Insecurity: Chapter Two
Sorry this chapter took so long. The first three episodes of DA are definitely my least favorite, but I managed to plow through episode two. Not my best piece of work. It's just so hard not having Matthew and Mary on the same team. I'm still piecing together my ideas, but I delve a little more into their respective pasts in this chapter. Well, please enjoy.
"I wonder what Cousin Matthew thinks about women's suffrage."
Edith scoffed. "What makes you think he's interested at all?"
"He works with law. Why wouldn't he be interested?" Sybil put down the newspaper she had been reading. "Papa, when is he coming for dinner again?"
"I believe he will be joining us tonight," he answered, looking up just in time to catch Sybil's smile. "I'm glad at least one of you likes Matthew."
Mary considered sneaking her sausage under the table for Pharaoh, having lost her appetite. Instead, she opened the letter she had received not ten minutes ago.
"I don't mind him," Edith announced, spreading butter on her toast nonchalantly.
Mary scoffed. "You're just saying that to get on my nerves."
"And clearly I have," Edith said with a smirk, peeking at the letter Mary had thrown down. "And I wasn't lying. We could have a lot worse than Cousin Matthew." Their father murmured his agreement and Edith practically purred with satisfaction. "With a degree from Oxford, no one can deny he's clever."
Mary rolled her eyes. "Oh, I see. You like his brains. "
Edith slid a look at her. "I like that Downton will be in good hands. And I do like his head. If you ask me, he's not so very bad looking. Don't you agree, Sybil?"
"I do! He has the most fascinating eyes." Sybil was a little too excited, but when one was seventeen, one was too excited about every young man one meets. "But we mustn't judge based on looks."
"Or manners. He's a bit awkward. I thought I could hear crickets whenever he spoke."
"I think it's endearing. We are all too used to having company with perfect manners. It gets quite dull."
"The thing is, he insists on keeping that job. I don't know how he'll manage. Imagine what people will say."
"I think that's commendable. It—"
Mary thought her hears would burn off. "We all know what you think, Sybil," she groused. "Can we stop talking about him as if he were here to stay?" She was suddenly all too aware that everyone was staring at her, so she picked up her cup. "Mama and Granny will find a lawyer to help us. It's only a matter of time until this ridiculous situation was over." If only she was as confident as she sounded. Mary fingered her letter.
"Mary," Papa said gently, "the entail can't be broken." He sighed. "Remember when you begged me for a white horse, and I bought Diamond for you instead? You were so angry."
She ignored Edith and Sybil's giggles. They always did when someone brought up Mary's childhood tantrums. "I don't see how—"
"But you got on that horse anyway. Now you love him more than anything."
"That's entirely different! Diamond can hardly inherit Downton, can he? If only he were a horse. Then we could just give him a kick and he'd be off." The abrupt silence that choked the room pinched at her nerves.
Papa wiped his mouth and then stood. The sadness in his eyes made Mary's heart drop. "It wasn't an easy decision for me, Mary. Just…give him a chance," he pleaded, and left.
A few minutes later, she stood and strode out as well, unable to bear the gossip about the Duke of Crowborough that Edith was reading aloud.
Once in the solitude of her bedroom, Mary sat at her table. With steadying breaths, she smoothed out the letter and laid a blank piece of paper next to it. If Downton wasn't to be hers, if she wouldn't have money and Papa wouldn't help, then she would bloody well pave her own future.
Her pen hovered for moment before scratching out,
My Dear Mr. Napier…
His mother had made a habit of getting up to eat breakfast with him before he went to work. She had done so even before Reginald Crawley had died, and for that Matthew was truly grateful.
"Mother, will you be visiting the hospital?"
She pursed her lips. "I'm not sure. It's been so long…"
"It's been too long. Twenty years." Matthew muttered bitterly. "It was wrong of him to ask you to quit nursing."
"You know I don't like it when you speak of your father that way, Matthew."
"I know," he sighed. He never understood his mother's unfailing loyalty to a husband who had, no matter how you minced words, forced his wife to give up everything. "But you loved being a nurse. You lived for it."
"How do you know? You were only two when I left."
"You've certainly told me enough stories about the good old days. Even when I wanted to hear stories about knights and dragons, you told me about nursing. No wonder I ended up such a wuss."
Her laughter lit up the room and he savored it with a lopsided grin. "Oh Matthew…" she said, shaking her head at him in amusement.
"Come on, Mother." He reached across the table and clasped her hands. "Please. Live your life. I'd be so selfish if I kept you all to myself."
"Oh… Oh, all right. I'll go. Today. I hope I haven't forgotten anything."
Now it was his turn to laugh. "I doubt it, Mother. I seriously doubt it. And now I must be off."
She followed him out to the hall, where Moseley was waiting. "I hope the new firm won't be too much of a change."
Matthew reached around the butler-doubling-as-a-valet and donned his coat and hat. "If it is, I'm sure I'll get used to it. They've given me a better position than I hoped for."
He was almost out the door when she stopped him with a soft hand on his arm. "Matthew. I'm so proud of you. No matter what you do."
That earned a kiss on the cheek. "Have a great day, Mother. Try not to cause too much trouble at the hospital."
As Mary rode through the simple streets of Ripon, turning her black stallion at the right moments automatically, she conceded one thing. Papa was right. She loved Diamond, at times more than she loved people.
