Author's note: Please accept my humblest apologies for the delay with this but I had a loss of inspiration for this story until recently. I haven't had much chance to really go over it so there may be some mistakes.

There will probably only be another chapter or two after this before I end it, however, if anyone would like me to do one that runs through the actual series let me know, and I'll see what I can do.

Otherwise, enjoy :) and thank you for reading.

14

At sixteen she will freely admit that she is far too old to be hiding in a wardrobe, listening to her parents arguing and praying neither of them have the grand idea of opening the wooden door she is sheltering behind. She hadn't meant to intrude on their disagreement but they'd caught her unaware when she was rifling through her mother's jewellery and she'd hopped into the wardrobe without a moment's thought. She is very much regretting her hasty decision; her mother would hardly have berated her for admiring her necklaces, she often encouraged it, and now she was trapped here in this stifling cupboard trying not wrinkle the stylish evening gowns surrounding her. Although her mother's American drawl is muffled to Mary's ears, her father's voice carries quite well in his anger, and with words such as heir and duty and responsibility Mary is all too certain as to what they are quarrelling about.

In the three months since she'd turned sixteen Mary has had hint after hint thrown at her in regards to an upcoming marriage between herself and her cousin, Patrick. Anytime she was within earshot her father would talk of unions and romance and doing one's duty. She wasn't the only one wincing every time her father opened his mouth; her mother was not fond of the idea and Edith was positively livid. Mary, for her part, felt rather suffocated by the whole thing; she was torn between wanting to please her father and protect Downton, and following her heart: which, truth be told, had drifted farther and farther away from Patrick over the years.

After some very heated moments Mary finally hears her mother's door open and slam shut and in the prevailing silence she allows herself to relax her stiff muscles and edge the door of her hiding space open. She's expecting to be greeted by an empty room but, instead, she finds her mother sitting motionless at her vanity table, head resting in her hands and the unmistakeable sound of crying emanating from her. Mary stands frozen for a few moments, unsure of how to proceed, when her mother's tear-stained face turns to her and breaks out into a watery smile. Mary responds to her beckoning and goes to kneel at her feet, laying her head on her mother's lap and allowing the older woman to play with her dark locks, like when Mary had been a child.

"How much of that did you hear?" Cora softly asks. "Enough" her daughter replies, "Will he really make me marry Patrick?" She hears her mother sigh and she thinks that's an answer in itself. Cora takes a few moments before admitting, "Your father is a stubborn man, Mary, and he believes completely that you marrying Patrick will ensure your future, and that of Downton. But he's not heartless, my dear, I don't imagine he would ever force you if he knew you were against it." Mary feels her mother's hand beneath her chin forcing her to look at the Countess, who is starting to show her age around her eyes, Mary notes, "The thing is, Mary, your father is under the impression that you and Patrick are courting and have been for some time. Is this true?" Mary has to think carefully about her response; sure she had had a childish dalliance with her cousin a couple of years prior, although her ardour for him had cooled significantly with each visit he'd paid to the house, and he did still seek her out and profess his love for her at any given opportunity but, really, she'd rather marry Carson than her dear cousin. Not that she'd tell him that, of course.

She falters somewhat before admitting to her mother, "Maybe marrying Patrick wouldn't be so bad. After all, you and Papa didn't marry for love, and look at you now! It's true that Patrick and I were involved for a short while," Cora smiles wistfully at how grown-up her daughter tries to sound, "but I have come to realise that I really do see him as more of a brother than...anything else. But, I suppose marriages have been built on less feeling than that. I don't see why we couldn't make it work". She hesitantly peeks at her mother's face trying to gauge her reaction, wondering whether she's given the correct response. Cora just smiles sadly at her daughter's downturned face before saying, "Honey, not all marriages work out like ours; I want you to be happy above all else. If you think Patrick can make you happy then by all means marry him, but maybe we can convince your father to wait a while before trying to have you settled down? You're still my little girl and I think you're a bit young for talk of marriage and babies yet!" Mary feels her throat constrict at the mention of babies; a man she can handle, but children. No, thank you. She doesn't convey this thought to her mother, she knows it's another one of her duties to bear children to ensure that the estate stays in the family, but the thought of it makes her feel ill.

