Title: A Note On Bravery
Author: Darcy Roe
Rating: T
Parings: Robert/Cora, Bates/Anna, Branson/Sybil, Mathew/Mary, William/Daisy, and the unproven but suspected Carson/Hughes.
Summery: A long awaited war has finally come to England. Even a place like Downton, ruled by ironclad tradition, will feel the effects of total war. Some will stay others will go, but no one is untouchable, and the fear of death will break down the normal social barriers sweeping the changes of the modern world in and altering the lives of all who live and work at Downton Abbey.
X. A Jolly Good Start to The Season
June 2 – June 15, 1915
"Good mornin,' Nurse Sybil."
Sybil smiled at the soldier, propped up and grinning heartily against the pillows, as she passed his bed, clipboard clutched to her side, purpose in her steps. "Good morning, Jake."
Caption Jake Marshal clasped his right hand over his heart, expression suddenly pining and lovelorn. "Permit me to say that you are looking exceptionally beautiful this fine summer morn. Venus herself must be green with envy."
In assent, the soldier in the bed next to him wolf whistled.
Sybil felt her face flush though the interaction was not at all unexpected. Jake Marshal only ever flirted with the nurses when he was in a particularly dark mood. "Manners boys," she rebuked. They laughed at her light tone before returning to similar states of desolation.
She stopped at the last bed in the row; four children, all boys between the ages of twelve and six, ran in circles around it, each as blond and blue eyed as their father. The Smith's only daughter, a baby just shy of her second birthday, was cradled protectively at her mother's bosom. "How are you feeling today, Colonial Smith?"
Colonial Smith, square jawed, weather beaten, and plain spoken opened his mouth to answer her only to have his reply cut off by his wife, Mildred. "Oh, he's fine. Fit as a fiddle. Oh!" she gasped in surprise as one of her children bumped into her, causing Mildred to knock into the bed behind her, the sleeping soldier laying in it to wake, cursing, and the baby nestled in Mildred's arms to wake and begin fussing herself.
"Boys! Knock that off 'efore I knock you! 'Er, give 'er to me," Colonial Smith took the squirming toddler.
Sybil gave him a minute to calm the baby down before asking the first of a long list of standard (tedious) examination questions.
Is there any pain?
No.
Any phantom sensation on your right side?
No.
For each one, Mildred tried to answer the question for her husband. Finally, with an air of mock irritation, Colonial Smith shook his head and heaved: "Woman, I can answer for me-self. I'm legless, not mute."
His wife rolled her eyes.
Poor Colonial Smith has been in the hospital for months. He arrived late in March, fresh from the battlefields with a leg injury. Over the course of six weeks, Dr. Clarkson and Dr. Wyatt applied various new techniques (some of them just out of the fledgling stage of medical experimentation) to save the leg. Alas, the limb became infected and an amputation was required. Cousin Isobel assisted; Sybil would never forget the look on her face when she emerged from the operation room to tell Mildred that her husband had came through his surgery – but the next few days were critical.
Sybil remembered how the waiting room had felt smaller than the supply cupboard, the air festering as the fear rolled off of Mildred in constant waves, her patient's wife clutching her hand not asking why Sybil – the nurse assigned to his case – was out in the waiting room with his family rather than working at the operation table to save his life. Sybil was not experienced enough to perform amputations or to do much more than hold surgical instruments during surgery. She has become accomplished at stitching lacerations and mending broken bones; a beastly task that required copious amounts of strength, mental and physical.
"Not that you aren't lovely, lass," Colonial Smith said.
Immediately his wife slapped his arm. "Oh, Francis, really."
"But I'm ready to get out of here. To go home."
Sybil beamed. One of the children bumped into her side causing their mother to groan and grab them by the shoulder. "I have good news on that score. You're ready to be discharged. Tomorrow."
A fresh batch of soldiers was arriving in a few days; they needed his bed.
Colonial Smith and Mildred shared a long loving look; Smith kissed his wife's hand.
Sybil left them to enjoy their happy news – she'd given them precious little to celebrate in the last two months – making sure to sneak a piece of candy to each of the boys (she had taken to carrying sweets in her pockets, butterscotch lollies for children, chocolate brought with her allowance for the soldiers). She finished the last of her morning rounds and made her way to the nurses' lounge.
