A/N: Thank you SO much, everybody, for all your lovely and encouraging reviews. I do really appreciate every single one. And for once I, er, really don't have much to say! Enjoy! :-)
ChapterThree
A week had passed since the Labour-Conservative debate, it was Saturday once again, and Mary was bored out of her mind. That was the problem with only having essays a couple of times a term and being so generally lazy that without the stimulus of a deadline one had no motivation to do any work.
It is a truly terrible curse being clever, she thought, slumped on the sofa, obsessively picking the pith off an unseasonal satsuma before eating it and idly watching Anna pore over a large, shiny textbook at the desk by the window. University was such a tedious waste of time if there was not enough work set and you were clever enough not to need to spend too much time on what was set. If she had gone to Oxford, of course, there would have been an essay a week, but – Well, no use dwelling on that.
"I wish you'd stop staring at me while I'm doing maths," said Anna without looking up. "The back of my neck is prickling like mad and I keep forgetting what I've already put in the calculator!"
Mary shrugged, not that Anna would have been able to tell. Then she stood up and stretched until her joints popped.
"Does it matter?" she asked grandly and rhetorically. "Does any of it ever matter?"
"It matters to me!" replied Anna tartly. "I need a sixty in this module to pass the year and it's the hardest paper."
"I'm sure you'll be fine, darling."
She stared vaguely out of the window. It was a blustery, bright, cold day, typical of the time of year and the coastal climate, clouds scudding across the blue sky from a strong wind high up in the atmosphere.
"I think I shall go for a walk."
"Good idea!" Anna enthused with some relief, and Mary sloped into the hall, slowly put on her fur lined boots, buttoned up her long, black tailored coat and wound a red pashmina round her neck for a bit of colour. She added a jauntily perched red beret over her long, dark hair and a pair of leather gloves finished the ensemble.
Once outside, she walked as quickly as she could, hands stuck in her pockets, till she got to the coast. There was a nice, smooth path there where she could walk out towards the famous golf links, the wind in her face and the smell of the sea pervading everything. Birds flew high in the sky with screeching calls and Mary breathed deeply as she slowed her pace. Spring had well and truly arrived and indeed there would be only a few more weeks until the Easter vacation. She was unsure whether this was a good thing or not. On the one hand it would be nice to be back at Downton with her family and away from the tedium and closed society of St Andrews. On the other hand it would mean being back at Downton with her family and having to endure the tedium and closed society of rural Yorkshire. Hers was such a hard life. Perhaps she and Anna could go away somewhere this summer. Of course, Anna wouldn't want to be away from John for long (silly girl!) and Mary had no intention of playing third wheel to a non-couple. She'd rather spend a week on a crowded beach in Greece getting sunstroke and food poisoning on a package holiday with Edith.
Well, maybe not a whole week. A few days might just about be manageable. At a stretch.
Then there would be her twenty-second birthday at the beginning of September. After Great-Aunt Elizabeth's inconveniently timed death a week before her twenty-first the year before had put paid to any celebrations then, her parents had promised a really slap-up party this year. They were even going to hire the Abbey off the National Trust for the weekend. How ironic that one had to hire one's ancestral home for a party. How depressing. Still, it was something to look forward to.
She was still walking and absorbed in thought when her iPhone rang. She pulled off her gloves to answer it, glancing first to see who it was. Her mother. She sighed inwardly and made her way over to a nearby bench overlooking the sea, predicting a long and probably unpleasant conversation.
"Hello, Mummy!" she began brightly enough and immediately added, "Is all well? Are you in London this weekend or back at Downton?"
So long as the conversation steered clear of Mary's future prospects and all those internships she was failing to apply for she would probably be alright.
Her mother's voice came across anxiously. "Darling, I'm glad I caught you. I'm in London, we both are."
"Daddy too?" she replied in surprise. Generally speaking, the Earl remained in the country most of the year round while his wife and Sybil worked and went to school in London during the week and went up to Yorkshire some weekends.
"Yes, he came down last night. We're going to a show tonight with your aunt."
