January 1925
Late January saw the hunt organised as usual. Mary was dressed in her riding attire, this year opting for trousers instead of the attire she used to wear for riding. As she walked outside, she mounted her horse and took a drink, smiling as she saw her father come over to her.
"All set?" Robert asked.
Mary nodded, taking a mouthful of her drink before passing it back to Andrew.
"All set. Matthew is bringing the boys to watch us jump the brook." Mary replied with a smile.
"You know I don't think it will be long before George is begging to join us." Robert mused.
"No, I don't think it will," Mary agreed, "This morning I caught him begging Barrow to give him a piggyback and Barrow was pretending to be a horse."
Robert chuckled.
The horn sounded and they steered their horses to follow the dogs, as Mary trotted alongside her father, her eyes met a disgusted glare through steel-coloured eyes. She frowned as she looked down at the woman glaring at her, her mind trying to place her as if she had come across the woman before.
"Who's that? It's not one of the farmer's wives, is it?" Mary asked her father.
Robert gave the woman a quick glance before looking straight ahead.
"No, I don't think so." Her father replied.
Mary shrugged and looked ahead of her, seeing that Matthew was already walking with George and Charlie with the other spectators.
"Do you really like riding like that when a side saddle is so much more graceful?" Robert questioned.
"And so much more dangerous. Is Mama right? You're dodging the hospital meeting?"
"Only a little bit."
The hunt became a blur of fast galloping across the fields, the dogs barking in unison as they ran ahead of the group. Mary felt the rush of wind against her face, the joy she felt as she rode at top speed with her father at her side. She loved the annual hunt. She had been participating in the hunt for as long as she could remember, it had been something she had wanted to do from the very first time she had ever sat atop a horse.
They reached the brook and Mary watched as each rider took their turn to jump it. As Mary braced herself, her attention saw her glance sideways, expecting to see Matthew waiting with the boys but instead, she saw the woman who had been glaring at her outside the house. Mary frowned as the woman smirked at her and the next thing she knew, she had fallen off her horse and into the mud below.
"Mary are you alright?" her father called loudly.
One of the farmers helped her to her feet.
"Of course. No bones broken anyway. Thanks to the nice Mr. Fairclough here." Mary replied.
"Very kind of you Fairclough. Good to see you out." Robert stated.
"I never like to miss a day's hunting when it's on me doorstep," Fairclough replied, turning to Mary, "Shall I take you back to the house Milady?"
"Certainly not. If you could just give me a hand up." Mary said, walking to her horse.
As Fairclough held his hands together, Mary placed her foot in them and swung her right leg over the saddle and pulled herself back on to the horse. She looked up, seeing the woman smirk at her before walking away. Mary poured her focus back into the hunt and it was soon underway again.
But that woman was odd. All through the riding, Mary's thoughts turned to why that woman had been watching her, glaring at her. The more she thought about it, Mary was sure that she and this woman had crossed paths before, but she couldn't place where they might have met.
When the hunt was over, they trotted through the village and headed back to the house where the groomsmen were waiting for them. Mary dismounted her horse and patted him proudly.
"I'm going in. I'm completely whacked. Don't tell your mother." Her father sighed.
Mary nodded and turned to the groom.
"Can you make sure he gets a proper rubdown? He did well."
"Yes Milady."
As the grooms led the horses back to the stables, Mary turned to walk back into the house but the woman from earlier was walking across the gravel driveway with a determined look on her face.
"Who are you?" Mary asked curiously.
"Rita Bevan," the woman replied, "Don't you know me Lady Mary? 'Cause I know you."
That accent. The woman was from the Liverpool area. But she found it hard to remember where she had seen this woman before.
"No. I don't believe I do know you." Mary replied curtly.
Mary turned to walk away but stopped when the woman spoke again.
"And I suppose you've forgotten the Grand Hotel in Liverpool too, Milady? And the nights you spent there with Tom Branson?" the woman asked.