Emmeline was there, the newspaper spread eagle before her, it's pages disorganized and sloppily folded one over the other. She smiled when she saw Sybil. "Good morning."
"Good morning." Sybil busied herself with the kettle, the smaller one used to make coffee instead of the black tea preferred by most of the medical staff. "How are Albert and Jimmy?"
The mother shook her head. "Don't get me started. Those two…" She buried herself further into the article she was reading.
The door opened; Lucy O'Reilly, slightly plump and soft-spoken, her mousy hair contrasting dramatically with the dusky shade of her blue eyes, entered. At seventeen she was a more experienced nurse despite being two years Sybil's junior. She had just returned from the battlefields in Belgium, the crows' feet at the corners of her eyes and the parenthetical lines framing her mouth were testimony to her work.
"What two? Are we talking about Albert and Jimmy?"
"Yes. Would you like some coffee? Or tea?" Sybil asked.
"You know me, Sybil, coffee. Black as night. Oh…That's better." Lucy sank into the davenport with an unrestrained sigh. The nurses' lounge included two such sofas and several comfortable chairs clustered around a large window in addition to the table and stove within the confines of the square room. "I've been awake since three."
"I didn't think you were working last night?" Sybil said taking two cups from the cabinet above the stove.
Lucy yawned. "I wasn't. That dog – the one I told you about last week – was barking. All nightlong. And on top of that the couple that moved in across the hall from my flat have an infant. It'll be months until it sleeps through the night."
"That's a shame, Nurse O'Reilly."
All three women looked up as Dr. Franklin Wyatt strode into the room and sat down in one of the chairs.
"This is the nurses' lounge, Frank," Emmeline said, "Get out."
Dr. Wyatt (who insisted he be known by his Christian name or the shortened version of it) was very young and extremely handsome. He was almost as good looking as her Tom; hazel-green eyes sparkling underneath long lashes, tall with broad shoulders, hair a beautiful shade of rich auburn, thick and wavy.
He paid Emmeline no mind. "I could smell Nurse Sybil's infamous coffee all the way on floor three." He leant forward, catching her in the smoldering gaze that drove every young, unmarried nurse to distraction. "Sybil brews the best coffee."
"One of her many lesser known, and until recently, wasted talents," Emmeline quipped. "I only meant, that if she'd stayed cooped up in the country, we'd be poorer for it. Don't look cross with me, Lucy. It was a bleeding compliment."
Lucy was frowning. "It was still very rude, Emmeline. Can't you be more…?"
"More what?"
"Well, less brash."
"I concur with Nurse O'Reilly. You're bedside manner -"
"What about my bedside manner, Frank? Remember, I've been a nurse since you've been in nappies."
Sybil ignored her friends' squabbling, busying herself with taking cups down from the cupboard and fixing three cups of coffee.
"Ahh," Lucy took a long, slow sip, her mien one of absolute rapture. "This is prefect, Sybil. Divine."
"I don't understand how you can stand it so strong." Sybil added three lumps of sugar to her own cup.
"We didn't have anything to put in it out…" Lucy's voice trailed off, pupils dilating dark, swallowing up the blue. Abruptly, she shook herself. "Anyway, I can't stand it any other way." She stood, albeit shakily. "Excuse me. I've just remembered…Have to cheek on a patient." Head bowed, she fled from the room.
Dr. Wyatt grabbed Sybil's wrist as she moved to go after her. "Leave her be," he advised.
"But she needs -"
Emmeline lowered her newspaper again. "Sybil, I've tried. Lucy won't talk about it. At least not for now."
"Come, sit," Dr. Wyatt urged, "Tell me, what are your plans for Friday night?"
Emmeline snorted. "Good luck. Sybil's got to do the season."
Sybil blushed. Dr. Wyatt frowned, turning his piercing gaze on her. "The season?"
"Her family is coming to London to do the season. Sybil doesn't want to participate in the well-heeled festivities, not really, she thinks it's trivial but she's too polite to say so."
