Going over the profits from the dairy and jam businesses, Sybil found herself smiling in pleasure at her father's expression. "What do you think, Papa?"
Her father looked up from the balance sheet she had prepared for him. Matthew smiled and winked at her, a surprise, since the season he'd been rather brusque with her and she the same but she didn't mind. It was good to give Papa a nice surprise with the holidays just two months away. Robert set down the paperwork and then looked at them both. "I admit it, I am beyond pleased. This… business the two of you are running is making money hand over fist."
"It is," Matthew said it pleasantly, and with no trace of amusement. Sybil found herself nodding at him, pleased he had remembered her warning. Her father was a proud man and any inroads the business made by being successful would be washed away if Matthew even hinted at finding it funny to be right. He held out the paperwork for the offers they had received so that Robert could look them over. "These are orders from some of the finer hotels in London for our cheese and our jams. We're not quite being served at Buckingham Palace, but our cheese is being requested at restaurants and clubs that cater to the political crowd. We can accept these contracts without expanding but my recommendation is that we should expand."
"Slowly," Sybil added. It was so exciting to talk about. "Matthew thinks, and I agree, that we should expand the dairy business to two more farms. I have tenants interested already." And that was a pleasure to talk about as well, tenant farmers pressing for the opportunity to join the lord's business. "We want to move slowly there because we don't want to expand too quickly and change the character of the estate."
"We also don't want to glut the market," Matthew added. "I don't pretend to be a business mogul, Robert, but I have been paying attention to how other businesses handle things like our modest success. The jams and cheeses are popular in part because we can only make so much. Expanding the dairy allows us to fill these private contracts and still stock specialty stores so people can still try our products. With the jams, right now we don't need to expand the orchards, it would just be an issue of putting more of the harvest towards the jam business and less to the fruit markets." He set down the next proposal and Sybil found herself tensing. Matthew pushed it to Robert, smiling this time. "The only expansion we're considering for the jam side of the business is this. This piece of property is for sale. It's currently owned by the Wellingtons. They're selling off tenancies that haven't been profitable and this tenancy is right next to one of ours. One thing we were considering is expanding our berry production and this tenancy has the right land for strawberries and blueberries."
Robert smiled with real pleasure. "We'd be expanding the estate? Not many can say that these days. Of course I approve as long as Wellington gives us an honest price for it." He looked at them both. "I must say, when you approached me with this idea, I didn't think it would work but I am glad to be proven wrong. Even with the reinvestments that you're doing, we're still coming out well ahead instead of merely scraping by. You two make a good team."
Matthew blushed. So did Sybil but she suspected she covered it better as Matthew stammered, ducked his head, and grabbed his papers, muttering his thanks and sputtering how he had a case to work on. Her father eyed him and then her.
"I know," he said easily, "that I didn't just say something remarkably odd or offensive so what was that about? And don't think it hasn't escaped me that you two have been at odds for some reason. Ever since we came back from London. That's why I was glad to see both of you today, working together again. So what's going on between you two?"
"Nothing!" she sputtered, her face reddening again.
"Really?" Her father raised his eyebrow at her, making her blush more. "Your reaction tells me that's not true."
And lying to Papa had always been difficult but she suspected she was about to make him intensely uncomfortable. "Matthew… said something to me while we were dancing in London that he regrets because he thinks he was too forward." Matthew hadn't said that, he'd hardly spoken to her at all, but she remember what he had been like when Mary and he had bickered when they were courting. Matthew wore his heart on his sleeve, even Tom had seen it, and instead of being kind, she had taken his heart and his innocent remark and thrown it to the dirt because she'd been a silly girl instead of a woman.
"Matthew? Being forward? What did he say?" Robert sat down next to her and took her hand. "Perhaps you misunderstood him?" He smiled at her. "If you knew how many times I've misunderstood your mother… although I thought it was Edith who I thought inherited that tendency from me. What did he say?"
