Not as much content as I would have liked for a "chapter" of drabbles, but I wanted to get these out before S2 aired since some of them may become a bit AUish once it does. There may be some vague spoilers for S2 (though nothing too drastic).
Downton Abbey Halloween - Whole Cast
She had never liked Halloween. A holiday full of masks and costumes, where one could never tell what lay behind the facade, and where nothing was ever what it seemed.
A stage performer masquerading as a Dignified Butler. Two lovers posing as a Lady and her Chauffeur. An old, blind woman acting as a Fine Cook. A compromised and ruined daughter playing as a Lady of Virtue. A rich American costumed as a Well-bred Countess. An alcoholic and thief parading as a Noble and Trustworthy Servant.
Sometimes, it seemed to Lily, everyday was like Halloween at Downton Abbey.
Mrs. Hughes – Books
She trailed her fingers along the endless row of hard spines, her head slightly tilted to better read the titles.
How easily she lost herself in those pages of adventure and romance, of mystery and murder, of sorrow and joy. That marvelous world of novels, so unlike her own mundane and ordinary existence. But each time she turned the last page of her book she realized that there was one thing they held in common: their tale had ended, just as hers had ended so many years ago, when she accepted the final promotion to housekeeper.
It didn't occur to her, the closure of her life's story, until Joe had come with his offers of a new life and a new start. Too busy to see time slipping by, till one day you find that the road you've chosen is so far traveled that there's no turning back and starting anew.
"Penny for your thoughts, Mrs. Hughes?"
She looked up startled to see the butler standing nearby.
"Not exactly," she replied. "I've finished Gulliver's Travels and was looking for something new to read."
"Did you enjoy it?"
"I did." She smiled ruefully before responding. "Although it made me a bit jealous, reading about those far off lands, and myself having never left England."
Carson scoffed. "What do you need travel for? You know plenty enough about life without that, I can assure you." He returned her a more cheerful smile and added, "Besides, what would we possibly do here without you?"
His question was posed almost as an afterthought, but as he uttered the words his voice took on a tone of wonder, as if contemplating for the first time what her absence would really mean for Downton, and for himself.
He looked at her with new eyes and in new ways, and was surprised to see his look mirrored in her own. They stood that way, measuring the breadth of possibility, until he could meet her gaze no longer.
"I should be off. Goodnight, Elsie." He hastily left before hearing her own amazed farewell.
"Goodnight, Charles" she whispered.
Perhaps her story wasn't finished after all.
Lady Sybil is Inspired
Sybil had always been easy to inspire.
A particularly charming rose could later find its pink hues sewn into a new frock by Madame Swan. A pretty cloud floating lazily in the air soon had its amorphous swirls stitched into a pocket square for a father's day gift. A cheerful birdsong may have its refrain played sweetly back when the piano master wasn't attending. The whole world lent its beauty to her mind, but it wasn't only in objects or nature that the young lady could be inspired.
When Sybil was six years old, she caught Mary tripping Edith while everyone's back was turned, prompting Patrick to roar with laughter. Mary smiled meanly while Edith's face turned red and weepy, and Sybil decided then that it wouldn't do to be so nasty.
When Sybil was seven years old, she watched Edith tear her own watercolor to shreds because everyone thought that Mary's was better. Mary had been tasked with an easier landscape and Edith's painting was still rather good, and Sybil thought then that it wasn't healthy to be so envious.
When Sybil was eight years old, she overheard Mary and Edith arguing over who would nab the best husband. Mary flaunted that she could have Patrick and Downton and be a Countess just like Mama if she wanted, while Edith countered that Mary could have all that with a slice of cake, for she was free to choose her own husband and had bigger fish to catch. Sybil silently added that she'd rather marry for love anyway, and that it didn't seem right to be so concerned with status and money.
The years fly by, ten in all, and the inspirations continue to trickle in, shaping the woman she's growing to be without her even noticing; till one day Branson whispers such exciting news in her ear that she claps and jumps with joy as they both run off together.
"You've done it, Gwen, you've got the job!"
There's laughter and happiness, and Sybil revels in the triumph of her friend, while somewhere, not far away, her sisters are doing their best to ruin each others lives. Sybil shares a joyous hug with her friends, and thinks that, of everything and everyone in her life, her sisters really had been the best inspiration after all.
Cora and Mrs. Hughes - We'll need to make some cutbacks
Cora Crawley, sixth Countess of Grantham, was knitting socks.
Heaven help her, but there she was, doing her best to aid the war effort with what minimal skills she possessed, and growing increasingly exasperated with her constant need to unravel the pitiful attempts and cut away the knotted and ruined threads.
How utterly wasteful, she rebuked herself. And in a time where we really can't afford to waste anything, she added, thinking back to the conversation with her housekeeper earlier that morning.
"We'll need to make some cutbacks, m'lady."
"Cutbacks?" Cora had asked, alarmed. "We're already rationing meat, sugar, dairy…what more could there possibly be?"
Mrs. Hughes offered a small and weak smile.
"Plenty."
Cora tried to contain the slight twinge of bitterness at the recollection. Her home requisitioned as a convalescence hospital, wounded soldiers filtering in and out, recuperating, recovering, and sometimes dying; yet even without that, which she really did not begrudge, Cora still felt she had sacrificed quite enough already to the dreadful chaos consuming the globe.
She snipped at another frayed thread of yarn.
Mary, pining after a love who threw himself head first into the duty and honor of the front, hopeless enough to engage herself to an unscrupulous and much older businessman.
Snip
Edith, hardly ever at home these days, running around the estate and its environs in a desperate attempt to fill the vacancy left by hundreds of young men, no time to find the love and companionship she secretly yearned for.
Snip
Sybil, in turns filled with elation at her newfound career in nursing and despair at the images of horror it wrought, spouting political ideology that sounded more and more like their radical chauffeur's every day.
Snip
Her own husband, distracted over his commission to home and headquarters, more concerned with what he is not doing than what he is doing, abdicating responsibility and worry of family affairs onto Cora's weary shoulders.
Cora sighed loudly, and her inattention to the scissors resulted in a slight nick on her palm and a sharp wince of pain.
"Are you all right, m'lady?" O'Brien cried, rushing towards her. "Look at you! You're bleeding!" O'Brien didn't ask permission before forcefully removing the knitting needles from Cora's hands. "We can finish that up later. Here, let me wrap your hand in this towel."
Dear O'Brien. Always so protective, Cora thought warmly, happy that there was at least one thing the carnage of worldwide conflict had not been able to cut away.
Carson and O'Brien – Those Left Behind
For O'Brien, sympathy was a bit like alchemy: grand in theory but impossible in execution.
Still, there were a few vague stirrings in her heart that she couldn't quite name when Carson came barging through the door, reeling over the recent disaster of Branson-as-footman.
Mrs. Hughes was no longer the support she'd once been. I can't see that having Anna serve in the dining hall once in awhile would be so very dreadful, she'd actually had the audacity to say. O'Brien had been within earshot, and glanced over to Thomas for a smirk. Her friend was too lofty to share in such banal amusement these days, and instead agreed with old Hughsie and blathered something about how there were more important things to think about with a war on.
O'Brien watched the old butler stumble into a chair set across from her. It was difficult, when one half of a pair decided it was time to move on from the comfort of tradition to something a bit bigger and better than what the old world had to offer, with no thought or care to the other half they left behind.
And that was something O'Brien could sympathize with.