"Emmeline, please!" She cried, positive she was now beet red to the roots of her hair. "You exaggerate." She rose, breaking Dr. Wyatt's hold on her wrist. "If you excuse me, I am a nurse and I have patients to tend to."
Sybil walked quickly from the room, knowing she left one perplexed doctor, would be suitor, and a nurse laughing at his expense. It did not take her long to locate Lucy. The younger girl stood on the front steeps, leaning slightly into the building. The tear tracks on her face were fresh, if dry, she lifted her head, tried composure broken, countenance morose.
Sybil wrapped her arms around her shoulders, drawing her in. "I can't imagine what you've seen, what you have been through."
"It would not be so awful if I could just sleep through the night. The nightmares…" Lucy's voice broke. "If I could just make them stop…"
"We'll find a way," Sybil promised. "There must be some remedy."
Lucy pulled back, wiping her palms across her cheeks. "There must be an end to this war. If we could show them all – what it's like to smell death, to breathe it…"
"We will." Sybil grasped her friend gently by the shoulders. "We will find a way to make them see – make the whole world see. First, you need to sleep."
"Hopeless," Lucy murmured as she led her back through the doors.
"I'll go and evict Emmeline and Dr. Wyatt. You can have a nice kip on the davenport."
"You'll wake me if I start to…?"
"I will."
Lucy patted Sybil's hand. "You are a good friend, Sybil. I wish I was half as optimistic as you are." Her weary eyes focused, becoming serious. "This…This job…What we do changes us. Be careful not to let it."
~o~O~o~
While Sybil worried about her new friend, Mr. Carson fussed over Mrs. Hughes.
"You're sure you will be fine by yourself?" He asked - for the third time that morning, the housekeeper reflected wearily.
She tried not to show her amusement. "Yes, Charles. I will be fine. Besides, I'm scarcely on my own."
He coincided with a slight nod of his head, pulling on his summer coat. That last was true: Mrs. Patmore, Daisy, Ethel, and a whole host of other staff members normally not needed for the season, would be staying at Downton for the duration.
"I still don't like the idea of leaving you alone with only the hall boys for protection."
"Charles," Elsie exclaimed half incredulous, half flattered and surprisingly pleased by his concern. "We're not babies, defenseless without our mother's presence. And besides that, Mr. Branson will be here."
"All the way in the chauffer's cottage," Mr. Carson countered with a cryptic expression as if he doubted a socialist was proper protection for a houseful of women and adolescent boys.
"Has an intruder ever disturbed us?" She asked.
He opened than closed his mouth, resolved.
"Do try not to worry," Elsie instructed kindly.
"Only if you swear you won't worry too much about me –us. I doubt the Germans would try anything so unscrupulous again so soon."
After bidding Charles goodbye, Elsie tried to keep her promise. It was unfair, him forcing her to make a promise they both knew she could not keep. In the two weeks following the attack on London, she had worried. Added to the normal stress of preparing the Crawley family for the temporary move to London and seeing them off, was the eldritch memory of the recent Zeppelin bombing and the debate between Lord and Lady Grantham it gave rise to.
His Lordship, convinced by the ease of which the attack was perpetrated, dubbed London an unsafe place for his family to be. Even for something as important as the season.
There had been some debate, some argument (Lord Grantham wanted to return Lady Sybil to Downton), and packing was stalled twice before the Dowager Countess put an end to the dissension by declaring that not going was precisely what the Germans wanted.
So, Lord Grantham was persuaded, and the staff rushed to finish packing the dozen or so trunks with provisions for the social crusade.
Below stairs, the attack was still very fresh in everyone's minds; Daisy and Ethel were unable – in the latter's case unwilling - to let the subject drop. She was an unmanageable mess at the best of times.
Then again, hardly a fortnight has passed. And who can say it won't happen again if it's happened once already?
If she was a bit more worried for Mr. Carson than anyone else, she thought nothing of it. If the notion cropped up it was pushed firmly to the margins of her mind. It wouldn't do anyone any good, least of all her, to entertain those ideas again.
~o~O~o~
"Aren't you a sight for these sore, old eyes."
Anna spun around, dropping the pair of bloomers she was retrieving from Lady Edith's suitcase. "John!"