"You'll think I'm being silly," Sybil began. Still, it was oddly comforting to have a talk with her father about it. "We were dancing and talking about all the people that Mother and Cousin Isobel kept forcing us to meet and he said… that he wished his mother would introduce him to someone like me. And I got flustered and presumed too much and ran off like a silly girl and it's been awkward since." She hesitated. "I was the one who misunderstood, Papa. I thought he meant… I don't know what I thought…"
Robert patted her hand, his expression thoughtful. "Sybil… I'm really not a man who should advice in the ways of love. I married for money and by luck found the love of my life but by rights I should be a miserably unhappy man. And I can't pretend to understand the depth of your grief or Matthew's grief because it's a grief I've been lucky to never feel. So I can't speak from experience but… Why did you run off like a silly girl?"
"Because…" She took a deep breath. "Because I was thinking the same thing, Papa. Only I was thinking how I wished there weren't so many reasons against Matthew and I. And now I feel like I ruined even our friendship. I've hurt his feelings, and he obviously feels shamed and guilty that he said anything at all. He's not interested in me, not in that way." And if his shy, hesitant manner reminded her of when he had been pursuing Mary, that was just in her head.
Her father pondered her words. "What reasons do you have to be against it? It would create some talk but it isn't unheard of or forbidden." He gave her an amused look. "Are you worried that I wouldn't approve? Because I don't recall it bothering you all that much the last time. If fact I seem to recall one of my daughters telling me she'd be marrying her fellow whether I approved or not."
That got her to smile. "That wasn't the same, Papa. I know this will shock you, but I dreaded that moment and so did Tom." She sighed. "And it's not you and Mama I worry about upsetting, or Cousin Isobel. I know if this was real, if I wasn't imagining something that isn't there, that you'd approve. It's that… I'm older now and I realize that when Tom and I married, as delightful as it was, we caused you and Mama a great deal of grief as well. I don't want to do that again."
He gripped her hand reassuringly. "First, my dear Sybil, you have already proven to me that you know your mind and can make good decisions about your life. I regret being so obstinate about Tom, I mean that. I regret that I wasn't more supportive. Tom was a fine man and I wish he was here today. If you were to pursue Matthew or someone else, know that your mother and I will respect your choice because you've proven again and again that you have ample intelligence and good sense." He paused, clearly considering his thoughts. "As for whether it's real… I can't answer that, Sybil. What I can say is that I despaired about Matthew after Mary died. And then… the light came back into his eyes and I know that was because of you. And I think he knows that was because of you." He pulled her close. "I know you love him as a brother in law, as family. I know there's love there. Do you think you love him as someone that could be your husband?"
"I… don't know." She almost bit her tongue because it was a lie. More and more she had been indulging the fantasy, fighting it because it wasn't appropriate, because Mary's shade would rise up out of the grave and tear out her eyes for such a thought. "It's not that I'd be betraying Tom. We talked about it once," because she'd been a nurse and knew the risks of childbirth, and worried more that she'd be leaving him, "and we agreed that we didn't expect each other to live alone forever. It's that I'd be betraying Mary." She struggled not to cry.
Her father waited a long moment. "Mary was often cold, I don't deny that, Sybil, but Matthew warmed her heart. She would never have wanted him to be miserable and unhappy. And no matter how nasty she was to Edith and you as a child, she loved you both dearly. If you and Matthew had… caught fire before the war, and I won't deny that your mother and I often wondered if you weren't the better choice for Matthew, then Mary would have been hurt but she loved you both too much to deny that. If you don't believe me, then consider how she welcomed Lavinia and not once said an unkind thing about that poor dear girl. Don't believe your sister would have wished you ill, Sybil. Oh she would have been angry, I can't deny that but you know as well as I that when Mary loved, she loved deeply and she loved you both that deeply. Don't deny yourself happiness over how Mary might have reacted." He smiled slightly. "I like to think Heaven might have mellowed Mary a bit."
"I'm sure you're right, Papa." But internally she quailed. "Besides I might be wrong. I've made things awkward between us."
"Oh Sybil," her father sighed. "I think sometimes women forget that in many ways, men are very similar to women in their flaws. I think Matthew is the sort of man who was never terribly good at expressing himself to a woman. I won't lie to you, I was astonished that he asked Mary to marry him without making a mess of it. He's the sort that gets shy and awkward whenever he likes a woman. If you're going to pursue him, you need to remember that."
