Sir Rumford Gold away (not that Mary Margaret claimed to want the limping, self-made, virulently acerbic thing.) But now, after Isobel publicizing a family scandal? She was certainly not going to sit by idly and watch as the pair of them became engaged unopposed when she, herself, might not receive another offer for several months; certainly not until the Mr. Djinn gossip died down.
Regina... the thought of her step-mother made Mary Margaret's blood boil. After eighteen years of nothing, Regina the Usurper was pregnant. Dr. Whale confirmed it in her absence, and she returned from London – happily cavorting with her aunt to buy more time before making a reply to David – to resume her work in breaking the entail.
Because that was the real question: not how and why was she pregnant after nearly twenty years, but whether or not she'd finally bear Leopold Blanchard a son and heir. Mary Margaret disliked the idea of her father's estate going to that woman's son, her alleged half-brother, even less than she liked the idea of it going to Mr. David Blanchard of Manchester. But, she supposed, at least the child wold be family. Its American mother may never be one of them, but her son would be a Blanchard by blood and name alike.
First things first: a few sly words to Gold, letting him know that Isobel mocked him behind his back and viewed their entire courtship some sort of base joke would suffice to punish her younger sister. The man was mad about Isobel, looked upon her like something of a miracle, but he – though Regina, and by extension Lord Grantham, approved of him – was not the most unobjectionable match. She'd heard him once offer to let Isobel go, to find some young beau who deserved her...
Men like that were easy to lie to. They believed exactly what they wanted to believe, and that was going to work out in Mary Margaret's favor today. Having Sir George Gaston put in a surprise appearance was the finishing touch – he was recently recalled from abroad, arrived dressed in his officer's best, and stuck to Lady Isobel like glue – entirely at Mary Margaret's request. What could she say for herself? A lifetime of warring with Regina had equipped her well.
Besides, it wasn't forever. He'd realize Isobel was a plain, dull thing with no greater hope than he, and if he still wanted her then he would have her. It was not her sister's eternal happiness she wanted to crush, though that was tempting, she merely couldn't have the pair of them getting engaged while she still had unresolved business with David.
The lie finished brilliantly, with Sir Rumford driving off in a huff, and Mary Margaret turned her attentions toward her cousin.
David wasn't sure what he would do if Lord Grantham had a son.
Lady Grantham had asked him once what he would do if the entail were ever set aside in Mary Margaret's favor, and David had answered her honestly. He would respond with as much grace as he could muster and wish his cousin well. Now, though, refused and smitten as he was, he had to wonder if that was not, entirely, the point to begin with. Lady Grantham seemed adamant that he not marry one of her step-daughters, and he had to assume that the whole family felt the same way. Mary Margaret did, certainly.
He thought she loved him, but he'd been taken in. She loved that he would have her father's lands and money, and when that became less certain she abandoned him.
Lady Grantham was pregnant. It might be a son. Without the certainty of his inheritance, Mary Margaret refused him.
Damn that stubborn, beautiful, brave woman. She'd sooner die a spinster than marry someone she was told to, not that he wanted her to marry him simply for the sake of propriety. If she wouldn't have him as a solicitor living in Manchester, then she did not love him the way that he loved her. And David did love her – would have loved her even if she was chasing bobbins in a factory somewhere.
The indomitable spirit and refusal to cower was what he admired most about his cousin. She was devastatingly beautiful, yes, but beauty in and of itself was not always a blessing. Regina, his most unlikely ally, had warned him of this. That Mary Margaret, no matter her feelings, would not have him as long as there was any chance of ending the entail in her favor.
The pregnancy simply proved the truth he hadn't wanted to admit.
Lord Grantham said, when the news of the pregnancy first came out to the immediate family a week ago, that he would like to make some allowance for David if the child was a boy, and if David did not inherit Downton. He would like to, but he could not. David knew it well, too – he'd certainly done enough work for Lady Grantham and Lady Mary Margaret as they bickered over the entail.
Leopold was a good man; it wasn't his fault his house was filled with a menagerie of female wolves and great-cats. The Earl was kind-hearted and mild-mannered; his greatest ambition was to see the estate remain intact.
And it was a noble ambition. David might have laughed at it a year ago, but he'd come to see the power of the legacy – had rebuilt and refurbished over half the cottages on the property himself. He cared greatly for Downton, and all its inhabitants. Nothing was certain. Nothing, except that Mary Margaret did not love him, and that broke his heart.