He stood in the doorway – whole and blessedly alive. The destruction caused by the German attack was still evident; piles of rubble had still not been cleared away and a few buildings along the Thames were obliterated.
He reached behind him and shut the door.
She fell into his arms, the tension that had built since their parting at Christmas easing as their bodies fit together.
"You look lovely," he breathed against her neck.
"What?" Anna asked. "I'm wearing my uniform. Boring…Black…What?" She pleaded, catching the twinkle in his eyes.
"Spin around for me love."
"John!" Anna wiggled against him as his hands dug into her sides, pressing at her rib cage, tickling lightly. "Stop!" she begged, breathless. "I can't breathe!"
He relented his assault, cupping her ribs in his hands. She brushed her fingers through his hair, frowning as she examined the stitch marks crossing his brow and trailing over the temple.
"It looks worse than it is."
"It looks painful."
"Mrs. Cralwey's done a fine job of it so it shouldn't scar."
"That isn't what I'm worried about." She swallowed. "I saw the damage, the destruction. John, that day I thought…I couldn't if you had -"
He kissed her, firmly. "But I didn't. And I'm fine. Barely anyone was hurt, only a few people actually died; it was a completely failed attempt on Germany's part."
"What about the next time?" Anna demanded.
"I don't have the answers, Anna," he lifted his hand to her face, thumb smoothing over her cheek. "But if I thought that my being here put me into harms way...I would leave."
"For me?"
"Yes. I won't risk our future." He leaned forward and kissed her brow.
Anna sighed, pressing her nose against his collar, inhaling the warm, familiar scent, and allowing herself to be comforted.
"Do you want help unpacking?" Mr. Bates whispered.
"No." Anna laughed. "Somehow, I don't think Lady Edith wants you to see her bloomers.
~o~O~o~
As Mr. Bates embraced his beloved, a woman made her way up Downton's long, winding drive. Her movements were resolved; footsteps steady as she put one foot determinedly before the other.
The score had to be settled.
Gemma Kennedy was unofficially there to answer an advertisement for a housemaid position. Unlike Ethel, she knew to ring the bell at the service entrance. A woman fast approaching elderly years opened the door. She studied Gemma through narrowed eyes; the lines around her face appeared to have formed over years of looking stern.
"Yes? Can I help you?" She asked politely.
"Yes. My name is Gemma Kennedy. The Manchester Employment Agency sent me – about an open housemaid position."
The woman held out her hand, smiling amiably with the genuine goodwill Gemma had come to expect from people living in such places, out of the way shires. The keys tied to her belt jingled. "It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I am Mrs. Hughes, the housekeeper. I was pleased to receive your note."
Mrs. Hughes stepped aside, allowing Gemma to step over the threshold and into the house.
~o~O~o~
Cora sighed, burying her face in the crook of Robert's neck, swiping a hand down his chest, damp with perspiration. "I missed this."
He pressed a kiss to her shoulder, stroking the arm flung limply over his chest. "I missed this too."
She pressed her face closer to his skin, breathing in the delicious masculinity of his scent, slightly musky and exciting.
"Cora? Are you…sniffing me?"
"Oh, Robert! What a thing to say." She hoped he would mistake the flush on her cheeks for post-coitus glow.
"I'm sorry, dear. It seemed as if you were." Robert kissed the top of her head. Her hair fluttered as he inhaled and exhaled. "You smell lovely. Divine. Vinous." His finger curled in her tresses. "I missed this."
Mischievously, she pressed her body closer, leg winding up over his waist. "And this?" She whispered.
He groaned. "Cora…"
She kissed him, beguiling.
Robert's hands wondered over her back. Grasping her hips, he flipped her under him in one fluid movement, his momentum sending them sideways over the edge of their bed. Cora grabbed for something – there was a loud ripping nose - and half of the curtain from the four-poster was clutched in her hand.
"Oof!"
Cora's elbow nearly pierced Robert's side.
"Ouch!" Her eyes watered, her nose felt as if it was on fire. She lifted a hand tentatively to touch it…her fingers came away sticky.
