Thank you very much for your kind reviews and follows! It is such an inspiration for me that there are people out there, who keep reading and commenting. Thank you!
Many of you ask, if Dr. Hallford is going to be a love interest for Tom: Frankly, I don't know yet. Let's say, she is a possibility just as Henry Talbot is a possibility for Mary. I don't know yet how the characters will develop and who will end up with whom in the end. My plan is to explore different possibilities and relationships and then decide what will work best in the end. I can't either promise "Brary" to those who want them to end up together, nor can I completely rule it out. I love their friendship, but as of now, I'm undecided if there could be more between them or not. I'm not averse to the idea, but I think it would be hard for them to overcome the feeling, that they shouldn't feel more for each other than brotherly or sisterly affection. So we'll see. I found out the characters kind of get their own voice after a while and so I'll let the characters decide!
Mary and Tom are my main characters though, so they will be always in the center of my story while the other characters will only play minor parts and both of them will get a happy ending, I can promise that much.
Downton, September 4, 1925
Dear Ma,
the worst is behind us, Lord Grantham's funeral was Saturday last week. My mother in law tells me to thank you for your condolences, I hadn't even realized that you wrote to her, but she told me she was very touched that you had. It was a huge funeral and I'm afraid, very exhausting for the family. I feel especially for old Lady Grantham, who is taking her son's death understandably hard and who looked near to death herself after the service, but still she stayed till until the last guest had left. How horrible it must be to have a child die before a parent? I pray to God that this will never happen to me.
But I also worry about my mother in law. She is a very serene woman. I admire her class and countenance. Life has been very hard on her in the last years. She lost a daughter, a son in law and now her husband in such a short time and all of them unexpected and too early in their life. And yet she is always gracious and friendly and finds a smile for everyone. What an admirable woman she is.
Yesterday Mr. Murray, the family's solicitor informed us about the will. I was very surprised, that Lord Grantham left a sum for Sybbie. He wrote it is meant "to secure her education", because he knows that "her mother would want her daughter to learn a profession". I was very moved by this, because there was a time when he never would have thought it important for a girl to get an education at all, but it shows that he learned to understand his youngest daughter well, even though some of his understanding only grew after we lost her.
Other than that there were no surprises. Except for the Dowry for Edith and the apanages for the Dowager Countess and my mother in law, everything he owned and his title go to George as his next male relative. Now Mary will have to decide how to secure his inheritance, which seems like a nearly impossible task at this point, but she is determined to do it anyway. Right now we're making a list, of things that could be sold easily and which would it make possible to pay the death duties. Crawley house in London is high on our list, as well as the manor house that the family would have moved into if Matthew hadn't invested his inheritance in the estate five years ago.
But this will be far from enough, so there is much work for Mary and me in the upcoming weeks and months.
I know you want to know, what I am going to do about my own future, but I'll be honest: I don't know. Right now I feel it is my obligation to help Mary as well as I can. She needs me here and I'm positive I will find a new job after we have decided how to pay the death duties. I can't think about it right now. She and Matthew supported me so much when Sybil died and Mary has become my dearest friend in the family. I can't and won't let her down now.
Sybbie is very happy to be back. She ran a little fever last week, but it was over after a few days and she is her old energetic self again. I'm going to send you a new picture soon, I planned to have one taken, to send it to cousin Liam's wife Cathy as a thank you and I will see that you'll get one, too.
I hope your own health is good and that we will be able to meet again soon. I really need you to meet Sybbie, who is the sweetest little girl you can imagine. She's her mother's spitting image, everyone tells me so, but she does have some Branson threats, too. I'm sure you would recognize some of her more mischievous ways!
I send greetings for Moira, Niall and the children. I hope you are all well.
Your loving son
Tom