What O'Brien does in the middle section is modelled on what I did this week.
"Is it true?" Sybil asked in a hushed voice, having seen Elsie and Isobel at the other end of the corridor and bounding up to them to meet them.
"Is what true?" Elsie asked her.
Sybil rolled her eyes, as if it should have been obvious what she meant.
"Is it true that you two pinched Sir Anthony's car and drove it into a ditch?" she asked.
Elsie was about to ask how on earth she knew, but Isobel cut across her.
"Sybil, you make it sound as if we stole it with the sole purpose of vandalising it!" she exclaimed as quietly as we could, "It was all for a good cause; it was for your ridiculous production."
"It's not my ridiculous production," Sybil corrected her, looking affronted, "It's Edith's ridiculous production. I was all for The Merry Wives of Windsor, remember? Anyway, I don't see why the play made you drive clean off the road. Neither of your characters do that in any of the scenes!"
"That's not the point," Elsie told her hurriedly, "The point is how on earth do you know what happened?"
"Mary told me," Sybil replied, "Don't look like that," she told them, seeing their faces, "She didn't want to, I wanted to know why she looked so frightful when she got back from taking the governess cart out."
"Yes," Isobel conceded, "That's how Matthew found out yesterday. He saw me before I managed to get myself tidied up before dinner."
"So the whole household knows!" Elsie surmised, exasperated.
Isobel fixed her with a very clear look.
"Because you didn't tell Mr Carson of your own free will..." she guessed.
There was no clever response Elsie could give to that.
"And Sir Anthony didn't find out?" Sybil continued.
Isobel shook her head.
"Thank the Lord," she replied.
"Goodness," Sybil remarked, "A man who noticed you'd been gone but not his car. A rare thing. But perhaps I say that because my suitor is a chauffeur."
…...
"Graces alive! What on earth have you got on your legs, Sarah O'Brien?"
Activity in the kitchen had all but ceased. O'Brien glowered back at the crowd goggling at her.
"It's not my flaming fault!" she replied crossly- feeling uncharacteristically self-conscious- striding across to where Mrs Patmore stood motionless, gaping at the trousers she was wearing, "It was Lady Sybil, apparently, who opened her big mouth and said I had to play a man! Close your flaming mouth, Mrs P, Gwen had to wear trousers when she was playing that Viola, why's it different when it's me?"
The cook moved her mouth a couple of times, apparently considering this, but unable to reach a conclusion.
"Because Gwen carried them off a bit better," Daisy chipped in.
This earned her quite a withering stare from the most recently trouser-wearing contingent in the room. However, Mrs Patmore came to her rescue. Anna didn't know if Miss O'Brien or Daisy was more surprised by this.
"Well," she scratched her head, "Gwen's a lot more... narrow than you are Sarah. Don't take that the the wrong way, I mean she looked a lot more like a boy than you do."
Daisy, bravely in Anna's opinion, nodded.
"Yeah, you don't walk very much like a man, Miss O'Brien."
The lady's maid looked momentarily dumb-founded to find Daisy and Mrs Patmore agreeing or anything let alone having the misfortune to be the thing they agreed on.
Mrs Patmore nodded.
"That's it, I think. Oi, Thomas!" she shouted at the passing by footman, "Come in here and walk so Sarah can see."
Though it was clear that Thomas was perplexed by this command, being perplexed was something he never liked having to own up to, so, after a moment's pause, he strode cleanly up and down the kitchen a few times. Eyes then swivelled back to Miss O'Brien, who proceeded to stride with an uncomfortably straight back up and down.
"That won't do at all!" Mrs Patmore exclaimed, with an exasperated shake of her head, "Your arms are out as if you've got rolls of carpet under them, girl!"
O'Brien tried again.
"A bit more movement," Mrs Patmore told her, "You look like you're in a straight jacket from the madhouse!"
"I'll be in a madhouse before you've finished with me!" Miss O'Brien exclaimed to the cook as she came to a halt, "This is hard, you know, in a flaming corset!"
"Rubbish!" Mrs Patmore told her, "Just loosen your joints up a bit, you're walking like you've just got out of a coffin!"
O'Brien gave it another go.
"Not like that, girl!" Mrs Patmore scolded once more, "Swinging your hips like that you look like you're trying to seduce someone!"
Anna thought it would be best if she got out of the kitchen before the explosion.
…...
"You know, I really am going to have to get the set sorted out," Sybil remarked as the ladies sat in the drawing room after dinner, "The set's never been our strong point and I think this time is could make all the difference."
"Then you must tell Branson what you need and he'll pick it up for you the next time he goes to the village," her mother told her, "I take it it won't be anything too unorthodox?" she asked hurriedly.
Sybil sniffed as William poured her some more coffee.
"I don't call paint unorthodox," she remarked, "I suppose you might help me, William, if you've a moment to spare? Excellent, I imagine we'll have marvellous fun. We'll do most of it in just a simple wash, but I should like it if some of the details were done in oil."
"Oil?"
The ladies assembled turned to look at the chair from which her grandmother's voice had issued.
"Yes, Granny, oil. Oil paint," Sybil clarified, probably thinking her grandmother may have misunderstood the context, "Not the stuff that Branson puts in the car."
"I'm aware of that!" Violet exclaimed, indignant, "I know perfectly well that oil paints exist and that is why I'm astonished, Cora, that you would let Sybil use them! I mean, it's all very bohemian, isn't it?"
At this accusation, Isobel saw Cora exchange a rather surprised look with Rosamund over her coffee cup and said nothing. However, Isobel herself was feeling rather daring at that moment.
"I wouldn't call oil bohemian, exactly," she replied, feeling eyes swivel towards her now, "Unusual, perhaps, original. Rather romantic, really."
She knew that she was lucky that Violet's stare did not physically burn her.
"Well," the Dowager Countess surmised after a moment, "I suppose you would say that, wouldn't you?"
"I rather thought I just did," Isobel replied smartly.
She heard the slightest intake of breath from Mary beside her. Violet's features settled themselves even more deeply into an accurate depiction of true displeasure.
"I suppose," she continued an icier tone, "That many things to someone like yourself are not at all as extraordinary as they are to myself. Take the motor car, for instance."
There was something in that for instance that struck a fearful chord in Isobel, something in Violet's could, fixed stare as it left her lips. She knows!, she thought wildly, she knows about me and Elsie and the car! She must do! Isobel tried not let her panic show in her face, but it was not easy. Such information in the hands of one such as Violet could prove fatal to anything she ever hoped could exist between herself and Anthony.
"Of course," Violet continued, "Such radical things are all very well on a small scale. But if ever anyone got to hear about them..."
Her meaning was clear. Isobel found herself ruing her decision to take the car even more than she had when they went flying into the ditch. The group was deadly silent, looking backwards and forwards between the two of them. Cora looked confused, Mary horrified, Sybil fearful. Rosamund was watching the rug, but Isobel felt sure that her ears were pricked for the next move.
Almost every single one of them jumped a little as the drawing room door opened and the men came milling through from the drawing room. As Robert and Anthony came in at the head of the party, Isobel saw Violet rise to her feet out of the corner of her eye. Oh no, Isobel thought, you're not ruining this for me!
She got to her own feet much more swiftly, and made her way to meet Sir Anthony in the middle of the room. He looked mildly surprised by her enthusiasm, but pleased all the same. She beamed at him quickly.
"Thank you, Sir Anthony," she told him loudly enough for the room to hear, sensing Violet behind her, "I will marry you."
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