A/N: Happy Easter to all of you on holiday today. :) My apologies for the delay between updates, due to illness. Chapter four is already under way so the next update should come in a much timelier fashion. Thanks so much all of you who are following this fic and have taken the time to leave such lovely comments. I hope you continue to enjoy it-and if you've not been following The Healing Process, by malintzin (who has also helped me brainstorm and beta SWH), you should go read it at once. It's a thoughtful look at how Mary and Richard might have made their way forward if they'd married before the S2 Christmas special as planned and not to be missed by any M/R fan.


3. Pushing In

A widow was entitled to take her breakfast in bed, the same as a wife of a living husband, but Mary had not lingered in hers for so much as a cup of tea since Dr Clarkson permitted her to leave it after the birth. Bed was for sleeping and nothing else, and goodness only knew little enough of that had taken place in hers during the past seven months. Although, much as it pained her to acknowledge, sleep came more readily in her bed in London than it had at Downton; here she was lonely, but at least there were no memories of having once occupied it with Matthew to make her lonelier with the longing.

She started down the hall to the staircase, only to hesitate at the top step when Isobel's voice drifted from one of the rooms behind. Mary's fingers closed around the spindle at the end of the banister, her shoulders tightening for a moment before she turned and went back in the direction from which she'd come, past her bedroom to the open doorway of the nursery. Her mother-in-law did not look up from giving George his morning bottle in the rocking chair by the window as Mary stood just inside the door, her hand braced against the moulding, thumb chafing the side of her forefinger.

"Really, Isobel. If you insist on giving George all his bottles, what is Papa paying Nanny Philips for?"

Isobel frequently took charge of George's feedings and had done so since he was born, just as Tom took to giving Sybbie hers now and again after the wet nurse was no longer required. It reminded her of when Matthew was a baby, she said; Dr Crawley's medical practice in Manchester was successful but did not afford a nanny, and Isobel even nursed their son herself for the first few weeks of his infancy, establishing a bond she had suggested might comfort Mary in her bereavement. Even if Mary had wished to, her body did not leave that choice open to her; shock and grief, Dr Clarkson said, prevented her milk from coming in only to be dried up with bandages or other remedies. Thank god, for Mary could not bear the thought of raising her baby in any way she would never have considered otherwise. It was bad enough that she had to bring him up without Matthew.

So she left feeding to the nurse, and silently bore Isobel and Tom pouring their broken hearts into Matthew and Sybil's children, whilst resenting the implication that in her son she would find a replacement for Matthew. "It must be such a comfort to have a bit of your husband to hold on to," too many people said at the funeral. Matthew never felt more out of reach than when her arms were around their son. It shamed her that she could not make herself feel what she had the first moment Dr Clarkson first placed her beautiful boy in her arms, and no one else had seen her in maternal bliss. No one but Matthew.

"You think me nice. No one else does."

"I know the real you."

"I believe at the moment she's washing napkins," Isobel replied.

"I suppose that is worth her salary." Mary stepped further into the room in response to George's bouncing to reach for her with chubby fists, having lost all interest in his bottle at the sound of her voice.

"Indeed. Mind your blouse," Isobel warned as Mary took the baby from her. "He hasn't belched."

Even as she arched her eyebrows at the indelicacy, Mary couldn't help but smile back as Georgie grabbed her necklace and immediately tried to put the pendant into his mouth.

"You're chipper this morning." With some struggle she freed her jewellery from George's grasp, then began to tap her fingertips lightly on his back. At once he lay his head on her shoulder, as if hypnotised by the rhythm. Over his head, she caught Isobel's eye. "You, I mean. More than usual."

Not that her mother-in-law's disposition wasn't naturally enthusiastic, but since the death of her son, Isobel seemed to have aged; she did not zip about, full of vim and vigour.

"Do you know, I believe it was the company?" She rose from the rocker more easily than Mary had seen her do in some time, and slipped a cloth under George's head to protect Mary's blouse just in time for his stomach to emit a noisy gurgle. "I feel a renewed sense of purpose in life. I'm a social creature by nature."

Before Mary could inquire about the practical ramifications of this declaration, Isobel stepped around to face her, concern etched on her brow.

"Are you sure it wasn't too much for you, my dear? Of course I couldn't hear from the mah-jong table, but you appeared to be having words with Sir Richard before he made his rather abrupt departure. Did he say something to distress you?"

