Of the three Crawley sisters, Mary had always been the most pragmatic, Edith the most academic and Sybil the most artistic.
Mary had always admired and envied her youngest sister's ability to capture a likeness in just a few sure strokes of her pencil.
Since she was a child, almost from the first time she'd picked up a pencil, Sybil had sketched and doodled, rendering extraordinary portraits of the people surrounding her with what appeared to be little to no effort.
Her schoolbooks had been filled with small sketches, the margins dotted with images of her sisters reading, sucking on their pencils, frowning at a mathematical equation. Occasionally, one or other of their governesses would appear in the margins, a pictorial record of the parade of teachers who taught them little other than how to be respectable young ladies.
Since she'd taken up nursing, Sybil's ever-present sketchbook had taken a back seat. Occasionally, Mary saw her sister sitting quietly, still in her uniform, pencil in hand, completely absorbed by what she was doing. It was Sybil's way of decompressing, working through the terrible things she saw at the hospital; the life-changing injuries, the physically and psychologically damaged men, the horror of war tipping up on their quiet, bucolic doorstep.
But, inevitably, more of her time was spent nursing than sketching these days.
And so it was that Sybil's sketching pad was in her room resting on her dressing table when Mary went to return the earrings she'd borrowed.
Mary smiled and pulled it towards her, keen to see Sybil's work and whether it had changed as her life had evolved and grown more demanding.
The first few sketches were of soldiers in the hospital. A young man with scarred eyes and a melancholy cast to his face. A nurse helping a soldier into a wheelchair. Recuperating soldiers playing cards at a table. Then came one of Barrow sitting with the soldier with the scarred eyes, a comforting hand on his shoulder. There was a sketch of a tired-looking Dr Clarkson sitting in his office chair, his eyes shut, his chin propped on his hand. Two nurses measuring out medicine. A nurse leaning over a patient, holding a glass of water.
Sybil's work was as exquisite as ever, her hand sure and decisive, no hesitant strokes, every line serving a purpose.
Mary kept turning the pages, beginning to find more faces she knew. There was one of herself, standing by a window, a wistful look on her face that gave her pause. Although she didn't remember the specific occasion, she knew instinctively that she'd been thinking about Matthew.
There was one of her father at his writing desk, one of her mother with her head bent over a clipboard, Edith writing a letter for one of the soldiers.
And then Sybil turned her attention to the servants. Carson at the open door, an ambulance discharging more patients beyond him. Mrs Patmore sitting at a table with a cup of tea. Mrs Hughes directing a couple of maids.
And then there was one that was different to the rest. All of the others so far were of people caught unawares, Sybil sketching scenes she'd happened upon during her day. This one, though, was a portrait and it stopped Mary in her tracks.
It was of Branson. He was in his uniform, although not wearing his cap or his gloves. He was leaning his elbows on the bonnet of the car, his hands clasped. But what made this sketch different was that he was looking directly at the artist, a fond, happy smile on his face.
This one was unmistakeably a portrait, not a casual peek into a life. Branson was posing for Sybil, and she'd captured him with unguarded affection on his face. It was a wonderful portrait, one that Mary imagined Branson's mother would be delighted to frame and hang on her wall as a true likeness of her son, but it was unsettling that her sister had drawn him like this.
Mary bit her lip and turned to the next page. More sketches of Branson filled the book. There he was bending over, peering into the engine of the car. There he was sitting at a workbench, gazing down at whatever mechanical object was in his hands. There he was sitting on a bench, reading a newspaper. There he was leaning against the garage door, his arms folded across his chest, his face lifted up to the sun. There he was with his jacket off, his sleeves rolled up, polishing one of the cars.
Page after page of Branson in all kinds of situations began to give Mary an uneasy feeling. And then she turned another page and gasped aloud, dropping the paper as if it had burned her.
The sketch on this page was of Branson again, but it was completely unlike any of the others. In it, he was sitting on a bench, his back against a wall, but this time, he was naked. Completely and utterly naked. Shockingly so.
Sybil had drawn him with his thighs spread wide, his feet planted on the ground. He had his hand wrapped around his erect manhood, the head peeking out of his fist, a pearly drop of liquid squeezing out of the top, and his head was thrown back, his eyes closed, an expression of ecstasy on his face.
