A/N: The version of the chapter title song by Mike Berryn is recommended.
If You Gotta Go
"I have a headache. I'll have Branson take me back to the Abbey."
Cora reached across and patted Mary on the knee. "You'll be OK. We'll be all around you."
Matthew squeezed Mary's hand. "We talked about this. We need the intelligence. Think of it a trench raid; only on this raid the enemy doesn't have guns. We walked through it. You can do it. We'll be all around you."
Mary squeezed his hand back. "I'll try"
Branson stopped the auto in front of Haxby Park. The Strallens' chauffeur pulled up right behind him.
-0-
Sir Richard was waiting for them at the door. He had been surprised when they had accepted his pro forma invitation. He had had to scramble to add eight more places to the dining table. He only had eyes for Mary. But there were four couples getting out of the autos. Which lady was her? Lord Grantham was approaching him, hand out stretched. He had to take it and then the old fool wouldn't let go. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the rest moving by him into the house. He found himself promising to give the Earl a tour of the house.
He was finally able to break free and lead the Earl into the house. He could see the ladies taking off their coats. He saw Mary and was going to go assist her with her coat when the Earl blocked his way. Damn old man.
"I don't know if you've ever met my son in law, Sir Anthony Strallen? He's a major with the Quartermaster Corps" and the Earl introduced them.
Sir Anthony would not let his hand go. He wanted to talk about agricultural mechanization of all things. Sir Richard could hear Lady Grantham saying something about the need to freshen up and then the ladies followed the butler out of the hall.
The Earl was not finished with his introductions.
There was Capt. Thomas Silverfish, an innocuous looking youth, who was escorting Lady Sybil that night. Then there was Maj. Matthew Crawley.
Mary's husband did not say anything as he shook Sir Richard's hand, he just stared at him. Sir Richard did not like the cold steady gaze of those blue eyes. There was no worry or fear or even curiosity. Indeed there was not even a hint of assessment or measurement. All there was conclusion. Sir Richard had encountered such finality once before. He had been a reporter during the Ripper's reign of terror and he had tried to interview a doctor who was one of the many suspects. The man had answered the knock of Richard, as he was then, regarded him thus and then closed the door in his face. He was convinced that that doctor was the killer but he had never pursued that conviction.
The Earl beamed at Sir Richard. "How about that tour now" and headed up the stairs.
Sir Richard had no choice but to follow the Earl. Majors Crawley and Strallen did also. Sir Richard did not notice that Lt. Silverfish did not.
-0-
Sir Richard had never lead a tour of hyperactive six year old boys through the British Museum. If he had he might have been able to control the Earl and his sons in law. But he had not and so he could not.
They ignored him. They opened every door. They turned every switch on and off, several times plunging the floor into darkness. In the new American bathrooms he had installed at great expense they turned on every faucet and flushed every toilet. Each time they left a bathroom he had to make sure that all the faucets were turned off.
Mary's husband adopted a most peculiar bouncing gait walking down the halls. When Sir Richard looked askance at him all Matthew said was "Testing for dry rot, there's a lot of it in these old houses."
When they came to an intersection of halls they would each go off down a different one. They would call to each other and eventually meet up at another intersection.
They ended up in Sir Richard's bedroom, the grandest in the house.
The Earl wasn't impressed. "A little small isn't it?"
Small? Sir Richard looked around. You could play royal tennis in the room..
"It's OK for a bachelor I suppose but I don't think you could accommodate a lady like Mary. Why where would she put her shoes?" Matthew put in. "Of course she wouldn't like this room anyway. She prefers an east facing room, she is an early morning person, she loves to have the rising sun wake her up."
Behind Sir Richard Robert smirked at the thought of his notoriously late rising daughter being awoken by the rising sun.
"What's this?" asked Matthew as he fingered a plaid cloth, obviously too narrow to be a blanket, draped over a chair.
"It is a great kilt in the Bruce tartan, the Carlises are a sept in the Bruce clan."
Matthew looked at Robert "Didn't our ancestors put the run on them back in '45?"