Mary raised an eyebrow.
"And I suppose you've forgotten the maid who was assigned to you during your stay?"
That was where she had met this woman before. The vulgar maid she had assigned to her during her stay in Liverpool to attend the conference with Tom. The maid who knew no manners and was impertinent. The maid who had walked into her room on the morning she was due to return home and smirked at finding Matthew in her bed.
"But I suppose people like me are invisible to people like you." Bevan sneered.
"This is all nonsense." Mary stated.
"Don't be silly. You don't know what I've got. To start with, I've got a page from the register." Bevan stated with a smirk.
Mary smirked back. Of course, the maid didn't know that the man she had found in her bed when she had burst through the doors had been Matthew. The maid certainly didn't know that the concierge had added Matthew's name to the booking and given him a key to her room and had checked them out the day after when they were to return home.
"Then you are thief." Mary sneered.
"Yes," Bevan confirmed distastefully, "I am a thief and I want a thousand pounds to keep me mouth shut."
Mary chuckled.
"That's ridiculous."
"We'll see how ridiculous it is. I'm going now but I'll be back." Bevan threatened.
"Don't bother. You're not the first person who's tried to blackmail me." Mary said dismissively.
Turning her back on the woman, she ignored the maid's attempts to jibe her and walked back into the house. As she reached the front doors, she saw Matthew walking up the driveway with the boys.
"Mama!" Charlie said happily, running out of Matthew's grasp.
Mary knelt to the floor and scooped her son into her arms. Her eyes widened as she saw that George and Charlie were covered in mud.
"Oh dear. Did you fall off a horse too?" Mary asked her sons.
"No. They were hunting pigeons." Matthew chuckled.
"We almost got one, Mama!" George stated cheekily.
"I can see. Did it fly away and cause you to fall over?"
George nodded, holding up his muddy hands. She stood up and chuckled at the state of Matthew's clothes. His coat and trousers were covered in mud and there were small muddy handprints on her husband's cheeks.
"I think we should all head in and bathe before dinner." Mary stated.
The four of them walked into the house and Nanny was waiting for the two Crawley boys.
"What in heavens happened to you, Master Charlie and Master George?" Nanny asked, eyes wide and voice in a high pitch.
"We almost got a pigeon, Nanny!" Charlie exclaimed proudly.
"Let's get you two in the bath before dinner." Nanny tutted.
"Bye mama. Bye Papa." The boys chorused.
Waving to their children, Mary took off her hat and gloves and handed them to Anna.
"Can I get you anything, Milady?" Anna asked.
"Could you run a bath for me please, Anna?" Mary requested.
"Of course Milady."
"And ask Mrs Patmore to send us a tray up for dinner, would you Anna?" Matthew added.
Mary looked at her husband, blushing slightly at the gleam in his eye. Anna nodded and headed downstairs as Mary and Matthew climbed the staircase to their bedroom.
"You rode well today. Aside from the fall. What happened?" Matthew asked, closing the door.
"That woman who distracted me, she's a maid from the Grand Hotel in Liverpool. She tended to me during the conference last year." Mary replied.
"Oh? What did she want?"
Mary turned to her husband, sighing.
"She is trying to blackmail me. She believes that she has proof that Tom and I…" she trailed off.
Matthew frowned.
"That's ridiculous. I was there the second night you stayed." He stated.
"I know that. You and Tom know that. But what if she goes to the press? She wants a thousand pounds to stay silent, Matthew." Mary said.
"A thousand pounds?!"
"It's either I pay her off and know she'll keep coming back for more or I ignore her and risk her publishing the story, dragging Tom and I through the mud."
The door knocked and Anna entered.
"Your bath is ready, Milady." Anna said.
"Thank you, Anna." Mary sighed.
"Is everything alright Milady?" Anna queried.
