Thanks for all the reviews again :D Keep them coming! You will have to forgive my appalling French in this chapter :S Matthew is 12, Mary is 11
The two eldest Crawley girls sat in the schoolroom as their French mistress chalked up some new words and phrases on the ancient blackboard. They sat at two wooden desks, scratched and worn by generations of Crawley children (Mary particularly liked where her father, as a small boy, had carved a little dog into one of the desk legs with a compass needle). The desks were placed far enough away from one another to prevent any talking or fighting. Cora had decided to separate them in the schoolroom after one particularly vexing day a few weeks before; whilst Edith had been bent over her work, Mary had carefully, ever so gently, picked up the end of Edith's braid and placed it into the inkwell. The resulting mess had been on a catastrophic scale. Neither Edith nor the governess had noticed Mary's trick until the end of the lesson, by which time the black ink had soaked irrevocably up into a good three inches of Edith's light golden hair. Edith had screamed at the top of her lungs, the shrill shriek piercing through the whole house. Inconsolable, she had run around the schoolroom and out into the corridor, trailing great lines and droplets of the dark ink behind her into carpets and curtains as her braid flailed wildly about her head. Once she had finally been calmed a little, Cora had had to have O'Brien cut Edith's ink stained hair into a less-than-flattering bob, Edith sobbing as chunks of light hair floated gently to the floor. Mary had been sent to her room for the rest of the day in disgrace.
Mary looked down at the schoolroom floor and grinned as she saw the faint ink stains in the carpet, reminding her of that day. It had been worth it, she thought, glancing over at Edith's terrible haircut. Just then, Edith caught her eye and Mary took delight in smirking at her, twirling strands of her waist length dark hair in Edith's direction. Edith's face turned pink with anger and was just about to open her mouth to say something, when the French mistress turned around from the blackboard to face them. The two girls swiftly turned away from one another, sitting bolt upright to face the suspicious mistress. A short, thin, greying French woman peered at them through her spectacles. Their innocent faces were much too innocent to be believed, but she was certainly not going to question it. She simply didn't have the energy.
"Right, girls. Today we are going to be continuing with our French conversational skills. We are going to act out a scenario; Lady Mary will be herself and Lady Edith, I want you to act the part of a gentleman asking her to dance. Try to remember the pronunciations we worked on last week, please."
"Oh! Why do I always have to be the gentleman?" moaned Edith.
"Because no one is ever going to ask you to dance!" snapped Mary. "Not with that haircut anyway..."
"OH! You are the worst..."
The mistress waved her hands frantically, cutting short Edith's outburst. She had had quite enough of this already.
"Enough, girls! Lady Edith, begin," she ordered.
"Oui, Mademoiselle Girard..."
Edith sulkily turned to face Mary and reluctantly began the exercise. "Comment t'appel tu?"
"Je m'appel Lady Mary, monsieur."
"Etes-vous bien?"
"Merci monsieur, je suis bien."
"Voulez-vous danser avec moi, Lady Mary?"
"J'ai promis quela danse àLord Grosvenor."
"Où est-il?"
"A la table à manger, je crois."
"Alors vous devriez danser avec moi!"
"Excellent, girls!" cried Mademoiselle Girard. "Now, what could we say to rid ourselves of an unwelcome persistent suitor?"
"Tu me rends maladed'ennui?" suggested Mary, her dark brown eyes dancing wickedly.
"Certainly not! Méchante fille!" exclaimed their mistress, a look of shock and horror in her eyes as she stared at Mary.
"How about, ma mèreme cherche.Excusez-moi," suggested Edith in a superior tone that aggravated Mary to the limits of her control.
"Oui, Edith. Much more suitable. Lady Mary, I have no desire to report you to your mother again, but I'm afraid you must learn what is appropriate in the schoolroom. Come along."
Mademoiselle Girard opened the schoolroom door, standing beside it and gesturing to Mary to come with her. Mary followed behind the Frenchwoman as she searched the house for her Mama, eventually finding her lounging in the library, some neglected embroidery in her hand.
"Lady Grantham?"
Cora looked up, saw the mistress and almost groaned aloud. What had Mary done now? They made such a comical picture, though; the short, irate woman with her tall, stubborn daughter standing behind her, looking over her mistress' head.
"What is it now, Mademoiselle Girard?"
"I simply cannot teach Lady Mary today, your ladyship. She refuses to make appropriate responses in her oral French. Her French is truly excellent for someone so young, she is very gifted..."
At this, Mary looked at her in surprise. She hadn't expected that!
"...but she is so stubborn. She is wasting her gift for French on silly jokes and quips. Her sister is not nearly so accomplished (here Mary snorted but was quickly silenced with one look from her Mama), but one can always rely on her to try and say the right thing."
The boring thing, thought Mary, as her mother's despairing gaze fell on her once more.
"Mary, go to your room, please," said her mother. Mary, glad to escape another scolding, swiftly and quietly removed herself from the room.
XxX
"Ugh! It's such a waste of time! We don't learn anything useful or interesting! It's all vous avez de belles fleurs andje vaisdanser avec vous and we just repeat them over and over and over," raged Mary to Matthew that sunny afternoon in July. Matthew had just broken up from school for the summer and was in a very contented mood that day. He couldn't help chuckling at her; she just looked so funny when she was angry!