She takes leave of her mother shortly after this and makes her way down to the library where she's sure to find the one person who can always cheer her up. Unfortunately the world seems out to get her today and, instead of Sybil's bright smile and giddy disposition, she's met with Edith's dour face and sullen attitude. Instead of being disappointed with this find Mary feels an overwhelming urge to be as giddy and silly as Sybil usually is and so, with her mother's parting words ringing in her ears ("There's time enough to be grown up, enjoy your youth while you have it") Mary ungracefully plonks herself on the sofa, almost sitting on a startled Edith and giggles, "Why so glum, Chum?" She delights in Edith's flabbergasted expression and takes to poking her in the side making her little sister gasp and squirm, "What's up, Sourpuss?" she continues in a sing-song voice. Edith finally extricates herself from the sofa and turns wide, disbelieving eyes on her elder sister, "What on earth has gotten into you?!" "What?" Mary asks, innocently, "Can I not have a little fun with my own sister? Am I not to be taken into her confidence about whatever is making her face look like a smacked bottom?" She can't get through the last question without laughing, only inflaming Edith's temper and causing her face to break out in angry red splotches.

Edith, for her part, tries to keep her composure when she informs her sister, "The reason, dear sister, that my face looks like a..a smacked bottom" she almost has to shout over Mary's howls of laughter, "is that my big sister, the person I should be able to look up to the most and turn to with my confidences insists on taking every opportunity to belittle me and ridicule everything that I do and, and to make matters worse" her voice starts to break a little and even Mary isn't so insensible in her mirth that she doesn't notice, "you're going to marry the boy that I, that I love when he means less to you than the trinkets Aunt Rosamund sends you at Christmas!" She gives Mary no time to respond before she flies out of the library and upstairs, presumably to her room. Mary sits in her sister's wake, her breathing shallow and interspersed with hiccups, feeling deflated and insecure. She wants to follow after Edith, to beg her forgiveness and promise her that she can marry Patrick instead. She gets as far as Edith's bedroom door, she can hear muffled sobs from inside, but she's shy of breaching that barrier they've created over the years, of proving herself vulnerable to the one person capable of tearing her pride to shreds, Edith always knows how to strike where it hurts most. She rests her forehead against the oak panelling and whispers apologies and regrets into the air around her, pretending it's enough to pardon her behaviour.

She feels a little guilty, later on, when Edith excuses herself from dinner, feigning a stomach bug. She feels so guilty, in fact, that she forces herself into an act of, in her opinion, unwarranted kindness. She beseeches Mrs Patmore to make some tea and toast for the young Crawley and insists on taking it up to her herself. She fumbles at the door a little, not used to carrying a tray whilst trying to gain entry to a closed off room, but she soon masters the skill. She enters her sister's room as stealthily as possible but her carefulness goes unrewarded as a pillow flies at her head and her shock causes her to drop the tray she was carrying, spilling the goods across the floor. She finds her attacker sitting up on her bed, hair mussed and eyes blazing with indignation; Mary has to stop herself from laughing at the sight. Instead she swallows any cruel jibes that float through her mind and makes her way, slowly, across the room, hands raised in surrender.

Once she's safely seated by the angry redhead, she takes her sister's clammy, unyielding hand and focuses on her fiery gaze, "Edith", she starts, earnestly, " I'm so very sorry for the way I've treated you, and I know my behaviour earlier was uncalled for and unnecessary. Could you possibly find it in your heart to forgive me?" It's not exactly a heart-wrenching speech, and she didn't spend an age thinking of it, but she's still a little put-out when Edith forcibly separates their hands and stiffly instructs, "You've said your piece, and you can leave now. And be sure to clean up the mess you made, on your way out". Mary gapes at her little sister, feeling rage and resentment building up in her. "Well", she hisses, "if that's how you want to be then fine. I was hoping we could call a truce but you're obviously too immature to understand that." She stands abruptly and marches towards the door, merely glancing at the spillage on the floor. Her pride causes her to throw one last cruel taunt at the girl on the bed, "Is it really any wonder Patrick prefers me? He'd hardly desire some snot-nosed, cry-baby weighing him down for the rest of his life". She shuts the door just in time for another pillow to strike the wall where her head was, and walks quickly down the hall away from the guttural wails now coming from her sister's room.

