Garden Party, Downton Abbey, August 1914
The garden party of 1914 was in full swing of white summer clothes and champagne and Mary felt as she was surrounded by walking dead and wounded.
There was Billy Russell (the Somme) laughing with Tom Bellasis (also the Somme, but two months later). Billy Skelton was passing by with his sister (being conscientious objector did not save him from bombing of the medical convoy he was a part of as RAMC). Jack Weatherby was engaged in an animated discussion with Matthew (Jack was gassed by his own forces at Loos, Matthew survived without major injuries until Amiens), Cousin Freddie (lost a leg after Passchendaele) and Vivian McDonald (the Somme again). There was Sir Anthony with her sister (he lost the use of his arm at Cambrai). William approached him with the drinks (Amiens), while Thomas carried the cucumber sandwiches (sent home after injury at the Somme). Wherever she looked today she saw somebody who was destined to die horribly or to suffer from a life changing injury for the rest of their life. And they were completely unaware of it. She wanted to scream, but instead she took a fortifying sip of champagne, wishing it was something stronger, and waited for the announcement.
When it came, it shattered her.
They again were at war. This monstrous, abominable war was beginning once again, and threatening to devour all that Mary hold dear.
No amount of mental preparation could make her ready for sheer terror which seemed to possess every cell in her body.
Matthew! Oh dear God, Matthew!
She tried to console herself that he managed to survive this hell last time, not unscathed, but after lengthy recovery mostly all right, but it did nothing to lessen her terror. Things were different now and even without her meddling with timelines all he had to do to possibly die a horrible death was to step several inches to the right when previously he had stepped to the left. There were no guarantees in the meat grinder and she just could not, absolutely could not, deal with it. She had lost him once, she knew how it felt and her whole body flinched violently from facing that kind of pain again. She knew, with absolute conviction, that if it happened again she could not face living. She would not be his survivor anymore, once had been enough for all lives.
He found her soon, of course he did, and looked horrified at the sight of her trembling violently and gasping with sobs.
"Mary!"
She practically jumped into his arms, clutching at him for her very life and sanity.
"You cannot enlist. I couldn't, I absolutely couldn't bear it if you did," she sobbed.
"Mary..."
She interrupted him immediately.
"I cannot lose you. I just cannot lose you. I cannot go through this again."
"Again?" Mary froze, but Matthew's gaze softened with compassion and understanding. "The war announcement must have reminded you about Titanic and the loss of Patrick. Oh my poor darling."
He embraced her tighter. Mary's mind whirled. Ah, Patrick. The man she supposedly loved and mourned, her cover for actual mourning she had gone through for a different version of man standing in front of her. She was once again humbled by his compassion, by his full acceptance of her love and pain for the loss of another.
Oh God, she couldn't lose his man. Not again, not again, not again!
"You cannot enlist for this abominable war, you absolutely cannot!"
"Mary!" exclaimed Matthew forcefully, "I have no intention to enlist!"
Mary gaped at him.
"You do not?"
Matthew smiled.
"I would have told you at once, but you didn't give me a chance to finish a sentence. I am no soldier, I'm a lawyer and things are hardly dire enough for the army to have any need for me, with regular soldiers and all those lads who are volunteering because they, unlike me, actually want an adventure. Living with you is an adventure enough for me."
Matthew was still smiling and stroking her face lightly, but Mary felt a renewed wave of despair.
"Oh, but they will need you eventually. This damn war will last for years and by the end they will need practically everybody."
"Mary, there is no need to be so pessimistic. They are saying it will be over by Christmas."
Mary just shook her head and continued sobbing. Matthew has never seen her so distraught and was evidently at a loss how to console her.
"However the war may go, whoever of us might be right about its course, I am not enlisting right now. Let's try to worry about possible conscription when and if it comes, right now nobody but Churchill considers it seriously."
Mary looked at him wildly.
"Promise me!" she cried, "Promise me that you won't enlist! Ever! Promise me that you will find a way to never go to the front!"
"Mary..." Matthew frowned. He had no desire to volunteer for the army at this point, but a thought of such a promise sat wrongly with him. If Mary's dire predictions were right, if the war was really going to go badly for Britain, how could he sit in some safe spot and let others defend his family and country?
Mary saw his frown and understood instantly. At that moment there was nothing she hated more than an idea of honour.
"Promise me!"
How could he look at her stricken, terrified face and refuse her?
"I promise, Mary. I promise that I will do everything in my power not to leave you."