"Can't you make it more interesting?" suggested Matthew, trying to be helpful.
"How? Whenever I come up with a response that isn't as dull as paint, Mademoiselle Girard just glares at me and Edith just sits there smiling when I get told off! It's insufferable!"
"Well, at school, our classics master gets us to learn things by reading stories in Latin or Greek and that way, you learn it without even realising! You could do that, I suppose," mused Matthew.
"I wish I could learn Greek and Latin," sighed Mary. "But all we get to do is French and sewing and dancing. Oh, and how to curtsey," she grinned wryly, jokingly sweeping him a deep curtsey.
Matthew laughed as she bobbed back up again. He plastered on a pompous face, sticking his nose in the air and bowed to her. "I'm so terribly important, you know, très important," he teased her in a mock aristocratic voice.
"Oh, stand up Matthew! You look so foolish," said Mary, trying to keep a straight face. He straightened up again. As he rose, Mary suddenly noticed that Matthew was a little taller than her. Oh. When had that happened? She had always been the taller of the two and had always been secretly rather pleased about it. It didn't really matter, she supposed. The pair sat down under their favourite tree, basking in the warm afternoon sunshine.
"Tell me about your Greek lessons."
Matthew paused to think for a moment. "Well, we learn about all the Greek myths and they have lots of gods and battles and strange creatures and things like that. I could teach you some of it."
Mary raised an eyebrow and stared at him in astonishment. He felt a little embarrassed all of a sudden about his impromptu offer.
"I mean...if you wanted to," stammered Matthew. "And you could teach yourself too. I bet your father has lots of books in his library that you could read."
"I know he has a lot of very old Greek books. He always helps Patrick with his Greek lessons when he comes to visit," sighed Mary. "But he wouldn't teach me. I asked him once, but he said I wouldn't understand it."
"Of course you would! You're so clever! For a girl, I mean..." Matthew teased, rewarded for his remark with a swift smack to the arm.
XxX
"Cora, have you seen my copy of the Odyssey?"
"No, darling. Why?"
"It's gone completely missing! There's no note of it in the library ledger and Carson says none of the servants have got it."
"Perhaps one of the girls took it out and forgot to write it down?"
"Of course not! What would one of the girls be doing with a great copy of the Odyssey like that! It's not even a translation, it's in the original Greek!"
"Hmmm. What a mystery, darling!"
XxX
Some weeks after Matthew's offer, the two children found themselves squirreled away in their favourite old hiding place, poring over Robert's copy of the Odyssey.
"So, I think this bit translates as 'fade away and die.'"
Mary pushed her dark hair back from her face, strands falling haphazardly from her braids where she had been clutching them in concentration for the whole afternoon.
"What about this next bit? I can't make it out at all!"
Her head moved from side to side, flitting between the great text on the floor in front of them and the Greek lexicon, trying to cram in as much as she possibly could.
"Umm... 'that I forbore, thus, to speak my love.'"
"That doesn't make any sense!" groaned a discouraged Mary.
"Of course it does! He's saying that he loves her, but he has to be careful. He doesn't want to make her angry."
Mary sat back with a frustrated sigh, leaning her back comfortably against a hay bale, exhausted from learning all afternoon.
"Oh. How do you know so much Greek, Matthew? Surely you can't have learned it all in school."
"Mmmm... mostly from school, but I like it. I always read it when I can and you get better as you go on. I need to learn it anyway for when I go to..." Matthew broke off momentarily. "And the stories are brilliant too!"
Matthew pulled out a small green leather-bound book from his jacket pocket and held it out shyly to Mary.
"I got you this. It's got all the good stories in it; Perseus and Medusa, Andromeda, Heracles...I thought you could read it when you get really good!"
Mary hesitated for a moment, trying to remember what she had been taught by her grandmother. She had never received a present from anyone except Mama, Papa or Granny. This was different. Words she had read came to mind: 'never should the lady accept expensive gifts at the hands of a gentleman...gifts of flowers, books, music and confectionary may be accepted.' But Matthew wasn't a gentleman, he was just...Matthew!
"Mary?"
Mary jolted back into the real world, realising that Matthew was still holding the book towards her.
"Thank you, Matthew. How kind."
She took the book from him, giving him a gracious smile.
"But I must go now. Goodbye."
Mary scrambled down the ladder and exited the stables with some speed. Matthew was left there, absolutely perplexed. Had he offended her in some way?
Mary ran to her room, the book tucked away under her arm. She closed the door and opened the book, flicking through the pages, in awe at the dense Greek text. She would never be able to read all of that, surely? An inscription on the flyleaf caught her eye.
J'espère que vous apprécierez ce plus que français!
Your friend,
M. Crawley
August 1902
Mary smiled to herself. She lifted up her mattress and pushed the book underneath, away from prying eyes.
XxX
So I hope you enjoyed that! The important bits of French are basically this: Mary's reply to what a suitable reply to an annoying suitor would be was "You make me sick with boredom." Edith's was "my mother's looking for me, excuse me." Matthew's inscription in the book says "I hope you like this more than French!" Please R&R for this chapter, I love to read the reviews! Next, chapter 7- Matthew is going off to boarding school... sad times.