Tom wasn't sure how he felt about Henry's friend Evans turning up for the hunt. People were talking about the situation, it wasn't something that could be hidden from view. He refused to take sides. Matthew hadn't asked, and Henry had graciously accepted his refusal. That was good because he was genuinely torn. Matthew was himself but different. More confident in an odd way, Matthew didn't seem to care what people thought of him. The speech problems embarrassed him, that was obvious, but he simply pressed on instead of withdrawing. It was different. Tom remembered all too well how deeply withdrawn Matthew had been when he had been injured during the war. It had been difficult to pry Matthew out of his room, and it had mostly been Mary to get him to wheel himself outdoors. If it followed the same pattern, he would have expected Matthew to be silent for the most part, afraid to display his disability. Instead, he was essentially the same as always. It took longer for his wittier remarks to come out but he wasn't shy and his hesitance seemed genuinely physical. The only concession Matthew made about his injuries was that he didn't allow himself to be alone with George and Tom thought that was good sense, if a bit paranoid. George was a little boy, if his father collapsed in front of him, it would be frightening and dangerous for both. Once George was a little older, the precaution wouldn't be necessary, the boy could call for help or handle things himself, but while he was so little, it was sensible.

That precaution was why he wasn't surprised to see George running from the house towards the barn they used as a garage, with Matthew and Thomas Barrow following along. "We're about to have guests," he said to Henry and Evans, both of whom were examining the engine of the smart new roadster Evans wanted Henry to race in.

Henry shrugged, while Evans looked at the approaching men. "Both are good looking fellows, which one is the competition?"

"The blond one that looks just like little George." Henry gave Evans a dark look. "Don't be unpleasant around the little chap, Peter. Mr. Crawley and I haven't formally discussed it but the situation is awkward enough without George thinking he needs to pick sides. And don't mock the man for seeming slow. He's not, trust me."

Evans nodded. "And he owns the estate or will. And is married to your wife. I assume tonight's dinner conversation will be amusing at least."

"It's a shame you two met this way," Tom offered, not for the first time. Henry shrugged again while Evens rolled his eyes.

"You've clearly picked a side," the older man said, his tone sharp.

"Don't, Peter." Henry held up a finger, rebuking the man. "Tom is Switzerland. He is close to both myself and to Matthew and he is not taking any side in this. It's an ugly business, difficult for all of us, Mary especially. I won't make it worse by insisting people choose between us."

Which, Tom thought with no small amount of amusement, made it very clear how Henry felt about Matthew's ultimatum about divorce. He personally thought it was clever and the only fair way to handle the mess. Hard on Mary, but she needed it. She needed to know that whichever path she chose, it was her choice and no one else's. Henry saw it as Matthew manipulating Mary, but Tom didn't agree.

George ran through the open barn doors. "Papa! Would you please let Mr. Evans show Papa Matthew and Mr. Barrow and I your new race car?" Matthew and Barrow followed him, both smiling. Tom understood why Matthew wasn't insisting on being 'Papa' – he agreed with Matthew's point when he brought it up, that George was his own person and would call him what he felt comfortable with. I wasn't here for years, Matthew had said, I can hardly be angry over him being fond of his stepfather.

"Of course, George, "Henry smiled as he spoke. "But it's not my race car yet. Mr. Evans hasn't convinced me."

"You'll be convinced," Evans said. He smiled as George stared at the car's shiny chrome. "Do you like what you see, Master George? Think you'll want to take after your papa and race cars?"

Matthew chuckled even as Henry gave Evans a warning look. It stopped Tom from making his own harsh comment. Evans knew the story, it wasn't a funny joke and it certainly wasn't a nice place to go in front of George. Matthew stepped over to the car and let his hand rest on the hood. "Let's hope he doesn't take after his papa in driving, I think." He laughed again. "In fact, Henry, I very much hope George t-takes after you in that." He smiled and looked at the car in admiration. "I'm c-certainly no expert but I admit I wish… I could take it for a spin."

Evans held up the keys. "Go ahead. I don't mind." He sniffed with amusement. "Drivers that crash lose their boldness, I've noticed. Take the lad for a ride."