Mary collapsed into his arms, sobbing with relief that he agreed and continued terror that it won't be enough to keep him from ending up in the trenches anyway. But for now, he was here, he was not yet going and even knowing what hell was coming right this moment things were better than previously. He was not leaving her yet.
xxx
They rejoined the guest just as Billy Russell was announcing his plan to volunteer. Mary glared at him, squeezing Matthew's arm anxiously.
"It will be an adventure, I'm sure," said Billy cheerfully and Mary barely stopped herself from telling him that this adventure was going to end with him torn to shreds by German machine guns at the Somme in just two short years.
"This war is not right!" objected Billy Skelton, immediately gaining astonished stares of the party. "A war is never a good solution. We should not kill other human beings because we are in dispute over something. Do we really have to resort to pointless violence like that in the 20th century? Shouldn't we be more civilised than that?"
"Should we then allow Germans to terrorise Belgium and ignore its' neutrality?" asked Tom Bellasias incredulously. "Aren't we honour bound to come to their help, and the French?"
"We should use all Britain's might to insist on diplomatic solution to the conflict," insisted Skelton stubbornly. "Joining the fight is not going to accomplish anything other than cause more death."
"I do see your point, Mr Skelton," said Sir Anthony politely before some of the younger men could make the discussion much more heated. "A war is never a desired means to an end, if anything else can be used. However, we have tried diplomacy to avert this conflict and we failed miserably. No diplomacy can prevail in the name of determined aggressor and this is exactly the situation we are facing now. The Kaiser desires a war and he will have it, a cost to his population and ours be damned."
"Oh, enough with gloomy talk," said Billy Russell impatiently. "We should not scare the ladies. They do say the war will be over by Christmas anyway, so there is no need for such long faces. The Kaiser wants a war and we will give it to him. He will regret it soon enough when confronted with the strength of the British army."
Mary noted that some of the gathered man who she considered more informed on current affairs – Sir Anthony, Matthew, her father – looked uneasy at Billy's careless speech, but many of the other seemed wholly approving of it. She herself wanted to shout and shake them. They had no idea what was coming. No idea.
"It won't be finished by Christmas," Billy Skelton continued doggedly, voicing Mary's thoughts. "Our army is nearly non-existent after last few years of budget cuts. We need mass volunteers to build it back up and for them to be in any way efficient we first need to train them, cloth them and outfit them with guns – which we do not have either. It is optimistic to say that we will manage to do that before Christmas and that's before we even send them into battle. By then, Germans will overtake half of France. And all that for no rational reason at all!"
"You're raising valid points, Billy," interjected Robert, "But Billy Russell is right, it's not a topic suitable for the ladies. This is a garden party, however horribly interrupted. Let's go to the smoking room where we can discuss the developments with some cigars and brandy. I think it might be more civilised that way than yelling at each other here."
Billy Skelton looked as if he was going to object, but his sister grabbed his arm and made their excuses, dragging him back to their car. Some of the men accepted Lord Grantham's invitation and followed him back to the house, while others, most of them younger, turned to their chosen lady and led them away to discuss the news more privately or get back to the interrupted flirting.
Matthew looked torn between accompanying his father-in-law and remaining by his wife's side.
"Oh, go with them," Mary waved him off. "Just promise me you won't allow the hotheads to talk you into enlisting. I better check on Mama."
"There is no danger of that," assured her Matthew. "But I admit I would like to hear what some of them have to say. It is an awful news, even though an expected one."
"Just don't stay too long," said Mary tiredly. "I'm afraid I'm going to have a headache after all this crying."
Garages, Downton Abbey, August 1914
She managed to find Tom near the garages.
"Are we alone?" she asked carefully, although she hardly cared at this point.
Tom nodded quickly.
"All the others went to the servant hall to discuss the news," he looked around once more, just in case, then grasped Mary's cold hands in his own.
"How are you holding up?"
Mary gave him a van smile.
"As you can see, not very well. But," her eyes brightened briefly. "Matthew is not going yet! I made him promise not to volunteer."
"But that's wonderful!" exclaimed Tom in surprise. "To be honest, I have not expected that you would be able to talk him out of it."
He looked at Mary's face and asked in puzzlement.
"Why are you not happier about it?"
"Because," answered Mary in a barely controlled voice, "I do not believe he will keep this promise."
Tom frowned.
"It's Matthew," he pointed out. "If there ever was a man to keep his word, it is him."
Mary laughed mirthlessly.