"Yes I believe they did" replied Robert "Was that the dinner gong I heard a while back? We should be going down. A most beautiful house Sir Richard" and Sir Anthony indicated his agreement.
Matthew said "Beautiful indeed, it would be shame if anything happened to it."
Sir Richard gave him a sharp glance but all he saw was Matthew's guileless all-senior-offiers-are-idiots-but-you-shouldn't-let-them-know-it face.
-0-
When they got downstairs they found that all the other guests were already seated. In fact they were just starting the second course.
Sir Richard was outraged but hid it as best he could. He motioned for his butler, Chamberlain, to come to him. "Why didn't the guests wait for me? After all I am the host, am I not?" he hissed.
"I'm sorry sir but I didn't know where you were. Lady Grantham said it was rude to abandon your guests and that if dinner wasn't served on time she was leaving."
Sir Richard choked back his angry retort and went into the dining room. Where he discovered the seating plan had been changed. Lady Mary was supposed to be seated immediately to his left while her husband was exiled to the extreme right end of the dining table. Maj. Crawley was just taking his seat, exactly where expected, right next to Lady Mary, who wasn't supposed to be there. Sir Richard looked to his own seat at the head of the table and saw that the Vicar's extremely dull and pious wife was seated where his love should be seated. The Strallens were seated immediately to his right.
Sir Richard took his seat and was immediately confronted by Lady Grantham.
"Well you finally grace us with your presence Sir Richard. I trust you have no objection to me acting as hostess in your prolonged absence and seeing to your guests."
Sir Richard choked back his retort. He could sense that she was looking for an excuse to be insulted so she could initiate a walkout of the whole Crawley clan. "Not at all. I can see that your charming daughter learned the art of the hostess from a master" and he saluted her with his glass of wine.
Throughout dinner Sir Richard tried to make eye contact with Mary but every time he looked to his right both of the Strallens took it as in invitation to engage him in a conversation about the necessity of agricultural mechanization.
-0-
When the ladies went through after dinner the gentlemen rearranged their seating and thus Sir Richard found himself directly across from Mary's husband. Everyone in the room knew of the rumours that Sir Richard had spread that he was the lover of Lady Mary. Those who did not know of the falsity of such rumours waited with keen anticipation the confrontation between the two men.
Sir Richard noticed that Matthew turned down the offered cigar. "What's the matter Crawley? Don't you smoke?"
"No, I don't, I find it adversely affects my wind. In my line of work you don't want to be wheezing when you sneak up on someone you are going to kill."
As Sir Richard heard those last six words he felt his adversary's cold blue eyes staring at him. He decided to change the subject "Are you looking forward to resuming the boring life of a country solicitor when the war is over?"
"I don't know if I can adapt. When a solicitor has an enemy he writes him a stiffly worded letter; when a soldier has an enemy he kills him." Mathew smiled at Sir Richard, a tiger's smile "I hope all my enemies are dead before I quit being a soldier, so I don't have to worry about killing them."
All this talk of killing was making Sir Richard feel distinctly chilly so he was about to ask Sir Anthony a question about agricultural mechanization and let that subject take over the conversation when Maj. Crawley asked him a question.
"Tell me Sir Richard, as a city man, born and bred, aren't you worried about how dangerous the countryside is?"
Sir Richard took the bait. "Dangerous? Not at all."
"Don't you worry about being so far away from a proper city hospital? If you had a heart attack or a breathing problem you would die before they could get you to proper medical attention."
"I am in excellent health, my physician tells me my heart and lungs are those of a much younger man. I make a point of walking each day..."
"But what if on one of your solitary walks you stumbled and fell into a pond, you would drown before anyone rescued you; or you got lost in the woods and died of exposure; or a stray bullet from a farmer shooting at some vermin caught you. Not to mention what could befall you if you took up riding. You should really reflect upon how dangerous it is for you here in Yorkshire."
"I don't ride" retorted Sir Richard.
"Don't forget fire" put in Lord Grantham "These old houses can go up like a Roman candle and there's no fire brigade handy to rescue you."
"And the roads here can be atrocious, specially in the winter. An accident while you're driving is what is likely to do you in" contributed Sir Anthony.