Mary stared at the picture, her heart racing. It was an exquisite piece of work, every detail perfectly drawn. It was the finest piece of erotica Mary had ever seen. Admittedly, she did not have much to compare it to, but still.
Branson looked… well, he looked beautiful, like a Greek God, the muscles in his body perfectly delineated by Sybil's pencil, the pleasure he was taking from his body leaping off the page.
Mary swallowed, equal parts profoundly shocked and disturbingly aroused by the image in front of her. She had never seen anything like it. Sybil had captured every part of him with her fluid strokes, from the planes of his face to the curve of his calves. Even the thatch of pubic hair nestled in his groin was carefully detailed.
Mary found herself reaching her finger out to trace over his chest, mesmerised by how beautiful the picture was. But then she caught herself, feeling conflicted. She should not be looking at this. It was a private moment, not intended to be shared with anyone.
Except apparently, he had. He had shared it with Sybil. With her baby sister.
Had Branson posed for this sketch as he seemed to have posed for the portrait of him in uniform? If he had, then he and Sybil had overstepped the acceptable boundaries of an employer/employee relationship by a country mile.
Mary's mind raced, her heart tripping wildly in her chest as she wondered what else they might have done together, her sister and the chauffeur, if he had posed for her so intimately.
She bit her lip, wondering what she should do. In truth, she knew she should march downstairs and report Branson to her father, who would most certainly dismiss him instantly without a reference.
But what if she was wrong about this in some way? What if there was - by some miracle - some other explanation and she cost a man his living? She simply could not bring herself to believe that Sybil would have behaved in such a way and with Branson of all people. She needed to talk to her sister. Get the truth of the matter from her.
She turned the page again to be confronted with another sketch of Branson, naked again, this time lying on his back on the grass, propped up on his elbows, one leg bent, his face tipped up to the sun.
On the next page was another sketch of Branson, still naked, polishing the car, his back to the artist. In this, Sybil had drawn a beautiful back, broad shoulders, narrow hips, the perfect globes of his buttocks, the shadow of his penis, soft this time, against his thigh.
Turning the page revealed another image of the chauffeur, sprawled in the back seat of the car, one foot on the floor, the other on the leather seat, his hard manhood angled up along his belly, his eyes looking directly at her out of the page.
Mary blinked at the provocative image, quite sure she would never be able to look Branson in the eye ever again without thinking of these pictures.
She paged through Sybil's pad, seeing more images of a naked Branson, occasionally interspersed with more respectable sketches, and then she froze, her eyes almost popping out of her head, her heart banging wildly in her chest.
On the sheet in front of her was another image of a naked man, but it wasn't Branson this time. It was Matthew.
He lay on a chaise longue, one arm thrown above his head grasping the back of the chair, his legs in a loose sprawl, his thighs parted, as he grasped his erection and pleasured himself.
Mary stared at the image, her eyes moving over the familiar lines of Matthew's face captured in an unfamiliar expression. He had his lip caught between his teeth, his eyes half-closed. He looked like sin personified.
And then her gaze fell to his naked body, just as beautifully drawn as Branson's in the other sketches. Everything so wonderfully proportionate. His long, perfectly muscled legs, his strong arms, his solid, masculine chest, his feet, his hands... and his sex. Oh, Lord, his sex...
Mary stared at the picture, unable to drag her eyes away from it. Matthew naked was even more beautiful than she had imagined he would be.
She didn't understand. Her brain told her there was no way that Matthew would have posed for Sybil like this. He was fond of her sister, she knew he was, but apart from Sybil mooning over him slightly when he rescued her from the mob at the Ripon by-election, there had never been any sign of anything between them.
Matthew was a decent, honourable man. That much Mary was in no doubt about. He would never do something so debauched as pleasure himself in front of a young woman while she drew him.
But what if he did, a small voice whispered in her mind, taunting her. What if she didn't know him at all and this was the kind of man he really was?
No, no, it wasn't. Her Matthew, the Matthew she knew so well, would not have done this.
And that then raised the question of whether perhaps Branson had not posed for Sybil either. But how then –
"What do you think you're doing?" Sybil hissed from behind her, startling Mary out of her thoughts.