"That was one of our more civil discussions."

Mary patted George's back a little more firmly as she felt his stocking feet kick about her hips. The desired outcome still not achieved, he whimpered. She looked to Isobel, but she had turned her back, retrieving the abandoned bottle from the chair and carrying it to the dresser.

"Compared to how things were between you toward the end," she agreed. "But it wasn't always that way, was it? I realise charm can be deceiving, but I thought he genuinely was when we first met. He couldn't have got far in his career if he didn't know how to handle people."

Mary barely smothered a snort. Richard knew how to handle people, all right, and charm wasn't the word she'd use for his approach to business. Yet she couldn't deny that until he turned that ruthlessness on her, for personal reasons, it troubled her little.

"If you'll forgive me for saying so," Isobel continued, "I never felt that your family gave him a fair chance to prove his worth, like they gave Matthew."

"That was mostly because they were all as in love with Matthew as I was. And Richard was never as easy to like as Matthew."

Ironically, though, it had taken her much longer to warm to Matthew than it had to Richard, who was indeed all charm when they met at Cliveden. Of course in Richard's favour was that he had not been a lawyer from Manchester who was to inherit Downton in her stead, the son the Earl of Grantham had always wanted.

George kicked and fussed in earnest now, and Mary bounced him a little as she increased the pace of her tapping to match the tempo of her heartbeat. Was Isobel purposely ignoring her?

"Well I was hardly in his company to form my own opinion of him," she went on, "so I had to rely on the opinions of others. Lavinia seemed intimidated by him, but then she seemed intimidated by all of you. Matthew didn't care much for him, but I assumed that was because he regarded him as a rival for your affections. Though it was obvious you preferred Matthew…And it was that to which I attributed Sir Richard's surliness. He knew it, and was jealous."

Blackmail notwithstanding, that was about the size of it. "You must have found it strange that Richard and I remained engaged as long as we did."

"What has got our little Master Georgie so out of sorts?"

Nanny Philips stroked through the nursery door at that moment, laying her armload of clean pressed napkins on the changing table before plucking her little charge from his mother's arms. Mary supposed she ought to be grateful to have been rescued from the conversation as well as the chore of coaxing gas from an infant, but the sigh that went out of her, making her shoulders slump and weighing down the tips of her fingers, felt more like defeat than relief as she watched the experienced nurse work. She plopped George unceremoniously down on her lap in the rocking chair, the child's tummy leaning forward against the heel of one hand like a ragdoll, she thumped him soundly on the back with the other. It seemed rough, but almost immediately he let out a resonant belch and traded his expression of misery for a gummy baby grin which widened when Isobel, chuckling, deemed the sound very manly.

"They're hardier than they look, your ladyship," said Nanny Philips, adding after the baby yawned, "but also in need of a great deal of sleep. Shall we say night-night to Mummy and Nana and take our morning nap?"

When they had kissed Georgie, they left Nanny to change him and lay him in his cot, turning down the hall in a tacit agreement to take their breakfast together. The quiet came as a relief after George's fussing, but Isobel never could remain silent for long.

"I'm sorry, Mary, but I'm afraid I've lost the thread of our conversation. You were saying?"

Her first impulse was to feign forgetfulness as well, but she stopped short of actually giving her mother-in-law the brush off. Isobel's take on the situation did not so much as pique Mary's curiosity as exacerbate the itch that had niggled at the back of her mind since Richard came to call.

"I asked whether you thought it odd that our engagement lasted so long."

"Not really. You accepted him when Matthew intended to marry Lavinia, and even when he was free, he gave you no reason to believe he would change his mind. Why shouldn't you have moved on? It was stranger that Sir Richard would want to go ahead with the marriage when your heart plainly wasn't in it. But I suppose one thing all of you shared in common was that it's difficult to let go of love, isn't it?"

"Did you think Richard loved me?"

Mary halted in the centre of the corridor, and Isobel turned back, her surprise at the question evident.

"My dear, I really couldn't say. In any case, it can't have been easy for him to concede to being second choice. Men have their pride, don't they?"

With a puff of a laugh, Mary nodded. Men did, indeed, have their pride-especially men like Richard, who had to fight for everything they'd got. Although in his case, unyielding ego was a more apt description. How ironic that the trait which no doubt made it possible for him to climb to the top of the newspaper business was the very one that caused him to lose whatever tenuous hold he had on her. Did he realise he had been his own worst enemy, not her love for Matthew? Judging by the parting shot he fired at her last night, he did not.

