"An excerpt from the private papers of young Miss Sybil Branson"
Author's note: and now for something rather different, which I hope you will enjoy.
May 2nd, 1933
It is so exciting to be back at Brancaster! Not as exciting as staying with Aunt Edith and my cousins in the London house perhaps, but it's still marvelous. I was very happy to see Marigold, Peter, Maggie and the baby again- even if being around children means I am encouraged to spend time with them, instead of dining with the adults like a proper lady, like I always do back home. Still, I don't mind: Dad always says he wishes he could dine with us instead, which makes my little cousins giggle.
The most interesting thing about coming to Brancaster, though, is wondering who else we might run into. I know Granny is looking forward to the guests because I overheard her and Grandpapa talking about it earlier today, as we were coming into the house. I followed them silently (Mr. Barrow would be proud of me, he always said I'd make a great spy!) because I wanted to know if any celebrated artist was coming. But all I heard was something about a viscount that Aunt Edith had apparently invited.
"And you don't expect that will work out," Donk'd said in a voice so loud Granny looked proper scandalized. I could have told her it is rather useless to expect my grandfather to be discrete when it comes to conversations in public – he is losing his hearing after all, which means any attempt at whispering into his ear is bound to end in shouting.
"Well, it cannot hurt to try!"Granny cried out but he seemed unconvinced.
"The faster you accept the inevitable, the better this will go. If she wanted to go husband hunting, she would have done so a long time ago. She had no shortage of handsome suitors, and we all know how that played out."
I can only assume they meant my Aunt Mary, though I don't remember seeing any suitors around her! Donk will say things like that sometimes, and silly Georgie will sulk, because apparently nothing could be worse than the prospect of his mother ever remarrying. "We are fine as we are," he'd pout when we were younger, and I knew, even though he never clarified, that I was part of that "we" – we are a family after all, however unconventional, and I can't blame Georgie for not wanting to make space for others in it. Still, it seems unfair somehow: I know Dad almost remarried once, and even though I was very young, I remember how happy he seemed with Miss Edmunds, back before it all went sour. If Georgie had seen his mum smile like that at a good man, a man who cared for her, perhaps he'd want her to get married too. I rather agree with my grandfather, though: I don't think Aunt Mary wants to get married – her real smiles, the ones that reach her eyes, she only reserves for Georgie and her parents and Dad and I.
As for Dad…. Well, last time I tried to talk to him about whether he would ever remarry – I am not a child any longer, I can speak about those things! - he got offended and sulked just as badly as Georgie, which if you ask me is not a good look in a grown man.
"People do wonder…" Granny said, right before they reached the foot of the main stairs. She didn't finish the sentence, but gave Donk one of her significant looks, the ones that imply that he already knows how that sentence should end.
"You wonder," he answered back. "I'd almost say you were certain, you just don't want to admit it."
Well, I wondered what they meant, but then it was time for the party to split, and Marigold wanted to show me her new dresses and Maggie wanted me to play with her, so I went up the stairs. I never did learn what those rumors were – perhaps I ought to ask Mr. Barrow when we get back. Surely he'd know?
Not all the adults stayed downstairs though. Dad came up to the nursery with me, because Peter wanted to show him his new model airplane collection and wouldn't wait until tea time. I don't mean to speak ill of Uncle Bertie, of course, but I know in moments like that that I have the best father in the whole world, because he is funny and kind and never treats us as a chore. Today, he plonked himself down on the nursery floor with Peter and Maggie and baby Bobbie as if he was a child himself, while their nanny looked on scandalized. Perhaps other daughters would be jealous, but I am not: I can be generous, even if Georgie rolls his eyes when I say so. Aunt Edith told me Dad used to do that in the nursery with us back in the day, and he'd often drag her and Aunt Mary with him. I wish I could remember that – my elegant Aunts in their fine dresses sitting on the floor playing with little toy soldiers is a sight I'd like to see - but I must have been very young. My recollections of my childhood start well after Aunt Edith and Marigold left the house, with Georgie and I chasing each other in the grounds, sometimes with dear Donk's old Labrador Tiia running ahead while our parents walked behind us. We had been too young to know what we didn't have back then; I had a Daddy I didn't mind sharing with my cousin, he had a Mummy who'd kiss my cheek and call me darling Sybbie, and we had each other to play with. It was all perfectly normal, really, if you didn't think about it too hard.