She jerked around guiltily to see her sister hurry into her bedroom, shutting the door behind her.
Sybil practically ran over to her dressing table, pulling her sketching pad away from Mary, her face bright red.
"How dare you! How dare you go through my private things!" she snapped, sounding panicked.
Mary shot her hand out and caught the edge of the pad, tugging it back towards her.
"What is this, Sybil?" she demanded, surprised to hear her voice come out so calm.
"It's nothing. It's nothing," Sybil insisted, yanking at the pad as Mary gripped it harder.
"That's the last thing it is," Mary said, eyeballing her sister, determined to get to the bottom of this. "You've got drawings of naked men in this."
Sybil went still, letting go of the pad. She stared at Mary, pressing her lips together, tears filling her eyes. "Please don't tell anyone! Please, Mary!"
Mary regarded her sister in silence then she dropped her gaze back to the image of a naked Matthew, lying there on the dressing table between them.
"That's Matthew," she breathed, looking back up at Sybil.
Sybil said nothing, simply stood there, biting her lip, looking guilty.
"Did he… did he pose for you like that?" Mary asked, her heart in her mouth.
Sybil shook her head wildly. "No, of course, he didn't!"
The relief Mary felt at that was overwhelming. She let out the breath she had been holding, her fears about Matthew not being the man she thought he was scattering to the wind.
Mary paged back through the pad, stopping at one of the more sexual images of Branson. She pointed at it, looking up at Sybil.
"And Branson? Did he pose for you? Do I need to speak to Papa about him?" she asked, her voice hardening.
"No!" Sybil cried, once again shaking her head. "Tom knows nothing about these pictures. He had nothing to do with them. It's all me!"
"Tom?" Mary said sharply, her fears about her sister and their chauffeur crystallising.
"Branson," Sybil said, dashing a rogue tear from her cheek. "That's his name. Tom Branson."
"And you call him Tom," Mary observed, narrowing her eyes in suspicion.
"Sometimes. We're friends," Sybil said defiantly, her chin coming up, a stubborn look creeping onto her face.
"Friends? This looks like considerably more than friendship," Mary snapped, waving her hand over the undeniably provocative picture of Branson naked in the back of the car. "This… this is wildly inappropriate, Sybil. And that's putting it mildly!"
'He doesn't know! He doesn't know I've drawn him like this! Please don't get him sacked when he hasn't done anything wrong, Mary! Please! He doesn't deserve that!" Sybil cried, appealing to her sister's sense of fair play.
Mary dropped her eyes to the picture again, unable to understand how Sybil could have drawn anything like this without seeing it.
"Were you spying on him?" she asked, uncertainly. "Did you see him like this without him knowing?"
Sybil shook her head again. "No."
'But you have seen him naked?"
"No, of course, I haven't! Just like I haven't seen Matthew naked either!"
"Then how… how have you drawn them like this?" Mary asked, perplexed.
"I've studied the human body, Mary. I know what a naked man looks like. I've seen statues and paintings, just like you have. Papa has books in the library with illustrations of the human body, and I read textbooks during my nursing course."
"Yes, but that doesn't explain this," Mary said, flipping back to the picture of Branson on the bench pleasuring himself. "How do you know about this? About his… his… manhood and how it gets and what he's doing to it?"
Sybil blushed, her head dropping down.
"Oh, God. Have you seen him do that to himself?" Mary asked, shock welling up in her chest.
"No, I haven't," Sybil said, moving to sit beside her sister on the stool. "I've never seen Tom in any greater state of undress than with his jacket off. And I've definitely never seen him doing any of the things I've drawn him doing."
"You've seen him polishing the car," Mary said, casting a sideways look at her sister.
"Well, yes, obviously, I've seen him do that. So have you. But you know what I mean. I've never seen him doing anything... anything sexual."
"Then how do you know about… about that?" Mary asked, gesturing at the picture.
Sybil shrugged awkwardly. "I'm a nurse," she said as if that explained everything. "I have to wash the men, give them bed baths, so I know what a man's body looks like."
"Yes, I know that, but you change dressings and give out medicine," Mary said, impatiently. "Being a nurse doesn't mean you see men touching their private parts like that!"
"Sometimes it does," Sybil replied, calmer now.
