She's a rainbow
Mary had just turned off her Porsche when she saw him walking past her parking space carrying a box. It was Dr. Crawley and what was he doing in the underground parking of her building? Downton Arms Ltd. had developed the building and sold off most of the flats but Mary had kept one of the penthouses for herself. It had a beautiful view of Regent's Park. She was sure a young NHS doctor could not afford to rent one of the flats in the building. Was he visiting someone?
She watched carefully and when he got in the lift she ran over and watched the numbers. It stopped just one floor up on the ground level. On that level were eight smaller flats, intended for live in servants of the rich owners of the upper flats.
She pushed the button for the lift. Anna Bates, her administrative assistant and best friend, lived on the second floor. It was one of the perks of her job, as she often admitted, was the only way she could afford to live in central London. She might know.
John Bates, Anna's husband, and Mary's building coordinator, answered Mary's knock. "Come on in" he turned and yelled "Hon, it's the boss lady".
Anna looked at her "And what brings you knocking at this late hour? Would you like some tea?."
Mary realized it was after ten. "No thanks. I'm sure I just saw the doctor who sewed up my hand" she said waving her left hand "in the parking ..."
Anna smiled "You mean that cute, I believe that was one of the adjectives you used, Dr. Matthew Crawley.?"
"You know his first name how?" Mary asked.
John answered "He just signed a month to month lease on flat #3" which was one of the worst, albiet cheapest flats, a long and narrow studio flat with a lone barred window looking out on the back lane. Essentially a really nice prison cell. "He said was the nicest and cheapest flat with parking he could find within easy walking distance of St. Swithin's."
"Yes" teased Anna "now you are both sleeping under the same roof".
"Don't leer, it's not becoming" laughed Mary. Still it is a start she thought.
Four days later days later at 11:00 am found Mary sitting in the waiting room of the casualty department at St. Swithin's. It was almost empty.
Nurse Friendly spotted her. "Your Ladyship! I wasn't sure you would come. So many are called but so few are chosen."
"Well you do provide excellent service." Mary looked around and then whispered "Do you know anything he is interested in outside work that is".
"That is hard, he doesn't socialize and you know if you talk to him for an hour you're going to find you talked about yourself for most of it'' Nurse Friendly thought "He does have season tickets for the Proms; he is trying to get rid of the ones he doesn't want to go to, so you might talk about that"
Just then a George Clooney wanna be came up and took Mary's chart out of Nurse Friendly's hands. "Well" he whistled "Your Ladyship what can I do for you".
Nurse Friendly snatched the chart back from him. "Sorry, Dr. Crawley has this one".
The doctor leered at Mary "Your loss" and left.
Nurse Friendly watched him leave. "Close call, that was Doc Heep, you don't want him holding your hand, next thing he'll be giving you a pelvic. Oh, here's Dr. Crawley."
Matthew took the chart and gave Mary his full, incandescent smile. "Your Ladyship ..."
Mary interrupted "About that, I was worried and hurting and not thinking about my manners, please call me Mary" she smiled back at him.
"Well Mary would you follow me" and she followed him to a cubicle. He took her hand, massaged her palm and manipulated her thumb. "Any problems?" She shook her head no. "Let's get those stitches out and while I am doing that you can tell me how you happened to acquire my surname."
"Well actually I would like to talk property management. I am your new landlord."
He looked at her puzzled. "I thought I signed a lease with a Chinese company"
"You did. But my company, Downton Arms Ltd., built the building, and then sold some of the flats to a Chinese investment company and as part of the deal we manage the flats for it. So indirectly I am your landlord so if you have any problems call me" and she gave him her card. A beautiful and distictive card if she thought so herself, violet lettering on heavy silver coloured stock. "I've written my personal cell phone number on the back" she smiled at encouragingly. So phone me she thought.
As he took out the stitches out they talked about the building, the neighbourhood, the high rents of central London. She apologized for the penal nature of his flat but he laughed it off saying he was hardly there anyway.
Finally he was finished yet he did not put her hand down.
"Now that you are finished am I still your patient?" she asked.
He hurriedly dropped her hand which hit the table with a small thunk. He apologized.
She continued "I didn't mean that. I would like to take you to lunch. I saw a little Vietnamese restaurant around the corner, is it any good?"
Matthew looked at her enchanted. "Yes, I think so. I'll just go change. Can you wait for me in the waiting room?"
As they left the hospital Nurse Friendly gave Mary the thumb's up.
At the restaurant Matthew was enthusiastically greeted by Dan, the owner. Matthew introduced Mary to Dan who immediately assumed they were newly married and could not be dissuaded otherwise. He proceeded to tell Mary about how Matthew had saved his little girl from a bad scald. If his daughter wasn't then in school he would show her how little the scar was. Then Mary showed him her faint scar and Matthew was congratulated once again.
Lunch stretched on into its third hour, the spring rolls long eaten, neither noticing, sipping green tea, as they talked. She realized quickly that Nurse Friendly was right about a good listener he was, she would ask him some question, say about his schooling, and he somehow would turn his answer into a question about her schooling and she would talk on and on with him listening. With the right question, or witticism or even a hmm at the right time he teased her whole life story out of her. And her hopes for the future as well, How when her grandfather died she was going to use her inheritance to buy out her sisters, neither of whom really wanted Downton Abbey, Edith just wanted to spend money and Sybil wanted to save the world.
Finally they got around to discussing the coincidence of their surname. Again Matthew got her to speak about her family tree as his was so boring, lawyers mostly back to the early 1800s, at least as far as his mother had been able to determine. He explained how Isobel's hobby was genealogy and how secretly she hoped she would find a pirate or a highwayman somewhere in the family line, but far enough back that it was respectable.
"You're going to think ill of me for saying this but I hope she doesn't ever find a connection between our families." she said to him.
"Why is that?" he asked
"I want the title. I'm going to get the estate one way or another but the title goes to the next male heir; it can only go to a female if there are no male heirs." she smiled at him "So if you turn out to be my cousin you will be Earl and I will never be Countess."
"Well very honest of you. But I don't think you have to worry much, if there is a connection it'll probably be along the lines of my ancestor being known as Fred, Serf Number 17 Belonging To Lord Crawley, and when he finally escaped from your ancestor's manor he shortened it to Fred Crawley."
She laughed. Just then his phone rang. He answered it.
"Sorry, I have to go back to the hospital. A lorry just ran down a line of preschoolers and they need all hands on deck. Thanks for lunch"
He got up and leaned towards her. She thought, hoped really, that he was going to kiss her but he just touched her shoulder and then he was gone running out the door.
Dan, the restauranteur, refused to let her pay for lunch.
She was back to her car before she realized that she had never brought up the Proms which would have been his cue to ask her out. Well he had her card. He might call.