AN: So I really did manage to update at the weekend, even if it is 10:40 pm here.
There definitely won't be an update tomorrow and I can't promise one for Tuesday either, but again, I'll do my best.
As always, thank you all for your support, I wouldn't be able to write as much without you guys!
Kat
P.S: Tina: Because you are a guest, I can't reply to your reviews, but thank your for them!
She is pleasantly surprised when her butler announces 'Mr. Crawley'. She likes Matthew very much and she always enjoys his visits, although they are far and few between. She has always wanted a grandson and she has come to think of Matthew as her grandson. She didn't like him very much when she first met him, but that had had little to do with him and quite a lot to do with Mary and Cora. She felt that Matthew was taking what should have been Mary's and what used to be Cora's. The 'absurd act of legal theft' as Cora called the prenuptial Robert's father had drawn up was one of the very few things that Patrick did that she could not agree with. She had told him so, had told him that no matter how little she liked Cora and no matter how much they needed the money, they should not tie all of it up in the estate, in case Robert and Cora wouldn't have a son. Patrick had listened to her, he always listened to her, but she had not been able to change his mind. Robert and Cora did not have a son and Robert's cousin became the heir and Mary was supposed to marry the heir's son, who fittingly had been called Patrick as well. Violet had not been thrilled by the idea, she had hoped that Mary would be able to marry for love, but then one never knew what would happen, Robert and Cora had fallen for each other and why should that not have happened to Patrick and Mary as well? All of that of course came to nothing when the unsinkable ship sank on its maiden voyage and both Patrick and James sank with it. She had formed an alliance with Cora then to break the entail but it hadn't worked and once Cora had given up, Violet had known that it just wasn't possible to secure the estate and the money for Mary. Matthew had already been in their lives by then, an arrogant middle-class lawyer with an overbearing mother and she had hated both of them. Her hatred for Matthew evaporated when she found out that he had proposed to Mary and that it had been done out of love and she wanted to slap her granddaughter across the face for not accepting Matthew right away because Matthew was not only the heir but obviously a very good man, a man who would marry her for love. She had words with her daughter Rosamund after her daughter had told Mary to wait until she knew whether her mother's baby was a boy or a girl and when Cora lost the boy it had already been too late for Mary.
Matthew had fought bravely during the war and even if she personally didn't like Lavinia too much, the girl was too gentle, couldn't take a joke and would not have made a very good Countess, she had still been relieved when Matthew came back from the war, had felt exceedingly sorry for his injury and had been happy for him when he became well again against all odds. He is now running the estate because of Cora's illness and because he wants to relieve Robert of his duties and she thinks that this is an act of kindness that Robert should be very thankful for, in fact she is sure that Robert is very thankful for it.
"Matthew, what brings you here?" she asks the boy and he smiles at her.
"I proposed to Mary yesterday, but I did so without a ring. I wanted her to choose it herself, because it is always hard to estimate what she would like. She told me that I should ask you to help me." She has to laugh about this. Matthew has gotten the measure of Mary quite right.
"Matthew, you were certainly right in not getting a ring yourself. Since you are here, I suppose that she said yes."
"She did." She wants to hug the boy, not just because it means that the estate will stay in the family, but because he has probably made Mary very happy and because she is very happy for him. But hugging Matthew would be entirely inappropriate and she says "Congratulations my dear boy," instead.
"Thank you."
"What did your mother say?"
"She doesn't know yet."
"You are telling me before you've told her? I am much honored."
"Well, how could I have asked you about the ring without telling you who it was for?"
"True. About that ring. Come with me." She takes him to her dressing room, she doesn't mind whether this is inappropriate, she has actually seen him in his bed and her bed is not in this room and she rummages among her jewelry box until she finds what she is looking for.
"This is the ring that Mary was referring to. She has always liked it, she used to beg me to let her wear it when she was a young girl and played dress up. I hardly ever allowed it because it is rather valuable. It belonged to my favorite aunt, who gave it to me as a Christmas present when I was sixteen."