Mary stared at her, her mouth falling open in shock.
"I've seen it happen a few times," Sybil continued. "When I've been on the night shift. The first time it happened, I heard one of the men gasping and grunting one night. I thought he was in pain, so I went to see if I could help him, and he was… well, he was doing that."
Mary gawped at her sister. "What… what did you do?"
"I backed quickly away and left him to it, but I was curious, so I peeked through the curtain and watched him until he finished," Sybil confessed, her cheeks burning.
"You did not," Mary breathed, wondering what she would have done under the same circumstances.
"I did. It was wrong of me, I know, but I couldn't help myself. The next time it happened, I knew sooner that the soldier wasn't in pain, but I watched again. There's something… something compelling about it. About the way they look when they do it and how relaxed it makes them. They sleep like babies afterwards. Sometimes, I think it's better than the pain relief we can give them," Sybil said very matter-of-factly.
Mary was silent, gazing down at the picture, at the look on Branson's face.
"But why did you draw Branson like that? And Matthew?"
Sybil blushed again. "Ah, well, that was… that was an accident," she said, wafting her hand at the picture in front of them.
"An accident?" Mary echoed, not sure how that could be. "What do you mean?"
"I couldn't sleep one night, so I started drawing that just to see if I could do it. I started with his… his body, and then when I finished the face, I realised I'd drawn Tom. His face just kind of appeared on the drawing without me thinking about it," Sybil confessed, her cheeks pinking up.
Mary tilted her head, narrowing her eyes. "Is there something going on between you and Branson?"
"No! No, of course, there isn't!" Sybil said quickly, possibly too quickly.
"Because if there is, you need to put a stop to it and quickly. He's the chauffeur, Sybil, he's not a potential suitor. You can't think of him like that," Mary said, determined to press that point home to her sister.
Sybil rolled her eyes. "We're in the middle of a war, Mary. Who cares about all of that now?"
"Plenty of people. Including our parents and Granny," Mary warned, worry tripping through her.
"Things are changing, though."
"Not things like that. And certainly not here," Mary retorted, crisply. "You've got more pictures of Branson in this pad of yours than anyone else. Should I be worried about this?"
"No, you shouldn't. But even you must admit that he's good-looking. Why wouldn't I draw him?" Sybil said, defensively. "And it's not like he's the only person I draw."
"But you draw him a lot. And nearly all of the naked pictures are of him," Mary pointed out. "Even if you find him attractive, it can never go anywhere, so it's better to stop it now before it becomes a bigger problem."
"Stop lecturing me, Mary," Sybil snapped. "I have told you there is no understanding between me and Tom."
"Understanding?" Mary echoed, becoming more and more concerned. "What does that mean? Does he expect something to come of this… this friendship you claim you have with him?"
"No, of course, he doesn't," Sybil said, shifting slightly on the stool, only meeting Mary's eyes briefly.
"Sybil," Mary said, her voice thrumming with warning.
"He doesn't!" Sybil insisted, finally looking Mary in the eye.
With the guilty flush on her sister's face, Mary couldn't tell whether it was because she had found her illicit sketches or because Sybil was indeed conducting a clandestine affair with the family chauffeur.
Sybil looked down, sifting through the pages until she found the picture of Matthew on the chaise longue.
"And Tom isn't the only man I've drawn naked," she said, gesturing at the picture.
Mary looked down at it again, feeling her pulse hitch and her stomach swoop at the image of the man she still loved so much in such an erotic pose.
She reached out, touching the edges of the paper. "Why did you draw Matthew like this?"
Sybil shrugged. "I'd forgotten how handsome he is until he came back for the general's visit. And when I was reminded of that, I wanted to draw him."
'But like this?" Mary asked, curious to know what had prompted Sybil to put pencil to paper and create such an incendiary image.
"I've discovered I like drawing pictures like these," Sybil confessed, colour suffusing her cheeks. "I wanted to draw Matthew and this image just came to me."
"I can't help but feel it's wrong, Sybil. Drawing them like this," Mary murmured, looking down at the image again, her fingers still brushing the edge of the paper. "It feels like you're violating their privacy."
"But it's not really them!" Sybil protested. "It's all drawn from imagination."