"And if there ever was a man to believe in putting duty ahead of every other consideration, it is him even more. He will keep his word as long as he is not convinced that he cannot in good conscience do this anymore. Besides, even if I'm wrong, there will be conscription."
"Not for another year and a half," answered Tom firmly. "Mary, you cannot think like that. You will go mad. This whole bloody war is going to last years. Can't you just appreciate it for now that he is not going yet? That you changed it so far?"
"I'm trying to," answered Mary thickly. "But it's not just him... So many other men I know are going to die. I look at them talking and laughing and all the time I want to scream, but I can't."
Tom squeezed her hands.
"I know," he said roughly. "I looked at William passing by and felt like crying. But we cannot change it all, Mary, so we must find a way to deal with it. Focus on what we can help with and go on."
"It doesn't look like we can do much. I couldn't save Mama's baby. I obviously couldn't stop the war from happening and I doubt I will be able to save anyone from dying in it. What's the damn point of us going back in time, Tom, if we can't save anyone?"
His grip on her hands became painful.
"Don't speak like that! We will save people we were sent here to save: Matthew and Sybil. Matthew lived through the war once, you must believe he will do it again. And when he does, you will save him from dying in a stupid car crash. And we will save Sybil. This must be why we came here and we will do this."
Mary looked at him intently, her eyes huge and desperate.
"Do you promise, Tom? Do you really believe we will?"
"Yes," he answered decisively. "I won't allow myself to think otherwise. And I won't allow you either."
Master bedroom, Eryholme, August 1914
They came back late from Downton. Papa invited them to stay over, but thankfully Matthew declined and Mary felt extremely grateful to him. She wanted to be here, in their home, in their bedroom, to cuddle together and remember that everything was different now. The war came, but Matthew was not going to fight.
At least not yet.
She was not stupid and she knew her husband. As she told Tom, he might not jump at the opportunity to volunteer now, when he didn't have a broken heart propelling him to do so as fast as possible, but he was honourable to a fault. Would he still be content to remain home when the news of mounting, terrible losses were printed daily in his newspapers? When the word of one friend's death after another reached them?
And that was before they even got to the inevitable draft. Matthew was young and healthy, with OTC training from Radley. They would want him, very badly, especially when they managed to get so many other junior officers killed. The best she could hope for was spring 1916, when the married men stopped being exempt from the draft. Just in time to get Matthew into the middle of Battle of Somme.
Mary bit her lip to stop herself from crying.
Matthew must have noticed, because his arms tightened around her. He always noticed when she was in distress.
How could she survive sending him into the carnage and horror of the trenches again? This time knowing exactly what was coming?
How could she survive years of waiting and constant fear for him?
She did not know. She did not know.
So she just laid her head on Matthew's chest and listened to his heart beating.
For now, they were still together.
END OF PART ONE
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
I cannot believe I finished S1!
This story is very special to me. I discovered Downton Abbey in January 2022 (yes, I lived under a rock until then...) and spent time from January to March reading my way through wonderful fanfiction in this fandom. One of them was Authors of Our Own Fate by Mr Chaos, which inspired me to wonder how it would work if Mary went back in time. The rest, as they say, is history... I started writing this fic in March 2022, in English, which is not my first language, and only felt confident to start posting in September 2022, when I had about 80% of it written and believed finally that I really am able to both tell and finish this story.
Thank you so, so much to my wonderful readers, especially those who left reviews – you all don't know how much it motivated me to keep writing and many times simply improved my day. Sometimes your comments made me even adjust the story a bit by making me realise or rethink some part of the plot. You're all fantastic and the best reason ever to post fanfic! Special thanks to my reviewers: Mmfan1, autumnrose11, eyeon, Mona Ogg, Naniee, FigmentII, Depp, Eternally Romantic, maxberco, JustaGuest123, TorontoBatFan, ZoeyBridget, Tempe4Booth, Emilie, Chantal, Gemini-Victoria, , Lady Shagging Godiva, JCJ58, Stephanie, Fandomwizard26, cozyship, Jenwren, herladyfish, JM520 and all the guests posting without names! You made me smile whenever I got an e-mail notification.
This story will of course have a sequel covering the events of S2, titled Time Traveller's War. If you want to be notified when I start posting it (which should be soon, because I have first 3 chapters already written and just in need of editing), please follow me as an author or just check ff net sometime next weekend and follow the story itself. I hope this crazy story will manage to hold your interest a little bit longer :)