Robert rolled off of her, face pinched in concern. "Cora, you're bleeding." He jumped up, pulling the sheet around his waist as he searched for something to stop the blood flow. "Blast it!"
"Robert, it feels…my nose feels as if you've broken it," she sobbed.
"I broke it?" He cried, laying hands on a towel in the bathroom. He pressed it gently to his wife's nose; she winced and tried to move away from his hand. "Cora, let me see it?"
"No, Robert."
"I have to see if it's really broken or just bloody."
"Just bloody?" Incredulous, she lifted the towel away from her face. "Just bloody, Robert. Oh!"
"Cora, your nose is broken," he told her grimly. "At least I think it is."
"Can you fix it?" She demanded.
"No. We need to get you to a doctor. Otherwise the break won't set straight." He was putting on his pajamas and picking up hers.
"I can't have a crocked nose, Robert," Cora whimpered, gingerly pulling her nightgown over her head. "Can you even get a doctor at this hour?"
Robert stopped, open-mouthed, thinking. "There's always -"
Cora shook her head. The movement caused her nose to sting. "No. Robert, absolutely not."
~o~O~o~
"How exactly did this happen?" Lady Sybil asked as she examined her mother's nose.
His Lordship paced around the kitchen, glaring at the four walls with unwarranted animosity. The kettle whistled. Carson removed it from the stove, amazed through his sleep-fuddled mind at the night's events. He had sprung from sleep, woken by a loud knocking at his pantry door, pulling on his robe, he stumbled through the small bedroom connected to his pantry, clumsily wrenching open the door. Lord Grantham stood there, similarly attired; behind him, Lady Sybil coaxed her mother into a chair at the table.
Almost five minutes late, Carson was pouring hot water into a shallow basin and setting it before Lady Sybil, next to a pile of clean towels.
She smiled brightly at him over her mother's head. "Thank you, Carson. If you don't mind…" She gestured for him to come forward. "Pappa?"
"What?" Lord Grantham snapped.
"If you could hold mamma's arm. Carson if you would just grasp the other. Nearer the shoulder," She instructed them. "Now, mamma, your nose is not, in fact, broken."
"What a relief," Lady Grantham sighed.
"It simply needs to be realigned. However, this can be quite painful, so," she handed her mother a mug containing a small measure of heated brandy, "Drink this. Pappa, Carson, you will be required to hold mamma if she struggles."
"Is that likely?" Lord Grantham asked, she trembled slightly under his hand.
Lady Sybil nodded, taking the now empty glass from her mother. "Hold her firmly," she told the men, hands forming a triangle around her mother's nose. Lady Grantham screamed, body twitching, legs jerking.
Carson, feeling incorrect, grasped Lady Grantham's shoulder a little more firmly as she struggled. Her daughter wore an expression of intense concentration; hair pulled back into a hasty knot on top of her head, sleeves rolled up around her elbows.
"There!" She cried triumphantly.
Carson removed his hands.
Her Ladyship slumped backwards into the kitchen chair, elegant face streaked with sweat and blood. "Oh! Sybil, where did you learn to do that?"
Lady Sybil wrung a washcloth out, gently cleaning her mother's face. "There may be a small bruise, mamma, and there is the possibility of some soreness and swelling."
"But my nose won't be crooked?" Her mother demanded.
Her daughter smiled, cheerily. "Not at all. Now," she turned to Carson, "If you would not mind warming a bit more brandy. For the pain, mamma."
"Can you bring it up?" Lord Grantham asked. "This has all been too much."
"Of course, My Lord."
"Excellent. Cora…" He helped the trembling countess to her feet; she leant on his arm, looking up at him with half-exasperated adoration. Their youngest daughter was gathering the soiled towels from the floor.
"My Lady, I can clean this up," he suggested gently.
Lady Sybil continued picking up the dirty, bloody towels. "Oh, I can manage. Where should I…?"
"The…Through that door over there…My Lady, let…" His words fell on deaf ears. Lady Sybil had opened the door to the small laundry, a room that had never seen a member of the Crawley family before.
"Is it fine to just put these in the sink?"
Carson replied yes, now completely flummoxed as Lady Sybil deposited the towels in the sink, shut the laundry door, and picked up the basin from the sink and poured the water into the sink. She reached for the bar of soap, and Carson knew he had to put a stop to it.