At the emergence of the housemaid, Lilly, from Mary's room, they resumed walking, keeping silent until they reached the stairs.

Mary apologised as they descended. "I hope I haven't spoiled your mood by talking about a sadder time." A time that had been wasted. "If you'd rather I didn't see Richard again because of that, I won't."

"It's only natural that grief makes us think of the past. Especially situations that lack resolution. If you feel that Sir Richard is part of you finding your way forward, then it's not for me to tell you not to see him."

They had reached the dining room by that time, stopping just outside the door, facing each other. Isobel's eyes regarded her with such warmth that Mary felt the prick of moisture in her own. Quickly, she stepped past her mother-in-law, making directly for the sideboard, over which Molesley presided.

"It doesn't seem likely that I should see him again," she said lightly over her shoulder as Isobel took a plate. "I believe he called on me mostly out of curiosity-ever the newspaperman."

"And might I inquire why you asked him to dinner?"

Mary hesitated, her hand hovering over the handle of a serving spoon, before she answered with a flippant shrug and a slight shake of her head. "A mad impulse."

Actually, madness was not all that far off, when she thought about it. In a certain sense of the word, anyway.

"Isobel?" she asked after they'd been seated at the table for a moment, Isobel perusing the morning's papers and she letters Molesley left at her place. "Have you ever felt…angry…about losing Matthew? Or anyone? Dr Crawley?"

"Do you mean at God, dear?"

"No." Mary looked down at her hands as she rubbed them over her black skirt. That wasn't the anger Richard had read on her face as plainly as if it had been printed in a newspaper. "That isn't what I meant at all."

She wished it were. If only she were angry at God, she wouldn't be so ashamed of herself.


If Isobel truly feared that past connections might impede Mary's ability to move forward with her life after Matthew, their current location did not support the claim. As they disembarked the cab on Fleet Street, Mary gawped up at the dome of St Paul's Cathedral rising above the rooftops like an iron sun against a colourless sky and felt she was seeing it as she had the last time she'd been here, through the window of Richard's fourth storey office. He'd stood before it, looming tall and broad-shouldered and sharp-eyed on the other side of the desk, which had seemed to her like a massive oaken gateway to the city-to a life-and he its keeper. And indeed he was, as she handed over her secrets and he pocketed them like a set of keys.

Though Richard's threats of ruination had long since ceased to bar her way, Mary felt acutely that the ground she trod was nevertheless his territory, without looking down the street and read the letters etched into the towering brownstone façade which declared it to be so: The Capital Herald. Even the weather seemed to reflect this fact, as if the drizzle had blurred the very ink on the white broadsheets the newsboys hocked on the corners to paint the clouds and the wet fronts of buildings in a spectrum of grey.

The newspaper was not, of course, their destination, though as she followed her mother-in-law across the street, picking their way around puddles and dodging cars and omnibuses and lorries, she sensed the unshuttered windows gazing after her, as though Richard himself, or the reporters who were his eyes and ears to know everything that went on in the city-he had known she was in town, after all-were watching her every move. At least being dressed in mourning served to camouflage her somewhat amongst the black business suits and prim professional garb worn by the working-class men and women who made their way up and down the pavements at the noon hour. She scanned the bits of the masculine faces showed between the low brims of fedoras and turned-up collars of their greatcoats but did not spy the familiar hard brow ridge and strong cheekbones among those who ducked into the corner tea shops and cafés.

Luncheon brought Mary and Isobel to Fleet Street, too, though as they approached the entrance to Lyons, tucked beneath a barber shop on the floor above, Mary doubted the establishment could possibly be worth the drive from Hanover Square through the inclement weather.

Isobel, on the other hand, paused heedless of the drizzle to examine the cakes displayed in the front window, and remarked with her characteristic good cheer, "Those look tempting. We should get one on our way out to take one home for our tea."

"I shouldn't think cook will appreciate being made redundant by a chain bakery."

As Mary lowered her umbrella to step inside, she noticed Isobel's smile had faltered, and felt her own face flush that she'd let anxiety get the better of her. She drew a deep breath and resolved to have a better attitude for her mother-in-law's sake.