"That's a nice story."
"Yes, it is," she says and looks at the ring. It is the ring that Mary wants, but something doesn't feel right about it, it isn't an engagement ring, an engagement ring should a symbol of love. While she plays with the ring, she looks at the rings that she is wearing and she knows that there is a ring that Mary likes even more than the one she was referring to, but it is a ring that Mary would never ask for, wouldn't even dream of asking for. And she wonders if Mary doesn't deserve the ring. The poor girl has been through so much pain and heartache but held her head high and she is her granddaughter and she is getting married to the love her life.
Violet closes her eyes for a second, takes a deep breath and then takes off her own engagement ring, takes Matthew's hand and places the ring in it. "She'll love it," she says and then she has to turn away.
"No, I can't take it. That is not what Mary meant, I am sure of it." Matthew's voice is full of honesty and he is right, but she knows that it will make her granddaughter very happy and Mary deserves to be happy and the girl deserves a ring that is a symbol of love. It certainly is that, Patrick bought that ring in 1861 before proposing to her, he had to buy it because his mother refused to give him a family heirloom. Patrick's mother thought that Violet wasn't good enough for her son, but Patrick didn't care and so he bought her a beautiful ring and proposed to her nonetheless. But that was almost sixty years ago and Patrick has been dead for twenty-five years now and giving the ring to a granddaughter he loved would make him very happy. So she turns back to Matthew and says
"Yes, Matthew, take it. Patrick loved Mary very much and he would have loved you too."
Matthew looks as if he was about to protest but then only nods and says "Thank you."
When they walk back to the sitting room in silence, Matthew keeps a distance between them and she knows that he does so to let her catch herself.
"I heard Robert got into a fight." Matthew laughs at this and she thinks that he is relieved about the change of topic.
"Not a fight. He only threw one punch."
"And it broke his hand."
"Well, he punches like a girl." She has to laugh about this because she thinks that it is probably true. Even as a child Robert wasn't a fighter, she can't remember ever getting a letter from his school about him hitting another boy. She did get letters about him stealing biscuits from the kitchen and being cheeky to his teachers and although she would never admit to it, she but especially Patrick had been rather proud of their son when they received a letter that included a detailed account of what exactly Robert had said to an old philosophy teacher, a teacher that had already taught Patrick and that Patrick had hated with all his guts but Patrick had never been courageous enough to speak up to that teacher. Robert had had that courage and she knows he got it from her.
"But I suppose Sir Richard was shocked nonetheless."
"Yes. He staggered backwards. It was rather entertaining to watch; or rather it would have been had Carlisle not offended half the family and had it not been so hard for Tom and me to restrain Robert from beating Carlisle into a pulp."
"I thought Robert punched like a girl."
"Yes, but he is still stronger than Carlisle."
"I suppose I should be proud of that."
"He is afraid of your reaction. When Sybil told him that his hand was broken he said that he would be in trouble with both Cora and you."
"He was far more afraid of being in trouble with Cora than with me. He tends to brush me off when we disagree and then just ignores me until I go home, but Cora is an entirely different matter. Although I am sure that she thought his action quite heroic and looked at him all gooey eyed when he told her about it. That is at least how she looked, well not at me, rather into the distance, when she told me about it. Sometimes that woman is like a teenage girl in love for the first time, not like a woman who has been a countess for 25 years."
"But that is something to be happy about, isn't it?"
Of course it is, but she would never admit to it. Had she known what would become of Robert and Cora, she wouldn't have tried to fight the engagement, she would have welcomed that American with open arms and she sometimes regrets that she was so cold to her, because it means that they still have a slightly strained relationship.
"Maybe. As long as I don't have to see it."
"Will you come for dinner? Robert said you'd be welcome."
"Won't the chauffeur be there?"
"You mean Tom? Yes, he will be there."
"Dining with a servant then."
"Dining with your son, your granddaughters, your future grandsons-in-law and your best friend."