It amused and startled her at once. "Are you telling me to pursue Matthew, Papa?"
"I'm saying… that Matthew is likely feeling the same way you are feeling. That he is betraying two people he loved dearly." Robert smiled sadly. "He told me, the day he married Mary, that he was blessed in that he was finding the love of his life in Mary and that the brother he'd never known he wanted was going to be by his side to wed her. As much as I know Isobel loves him, I suspect sometimes that Matthew had a very lonely life in Manchester. Tom was his friend and your husband, and if the fear of betraying Mary worries you, it must worry him that he's risking offending Tom's spirit." He gave her a jollier smile. "That's about all the marital wisdom I have. Well, that and don't marry for money. I have utterly no regrets but I am perhaps the exception that proves the rule."
"Yes, Papa." It reassured her and worried her all the same. Matthew was a bit of a mess when it came to talking to women or expressing his feelings. Mary was partly to blame for their endless romance and often bitter misunderstandings, but Matthew carried some of the blame as well. He tended to shut down his feelings when he was upset, and avoid people he was upset with. That was partly why he had fallen so deeply into despair when Mary died, he withdrew because he was upset and sad and made no other fuss.
And I am part of the problem, she realized. Papa is right. Mary had a warm heart under her cold exterior and Sybil had never doubted even once that Mary loved her. And he was right that Mary would have been hurt, devastated even, if she and Matthew had done more that be friendly, but Mary would have choked it down and been happy for them. She remembered her words to Rose back in the early spring, that she had never looked hard at Matthew because he was in love with Mary, and she was in love with Tom so there had been no reason to torture Mary. She wasn't certain if Matthew was right, if she could really see herself being with him the way she had been with Tom, it was time for her to at least consider the possibility. And to make peace with it.
She excused herself and walked up the grand stairs. Then she slipped into Mary's old bedroom. It wasn't quite as shrine like as it had been. Matthew had taken her advice and donated a lot of Mary's clothes, leaving a few of her favorite dresses in the wardrobe. Her jewelry, her lovely hairbrushes and combs, had been carefully packed away. For George, Matthew had told her, so that he'll have something of hers, something he can show his own daughters when they ask about their grandmother. So there was a bareness to the room that hadn't been there before. Someone who hadn't known Mary would never have felt her presence in the room. Sybil could still feel her, but it wasn't like before, right after she had died, where even entering the room brought a rush of tears. Sometimes she thought Edith had the right if in leaving, getting away. For all they squabbled, Edith had been devastated when Mary died.
Sybil shook that thought off as she took a seat on the bed and let her hand rest on the silky bedding. It was easier, and harder than she expected. It wasn't so much that she didn't feel Mary in the room, it was that she didn't feel as though Mary was upset. Sometimes, especially soon after Mary had died, Sybil had needed to brace herself when entering, because the room felt so angry and sad, as though Mary was there and incensed that she was no longer alive to be the center of everyone's attention. Now though, it felt calmer.
She waited a long moment. "I'm sorry you're gone. I miss you. No matter what thoughts I'm having today, I'd give up any thought of that if it meant you could be here. I mean that, Mary, I do. But if you're here right now, then you're already rolling your eyes at me because you were always the practical one. There's no coming back and you'd tell me that if you could." She hesitated. "I don't know what's happening. I don't know what Matthew is feeling… He's much quieter about what he feels. It's so different than Tom." And his words to her at the dance rose up in her mind, that new love would be different and they had to be open to the idea that it wouldn't be the same. "I don't know what I'm feeling, if this is love or just friendship but… I want to find out what this is. Whatever it is, I want you to know that I want to be worthy of your love for me. I haven't forgotten who held me while I cried for Tom." She looked around the room, feeling suddenly if someone was watching her. "Please don't be angry, please be happy."
The sun suddenly came out from behind the clouds, shining into the room like a beacon. The light rested on the chair by the vanity where Mary had so often sat and brushed her hair, and then the clouds moved back and the bright light dimmed. Sybil wiped her eyes, feeling at peace with her decision. Whether it was love or friendship, she was no longer worried about how Mary would feel.