"My Lady, allow me," he gently pried the soap out of her hands.
Her mouth curved downward into a small frown. "Mr. Carson, I can, I am able to wash a bowl. I sterilize surgical tools, clamps and scalpels. Last week I helped remove a bullet from a man's thigh, the laceration was nearly six inches wide but I managed to stitch the leg back together. This morning, I fixed the break in a little boy's femur," her voice was even and mild as it ever was but Carson detected a steely note behind her soft, matter of fact words. "I can wash a bowl."
He relinquished the bar of soap.
She smiled up at him. "Thank you, Mr. Carson."
Feeling even more wrong-footed he turned back to the stove and minded the brandy. "The boy," he finally asked when the silence had worn on too long, "Will he be all right?"
Lady Sybil smiled. "Oh, yes. He's just seven, and when you're younger, your bones knit better. In a few months he'll be fine, the injury won't ever affect him. However, if I had climbed up a large oak on a dare and fell out and broken my femur, the injury would be more severe, a direct consequence of being slightly older."
As she finished her story, she set the basin, as clean as any Carson had ever seen, into the draining board. "Well," she looked around the kitchen. "I believe that is everything, save the brandy. Thank you for your help, Carson."
"It was my pleasure, My Lady."
"Good night, Carson."
"Good night, My Lady."
And with that, Lady Sybil danced from the chief, leaving Carson at the stove, only slightly less perplexed by the night's event.
~o~O~o~
Edith's pink skirt swished and swirled as she moved throughout the ballroom, edging along the wall while trying to find her own small group of peers. Women her age, possessors of neither great beauty or wit, talentless in the eyes of society. The scraps picked up by second sons with small fortunes, desperate to marry and procreate. The fading blooms of high society, were well mannered, pleasing, and as desperate as their perspective husbands to avoid spinsterhood.
Across the room her mother, on her father's arm, looked dainty and almost faerie-like in a gown of pale emerald as she laughed, the center of attention within her parents' crowd of friends.
A ways off, her grandmother sat with two other elderly women, gesturing imperiously with her polished black ornamental cane. Sybil was likewise occupied in conversation, even though she had arrived an hour late into the evening. Her little sister was the center of life among a small group of women known to have liberal sympathies, including the notorious Dorothy Cephas.
Mary, naturally, found herself surrounded by a small regiment of young men sharply dressed in uniform.
Evelyn Napier caught her eye over the shoulder of a tall man with blond hair. His eyes widened as Edith lifted her hand to wave. Swiftly, she made her way towards Mr. Napier and his companion, noticing the frozen expression on his face as she drew closer.
"Mr. Napier, how nice it is to see you."
His smile looked more painful than friendly. "Likewise, Lady Edith. Excuse me, Sir Anthony. I've just spotted Lord Cecil – must have a word."
Sir Anthony Strallan turned around, shocked expression mirroring her own. Edith was certain her heart skipped a beat – or three. "Sir Anthony." Her throat was not working properly; her mouth had run dry. "How nice -"
The eyes, which had gazed at her during those long country drives, suddenly found the floor very interesting. "Lady Edith. Excuse me."
"Wait!" She grabbed his arm as he tried to move away from her. They stared down at her hand, clutching his forearm, a last-ditch hope that she might be able to repair a small portion of the damage Mary had caused.
"Lady Edith," he pleaded with his voice as well as his eyes, "Please."
Sheepishly Edith relinquished her hold on his arm. "I think you may have gotten the wrong idea at the garden party last August."
"Oh, no, your sister Lady Mary made everything brutally clear."
"No," Edith gushed, "Mary and I, at the time, were in the middle of a…a very petty fight. I only wish to apologize, Sir Anthony. You were not supposed to be a casualty."
"So…" He cleared his throat. "At the garden party, you were not avoiding me?"
Edith shook her head. "No. I swear."
"And…you do not consider me an old booby."
"No! Never!"
After a tense moment, in which she held her breath, a smile came to his face. "Lady Edith, I'm a bit parched." He offered her his arm; she laid her hand gently this time on it, staring up at him in wonder. "Shall we find some refreshment?"
