Chapter 9

The two couples had gone in for lunch with Edith, Cora and Robert. "So, did you four settle your dispute?" Cora asked.

"Well, Sybil and I won, if that's what you want to know," Mary replied, rather smugly and smirking at her sister and partner in crime.

"Glad to hear it," Edith said, cheerier than normal.

"I agree, we have to speak our minds, no matter how quiet we are!" Cora agreed.

"I think you'll find, actually, Cora, that the women were the opposite of quiet!" Matthew brought to light.

"And they certainly know how to speak their minds!" Tom added.

"Oh, really, chaps," Robert started, in a joking way, "surely you could have tried a little harder to win the argument!"

"We did our best," Tom said in good spirits.

"But your daughters are a force to be reckoned with!" Matthew laughed. The women at the table exchanged glances and burst into laughter. They all happened to be in a good mood – better than normal.

"I wonder where we got that gene from?" Sybil said, sarcastically, looking accusingly at her mother. Cora didn't get cross though, as she was still laughing with the girls. The lot of them finished their lunch and all had things they had planned to spend their afternoon doing, but the afternoon resulted in a rather "family" afternoon, with them all sitting in the drawing room just having a lovely, memorable and really rather philosophical conversation.

"Mary has a point actually," Edith said to her family, "one hundred years ago, who would have thought that we'd have cars and electric lights? And in one hundred years time they'll probably think of the way we live as old-fashioned and utterly insensible."

"In what way? How do you mean?" Matthew asked.

"Well," Sybil answered, "nobody can foretell the future – we'll never know what life in one hundred years will be like, but the clothes will have changed, and the music, and the lifestyle, and hopefully there'll be more options for women in all aspects of their lives."

"Here, here!" Cora agreed. The Crawleys certainly were having a day filled of girl-power type conversation, and the ladies of the house did seem to be winning.

A good two or three hours into he conversation, Mary left the discussion to go to her room, and soon everyone was doing their own thing – but they had less time to do their activities than they had originally planned, as the afternoon had been taken by family time. Mary had just had a sudden thought that perhaps she'd left a few things out and that she had left her book somewhere other than at her bedside, but the book was still there and the only things not in place was her shoes that she had changed out of earlier that morning and a pair of earrings along with a necklace that she neglected to put away the night before. Matthew grabbed her waist from behind and Mary screamed and jumped out of the way. She turned, noticing it was him, and screamed, "Matthew!" she stopped to get her thoughts back together.

"Sorry... I didn't expect you to be that surprised, my dear," Matthew replied rather sheepishly.

"Well," Mary said, back with the world again, "I've had bigger surprises from you!"

Matthew touched her waist gently again and sat on the bed, carefully pulling her onto his lap, saying, "Come here," as he did so. Mary leaned down to level her lips with his and gave him a heart-felt, touching and extremely loving kiss. "I love you, Mary. You are my one true love," Matthew said, pausing now to kiss his wife again, "And I mean it!" he finished.

"I know you do, and I will always return that love. And I mean that!" Mary laughed her way into another kiss. "I do love you so much, Matthew." Mary got off her husband after another long kiss.

"Where are you going now?" Matthew wondered, wanting the moment to go on forever.

"I need to write a letter to a friend of mine. She wrote one asking if we could go and visit, so I need to tell her we can – assuming you're happy to go?" Mary asked, realising she should probably have asked Matthew when she got the letter in the first place.

"That depends – who is it?" Matthew asked.

"Oh, Sylvia Cotter?" Mary replied, implying the question, Do you remember her?

"Oh, yes, she seemed quite nice when last I saw her. Did she come to the wedding?" Matthew inquired.

"No – we invited her, but she couldn't make it and she's been constantly busy since the wedding, but we might finally get to see her this month though! That is – if we can find a date when we're both free," Mary said, excitedly.

"You mean when the three of us are free," Matthew corrected.

"Well, in that case, when the four of us are free – she's married too, you know?" Mary re-corrected, feeling smug that she could have the last say in an argument. Her goal in every argument was to have the last say.

"Oh, I give up!" Matthew said, lying back on the bed, "You're right – I should really think that before I speak to you, shouldn't I? It takes some doing to make you admit that you're not right," he commented.

"But I am right," Mary called back as she left the room, smiling over her victory. Matthew pushed himself back into a sitting position and smiled in a sort of way that said, I've been defeated by the woman I love, and all it's done is made me love her more...