"How lovely!" said Mary, studying her nails and wondering why she still sounded so tense.
"Yes... Mary darling, have you heard from Sybil recently?"
She sat up and blinked. "Sybil? No, why?"
There was a slight pause on the other end of the line. Mary rubbed her nose and frowned out at the sea.
"Well, you see, we don't know where she is."
"You don't know where she is. But she's with you! Where else would she be?"
"Of course she ought to be, but she isn't, and I've rung her again and again and she just won't pick up! She hasn't taken it into her head to pay you a surprise visit, has she?"
"Mummy, nobody makes surprise visits to St Andrews from London or anywhere else for that matter!"
Mary laughed incredulously, but she felt a seed of worry start to grow. Considering Sybil's developing interests in causing trouble (suspended from school for three days before Christmas for getting purple highlights – if they had been navy blue and matched the uniform then it would probably have been ignored, at least so Sybil had self-righteously claimed), disappearing was not completely out of the question. But Mary had thought she had calmed down after her latest protest against the establishment. (This time it was against the obligatory religious assemblies on Thursday mornings.)
"That's what I thought. But she hasn't called you, has she? Texted? Facebooked? Twittered?"
"It's 'tweeted', and no, I haven't heard anything. You'd better start from the beginning."
The story was easily told. Sybil was meant to be going to a sleepover ("A sleepover? Mummy, she's seventeen!") at her friend Daisy's house on Friday night as, it turned out, she often did. There was nothing unusual about that except that this weekend, Cora had needed to contact Sybil about something and, her daughter's phone being turned off, she had called Daisy's step-mother only to discover that Sybil was certainly not at their house, had not been at their house for a very long time and, according to Daisy herself, the two girls had had a falling out at the very beginning of the academic year and were now barely on speaking terms.
"I just feel so useless!" Cora almost wailed at the end of her explanation. "My daughter's been lying to me for months about what she's doing and I have no idea where she is or where she's been! She could be dead in a ditch for all I know. No, maybe not in London... Do you think it's drugs, Mary? It could be drugs. Or rap music. What if she's joined a gang?"
"Does Daddy know?" Mary interrupted.
"Good Lord, no, and he's not going to. You know what Daddy's like about this sort of thing."
Mary did and winced inwardly.
"I'll tell him she's spending the whole weekend at Daisy's if I have to. But, darling, would you try phoning her? If she is in trouble, she's more likely to talk to you than her old mother."
Mary leaned back on the bench and closed her eyes in resignation. "Very well, if I have to."
"Thank you, darling. Will you do it now? And as soon as you know what's going on, call me back!"
"Yes, Mummy."
Mary rang off and sat for a few moments in silence staring at the screen. She had no idea what her sister was doing but very much doubted it was anything half so bad as what her mother was imagining. After all, she'd been doing it every weekend for months without any noticeable effect. Sybil in a gang doing drugs? Hilarious.
She shook her head, briefly put her phone down to blow on her exposed fingers and then called her sister. Chances were she wouldn't pick up anyway.
She picked up.
"Mary! Hi! What's up?" she said sounding far too chirpy to be in any trouble, but Mary could hardly hear her over background noise on her end from a strange metallic banging and the sounds of tinny, radio musak.
"Sybil darling, you're okay!" she cried loudly and with a little relief she did not want to acknowledge.
"What? Of course I'm okay! Why wouldn't I be?"
"Are you with Daisy?" Mary asked casually.
"Daisy?" She sounded blank then came an exaggerated sigh. "Oh, I see: Mummy's put you up to this. She's been ringing me constantly since last night. It's so boring!"
Mary counted to five before replying. "She's worried sick about you. She rang Mrs. Patmore. Sybil, where the hell are you?"
"Oh shit."
"Don't 'oh shit' me, Sybil! You think I want to be middleman between you and Mummy while you play at teenage rebellion? For God's sake, I'm in Scotland! What am I meant to do about it all?"
Sybil was silent.
"Well?"