"The décor is certainly more impressive than the exterior led me to believe."

Or would have been, she amended silently, if the place were not packed like a sardine tin so she could properly admire the clean lines in dark marble and wood. Indeed, as she and Isobel weaved through the maze of tables and uniformed waitresses, it seemed that the only two cane back chairs not filled were at the table where Edith sat waiting for them. Though waiting seemed to have rather a loose definition, as Edith was already sipping a cup of tea and rather than keeping an eye out for them, hunched over the table, fountain pen in hand, and scratched feverishly in a notebook.

"Got your nose at the grindstone?" Isobel asked, sidling up to the empty chair next to her. "I'm sorry, was this a bad day to leave the office?"

"Not at all." Edith down her pen. "This is personal. Nothing for the Sketch."

"Personal, as in Dear Diary?" Mary said as she squeezed into the narrow space allowed by the rotund diner who occupied the chair behind hers.

Flushing, Edith hastily shut her notebook and slipped it inside her handbag; Mary realised how her resolve to have a more uplifting attitude had crumbled as prematurely as a New Year resolution.

"So this is your life now?" she tried again to summon interest. "Slaving away all day in an office and then nipping out for a bite of lunch and a chance to catch up on hobbies? Sounds rather hectic to me, though I daresay Sybil would find it thrilling."

If Edith had taken the first part of the remark as an affront, the last softened the lines that had etched themselves at the corners of her eyes.

"She'd find the Swiss rolls to die for, at any rate," she replied.

After a waitress in a neat black dress and white apron and cap took their luncheon orders-soup all around, though Mary began to second-guess the decision almost at once as the cowl neck of her coat began to itch with the heat of all the tightly packed bodies in the shop.

"Do you come to Lyons often?" Isobel inquired.

"Several times a week-like quite a few other patrons."

"The Capital Herald offices are just down the street," Mary said, glancing around at a few of the nearby diners-as if she would possibly recognise any of the faces Edith knew. "Have you ever bumped into Richard?"

The open stares from the other made her realise at once that she hadn't meant to utter the question aloud. It had skipped through her mind, along with another more unsettling one: a recollection of climbing wearily into the car he ordered to take her back to the station after their interview and thinking, The least he could have done is take me to luncheon. But he had not. Twelve hours to London and back by train to see him for less than half of one, during which she entrusted him with a secret that secured him her reputation and her hand. If Richard had really loved her as he claimed to, then why hadn't he courted her? How else was she to have known he viewed their engagement as anything more than a business transaction-one brokered by underhanded means, at that?

"I should imagine Sir Richard employs someone to bring luncheon to him," Edith said, "and more likely from the Ritz than Lyons. Or have you forgotten that awful Christmas when he wouldn't stop moaning about the servants having half a day off and how you'd do things differently at Haxby?"

Mary had to concede this was most likely the case, though of course she didn't do so verbally. "I'd be careful not to get on his bad side. For some reason he likes you, and he's made a point of keeping your living arrangements out of the gossip pages."

"Golly, how chivalrous. Especially coming from a man who takes no trouble at all to hide the frequency with which he goes home with music hall performers."

"Is it common knowledge that any of them have secret husbands hidden away in lunatic asylums?"

The return of the waitress with three steaming bowls prevented Edith from saying anything in retort, though Mary had got the better of her enough times in their lives to recognise the open-lipped expression that meant her younger sister had nothing to say even if she'd had the chance. They both took up their spoons and began to eat, Edith sulkily, Mary's lips pursed in triumph, though more out of habit than really taking pleasure from taking Edith down a peg. Her barb had been more vicious than was warranted, especially since she was not in the slightest interested in who Richard went home with; that Edith thought she was, and that she could wound her with this information, was highly provoking.

Her victory wasn't even sweetened by Isobel's evidently being on her side. "Mary does have a point, my dear. I think we all sympathize with Mr Gregson. He seems a kind, intelligent, and forward-thinking man, and it does seem horribly unfair for him to be trapped in a marriage that isn't a marriage at all. But that is why the vows of holy matrimony should not be entered into lightly. In sickness and in health doesn't exclude mental health."