Mary looked at Matthew and then to Anna, telling her to shut the door. If there was one thing that Mary was certain of, she knew that she could trust Anna Bates with her life. The woman had helped her through the Pamuk scandal, had consoled her during her vulnerable and helpless moments, had been by her side when she had been through her first experience of childbirth with George. She knew that Anna would keep anything scandalous a secret. So she told her maid about Rita Bevan and instructed Anna to throw the woman out should she come knocking at the house again. As Anna left to prepare her next outfit, she and Matthew went to the bathroom and stripped down, climbing into the bathtub together.
She sighed happily as the heat soothed her aching muscles and moved forward so Matthew could settle behind her. Mary closed her eyes as her husband wrapped his arms around her, taking the pins out of her hair and chucking them on the tiled floor below them.
"I think I'll have Molesley look over the receipts from our stay in Liverpool and then I'll contact the concierge at the hotel asking for a witness statement that I was staying in your room. I think it's best to be on the safe side." Matthew said softly.
"I'm hardly a stranger to scandal, darling. I could ride it out. What was it you called me once?" Mary questioned.
"A storm braver. And you are. But I'm not going to allow some maid to blackmail my wife, especially when nothing untoward has occurred." Matthew answered.
Mary nodded, opening her eyes as she saw that hers and Matthew's bodies were tangled together under the water. She sighed happily as she felt Matthew trickle a bowl of water over her head and began massaging her scalp with shampoo. When he was finished, he rinsed the shampoo out of her hair and then brought the bar of soap around to the front of her body and began rubbing it across her chest and abdomen.
"So what to you propose we do about Miss Bevan?" Mary asked quietly.
"We'll deal with her tomorrow," Matthew whispered in reply, "Right now I have more pressing matters to attend to."
Mary closed her eyes as she heard the soap fall under the water and hit the bottom of the tub. She turned her head and moaned sultrily as Matthew kissed her deeply. She heard water splashing as Matthew adjusted their position and felt his fingers travel down past her navel until they reached that part of her that he knew so well.
oOo
The next few days had kept Matthew busy. He had instructed Molesley to find the receipts out amongst their paperwork that had recorded their payment for Mary and Tom's stay in Liverpool and the added receipts of the additional charge for him to share the hotel room with Mary when he had surprised her. Whilst Molesley had sorted out the receipts, Matthew had telephoned the concierge and invited him to Ripon where the man signed a witness statement confirming that Matthew had booked himself on to Mary's stay in Liverpool and that he had personally checked Matthew into the hotel. The concierge had also brought a copy of the register which confirmed Matthew's stay. With the paperwork sorted, Matthew placed it all inside a large envelope and tucked it away in his desk in the study.
This morning Mary had been driven to Thirsk to do some shopping as Matthew sat in the study looking over the account and observing just how much the family spent on the wage bill per month and made an inward groan. It was getting expensive with the number of servants they were paying. Two housemaids. Carson as butler. Barrow as under butler. Andrew as a footman. Daisy. Mrs Patmore. Anna. Baxter. Bates. Molesley. And that was just household staff. He dreaded to think what they were paying the outside staff.
As he sat back in his chair and rubbed his temple when he heard raised voices coming from the great hall. He stood up and crossed the room, opening the door and heard a voice speaking to his father-in-law rather angrily.
"On the contrary, Milord, it'll concern you quite a lot 'cause I've waited for Lady Mary long enough!"
God. Miss Bevan had returned.
Matthew groaned and headed for the desk and pulled out the envelope. Grasping it in his hand, he headed for the library. The woman had some nerve. Just the other day she had managed to sneak her way through the kitchens claiming to be a maid from the Dower House with an urgent note for Mary from Cousin Violet. Of course, Mary had dealt with her and had Anna throw her out of the Abbey. And now the vile woman had returned and was going to blackmail Robert. He crossed the great hall, not looking at Carson and opened the door to the library, stepping in and closing the door behind him.
"I know what she did. I walked in on her in bed with the brother-in-law. Not only is she some slut who commits adultery, but she does it with her own brother!" Bevan shrieked.