Mary felt she fitted the role of interrogator and grown-up judge of her sister particularly ill. Yes, Sybil was almost five years younger than her, but they had always been relatively close and Mary felt quite sure that whatever her sister was doing or had done, it could not possibly be worse than some of the things she had done. It made her feel a moral fraud which only increased her frustration at the situation. Who was she to judge?
Perhaps something of that nature was crossing Sybil's mind too because after a few moments she replied quietly, "I'm not doing anything wrong, Mary."
"You'll have to talk louder than that if you actually want me to hear what you say; what on earth is that racket?"
"Promise you won't tell Mummy?"
"I see: you're not doing anything wrong but I'm not allowed to tell Mummy. Honestly, darling! I promised her I'd ring back as soon as I got through to you."
"Mary, please! I'll tell you if you promise not to tell her! I swear there's nothing bad about it. She just wouldn't like it..."
Mary crossed her fingers in her coat pocket. "Alright, I promise."
"OK. Don't get angry, Mary." Sybil took a big breath. "I met this boy."
Mary almost felt like laughing. Of course it was a boy. No drugs involved. Well, probably not. "Oh, darling, and let me guess – you didn't meet him through Mummy's City contacts at a cheese and wine party?"
Sybil giggled. "Hardly. I met him at a concert I went to with Lily – her brother's band was playing – it was totally legit. And Tom, that's him, he played drums in another band. And, well, we just clicked, you know?"
"And Mummy doesn't know about it?"
"Of course she doesn't! He's five years older than me and he left school at sixteen and works in a garage. She'd never let me see him, and Daddy would blow a gasket!"
Suddenly the noise in the background made sense. Sybil was speaking from a garage. Of course.
"Well, you have chosen wisely!" Mary commented ironically. "Are you there now?"
"Yeah. I'm here every weekend. It's fascinating, you know. I'm learning all sorts. I'm now thinking I might study engineering at uni instead of politics."
Mary rolled her eyes. Whatever. Sybil changed her mind every few months about her university options. Nevertheless, she noticed that her voice had taken on a genuinely enthusiastic tone since she had started talking about Tom.
"And where do you spend Friday nights then since you're clearly not tucked up in a sleeping bag in Daisy's loft watching Disney films and eating party rings as Mummy seemed to think?"
"On a mattress."
"Yes, I'm sure. And where is this mattress?"
"In the back room of the garage."
Mary wearily pressed her fist to her eyes. Sybil had clammed up again and it was perfectly obvious why. She really did not want to be having this conversation.
"And are you all alone on that mattress in the back room?"
There was a long silence from Sybil, though not from the banging and the radio in the background.
Finally - "I don't really think that's any of your business, Mary."
"I quite agree; I want nothing to do with it! But Mummy's involved me and I have to tell her something so you'd better give me something to work with."
"Can't you just say I'm with friends?"
Mary clenched her fist in her pocket. "Why on earth would she believe that? Who are your friends anyway since Daisy's out of the running now?"
"The other people at the garage. There's-"
But Mary could no longer hear anything her sister was saying. Some eejit was riding a motorcycle along the path towards her and what with the engine noise, the wind, the roar of the sea and all the background noise on Sybil's end, she lost what she was saying. As the rider, all speed and brown leather, shot past her, she jumped up and waved her arms violently at this ASBO candidate who breached the peace so offensively.
"Sybil, I can't hear you! Give me a moment!" she called down the phone.
She still couldn't hear anything and pulled it away from her ear only to realise that her sister had ended the call at the first sign of her distraction. Incensed, Mary shrieked at it, "At the very least I hope you're using protection!" and then sank back down on the bench and angrily pulled her gloves back on with trembling fingers.
The motorcyclist had slowed to a halt some way further down the path, dismounted, and was walking back towards her leading the bike. Mary only looked up to notice when she became aware of the relative silence. She stood up and glared at him since there was clearly nobody else in the vicinity that he could be stopping for. She girded herself up for a fight, her self-righteousness making her brave. Surely there was a restriction on motor vehicles on this path? The whole point of it was to be a pleasant promenade along the coast, not for teenage daredevils with souped up bikes to disturb the peace.