Mary would never forget the day Papa had surprised her with the horse. She had had a silly little dream back then. In her dream, she would whistle and a beautiful white horse would gallop up to her, mane and tail flowing brilliantly in the wind. He would put his soft nose in her hand and she would tell him all her secrets.
That day, she had seen Diamond's black coat, exactly the opposite of her dream, and hadn't even bothered with a second look. She ran. She was fifteen and too old to cry, but she still ran to Carson's office.
"My lady!" he had exclaimed when she burst in, setting down his pen. "What is the matter?"
"Papa, he… I wanted…" Her voice wavered.
Carson knew. He beckoned her to come around his desk. Proprieties and manners didn't matter. "I know, my lady, I know. You wanted a white horse."
"I've waited so long. You know how long."
He put a hand on her shoulder and looked straight into her eyes. "Lady Mary, if you don't mind my saying so, you're being very spoiled right now."
That caught her attention. "I am, aren't I?" She hated the idea of being whiney. It was such an Edith thing to do.
"Yes. And if you don't mind me—"
"You know I don't mind, Carson. Just say it."
"Remember when Lord Grantham went out of town a few days ago?"
She nodded, sniffling a bit.
"He wasn't attending a regimental dinner. He was finding this horse for you. Do you want to know what he said to me?"
She nodded again.
"He said to me, 'Carson, I've got to find Mary that horse. She's been pining away day and night and I just can't bear to see it anymore. But I asked around and none of the white ones are good enough. I want the best for her. It's not exactly birthing season, you know.'"
"He said that?"
"I heard it with my own ears. He asked me to keep it a secret so that it would be a surprise. He chose this horse for you personally." He peered at her from under bushy eyebrows.
"It was very selfish of me to run away, wasn't it?" And embarrassing.
"You won't always get your way in life. When that happens, you must accept whatever comes with grace. You're a lady, don't ever forget that. And do apologize to your papa."
"I always apologize." She smiled and hugged him. "Thank you, Carson."
After that, she had gone to the stable, where the black colt was munching on hay. She stood there for the longest time and just looked at him. He looked right back with big brown eyes. Then she reached out and he pushed his nose right into her hand, covering her with warm huffs of air and a little bit of saliva.
The crash and scrape of metal jarred Mary out of her memories. She scrambled to stop Diamond from rearing. "Easy, boy. Easy." She peeked around his big shoulders. A man was brushing himself off, his bicycle laid groaning on its side at his feet. "Oh my goodness! I'm terribly sorry. Are you all right?"
"Yes, I'm fine. I'm not so sure about my bicycle, however." He turned around to inspect the bike.
Her heart gave an odd leap of surprise, but her brain turned in annoyance. "Oh. It's you," she managed.
He glanced at her, blue eyes flashing like lightning. "Hello. I take it you would have rather seen me under the hooves of that thing."
"Diamond."
"What?"
"That thing's name is Diamond."
Cousin Matthew stooped to upright his bicycle. "And this is Bicycle, who appears to have survived our tumble." When he turned back to her, a quirky smile lifted one corner of his mouth. Those eyes washed over her unabashedly. After a pause, he offered his hand to her horse. "Pleased to meet you, Diamond."
Mary had to restrain herself from jerking the reins when her horse nuzzled the man. "I'm sorry. I wasn't paying attention to where I was going."
"No, no. I was going too fast and didn't stop before I turned the corner." A faint sheen of horse breath glistened on his leather gloves.
They stared at each other.
"I was on my way to the post," she finally explained.
"Ah. I would offer to take it the rest of the way, but Crawley House is the opposite way."
"I don't need your help." That had come out before she had time to think.
His gaze flickered away, but came back to meet hers evenly. "I never got that impression. Anyway, you'd better hurry if you want to make the post on time."
She'd forgotten about closing times. Stupid. "Why can't you people just stay open all the time?" Mary muttered. "If you're going to work, you might as well work."
"That's the thing with you people. You think the world revolves around you." Every line on his face hardened as what little mirth he had left was chased away by shadows. Like thunderclouds gathering. Easier to read than a children's book. She briefly wondered what it was like to be honest, to bare all your feelings to the world and have no cares what it thought.
"But you have no idea," continued Matthew. "You don't know what it's like to work for something. So hard that sometimes you feel like giving up. These people don't work for you; they do it for themselves. Because they'd be nothing without work, they'd mean nothing."
"You don't know what it's like to be me."
Matthew jabbed the air with a finger pointed at her. His hair flopped as he did, a strand falling over his forehead as if mocking her with a salute. "And you don't know what it's like to be me," he shot back.
Diamond was fidgeting. Mary wished she could do the same. "What's so hard about sitting behind a desk all day?"
"Even though I don't save lives, I feel I am helping others. It may be nothing to you, but I'm proud of where I am in life and what I do. Are you?"
Mary's throat was tight. She wished she could be anywhere but under the glare of his bright blue eyes. Why, why was she picking all the wrong fights today?
He watched his hands squeezing the black handles on his bicycle for a moment before turning back to her. "I hope the post is still open. See you tonight, Lady Mary."
He left before she could think of a reply, which was fine with her. She moved Diamond into a fast walk. How dare he wish her well, after that argument? Was the man mental? But as she closed in on the still open post office, it wasn't relief she felt.
Damn him. He took Downton away from her; he didn't have to take her confidence as well.
Just to clarify, the dinner they have "tonight" is the second dinner in episode two, where Mary makes fun of Matthew for not riding and hunting. And of course, Andromeda and the sea monster.