She hears hurried footsteps approaching down the corridor; no doubt some maid or other startled by Edith's overly dramatic screeching, so she enters the nearest room before she can be accosted and forced to return to the scene of her crime. She's shocked to note that she herself is crying, albeit in a more ladylike and composed manner, and her breathing is laboured and hoarse. She sits herself on the window seat and leans her head against the cool glass, not even bothering to wipe away the proof of her anguish. She's upset with herself more than Edith; she shouldn't have been so quick to bite back, to retract her apology in such a cruel manner. It would be impossible to build bridges with her now. She casts her gaze over the lawn to where she can see Sybil astride her new pony, being led along the path by Garrett, the new stable boy. Although they're at quite a distance Mary's sure she can see his bare, bronzed forearms covered with dark hair that she had to sop herself running her fingers through last time she met him at the stables. Her breathing starts to quicken and she can feel her face flushing as she remembers his strong hands assisting her onto her horse, and his twinkling blue eyes and deep voice that sent her into a tingling mess whenever he spoke. She tries to quash the voice in her head telling her he'd be a better husband than Patrick; it's completely foolish of her to entertain such ideas, "He's a servant for heaven's sake!" she scolds herself. Uncontrollable giggles erupt from her throat as she imagines her father's face, her granny's face, if she told them she was going to run off with the stable boy. She finds herself unable to stop, even when the image loses its humour; she sounds hysterical even to herself, and her stomach aches with the strain of laughing so hard.

She's not sure how long she stays in that room, sometimes laughing sometimes crying; never fully knowing what provoked either reaction. She leaves when the sky begins to darken, long after Sybil has retuned back to house and she can no longer see Garrett going about his work. As would be her luck, she leaves the room just as someone else leaves Edith's. She can tell by the look on Mrs Hughes' already naturally stern face that Edith has been bemoaning Mary's faults and acknowledging her as the cause of her misery. Mary knows that only the housekeeper's ingrained sense of propriety is keeping her from scolding her, although the curtsy and obligatory "Lady Mary" is bestowed by the older woman curtly and with no feigned warmth. Mary grants Mrs Hughes little more than a nod of the head; she's not sure she can manage much more without becoming hysterical again, but she's in no doubt that the woman will take her behaviour as anything other than proof that the Lady Mary is an unfeeling, and ill-mannered brat, which she's sure will be passed onto the other servants accordingly.

She wonders, briefly, when she's safe in her room, whether Garrett shares Mrs Hughes' views, but then she scolds herself for even caring what any of the servants think of her. One day she'll be paying their wages and she's sure they'll be pleasant enough to her then. In all honesty she gives little thought to what people think of her besides her darling Sybil, and maybe Anna and Carson, but she does wish to be respected at the very least. On some level she realises that respect has to be earned, and that she won't get it just for being the future Lady of the Manor, but that little bubble of indignation still chokes up her throat when she thinks of how the servants, her inferiors, look upon her with scorn and sometimes even pity, which is infinitely worse in her opinion. She squeezes her eyes shut and feigns sleep when she hears her bedroom door creak open and a hesitant, "Lady Mary?" emitted from her lady's maid; her sweet, lovely Anna. She feels horrid for ignoring her, especially when a second, equally sweet voice pipes up, "I told you she'd be sleeping, she's probably exhausted after her spat with Edith". She wants to reach out to them, her sister and the young woman she's come to care for almost as much, but she's too ashamed of her own behaviour, she doesn't think she deserves the loving attention she knows they'd bestow on her if she were to reveal that she were awake. So she stays silent and waits for them to leave the room before she changes herself and settles into bed, her eyes heavy with still unshed tears and her heart heavy with guilt, and sadness and responsibility.

She drifts into a restless sleep, tossing and turning in bed, dreaming of a life chained to Patrick, ridiculously sweet Patrick, surrounded by children who follow her with the same doe-eyed expression as their father, begging her to think of Downton and asking why she doesn't love them, why she doesn't love anybody, they follow her all the way to the edge of a cliff, they crowd her, she can't move them, she can't walk back to safety, she can hear Sybil calling her but she can't see her, she feels helpless and trapped, her foot slips. She wakes up tangled in her bed sheet, her nightdress stuck to her like a second skin, the air in the room feels heavy and she struggles to control her breathing. Her nightmare is still fresh in her mind; the more she tries to forget it the clearer it becomes. As sunlight creeps over the horizon she slips back into a restive sleep, wondering if it wouldn't be easier to just run off with the stable boy, after all.