"You could sell melted ice cream as a delicacy."
"Thank you very much. So, will you come?"
"Yes. Tell your mother to be ready on time so that the driver will only have to get out once. Tell her to be ready early, I want to see Cora first."
Isobel followed her upstairs but left Cora's room after ten minutes and now she is alone with her daughter-in-law who looks better than she did yesterday. She hadn't seen Cora for quite a while and although Robert kept telling her that Cora was getting better and she believed him, she had been shocked when she saw her yesterday. Cora, who has always been thin, must have lost at least one stone due to her illness and she looks as if a breeze could break her. Robert had said that the color had returned to Cora's face and she really was distinguishable from the white sheet on her bed, but that had been it. But Violet thinks that Cora looks a little better today than she did yesterday and maybe it is the daily progress that made Robert tell her that Cora looked 'better'.
"Mary told me about the ring."
"I hope it made her happy."
"You are in for a hug, I think. I told her not to be too emotional. But thank you, you have made her very happy. I think she feels quite honored and with that impeding scandal"
"She deserves it. The girl has suffered enough. I am glad that Matthew is able to look past the Pamuk incident."
"He loves her."
"Good."
"Are you sure that you won't regret it?"
"Yes, I am sure. I didn't give the ring to just anyone, I gave it to Matthew so that he could give to Mary. I am sure that she will let me look at it from time to time."
"You still miss him." It is not a question, it is a statement and it is true.
"Yes." She can't say more than that or she is going to cry and she can't cry in front of anyone but especially not in front of her daughter-in-law, a woman she always accuses of being too emotional. So she hides her emotions even more than usual whenever Cora is around.
One of the two reasons she didn't want Cora to die was that she didn't want Robert to suffer as much as she did and sometimes still does. Her son had looked so haggard and defeated during the weeks they didn't know what would happen to Cora and she saw herself in him. Patrick had been sick only for a little while but she had known that it would be fatal and she remembers the heartache and the suffering as if it had happened yesterday. And seeing her dear boy suffer like that had brought every single raw emotion of her husband's death back to her and no mother could ever wish for her child to feel that way, especially not a mother who loves her children and she certainly does that. She has never told them that but she loves Robert and Rosamund and Cora as well with all her heart and losing one of her children would have ripped her apart and that was the second reason why she didn't want Cora to die. She knows she wouldn't just have lost one of her daughters but her son as well, because Robert would have fallen into a deep hole he would have never been able to leave. Robert is more emotional than her, he got that from his father and that coupled with a wife who is very open with her own emotions, who taught him to really feel his emotions would have meant the end of the world for Robert if Cora had died.
"I would have talked to him."
"What?" She has no idea what her daughter-in-law is referring to now.
"Had it become apparent that there was no chance for my survival, I would have talked to Robert about his life after my death. I know he thought that my death would mean the end of his life, but I would have told him that was not I wanted for him. I did tell him in fact, but only very briefly. But had I not recovered, we would have had a long conversation about it before I had died. I would have told him that he had quite a lot to live for and that our girls needed him, even if all of them were grown-up. I would have given him my permission to be happy without me." This touches her very deeply and she wishes she was able to express it but she can't. Although she hopes that Cora knows her well enough to know that she isn't made of stone.
She looks at her mother-in-law and knows that what she has just said has touched the older woman, so she smiles at her and then takes a deep breath to signal the end of that particular part of the conversation. Robert's mother has never learned to show or to talk about her feelings and that is just the way it is, but the woman isn't made out of stone, she loves her family very much and even twenty-five years after his death she still sometimes mourns her husband. Cora supposes that she would never really get over Robert dying either, she is too dependent on him. But she doesn't want to think about it.
"So, I will have to have dinner with the chauffeur."
"Tom. Yes. He lives here now, you know that."
"Robert has turned socialist then."
"No. He is still a royalist."