Matthew shook his head regretfully. "I'm afraid n-not. It's not safe." He ran his hand down the flashy chrome. "It's a p-pity…. I admit generous envy."

Henry's expression was oddly sympathetic, despite Evan's obvious delight in needling Matthew. "I suppose," he said as he picked up George and set the little boy behind the wheel, "that was one aspect of your affliction I didn't consider. Is it really that likely to happen while driving?"

"I wouldn't… take the chance," Matthew said easily. "If I am lucky, I get a… feeling and I can sit down, but I c-can't count on that. So I don't d-drive." He shrugged. "I always liked bicycling… There could b-be worse burdens. My injuries in the war were worse by far." He smiled slightly as George played with the wheel.

"Well, look at that, Henry," Evans said, his tone jovial yet spiteful. "If you don't take my job offer, you can be chauffeur to your wife's husband. Unless he gives you and the wife the heave-ho. That's in your power now, isn't it, Crawley?"

Matthew's eyes flashed, and so did Henry's. "Peter," Henry hissed, "Enough. It's not your concern." He turned to Matthew, clearly embarrassed. "We're not likely to become friends in this, no matter how much Tom insists we have much in common, but you have been respectful and Peter's remark was not. I apology for my guest." He gave Evans a dark look.

Evans took the not so subtle hint. "I'm sorry," he said, clearly not meaning it but willing to pay lip service to Henry's unspoken request, "I was rude to both of you."

Matthew shrugged. "The situation… is awkward. I accept your apology." Tom almost snickered at how Matthew was essentially mimicking Evans. He lifted George up out of the car. "I'm sure Papa Henry will b-be happy to give you a ride later, George but you and I and Mr. Barrow need to m-meet Grandma Izzy for our luncheon. You don't want to m-miss chocolate cake, do you?"

"No!" George said cheerfully, "Grandma Izzy's chocolate cake is my favorite!"

"It's my f-favorite too." Matthew gave Tom an amused look. "Grandma Izzy thinks I'm f-far too thin for her taste. I've had more dessert in the l-last few days…"

"We'll go for a ride later, George." Henry chimed in. "Your mama will probably want to watch." He waited for Matthew, Barrow and the boy to get out of earshot before turning to Evans. "Don't insult the man to his face in front of the child, Peter. You don't know what's already been discussed. He's already made it clear that his intent is to leave if… Mary decides to choose our marriage instead of her first. He's not planning to toss his wife out of her home."

"Then why are you even considering going back to racing, if you don't have to provide a new home for your family?" Evans asked, clearly curious. "Your car dealership is poised to reap profits, and there's no pressure to provide a comparable estate."

Henry shook his head. "You wouldn't understand, Peter." For an instant, the man looked utterly deflated and then Tom did understand. Henry was nothing if not a competitor and he thought Matthew was winning. He was much different than Matthew in many ways, and he was trying to remind Mary of that, that he was the bolder, more exciting choice. It wasn't a bad plan. Mary liked her men dashing, and while Matthew was as handsome as ever, that he was unable to drive or ride, and unlikely to want to dance or attend large social gatherings was a strike against him. Choosing Matthew would, Tom suspected, mean less entertaining over all for Mary, and Tom wasn't convinced that Matthew would want to live at Downton Abbey full time. He missed his quiet life, and if he did resume living at Downton, with Mary, Tom suspected there would be many changes once he became Earl of Grantham. And Mary did have her shallow moments when it came to such things. Henry had a chance.

0o0o0o0

First Edith and then Mary set their bouquets of flowers on Sybil's grave stone. "It still doesn't feel right," Edith said, "Whenever we do this, I always feel like we're playing a silly school girl game, and Sybil is going to bounce out from behind a gravestone and laugh at how she scared us."

"And then call us as stuffy as Granny if we chastised her," Mary said with a laugh. "It is odd though... I wonder what she would make of my predicament."

How to answer that, Edith wondered. "She would tell you to follow your heart, I think. Then you would dramatically declare that you had no heart, and ignore her advice until realizing five years later that she was right."