Of everyone in the family, Edith had always been the most pious-Mary thought now how she'd scoffed at Matthew for choosing an afternoon going over the local churches with her sister over a hunt-and she was curious how Edith made her peace with God whilst carrying with a man to whom she was not married, who was in fact married to somebody else. Isobel thought she might make a spiritual appeal to Edith, though Mary warned her mother-in-law when she revealed that this was renewed sense of purpose their little dinner party inspired, that Edith historically did not react well to people interfering in her life-one of the few qualities they shared in common.

"I'm well aware of that," Isobel had replied. "But I can't help but feel that more than anything Edith wants to be noticed, to be looked after. We have to try, haven't we?"

"No one is more aware than Michael that our relationship violates sacred vows," Edith said, staring down at her soup, in which she traced patterns with the edge of her spoon, "and we regret it deeply." She looked up, though, tilting her chin upward as a challenging note crept into her tone. "But we also quite agree that any god who would judge us for that is cruel, not loving."

Isobel spluttered at that, and Mary sighed heavily and took up for her. She'd said we, and however willingly Mary had been included in that, she was here now.

"Perhaps God won't judge you for it," she said, "but society will. Your own family does."

Edith's eyes narrowed. "Let she who is without sin cast the first stone?"

"Come now, Edith," Isobel cut in, losing patience, "if Mary and I judged you, we wouldn't be having luncheon with you now, would we?"

Though Edith's hostility lessened, she continued to regard Mary with some suspicion across the table.

"Let's talk about things a little more appropriate for luncheon, shall we?" Irritatingly, a glance at Isobel revealed that rather than look grateful for Mary's salvaging the conversation, she seemed reluctant to let it drop. Mary reached into her handbag and drew out the folded envelopes she was glad she thought to bring along. "I had letters from home this morning. From Tom and Anna. Tom says Sybbie's becoming quite the chatterbox. And Anna's expecting."

"How wonderful for her," said Edit flatly, and Mary rolled her eyes because it was so very typical of Edith never to take pleasure in anybody else's happiness.

Then, she nearly choked on her soup as images rushed back to her from the dinner party earlier in the week: of Edith cuddling Georgie, of her offer to take him upstairs, of a hunger in her eyes to savour as much time as possible with her little nephew. And from even further back, of her lying crumpled on her bed, hair askew from where she'd ripped off her bridal veil after Anthony Strallan jilted her at the altar, envy spewing unstoppered from her broken heart: Sybil's pregnant…Mary's probably pregnant.

Edith wanted a baby.

Mary hesitated to continue the discussion as planned, whether because she did not wish to wound her sister more deeply, or because she did not wish to heighten the longing because of Edith's situation, she could not say. But when Edith herself recovered from her initial unenthusiastic reaction, perhaps suspecting where Mary's thoughts had turned, she inquired whether Anna's condition would force her to resign.

The remainder of the meal passed in speculation about how Mama would cope with the loss of another ladies' maid so soon after O'Brien's departure for India with the Flintshires. It was decided that Mama had contracted such a baby fever herself in her state of new grandmotherhood, and especially in Georgie's absence would likely do all she could to accommodate Anna's condition and her child when it arrived. Edith conversed so amicably on the subject, yet with the proper detachment with regard to a servant's personal life and bemusement with regard to their mother's quirks, that Mary wondered if she had perhaps read too much into the earlier reaction.

Though it seemed she was not the only one to have had such thoughts, Isobel asking, "Have you considered how children might enter into your situation, Edith?"

Across the table, Mary watched the colour drain from Edith's face, leaving her lips pale as they pressed together. Mary's own parted as though to utter something in intervention, but they would form no words nor her voice produce any sound.

Isobel continued, "You may disregard the judgments on yourself for living with a married man, but you cannot ignore how detrimental this would be to any offspring born of such a union. I trust you're taking precautions? Only when I think of that poor maid Ethel endured-"

The scrape of Edith's chair legs against the floor tiles as she stood abruptly interrupted Isobel and drew the attention of several nearby diners.

"I see what this is," she said, her voice shaking; her hand did too as she fumbled in her handbag for money, which she flung down on the table, coins scattering across the surface. "I might have known you saw me as one of your prostitutes to reform."

Both women made vehement protests, beseeching Edith not to go, but she was already striding away from the table with a click of heels toward the door. When it closed behind her with a jingle, Mary arched her eyebrows at her mother-in-law.

Isobel's shoulders slumped, and she looked small and weary and old beneath the brim of her black hat. "I suppose you told me so."

Mary did not disagree.