just some riffing on what might have been going through mary's mind as she went to rescue sybil. this is why i adore michelle dockery so entirely: the subtext is so clear, the little nuances and discoveries that make a character a real person so sharply defined. yay for brilliant acting :)
XXX
In the shadow of a broken house,
Down a deserted street,
Propt walls, cold hearths, and phantom stairs,
And the silence of dead feet —
Locked wildly in one another's arms
I saw two lovers meet.
They sit in silence but for the steady chug of the motor. Edith drives smoothly despite her obvious agitation; one gloved hand flexes around the wheel every so often, and the line of her mouth is hard. Anna, for her part, seems entirely unruffled. But for the occasional uncomfortable shift of her shoulders, one would assume that a frenzied drive to Gretna Green is a nightly occurrence for the amicable maid.
They had nearly been too late.
The thought still sends nausea shooting through Mary's stomach as she glances at her youngest sister, chastened and pensive next to her. The heavy knowledge of what might have happened presses into her, the ever-present ghost of Pamuk a tangible weight on her chest. She has saved her sister from that fate, that guilt, and that disgrace, but her pulse continues to jump erratically under her gloves as she watches a tear slip down Sybil's cheek.
Good, she thinks viciously, then sighs. A small part of her lingers on the look Sybil had given the chauffeur, and the look she had received in turn. It had surfaced an odd, unexpected remembrance, a quick flash of the night of the concert, when they had all thought Matthew lost only to have him stride down the aisle, whole and healthy and safe. The time was once when Matthew might have looked at her the way Branson looked at her sister.
A surge of something like grief slams into her, and she muses wryly, not for the first time, that either she is far better at concealing her feelings than she assumes or everyone around her is shockingly unobservant. Not that she isn't grateful for it. She will need a combination of both to survive the coming months, which will bring Matthew's marriage and her own. She'd nursed a fantasy, foolishly, that somehow the two events would never happen; something would always postpone the marriages, and while Mary might not ever have Matthew again, she would not lose him in such an irrevocable, final way. Some part of him would always remain in limbo, side-by-side with her. She could smile at him, and laugh with him, and brush hands with no cold rings to separate them forever.
But that isn't important right now, she thinks with a frown and another glance at her miserable sister. What's important is that Sybil is safe and innocent. She isn't damaged goods, as Mary is. No sordid whispers. No disappointed mothers. No nightmares.
Then why, as the car jostles on the uneven road, does she have the uneasy feeling that she has wronged her sister and the chauffeur in some way? Everything she has been taught dictated her actions tonight, and most of her is in agreement that Sybil had to be stopped, before the unthinkable happened. But still. That look.
I did what I had to do, Mary thinks dully, repeating it like a spell to make it true. I did what I had to do. I did what I had to do.
XXX
poem by laurence binyon. he's quite good, no?