Preface

It was always a surprise, a rush, a thrill, even after countless years of marriage, and thousands of nights together in the same bed, when he would wake me in up in the middle of the night by the grip on his forceful yet loving hands, and the thrust of his hips. It was a dance, a ritual, a manifestation of our love in every sense. Beautiful, torrid, bitter-sweet, and passionate, without words, for that's how we were in those days and in some ways, those habits never left us. Sometimes his hands would travel up my nightgown and massage my breasts, sometimes he would lift my leg up and hold tightly onto my feet, and sometimes he would merely slide his hands into mine, as he thrusts deeply into me. I sang for him my siren song, moaning and breathing heavily as he enjoyed me, tortured me.

Usually, I was only half-awake, staring at the moonlight outside as it illuminated our midnight ritual, but I lived for those moments. I lived for our breathless and wordless intimacy. What pleasure, what indescribable pleasure. I always felt badly for those couples forced into marriages of convenience, and I pitied those of my parents generation, resorting to secret affairs to achieve a fraction of what I had with Matthew.

It always always slow at first, with a languid and deliberate motions, but eventually, inevitably, he would lean into me, press his chest to my back, wrap his arms around my breasts, plant his mouth into my shoulders, and furiously take me until I screamed. Truth be told, most of the time he was using me. He used my body to purge himself of all of the rage and fear and anguish that had so plagued him after the war. Even years afterwards, when things seemed to be better, as his scars faded, and his sunny demeanour in large part returned to him, there was always a part of him that never left that battlefield. So in the dead of night, when he had his night terrors, when the sound of machine guns rang in his ear, he would grab hold of me and fucked me until the war had been expelled from his veins. And I let him. Because I loved him. I loved him so much. His pain became my pleasure, his anguish became my duty. I was his wife and he was my husband, I would've died for him.

Afterwards, when his muscles relaxed and his trembling faded, he would always turn me around to face him. Sometimes, he would apologize profusely when he thought he was too rough, but he never was, but mostly he would kiss me tenderly, until eventually, in his loving embrace, I would fall back asleep again, almost as if the whole thing were a mere dream.

To some of you, this is passage holds no surprise whatsoever. For those of you who have read The Collected Letters, this is nothing more than a stroll down memory lane. But to me, reading the words of my grandmother, who told me to how to behave at the dinner table, who taught me in the importance of manners and propriety, who gave me a scolding about getting grass stains on my dress, this is quite shocking. In many ways, some of you knew my grandmother far better than I did. And while you knew her through the lens of my aunt's reconstruction of my grandmother and grandfather's youth, it is a narrative I dare not contradict.

This volume was born out of precarious circumstances. And while I was hesitant, even downright hostile at first, at the idea of publishing my grandmother's secret diary, I see now, that it is much more than just lurid curiosity that drives the demand for this book. Through countless fan letters, I have come to realize that you have all, in some way or another, fallen in love with my the story of my grandparents. Truth be told, so have I.

And while I can never completely rid myself of the comfortable fact that I will always see my grandmother, Mary, as the serious old woman, with shiny white hair and a formidable, if not entirely ferocious gaze, watchful as a hawk, even in her advanced years, I can recognize that she was far more than merely that. To my grandfather, to the world of her youth, and to the loyal readership of The Collected Letters. And as for my bias, that is my cross to bear alone, for my grandmother, deserves far more, and was far more, than I gave her credit for in my adolescent years.

So as a token of my appreciation, for all of the support and love, both for memory of my grandparents, and the exhaustive and comprehensive work of my aunt, I present to you, Lady in the Streets but a Freak in the Sheets: The Secret Diary of Lady Mary Crawley.

(I still hate that title)

Anastasia Crawley

North Castle, New York

April 6th, 1999