Mary's eyes flashed with anger, much as Edith expected, but for once she didn't mind. "I assume you have an opinion. I mean an opinion other than that I am a dreadful bitch who is getting what she deserves?"

"You've always been a dreadful bitch," Edith countered, "but no one deserves this. Not you, or Henry or Matthew. But this is where you are and you can't let it linger. Matthew has the right of it. You need to choose your fate, or else you'll never be happy. If you let someone decide for you, you'll always wonder."

Mary's eyes narrowed. "Being married has emboldened you, Edith. Tell me, since you're now the expert, what would you do if you were my position? If Michael Gregson came back from Germany?"

A blow, but a desperate one, wielded with an unsteady hand. Edith turned it aside easily. "That won't happen. Michael's body was identified."

"So was Matthew's," Mary retorted. "By the most unimpeachable of witnesses, his mother."

And of course you don't see Isobel's pain in that, Edith thought, or that dredging up Michael's death is hurtful. "If I must spell it out, and I sense I must, it's not the same because Michael and I were not married. We were planning to be married, Michael's entire reason for going to Germany was to obtain a divorce from his wife, but we were not husband and wife."

"You slept with him," Mary accused.

"And you slept with Kemal Pamuk and for less reason," Edith shot back. Don't, she reminded herself, don't let her do this. Someone needs to talk to her, and in the worst case scenario, I get to leave at the end of this trip. "We were both sluts, Mary. The one Crawley girl who went to her husband unsullied lies beneath this gravestone. I don't care if you don't believe me, but it isn't the same, because Michael and I were never married. I loved him, but we never formally committed to each other. Our plans never worked out. You're thinking it makes no difference that we didn't marry, but it does. I didn't betray a husband."

"You think I betrayed Matthew?" Mary raised her hand as if to strike her.

"Unintentionally, but yes, you did. You're not to blame, but there's no way this story ever goes away, no matter who you pick. It will always be brought up, it will always be a point to taunt you. If you choose Henry, there will always be people who say you're a shallow, callous bitch who refused to stay wed to a damaged simpleton. If you choose Matthew, there will always be people who say you were a slutty shallow tramp who used Henry Talbot and then discarded him when your titled, rich, presumed to be dead husband reappeared with only minor issues. The child you carry will be a bastard in society's eyes no matter if Matthew puts the Crawley name on it or if you and Henry rush to be wed. Everyone knows you weren't legally married to Henry when you conceived the child." She sighed. "My intent is not to say something ugly to you, Mary. I know, more than you might imagine, how people talk about a child's parentage. I know people will always assume something about Marigold even though the facts are well hidden. No matter who you choose, your child will never escape the gossip because the story is public. Call it a Crawley or a Talbot, it will grow up being called a bastard."

Mary stiffened, her eyes glittering with rage. "You are in your glory, aren't you? You finally get the chance to dig your claws in."

Edith shook her head. "If I wanted to be cruel, I'd say nothing and let you make yourself miserable for the rest of your life, making a decision based on the parentage of your child and not on who you love most. I don't like you when you're miserable, I think we discussed it previously, and you will be miserable if you choose Henry."

"You," Mary pointed her finger, "said I should marry Henry. You all did!"

"Yes, we all did," Edith agreed, "because Matthew was dead and Henry seemed to bring some of the joy you used to have back. In a world where Matthew was dead, Henry made you happy and none of us, even I, could begrudge you that. Now, look me in the eye and tell me you ever would have so much as looked at Henry if Matthew had been at your side, even as he is now?"

Mary tried to maintain her icy glare and then began to sob. "You make it sound so simple and it's not. Choosing Matthew means chaining him to this place, this place he never wanted. I can't… I won't make him give up his happiness. He tells me that he wants me to be happy but if I choose him… I force him to live a life he hates."

