A/N: The best version of the chapter title song is by The Belle Brigade. I acknowledge that the song is longer than the chapter but it cannot be helped. It is necessary to complete the set up for things that follow.

No Time to Think

Monday, April 14, 1913

Matthew spent the weekend with his friend Johnnie Walker contemplating the dilemma of the Lady, or the Tiger?

Flung into the arena by cruel Fate. Faced with two doors; behind one, a Lady; behind the other, a Tiger. Forced to choose one door, or the other.

Choose the door with the Lady and live happily ever after. The baby is a beautiful little girl who looks just like her mother. Mary is a loving wife. They have a string of blond blue eyed sons. The House of Grantham flourishes.

Choose the door with the Tiger and die a lingering painful death. The baby is a mean little boy who takes after his father. His real father. He is an only child who hates Matthew, his putative father. Mary is cold and distant, taunting Matthew with lover after lover. The House of Grantham falls.

Matthew hates the whole House of Grantham, from Robert, Cora and Violet on down to Mary. Especially Mary. He hates them all. He hates them for making him choose.

The crowd screams: Choose! Choose!.

Fate's capricious daughter, Lady Luck, knows what stands behind each door. She gestures towards the rightmost door.

Matthew starts towards that door but then remembers there is a third option. To cheat. To not choose. To run. He stoops and grabs a handful of sand from the floor of the arena and flings it in the eyes of the guards. And then he runs and runs away and away and ...

Matthew stared at the cracked plaster of the ceiling of his railway hotel room. He had vows to make.

First of all this was the last time he was getting drunk. Consecutive weekends were too much. From now on he would run from his problems, not try to drown them.

And secondly he would honour his marriage vows the best he could. But in absentia. He was not going back to Downton.

He got up. His head was splitting. He dug a headache powder out of his shaving kit. It was time to face reality once again.

After a breakfast of strong black tea and dry toast, he could not stomach anything else, he went to see his banker. Who was very happy to see him, happier than any banker had ever been to see him in the past. The banker was somewhat less happy with the way Matthew instructed him to invest the marriage settlement, in fact he tried rather hard to dissuade Matthew, but when it was pointed out that were other, more accommodating, bankers in the vicinity, he gave in with good grace on the principle that the customer is always right.

After slightly more food at lunch then he had had for breakfast Matthew pondered his next step. How far was he prepared to run? He had no idea how to go about joining the French Foreign Legion. It was probably not as simple as showing up at the French embassy in London and enlisting. On his way to the Public Library to do some research he walked past a British Army recruiting office; stopped and went back. He looked at the poster and considered his options. Was it not better to endure the brutal deprivation of a private soldier's life in a language he understood? He did not enter the recruiting office right then, there were certain matters to be dealt with.

-0-

"Discovered to be the missing heir to an Earldom and a great fortune, married to the oldest daughter and then immediately banished" Bert Hastings, Matthew's best friend and fellow solicitor, shook his head at Matthew "all in under a year. The Brothers Grimm are going to have to rewrite their fairy tales, you've turned them all on their heads." Matthew had not told Bert the details and Bert knew his friend well enough not to pry.

Matthew shrugged. "So will you do it?"

"Yes, I will have your will ready for you to sign tomorrow, shall we say at eleven? Then I will take you out to lunch. And I will serve as your mail drop. Are you sure you don't want your mother" and here Bert paused and gave Matthew a significant look "or your wife to know where you are?"

"Quite sure"

"Then you better give me a pound as a retainer so I can plead confidentiality if either of them demand to know your whereabouts."

Matthew smiled his thanks as he took out a pound note and gave it to Bert.

After leaving Bert's office, having refused an invitation to dinner, he knew Bert's wife would not be shy about asking the questions that Bert had been too discrete to ask, Matthew went to a second hand clothing store and bought the worn out suit and shoes of a clerk.

Tuesday, April 15, 1913

After breakfast Matthew checked out of his hotel, went to the post office, mailed his will and the investment documents to his mother by first class mail, telling her how to write to him care of Bert, and sent his suitcase to her by parcel post.

Then he went to Bert's office and signed his will leaving all his worldly possessions to his mother, his wife having sufficient assets of her own to meet her needs. Bert then took him to lunch. Although Bert looked askance at Matthew's shabby clerk's suit he said nothing.

After a sumptuous lunch, probably the best meal he would have for the foreseeable future, Matthew bid farewell to Bert, walked to the recruiting office and took the King's shilling.

A/N: 'The Lady, or the Tiger?' is a famous short storey by Frank R. Stockton which would have been well known to Matthew. It is well worth reading. If you were the king's daughter which door would you have directed your lover to: that of the Lady, or the Tiger?