May 3rd, 1933
Aunt Edith's guests arrived this morning. I know because I saw them arrive from the window, though I didn't get the chance to meet them until the afternoon. Just as well, as Marigold had already briefed me on the guest list, and what she didn't know, I learnt from the ladies maid. It seems I am not missing much. Just your average crowd of rich people, I suppose, talking about other rich people while they go off riding or shooting or something of the sort. Not one of them a proper Londoner. Not a writer in sight. I know Dad wouldn't like it if I made a comment like that (even though he can't hide his own discomfort all that well), so I keep these comments to myself. It is all true, though. The ladies, it should be said, were very finely dressed. It was quite the fashion parade to spy from the upper floors, as they went upstairs in their travelling outfits to change for shooting, and back upstairs again to change into light, delicate dresses for tea, with their hair loosely curled in that soft and pretty way you see in the pictures of fashion magazines. The children and I were paraded for the guests during teatime, as is the custom. I did my best to mingle and nod politely and drink my tea the way Granny taught me, though – it does not matter if one resents them, one should not give them the satisfaction of letting them think you are in any way inferior. I heard Mr. Barrow said that once, when Georgie and I were creeping downstairs, and I always rather liked it. So, even if they think me a child, I shall act like a fine lady and show them they were wrong about me.
Even if their conversation is terribly boring.
But in the end, none of that mattered, as the castle offers plenty of entertainment (even if one cannot make the acquaintance of Mrs. Woolf in it). In fact, Marigold and I had been planning an expedition of sorts for this very night - in truth, it was Georgie's idea, but without our cousin it would fall on us girls to be daring adventurers.
Once my little cousins slept soundly and most people had retired to bed after dinner, Marigold and I put on our coats over our nightgowns and became spies! We crept into the East Wing of the castle, the area that hasn't been in use for years. It was the strangest thing… . I thought once we were down there I'd have fun telling Marigold some spooky ghost story and we'd have a good laugh – and it was terribly exciting, especially sneaking there without being seen. But mostly, when we got there, it just made me solemn and a bit sad. It was so strange to see the grand rooms emptied out! Only the bulkier furniture remained, covered in dusty white cloth. The place was quite drafty and dark; even the fine wallpaper was discolored and torn. I had asked Uncle Bertie before, why so many rooms in the castle were not used - so many more than in Downton, even though Uncle Bertie and Aunt Edith often receive guests. And he said it was just too costly to manage such a large castle, and that it didn't really matter since they didn't need so many rooms for entertaining anyway. It made me think of our home, with the ground floor rooms always done up and ready for use even though we don't receive visitors often. It must be very costly too, to keep the parlor just so, and the library, and the dining room, and the drawing room, and all those other rooms when it's really just the five of us when Georgie is stuck at school. In a few months, I might be off to school myself (and won't that be exciting – I won't have to take my lessons with that stuffy old governess Granny hired anymore) and then there will only be my grandparents and Dad and Aunt Mary in the grand old house. I think I understand now, why Dad sometimes frowns when Aunt Mary gets snippy and says discussing money at dinner-time is crass, but he looks worried rather than angry and lets her change the subject.
I've been trying to picture it since I went to bed last night: Downton cold and empty and dark, with the grand piano no one plays anymore under its own white shroud. The pictures on the mantelpiece of Aunt Mary and Uncle Matthew's wedding, my mother and my aunts in their matching hats and parasols before the War, Dad and I standing with Georgie in front of our new car… all those pictures in their fancy frames forlorn, collecting dust. I've always known Downton isn't really mine – it's meant for Georgie, though I sometimes wonder whether he even wants it – but I like to think that when I leave it behind it will stay as it is now, waiting for me to visit: warm and welcoming and bright, with Donk's fine books and the staff's secret stash of treats for me and Georgie and Granny's marvel of a closet, which I am sometimes allowed to visit. It is a scary thought, to think of a time when my grandparents may be gone, when I will be too old to come downstairs to exchange gossip with Mr. Barrow, when my grandmother's fine clothes and my grandfather's library and every pretty thing I am used to might just sit there abandoned in the dark. I cannot imagine Georgie lording over a silent old house. It's easier somehow to imagine Aunt Mary there, grave as she sometimes gets when she looks out of the window lost in thought, and it makes me feel sad and a little guilty too, for thinking of leaving her behind in such a lonesome place.