"Isn't it illegal to – oh!"
She broke off because the rider had parked his bike on the grass just off the path near the bench and removed his helmet and shook out wavy, fair hair. It was Matthew Crawley. He was smiling ruefully at her as he stopped a few in front of her.
"Sorry."
"No, you're not!" She couldn't stop glaring at him. It was compulsive.
"Well, no, I'm not, but I am protected, you see!" He dangled his helmet smugly at her off one finger.
She stopped glaring long enough to frown in confusion.
"I heard you shout something at me, something to do with hoping I was protected. That was very considerate of you, Mary, I must say!"
She stared at him, her mouth falling open in surprise and then, quite unexpectedly, she began to laugh quite helplessly. She laughed and laughed and laughed and the more bemused Matthew looked, the more she laughed. Then his lips turned up and he laughed too, without knowing the cause, and they eventually fell side by side, weak and breathless onto the bench. Mary clutched at her chest and closed her eyes until the mirth had subsided. Then she turned her head and saw him watching her with an expression of the keenest interest and amusement on his face. It made her want to laugh again. She had not felt so warm and liberated for years. She swallowed down this strange elation and tried to explain, her eyes still dancing with mirth.
"I was talking to my sister, you see, not you."
He raised his eyebrows. "Your sister?"
"Yes! I was telling her-" Oh Lord. Another inappropriate giggle escaped her and she pressed her fist to her mouth. "Never mind!"
"Well, it must have been a hilarious conversation. I'm sorry I missed it!"
"Oh no," (more stifled giggles), "it wasn't funny at all!"
His lips twitched at the sight of her. "No, I can see that!"
She glared at him again but it did not quite reach her eyes and his expression did not change. "Really, it isn't funny; it's very awkward actually. I was telling her-"
She sighed, for it really wasn't funny and then, just as inexplicable as her laughter, she told Matthew the whole story. Perhaps it was the way he shifted slightly towards her with his arm along the back of the bench as if he really wanted to hear what she had to say, perhaps it was because he was ultimately a stranger and knew nothing about her and her family, perhaps she simply wanted to talk to someone. She could not really explain why she did it, but she told him and he listened.
At the end he was silent a few moments while Mary sat hunched forwards and stared out at the glittering sea. After mulling it over, he said, "And she just cut you off?"
Mary sat up straight again and faced him. "Yes! And now I have to think of something to tell Mummy. I promised Sybil I wouldn't and, honestly, it's not my affair, but I can't not ring her back."
"Hmm."
"Oh, look, Matthew," she cried with a little frustrated dip of her head, "it's not your problem. It doesn't matter. I'll think of something."
"Of course it matters," he replied with a frown. "You're worried about Sybil and you've been put it a very difficult position between your mother and your sister. I understand that."
"That doesn't mean you have to think of a solution for me."
He grinned at her. "I'm a lawyer, you forget. I like solving problems!"
"I thought lawyers mainly created them!"
"Of course; otherwise how else could we be paid to solve them?"
She blinked and then gave him a half smile before looking away. To give him his due, he didn't crow his victory but immediately continued, "How about you ring or text Sybil and say that if she goes home straight away and feeds your mother whatever story she likes, or the truth, you will just say that she's safe?"
It was a good plan. In fact, it was such a good plan that Mary was kicking herself for not immediately thinking of it.
She appraised him proudly. "Not bad... for a Labour voting lawyer."
"So you'll do it?" His pleased expression was hopeful and boyish and incredibly attractive.
"Maybe."
He nodded, making it quite obvious that he was hiding a smile and observing her slyly out of the corner of his eye. "Right: you'll consider it."
Mary clasped her hands tightly together and avoided his gaze. She was beginning to be alarmed by her reaction to him. She didn't want to like him – in fact, he infuriated her – but she did like him. Rather a lot. It was unhelpful.