The remainder of the day passed rather quickly, as the rest of the day had. Supper went quickly and was uneventful apart from the normal type of heated discussions that made the day a day with the Crawleys. After the meal went normally, but Sybil decided to leave early to get some rest as she was knackered with being a very hands-on mother. Later, Mary came up to bed, soon followed by Matthew, and it wasn't long before they were both asleep, huddled together to keep arm – it may have been summer, but it seemed a bitterly cold night to Mary, and Matthew was more than happy to keep her warm. In the middle of the night, though, Edith rushed into Mary and Matthew's bedroom and shook the pair of them awake, telling them that there was a fire and that they had to get up and out of the house. As much as Mary and Edith were rarely on good terms, Mary knew that Edith had to be telling the truth. Mary and Matthew got up, slipped on slippers and hurried out of the room, getting their dressing gowns on as they moved. Tom was just walking past their door as they emerged, sleepily, but alarmed. He was carefully and lovingly holding his daughter, getting her away from the fire. The family were frantic, but Mary had a clear enough mind to think of the family's servants. She ran to the servants' bedrooms in the attic and really couldn't care that she'd come up on the men's side. She opened the bedroom door of the first room and found it was Carson's. She shook him awake and told him that everyone had to get up due to a fire. She walked out of his room and it struck her mind that there wasn't a key on the men's side. She simply shouted, "Fire!" hoping one of the servant's on the other side of the door would hear and have the sense to help and open the door. Soon Edith was up with Mary helping to wake up the men. Mrs. Hughes then came through the door – much to Mary's relief. As much as Mrs. Hughes was confused, she soon figured out that there was a fire and that she had to get her colleagues up and out of their house. Mary continued waking up the men, as her sister went through to help Mrs. Hughes. After a few of them were up and more aware of what was happening, Mary indicated for them to go down the stairs, saying to them, "Go out the front door – the family's there too, just let them direct you." Her workers obeyed her orders and bolted down the stairs, worried, and wondering what had happened. When the ladies of the house had got everyone out of the house they followed up at the rear, hoping everything was going to be okay. They sprinted out of the house, as fast as their sleepwear would let them and joined the mob of people. The sisters looked at each other and the pair of them burst into tears and hugged like never before. Matthew was keeping servants calm with Tom; Robert and Cora were trying to decipher how it happened and Sybil was crying quietly to herself whilst trying to get comfort from her daughter, who was laughing, which was making Sybil cry even more, but at the same time laugh for love for her daughter and husband. Mary and Edith spotted their emotional sister and immediately hurried to comfort her. Edith went to fetch Tom when Sybil asked after him, and Edith took his place in comforting the servants. As soon as Tom arrived Mary left her sister with her husband and followed in the footsteps of her sister, tending to her father's employees. She went first to Anna – she and Carson were at the top of Mary's list, but she seemed fine. She had been shaken at first, but she was doing the comforting of others now instead of needing someone else to comfort her, and it was obvious that Carson was fine – he was seeing to a couple of the hall boys who were very shaken by the event. Mary continued checking that everyone was okay and had what they needed in terms of comfort, and then, along with the rest of her family, ushered everyone to one of the spare cottages on the estate. The fire had been put out, but they all decided to go with the saying, Better safe than sorry.

The small cottage wasn't exactly 'roomy', but everyone found a way to squish their way in. Once everyone was in and everything was put under the small amount of control it could possibly be put under, Mary pulled Matthew out into the night air. "I thought you were cold?" Matthew wondered aloud, wondering why she had brought him out if she had wanted him to keep her warm in the night when they had covers to keep them warm too.

"I was, but a fire in the house has sort of got me going," Mary replied, and then burst into tears and leaned into her husband's chest.

"Oh, my darling?" Matthew said, lovingly. "What's wrong, my lovely?"

But Mary couldn't answer for a while, but when she eventually could, she said, "You and I haven't had enough time of... just us. I feel like I don't see you enough," Mary began to cry again.

Matthew wrapped an arm around her to shield her from the wind and said, "Look, why don't we – tomorrow – just spend the day with you and I; only you and I and perhaps we can even get away from the house," and then Matthew had an inspired idea, "Why don't I drive us down to London for the day? We could leave early and get back late so that we really do have the day entirely to ourselves. Come on, darling..." Matthew said, leading her for a bit of a walk. She had stopped crying quite so much now, but she was still obviously upset. But nevertheless, she knew that a walk with her husband would do her good. They walked hand in hand through some of the gardens near the cottage, despite the dark. Mary was so thankful that Matthew had been there, and she cherished the moment she had alone with him, until Edith came to find the two of them and caught them kissing passionately in a far corner of one of the gardens.

It's finally the school Christmas holidays! I would try to incorporate something Christmassy into this fan-fiction, but it's currently supposed to be at some point in the late summer I think, but maybe I'll do a Downton Abbey one-shot to be based on Christmas. Anyway, hopefully I'll be able to post a fair bit this month now up until January 8th (when we go back to school), but anyway, enjoy and please review if you have a spare minute. And by the way, I didn't know there was going to be a fire until I started writing the sentence starting, "In the middle of the night, though, Edith rushed into Mary and Matthew's bedroom..." If you have any ideas or anything you'd like me to try and incorporate just tell me through the comments and I'll do my best.