May 4th 1933
Our little expedition seems to have left Marigold and I in a strange sort of mood. I didn't think she looked quite so affected when we were poking around the East Wing, but when we got back to her bedroom she looked jumpy and distracted, and she's been like that ever since. She lagged behind me when we were going up the stairs – she probably panicked when she heard the library door open when we were going up, even though she could have dashed without being seen by crouching behind the banister as I did. I asked her later if she saw who had almost caught us, but she was weirdly evasive and wouldn't tell me.
Still, it wasn't all as dreary as that. Aunt Edith's sending me back to Downton with a lot of new novels and a new journal, since I am close to finishing this one already! And we had quite a bit of fun this afternoon, when Uncle Bertie let us play with the Gramophone and all their records. I had little Bobbie propped up on my hip when the adults came in, and I was pretending to dance the tango while grabbing his chubby little hand, swaying this way and that like Aunt Rose showed us last year for Christmas. Everyone seemed delighted, even Aunt Mary, who said that was not the sort of thing you danced in polite company the first time Aunt Rose brought it up. I told Marigold to join us in our make-shift ballroom but she was embarrassed, and would only agree to leave the sidelines when Uncle Bertie put on another record and invited Granny to dance with him. That was so funny! I put Bobbie down, because he is quite heavy now, and I thought I'd push Dad to join us, but when I turned around I saw I was too late. He had that gleam he gets in his eye when he is about to say something bold, and he made a show of extending his hand to Aunt Mary while Peter and Maggie giggled and clapped. I was sure Aunt Mary would scold him but she did not, and before I knew it they were gliding around the room for our benefit. Everyone seemed to find it charming and was watching them dance, and I was too, but it was strange for me as well. In truth, I could barely recognize them! Dad was leading Aunt Mary quite confidently while Uncle Bertie laughed and said his brother in law was making him look bad.
Perhaps he danced with my mother like this once, back when Dad was young and in love with the loveliest girl he'd ever met, as he always says. I've seen pictures of them, of course: Dad always looks so young in them, standing defiantly in his wedding suit as if daring the camera to question what he was doing with Lady Sybil Crawley of Downton Abbey on his arm. In those pictures, my mother looks beautiful but reserved – it's my own face staring back at me, only not quite. Aunt Edith once told me I have my mother's features, but I frown like my father, and I laugh like him too. It makes sense, I think - after all, I've never seen my mother do either of those things: the polite half smile of an old-fashioned portrait is the only expression of hers I'll ever know. It is nice to imagine her like this, dancing with the man she married, laughing with her cheeks pink and not a care in the whole wide world.
I hope people didn't see me stare and look sad; as luck would have it, Aunt Edith arrived then, with some of her glamorous friends, and we were all a bit embarrassed at acting quite so silly in front of strangers. No one seemed more embarrassed than Aunt Mary, who got wary and cold and let go of Dad's hand. For a moment I was curious and thought of following the adults out of the room (they may not be all that interesting, but I can hardly be expected to play with my little cousins all day when I am almost thirteen!) but I caught sight of Marigold being strange again and stood in her way before she went off with a book somewhere.
"What is it?" I asked. She went red.
"I can't tell you. Not here, anyway."
A secret! That is exactly what this journal is in short supply of: nothing of much interest happens back at home after all. I wondered if it was about the guests from London: they hadn't seemed all that alluring or glamorous in truth, but you never know! But Marigold shook her head when I asked her and wouldn't look me in the eye. I finally got her to promise me that she'd tell me later tonight. What could it be?
Author's note: Updates are bound to decrease in frequency in these few weeks (damn real life and other fandoms for getting in the way) but I will not abandon this, trust me on that. As usual, thank you for the kind words and reviews - I truly appreciate them!
