1920

It was strange, how much could change in a year, and even with how much could change, how much did change.

Mairead smiled as she straightened up the nursery, where her cousin lay sleeping like the Christ Child had on this very night, many thousands of years ago, on a night just as peaceful as this one.

A year ago, Mairead wouldn't even think that one night—nearly every night really—she would pass through her cousin's nursery and be able to see her—barely two months old now—sound asleep in her crib.

Outside, the snow fell gently, more like dust disturbed than the torrents that sometimes plagued winters in the Wicklow Mountains. Sometimes the wind would whine as it met the ancient walls of the Abbey, but never loud enough to wake Mairead's sleeping cousin.

A year ago, Mairead never thought that she would be taking the role of her cousin's mother, but who else was there to fill that role?

Tom was still grieving for his darling Sybil, though the Crawleys seemed to have moved on. It was the difference between the Irish and the English, perhaps, that the Irish let their grief run its course, while the English mourned for a prescribed amount of time and then moved on, and it would be the difference between Tom and the Crawleys.

Lady Mary, as Sybbie's godmother, should've been the next to fill the gap left by Sybil, but Mairead doubted the ability of Sybbie's eldest aunt (on the Crawley side, at least) to be a proper mother. Women of Lady Mary's position and wealth—Irish, English, American, Scottish, it didn't matter—gave their children to nursemaids and saw them for an hour every day until they were old enough to behave on their own.

That left Mairead.

When Mairead explained her situation in a delicately-worded letter to her sister-in-law Isibéal, Isibéal had responded by calling Mairead "The Virgin Mother."

At this memory, Mairead smiled again and surveyed the nursery.

The curtains were drawn and the fire was banked, but not put out—never put out. Her cousin, little Sybil Branson, lay asleep beneath carefully-arranged quilts, a smile on her little lips.

All was well.

"Nollaig Shona Duit," Mairead whispered as she bent to press a gentle kiss to her sleeping cousin's head. "Happy Christmas."