"You must forget all this," she said finally in a bit of a rush. "I shouldn't have told you. It's only silly family trouble; in fact, I've probably exaggerated the whole thing into a kind of epic saga! Which I suppose you'd know all about."
"Yes, I noted your clever use of epithets and formulae," he replied lightly but his eyes remained serious. "I won't breathe a word, Mary, of course I won't."
Before she could thank him, his lips had twitched again. "You know, I suppose this is evidence that even toffs have issues like the rest of us!"
She rolled her eyes and retorted crisply, "Of course we do. Did you never watch Brideshead Revisited?"
"Must have passed me by, I'm afraid."
"Yes, it's terribly high culture, for a TV show," she replied smugly. "Driving that thing, I suppose you just watch re-runs of Top Gear. What on earth possessed you to get it anyway? You strike me as far too nice to be a biker."
He laughed, glanced fondly at the bike, and then sobered a bit. She watched him, curious in spite of herself and he shrugged.
"Rebellion, I suppose, was at the bottom of it. At Oxford everyone cycles everywhere. Old fashioned bikes with twee, wicker baskets ridden by old men in tweed jackets smoking pipes and getting in the way all the time. It all seemed pretty naff to me... so I got this!"
Mary smiled faintly, her heart only beating a little faster at his mention of the coveted city of gleaming spires. Of course someone like Matthew would not have appreciated the grand traditions of Oxford. She could rise above it.
"You must have been popular!" she commented smoothly.
"Oh yes, the porters loved me!" He laughed again, ruefully. "Lavinia can't stand it. Her idea of a bike ride is pootering along the river on a sunny afternoon, while I prefer roaring off to some distant village and getting away from it all!"
"So she doesn't cling on behind you, screaming as you take sharp bends at seventy?"
"Not once!" He looked at her speculatively and then, as if suddenly aware of where he was, his position shifted slightly. "Look here, why don't you come over for dinner sometime this week? Linny loves cooking for people – and she's very good."
Mary raised her eyebrows. Come over for dinner? It sounded terribly grown-up. Dinner parties were what parents did, not students. But how sophisticated could a dinner hosted by Matthew and Lavinia be? Nevertheless, she found herself agreeing and Wednesday was agreed to be the day.
"And, er, bring – I mean, is there anyone you'd like to bring? We wouldn't mind at all!"
She laughed at his sudden awkardness. "No, not like that. But if it's not too much trouble, I can invite my housemate, Anna." Anything to stop her spending the evening on MSN pining over John.
He grinned. "Brilliant. Sounds great. No trouble at all. Just warn me, is Anna secretly a princess and does she dine on caviar and truffles before saying her prayers to a portrait of Margaret Thatcher every night? Should we dust off the throne in the attic for her arrival?"
"I say, Matthew, is that what you think of me? How little you know! But no, I expect you will find Anna perfectly normal."
"Ah, I suppose it would be too much to hope there would be two of you. Well, I should be off. I have a bathroom to clean and case notes to read before Monday." His face fell a bit. "Can I have your number to sort out arrangements for Wednesday?"
They were friends on facebook; there was no need for exchanging numbers, Mary thought, but she dictated her number to him all the same in crisp tones and he typed it into his old Nokia.
"Here, did I get it right?" He held up his phone for her to inspect, his eyes sparkling at her.
She glanced down. Her number was correct and it was saved under the contact name 'Lady Mary Crawley'. She bit her lip and met his eyes, her gaze mocking, supercilious and just a little bit delighted. "Quite correct!"
Matthew stood up, after holding her gaze just a moment longer than was quite necessary, and pulled his helmet back on. "Good. I'll see you next week then!"
He righted the motorcycle, swung his leg over it and turned the ignition on, the engine roaring into life.
"Remember that suggestion of mine, Mary!" he cried as a parting shot.
"I said I'd consider it!"
His lips twisted into an upwards curve under his visor. "You do that then!"
He raised one hand in salutation and kicked off. As he roared away back down the path in the direction of town, he saw her in his mirror, still sitting on the bench, her phone out and texting her sister or her mother. He grinned to himself. Good girl.