~o~O~o~
The door to the small library opened and closed. A pair of slender hands attached to delicate, kissable wrists settled on his shoulders. John turned around slightly; Anna beamed down at him.
"Mr. Carson and Mrs. Perkins are occupied with something or other, and Miss O'Brien and Mr. Molesley have gone out somewhere."
"Alone at last."
"I thought I might make some tea, do you want…?"
John pulled her down into his lap. Fleetingly, worried that the move was too presumptuous. Anna's smile widened (if such a thing was possible) and perched herself on his good knee, arms wrapping around his neck.
"Are these for work?" She asked gesturing to the papers organized into four separate piles on the table before them. "I'm not distracting you?"
"Never."
"What are they?"
"Important papers." He pushed them away, lips tickling the side of her neck. "Classified, information."
"Classified," Anna moaned, eyes sparkling, head falling to the side to grant him better access. Her fingers came up, combing through his hair. "Um…Classified."
~o~O~o~
The dining room of Grantham House was a bijou, soft and delicately decorated, compared to the dining room at Downton Abbey. Set in the east side of the house, away from the occasionally noisy street with a spectacular view of the English garden that could easily be seen through two large windows by people seated at the table. The wallpaper around the eggshell white baseboard, chair, and crown moldings was a merry robins egg blue patterned with fleur-de-lis. The Dowager Countess had opposed such decor, dubbing it too French.
Lady Grantham's influence could be felt in every square inch of the room. Unfortunately, her presence, thus far, was absent from the meal. Her husband, preoccupied with an uncensored headline in that mornings Times, paid no attention to the rhubarb at his breakfast table.
Carson thought the older Crawley sisters were being a tad too harsh on the youngest, though their sisterly concern was natural.
"Well, I can't believe you were so late," Lady Mary declared, smearing a dainty measure of jam onto her toast. "And I can't believe you were conversing with her."
"Who was Sybil talking to?" Lady Grantham asked as she rounded the doorway.
"Dorothy Cephas. The soon to be ex-wife of Roderick Cephas," Lady Edith explained.
"I didn't know who she was." Lady Sybil said defensively, while helping herself to more coffee and eggs.
Lady Edith rolled her eyes. "You've been living in London since January and you have not kept pace with society?"
"I've been busy saving lives," Sybil retorted. "Why does she want a divorce?"
"Oh, I can't imagine," Lady Grantham sighed, "Robert, he works with you in the war office, doesn't he?"
"Does something with the newspapers," Lord Grantham said absentmindedly. "Delightful chap from what I can tell. Good mates with Sir Richard Carlisle."
"Sybil, don't eat so fast," Lady Grantham admonished, dismayed by how fast and furiously her daughter was eating. "It's most unladylike, dear."
"I must," Sybil said through a mouthful. "I'll be late if I don't. Colonel Smith is being discharged today and I want to say goodbye."
"Oh, whose Colonel Smith?" Her father asked, finally setting down the paper.
"My patient. He's very happily married. With five children," Sybil said, catching her sisters'` inquisitive gazes. She finished the last of her coffee. "Now, I have to go." She kissed her mother on the cheek as she passed her. "I'll be home at about six – hopefully."
"Hopefully?" Lady Mary echoed.
"Barring any emergency."
Lord Grantham returned to his paper. "I'll send the motor to collect you."
"Oh, that isn't necessary. I can take the trolley to Byatt Street and walk the rest of the way." Sybil hurried out of the dinning room almost bumping into Mr. Molseley.
"Excuse me, My Lady."
"Not at all," Lady Sybil told the footman brightly. "I believe the fault was mine."
Mr. Molesley handed a letter to Carson. "This just came for Lord Grantham."
"Aren't you forgetting something, Sybil dear?" Lord Grantham called after his youngest daughter.
She frowned. "Oh, yes. Sorry, pappa." She came back into the room and kissed her father on the cheek before rushing out again.
tbc…
a/n: Went back to school this week! My life is crazy! I will make an effort to update once a week, though, but apologize if some chapters are a little later than others.
Thanks to everyone who reviewed. You make my day : )