"Why the chauffeur then?" She has to get her mother-in-law to stop referring to Tom as 'the chauffeur', preferably before dinner.
"Because Sybil loves him and he isn't a chauffeur anymore. He is a journalist now. And does it really matter?"
"It may not matter to you. Those things do not seem to be important in America." She is about to go crazy. After over thirty years of knowing her, her mother-in-law still makes those stupid jokes about America.
"Maybe not. We don't measure the worth of a man based on who his ancestors were. We only do that with purebred dogs." Violet looks a little shocked and her insides are dancing because of it. It is so hard to set Robert's mother off balance and Violet does it to her all the time.
"Speaking of which, when is your mother coming over?" She knows that Violet means this as a low blow but to her it isn't because she doesn't get along with her mother any better than Violet does.
"I have no idea. She will certainly be here for Mary's wedding, I suppose she will want to come to Sybil's too and I am afraid she won't want to go home between the weddings. Robert promised Sybil to have the wedding as soon as I was well enough to attend it, which isn't a problem because it will be a rather small family affair, the girls can plan it without my help, but Mary and Matthew's wedding will have to be a society affair and I will have to do most of the planning for that wedding. I shudder to think about having to organize it with my mother here. She will drive me up the wall. And the planning will take months. But we'll see. Maybe I can convince her to go on a tour of Europe or something."
"You don't like your mother, do you? Well, who can blame you? She is an unstoppable hurricane."
"It's not that I don't like her. I just get along best with her if there is an ocean between us." Her mother-in-law actually laughs about this and she has to laugh too. Eventually Violet looks at her pensively and then says
"Cora, if your mother really comes here and then stays for months, I will do my best to keep her out of your hair. I don't like her, that is not a secret, but even if you are almost well again when she arrives, you will still need a lot of rest and respite, especially when you are organizing a society wedding. And you won't get rest or respite with that woman around you all day."
"Thank you Mama."
"You are welcome dear. And now I will have to face dinner with the chauffeur."
"Tom. His name is Tom."
Out of habit he walks into Cora's room without knocking before going down to dinner and is rather surprised to see his mother there.
"Mama, I am sorry, I didn't know you were in here."
"Don't you ever knock?"
"Do you knock when you enter your own room?"
"This isn't your room Robert, it is Cora's."
"She doesn't mind."
"I don't care Robert, you knock when you enter other people's rooms. Have I taught you nothing?"
He looks at his wife for help but she looks as gleeful as a child on Christmas morning and he knows he won't get any help from her, not right now anyway, he is on his own. But if it makes his wife happy, he is willing to fight about trivial things with his mother.
"You have taught me many things, but never anything on how I am to conduct myself when I am alone with my wife."
"No, that was your father's task and he always knocked."
"Probably because you made him knock." Cora is trying her best to keep a straight face and she is more or less successful. He is sure that his mother doesn't notice how hard she is fighting against laughing but he notices it and throws her a sideways glance that says 'you watch me, there is more to come'.
"I didn't make him do anything."
"You are in a mood for jokes todays, Mama." He hopes she will take the bait.
"I am never in the mood for jokes, Robert. And you better be less cheeky. It is your behavior we are discussing at the moment."
"I already told you, I see nothing wrong with entering this room through that door without knocking."
"But you don't know what awaits you on the other side."
"Usually my wife. And today, apparently, you."
"You don't know what she is doing in here, I mean when she is not sick."
"I have a pretty good idea of what she is doing in here when she is not sick."
"Pretty good?" His mother's imitation of his imitation of Cora's American accent is horrible.
"Yes."
"What do you do if her maid is still in here?"
"I sit in the chair and wait. And talk to Cora. If the maid is dressing her."
"And if she is undressing her?" He can't believe his mother has asked this question and he wonders if she isn't putting on a show for Cora as well and if she is, he is rather thankful to her, although he hates talking about this, especially to his mother. But he supposes that Cora will thank him for this when she is well again.
"Then I send the maid away", and finish the job myself, but he doesn't dare to say that last part out loud.