'But you use their faces, Matthew and Branson," Mary said, quietly. "How do you think they would feel if they knew?"
Sybil stared at her sister in alarm. "You're not… you're not going to tell them, are you?"
"No, of course, I'm not. But what if someone else had found these sketches? It could destroy Matthew's reputation if people thought he'd posed like this for you. And Branson could lose his livelihood. If Mama or Papa knew about these sketches…" Mary trailed off, letting Sybil's imagination fill in the blanks.
Sybil sighed, her shoulders slumping. "Yes, you're right, of course, you're right."
"You should burn them," Mary said, sorrow settling over her at the thought of Sybil burning the exquisite drawing of Matthew in front of her.
"Burn them?" Sybil repeated, her eyes wide, looking at Mary in horror. "But… but…"
"Or if you don't want to destroy them, at least hide them where no-one else can find them," Mary advised, softening her stance purely because the beauty of the picture of Matthew was currently burning itself onto her retinas.
Sybil nodded, pulling the sketchbook towards her. She gently ripped the picture of Matthew free of the pad and then proceeded to do the same with the many sketches of a naked Branson. She gathered them together in a pile, and then looked up at Mary.
"That's good advice. I will," she said, her cheeks still carrying a glow. "You promise you won't tell anyone?"
"I promise," Mary replied. "As long as you promise me something in return."
"What?" Sybil asked, warily.
"Promise me you won't let this 'friendship' with Branson go any further. You can't go giving him ideas. It's not fair," Mary said sternly, her eyes fixed on her sister, watching the tell-tale signs of Sybil's obstinate streak begin to appear; her jaw clenching, her chin jutting out, her eyes narrowing.
"I mean it, Sybil. Nothing can ever come of it, you know that. Don't raise his hopes when you know it's impossible."
Sybil pressed her lips together as if holding back a flood of words and then forced herself to relax, easing the tense line of her shoulders.
"There's nothing untoward going on between me and Branson," she said, her voice light. "My focus is on nursing and looking after my patients. I don't have time for anything else. Certainly not a socially unacceptable romance."
Mary gazed at her, her eyes narrowed in suspicion.
"There's no need to look at me like that Mary. I know I draw him a lot, and I draw him in ways that I shouldn't, but there's no harm in that. It's just a way of relaxing after a busy, often stressful day. And Branson knows nothing about my sketches. Well, not the naked ones, anyway," Sybil said, the picture of calm and innocence.
Mary regarded her thoughtfully and nodded. After all, as far as she knew, this obvious infatuation of Sybil's could indeed be completely one-sided. She had never seen Branson appear over familiar with Sybil.
She picked up the sketch pad and flipped through it until she found the portrait of Branson. "Has he seen this picture?"
"Um, yes. He did pose for that one, so I showed it to him when I'd finished," Sybil said, feeling a little wary about where Mary was going with this. Even she could see Tom's true feelings for her all over his face in that sketch.
"Hmm. Maybe you should give that to him, then. It's a very good likeness. He might like to send it home to his family," Mary said, glancing at Sybil, who stared at her in surprise at this benevolent suggestion.
"Er, yes, I suppose he might," she said, disconcerted by that.
"Right, well, I had better go and get ready for dinner. Carson will be ringing the gong soon," Mary said, rising to her feet.
"Mary," Sybil said as her sister began to walk away.
Mary looked back at her.
Sybil leafed through the pile of sketches and held out the one of Matthew to her sister. "I think you should have this one."
Mary stared at the picture and then at Sybil. "Me?"
"Yes. You still love him, don't you?"
"I… I…"
"And even if you didn't, you will probably appreciate this sketch more than I will," Sybil continued, a small, sly smile tweaking the edges of her lips.
Mary stared at Sybil for a few seconds longer and then she hurried forward and took the sketch from her, rolling the paper and slipping it up her sleeve.
"This will be our secret," she said, pointing at the remaining loose sketches, now solely of Branson in all his glory. "Make sure you hide them well."
Sybil nodded. "You too."
Mary bit her lip and then nodded back. "I will see you at dinner."
She turned and left the room. Sybil watched her go and then picked up the uppermost picture of Tom, the one of him naked on the bench.
"As if I could ever burn you," she whispered to the image. "You're too glorious to burn."