"Yes I can visualize it now Sir Richard." said Mary's husband " You are driving at night in freezing rain. You miss the corner by the old mill and you drive straight into the millpond. As you slip under the surface your last thought is 'why did I ever move to the country'. I am cursed with prescience. Sir Richard, I foretell that if you do not leave Yorkshire within the fortnight you will die here."
Sir Richard stood up. "I will not sit here and be threatened!"
Matthew also stood. "I have heard no threats sir." He looked around the room "Has anyone here heard any threats?" He waited, no one had. "All I have heard is friendly consideration for your welfare. But it is clear my comments have somehow played havoc with your conscience so I will leave." Robert, Sir Anthony and Thomas Silverfish also stood up. Matthew gave Sir Richard a curt nod "My compliments to your cook, the meal was excellent. On the other hand you may want to look to your wine cellar, the red tasted a little corky. Good night sir."
The four men left the dining room. Sir Richard sat down again and tried to converse with his remaining guests who seemed rather bemused by all that had transpired when he realized that if the Crawley men were leaving then Lady Mary was leaving also and he wouldn't be able to say goodbye to her. He got up and rushed out into the hall.
He found the four men just leaving the house. There was no sign of the ladies. He turned to the Head Footman and asked "Where are the ladies?"
"They left as soon as dinner was over, they never did go through to the drawing room. One of the younger ladies was complaining that she was nauseated."
"Why wasn't I told they were leaving?"
"The Countess said not to bother you while you were enjoying your port and cigars"
-0-
On the ride back to Downton Abbey the four men, and Harper, who had been chatting up the kitchen staff, all jammed in the back of the Grantham limousine and discussed what they had learned.
The bulk of the staff were temporary, hired just for the dinner; the five permanent staff slept on the opposite side of the house from and a floor above Sir Richard's bedroom; there was no alarm system; there were no dogs; there was a disused side door with an ineffective lock; a back stairway well away from the servants' quarters, the floor boards did not creak; Sir Richard was in good health so use of chloroform shouldn't be a problem. Robert agreed to have Cora let it drop to O'Brien that something was likely to happen to Sir Richard when he was driving back to London on December 30th.
The plan came together.
-0-
When the men got back to the Abbey Matthew found that Mary had already gone to bed. He got ready and slipped into bed beside her. He expected she would want to talk but she lay with her back to him pretending to be asleep. He knew she was not, her body was too rigid. He reached out and started rubbing her neck.
Without turning around she spat out "Don't!"
He ignored her, He started massaging her shoulders and back.
"Don't ever make me do that again!" she was angry.
He did not say anything, he started on that spot between her shoulder blades that tended to knot.
She spun around. He was ready for her and he caught her in a hug. She tried to push him away but he kept tightening the hug, drawing her toward him. When she was finally snuggled right up to him, although she kept her body rigid, he said: "Did I let him touch you?"
She did not reply. They both knew the answer was no.
"Did I let him speak to you?'
She did not reply. They both knew the answer was no.
"You know we had to reconnoitre."
"So why did I have to go?"
"You were the bait"
"That's all I am to you? Bait?"
"Pretty much" he started nibbling on her neck and murmured "and now you've hooked me".
She struggled, trying to twist away from him. "Quit that! I'll scream."
"And what will you tell the posse when they arrive?" During her struggle he had managed to pull up her nightgown and he started fondling her bottom.
"I'm in no mood!"
"You will be"
"I will not!"
"Your body seems to think you are already"
"Why are you doing this?"
He rolled her over so he was resting on his elbows above her. "Because I love you. Because I don't want you ever to be bothered by that man again. Because I hate it when you are angry at me. Because I can't sleep if you reject me because then I think you don't love me." He leaned down and kissed her on the lips. She did not respond but she also did not turn her head away. "Good night" and he rolled off her, back to his side of the bed and laid with his back to her.
Still on her back she turned her head and looked at him. "That's it? Goodnight?" and she reached over and nudged him in the back with her hand. The only response was a suspiciously artificial snore. She sat up. "I do love you". She pulled off her nightgown and dropped it on his head. That got results.