"And you accept that?" His mother now looks at Cora disbelievingly.
"Yes." Cora is almost exploding with suppressed laughter now.
"How do you get undressed then, if he sends the maid away? You can't get out of a corset by yourself." He can't believe his mother just said that and it lets him think that she does not know that he is just teasing her for Cora's benefit, she would have been more careful with crossing lines then.
"Your son has many talents you don't know about." Now he has to suppress loud laughter because of the look on his mother face, but he knows that he is turning bright red in the face because he also finds this very embarrassing. Maybe he has taken this too far.
"Punching like a man doesn't seem to one of those talents." His mother now looks pointedly at his right hand.
"I made a man ten years younger than myself fall over."
"By punching him like a girl and breaking your hand in the process."
"I thought it was very gallant of Robert. And we got rid of Carlisle that way." He smiles at Cora in thanks now and has the fleeting impression that his mother is smiling too, but when he looks at her she looks rather indignant.
"But you needn't have broken your hand, had you known how to throw a punch."
"I know now, Tom taught me. So the next time I have to hit one of my daughters' suitors, the impact will be stronger and my hand won't have to be put in a cast after the deed has been done."
"You let the chauffeur teach you how to punch people."
"No. I let my future son-in-law teach me how to punch people."
"I am going downstairs. Cora, I'll say goodnight to you now because I don't want to wake you later. Robert?"
"In a minute."
She feels dismissed by her son but she supposes that he wants a moment alone with Cora and she cannot begrudge him that, so she leaves the room, but as soon as she is outside she realizes that she has forgotten her scarf and the moment she opens the door again, she sees Robert throwing himself backwards onto Cora's bed and they both begin to shake with laughter. She shakes her head at them but leaves them be. If they are happy with that kind of indecent behavior there is nothing she can do about it and she is in fact happy that they are happy.
She meets the chauffeur at the top of the stairs and he looks at her unsurely for a moment but then offers her his arm. She wonders if Robert or Sybil or maybe Robert and Sybil and Cora engineered this to happen.
"Lady Grantham," the chauffeur says rather charmingly and she takes his arm because not taking it would have been very impolite.
"Granny," Mary says as soon as she and the chauffeur have entered the drawing room. Her eldest granddaughter almost comes running and then hugs her, just as Cora had warned her the girl would do. "Thank you Granny, I love you." She gives Mary a kiss on the cheek and says "You are welcome my dear," and thankfully Mary lets go of her then.
She mainly listens to Matthew and the chauffeur discussing matters of the estate over dinner and she wonders why Robert doesn't change the topic of conversation, but he seems to be listening intently and even gets involved from time to time. She wants to tell him that this is not an appropriate conversation for the dining room, but she supposes that she should be glad that Robert cares about the estate at all with Cora still being so sick, so she lets him be. Surprisingly, not all of Branson's comments and ideas are strictly socialist, some of them are probably rather good, judging by the fact that Matthew agrees with almost all and Robert with more than half of them. What surprises her even more is that it becomes obvious that Branson knows how to behave in a dining room, he doesn't use the wrong piece of cutlery once and he didn't even flick his tails when he sat down. She wonders if Matthew has given him lessons, not only on how to conduct himself in a dining room but also on how to react to her barbs. The chauffeur can obviously hold his own, but Cora has told her that he is intelligent and well-read and that seems to be true.
At the end of the night Sybil stands next to her before she leaves and asks
"What do you think of Tom, Granny?"
"He looks rather dashing in his tails." It is true and she really doesn't know what else to say. She can't agree with Sybil marrying a servant, nor can she agree with Robert and Cora for allowing such a thing but she supposes there is nothing she can do about it.
"He does, doesn't he?" Sybil replies, gives her a kiss on the cheek and then says "Goodnight Granny," and walks back into the house. She watches her until the new chauffeur takes her home. She doesn't like this one; he seems to be as intelligent as Tom.