David wasn't sure what to do with himself next, but that decision was made for him as the Earl stood and read a courier's telegraph: The war in Europe, the Great War, was escalating faster than expected. England would send troops – the young men must enlist immediately. David relished it, really. He'd rather be fodder for the guns and freeze in the trenches than endure another battle of manners and dinner-table attrition with his fickle cousin here at Downton.
X. The War, 1914
"My lords, ladies, and gentlemen. May I have your attention, please? Because I very much regret to announce that we are now at war with Germany." – Lord Grantham
The war in Europe could wait, Regina had more important things on her plate.
First of all, she had to ensure Dr. Whale remained loyal. He'd helped her fabricate a pregnancy, and subsequent miscarriage. She'd chosen the day after the Garden Party, so that they could all stop worrying about a new heir and focus on the problem of Mary Margaret instead. The week "recovering" alone in her chamber gave her the time she needed to think.
Her eldest step-daughter was ruined, or near enough to it. Neither she, the maid, nor Isobel noticed Regina lurking in the bachelor's corridor the night they dragged Mr. Djinn's body back from Mary Margaret's chamber. She'd been engaged in a tiny infidelity, an Irishman called Graham Humbert who sometimes hunted with her husband's party, and overheard them talking about the circumstances of Djinn's passing.
Regina hadn't known Mary Margaret had it in her, but writing a letter to the Turkish Embassy gave her no end of wicked pleasure all the same.
If the girl would only stop snooping around with the entail and marry somebody, then their shadow-war could finally end. It was, in fact, exhausting. But Regina would not be put out of Downton by the daughter of the man she'd given her best years to, not by the daughter who'd cost her everything by telling secrets to the late Cora Millcroft. Mary Margaret deserved worse, but Regina would settle for keeping the ebony-haired beauty apart from David. As long as she was never mistress of Downton, Regina saw no reason why her own life of luxury and liberal allowance should dry up after Leopold dropped off.
All of that was simple: exactly as she had set out to do, so she did. Sir Gold, the snake, had made things increasingly complex.
She'd approached him some time after his little prank on Mary Margaret in the drawing room, asking if he would buy the story of Lady Mary Margaret's sullied virtue and lies. He had bought it, and she'd signed a contract giving him exclusive rights to publication. But Gold, the magnificent bastard that he was, had no intention of printing the thing. And he'd legally gagged Regina with his contract, to add insult to injury. She'd been played. And she had to be careful enough anyway that no one discover she was the actual leak in Downton Abbey, so her retaliation would have to be cutting, devastating, and sneaky.
How was she to know the cold-hearted mercenary would actually like their curly-headed Isobel? That was the only logical reason he would oppose her - it certainly wasn't out of any sense of fidelity for the family or Lady Mary Margaret.
But Mary Margaret, very accidentally, did something right. She sent Gold away the day of the Garden Party – he hadn't proposed to Isobel as the middle-daughter had anticipated he might, and hadn't come calling since the Party. He must be livid, whatever lie Lady Mary Margaret told him clearly hit the bulls eye.
Regina knew Rum, though. Knew his type. He viewed Lady Isobel as his own, and he'd be back once his temper cooled. David, too, was an easy book to read. The pregnancy scared Mary Margaret away from him, and he was done playing her step-daughter's games. He enlisted, and returned several months later – with news of a fiance.
When Rum Gold returned, he did so with considerably more venom and swagger. He swore and threatened to expose Regina's entire scheme to Lord Grantham if she did not ensure that he and her step-daughter were married. He would not propose or woo the girl properly; none of them deserved that consideration any more - they were all mixed up in the scandal together, as far as he was concerned. But he would have Isobel, and Regina would see to it or she would suffer.
Typical, really, that he thought he could bully her. It was his own hubris that did him in, he should have been more careful. With a little cajoling, a few greased palms, and a rather unexpected alliance with Mary Margaret - whose situation stood on a precipice between very bad and irrevocably dire - Regina fixed everything. Just after New Year of 1916, every newspaper in the country, including Gold's, ran the following:
SIR R. W. GOLD ANNOUNCES HIS ENGAGEMNT TO MARRY LADY M. M. BLANCHARD, OF DOWNTON ABBEY.
Let him wriggle his way out of that one and regain his darling little Isobel. His despair would make Regina very, very happy.
To Be Continued in Part II