Of course Matthew went there, Edith thought tiredly as she watched her older sister sob into her hands, because Matthew was a natural gentleman even if he'd grown up in the middle class. He knew Mary had remarried and was with child, and he knew he would face challenges due to his injuries so he painted his feelings in the worst possible light. So that she would choose knowing all the facts. Which of course made it worse because Matthew was one of the few people Mary loved more than herself, which meant she'd chain herself to Henry in a heartbeat if she thought for a minute that Matthew would be happier in the long run. "Mary… I don't even know where to start. You're… being silly. Worse, you and Matthew are doing the same terrible dance that kept you apart for so long to begin with. Matthew may not have been happy with what life handed him. I see the same thing in Bertie, you know. He never wanted to be the heir. Neither did Matthew. But… I don't think you understand how madly in love with you he is."

"And you do?" Mary hissed between tears.

"Why would he come back at all if he didn't love you? If he really was happy as John Gardener the mystery poet of Cornwall? It's not like he needed the money. His poetry is more than popular, it's sought after. Have you even read his poetry?" Edith wondered. She had gone back, to the many clippings she had kept and read them with the knowledge of just who John Gardener, the man with no past, was and it had startled her to see just how deeply Matthew felt about almost everything in his unremembered life.

Mary shook her head. "No, no, he was too apologetic about… ruining my marriage. He told Isobel that when he first realized who he was, that he considered just saying nothing because he'd found out about my marriage. He only contacted her because he couldn't bear the idea of George not having a father."

"Mary…" The problem was that Mary had worked herself into a froth of emotion over it, to where she wasn't going to see reason. It was frustrating because she realized in an instant that Matthew was indeed being Matthew. As much as he had recovered, he wasn't as he had been. It occurred to her that she and Bertie were the only ones to have seen Matthew in a less than cheerfully accepting environment. Mary, Isobel, and Tom had seen him in his charming new home where everyone was used to him, and at Downton, being Robert's heir insulated him from abuse. But on the train, Matthew had been tired and flustered and barely able to choke out a word because of how poorly he was treated. She was certain, and Bertie agreed, that the train steward had been rude and that if they hadn't come along, Matthew would have been mistreated the entire ride. He wasn't a fool, not at all, and he saw the future difficulties he presented to Mary as a husband, that there would always be that element that would assume he was mentally deficient due to his speaking difficulties. It meant either a life of constant abuse in social settings or Mary accepting that her life would have to change. Matthew had never asked that of her before and no doubt assumed it would make her unhappy. Getting the two of them to see how they were desperately trying to protect the other was the problem. "Matthew thinks you moved on, you married another man and you are having Henry's child. He loves you enough that if you genuinely loved Henry more than him, he doesn't want to ruin it by begging you stay with him. And you love Matthew enough that you don't him to be unhappy as the Earl. Don't you see that this all hinges on how much you love each other? That you're both willing to be miserable if it lets the other be slightly happier? You're both making up obstacles to help the other. You know I'm right about the child, that it doesn't matter who you choose, that people will talk. And Matthew knew the minute he dropped that letter in the mail to his mother that doing so meant resuming his role as Papa's heir, no matter what you decide. Stop dithering."

"And what about Henry in this?" Mary asked. She wiped her eyes. "Do I just discard him after this last year? Toss him out without even a backward glance? I do love him… I feel like these last few months will become nothing but a cruel joke to him."

"Would you rather he find out five years from now, after what love you had died on the vine because you knew you chose him for the wrong reasons?" And she could admit, at least to herself, that she liked Henry enough that she didn't wish that fate on him. Edith pulled Mary into her arms. "Believe me, I know that this isn't easy. But you know your own heart, and Henry deserves his own chance to find happiness."

Much to her surprise, Mary returned the hug. "You're right… I can't believe I am saying you're right but you are… But I have to talk to Matthew." She pulled away and began to recover herself. "I have to be certain…"

"Let the men have their shooting party," Edith suggested. With guests already arriving, it would spare Henry some humiliation if she waited.

"You mustn't tell anyone," Mary warned. She shook her head. "It's not decided. I have to be certain it's what Matthew wants."

"Let's go back to the house," Edith said, taking her by the arm. "I have some of Matthew's poems. You should read them." She hoped it would be eye opening. Her talk with Mary had been eye opening. She hadn't realized how much Mary had shut down her feelings since Matthew had died until Matthew returned and yanked the bandage off, revealing that indeed, Mary Crawley had a heart, a badly battered and sore heart but a heart, after all.