"You will not use that language in my presence nor about my daughter!" Robert growled menacingly.
But Bevan appeared unaffected by Robert's angry tone of voice.
"Robert, would you mind if I dealt with this?" Matthew queried calmly.
Rita Bevan turned, her eyes widening in shock as Robert excused himself and left Matthew alone in the library with the ex-chambermaid.
"You must be Miss Bevan; I believe you've been causing some trouble with my wife." Matthew greeted.
But Bevan remained silent.
"Allow me to introduce myself. Matthew Crawley. It's a shame that we didn't get a chance to meet when you rudely burst into my wife's hotel room when she hadn't called for you. But I believe that was only one of your indiscretions during your employment at The Grand Hotel in Liverpool, wasn't it?"
Still, Bevan remained silent.
"You think you have enough proof to go to the press accusing my wife and brother-in-law of adultery, but I warn you, that would be a mistake," Matthew stated.
"Why would that be a mistake? I've done me research; I know that Lady Mary used to be engaged to a newspaper man! I'm sure he'd pay handsomely for the latest story." Bevan sneered.
"I do not take threats or blackmail kindly, Miss Bevan. You may have done your research, but I do too. You know that Mr. Branson wasn't sleeping next to my wife, you know it was I. Your claims are false and if you did go to Sir Richard Carlisle with your claims then I should warn you that he would punish you severely once he found out those claims were not true." Matthew warned.
Bevan glared at him through cold eyes, her jaw tightened but she didn't say anything. Matthew held up the envelope he held and drew her attention to it.
"Whatever evidence you believe you have, I have more. I have receipts and a witness statement from the concierge who states that he checked me into the room and added my name to Lady Mary's booking. I also have witness statements attesting to my wife and brother-in-law's attendance at the conference the hotel held. I also have evidence that your dismissal from employment and lack of reference show your character. A thief, a liar and someone desperate enough to commit the crime of blackmail to ensure she has some money in her pocket." Matthew stated firmly.
"It's not a crime to want me belly full! You lot are finished, living in your grand houses and dining in splendour!" Bevan sneered.
"You're not getting any money out of us. Not now and not in the future. If you go to the papers, I'll ruin you and make you miserable for the rest of your life. I warn you, do not play with me or my family." Matthew threatened icily.
His temper was flaring, the blood rushing through his veins as his heart picked up a fast pace. Bevan looked shocked. She looked like she understood that he meant business. Before anymore could be said between him and the ex-chambermaid, the door to the library burst open and Mary stepped through, her brown eyes wide with concern as she stopped a few feet behind Bevan.
"Get out of my house and remember what I said!" Matthew growled warningly.
Bevan turned on her heel, glaring at Mary.
"Aren't you the lucky one!" Bevan sneered.
The woman stormed out, with Carson on her tail to ensure she left the house, leaving Mary and Matthew alone in the library.
"What happened?" Mary asked.
"I gave her a taste of her own medicine." Matthew replied.
"What did you say?" Mary questioned curiously, crossing the room before she stood in front of him.
Matthew reached for her, holding her at the waist.
"I told her that I don't take kindly to those who threaten my wife and family, especially when it's baseless accusations and false rumours." Matthew stated.
Mary smiled and Matthew was surprised when she pulled him down to her level for a deep kiss. He groaned as he felt her hands playing with his tie and he broke the kiss feeling breathless.
"Did you know that I like it when you have a firm hand?" Mary whispered in his ear.
He looked down at her, the glint of mischief in her eyes.
"I don't think I did…" Matthew whispered back.
Mary grinned, taking his hand.
"Where are we going?" he asked.
"To the study."
Matthew frowned. Why would she want to go to the study?
"I thought-"
"You have to show me the accounts and maybe continue to show me just how firm on matters you can be." Mary said teasingly.
Grinning back at her, Matthew allowed his wife to lead him away to the study, with the door quickly locked behind them as he showed her just how firm on matters he could be.