AUTHOR'S NOTE: I can't believe it's been over a month since the last update! I'm very sorry that it took me so long to come back to this story, but here finally is another chapter. I intended it to be a light one after the emotional upheaval of the last one, but well… This one came instead and earned its title, I'm afraid, so the best I can promise is that it is way less intense.
Dr Ryder's office, London, January 1916
"Everything seems to be in order, Lady Strallan," said the doctor, looking at Edith seriously. She clutched her handbag so hard her fingers hurt. "If I were to judge just on the basis of your examination, I would have predicted you should be with child without any delay. How long have you been married?"
"Two years in December," said Edith with bloodless lips.
"And you mentioned that your husband was married previously?"
"Yes. He is quite older than me. He and his first wife were married for twenty years."
"I see," Dr Ryder stapled his fingers. "And there were no children in your husband's first marriage?"
"No," whispered Edith.
"Any pregnancies that you know of? Even if it ended in early miscarriage?"
"There were never any pregnancies, as far as my husband knew. His wife never indicated that she was pregnant."
"And excuse me the intrusive question, but do you enjoy full relations with your husband?"
Edith blushed but forced herself to answer as matter-of-factly as possible.
"Yes. He has been travelling a lot since the war started, but he is quite attentive whenever he is home. And of course we have not been apart for most of the first year of our marriage."
"And does your husband enjoy those relations fully? Does he ejaculate?"
Edith was sure that her blush could light up the room but nodded.
"Do you know if he and his wife had a happy marriage in that aspect?"
Edith hesitated.
"I think so," she said slowly. "My husband seemed... quite knowledgeable about those things and I know he is not the kind of man to search for it outside of marriage. And he loved his wife very deeply."
The doctor sighed.
"Then I am afraid I do not have very good news for you, Lady Strallan," he said bluntly. Edith inhaled sharply, her fingers digging even deeper into her desperately clutched purse. "Considering the results of your examination and everything you told me about your husband and both of his marriages, it is quite probable that he is sterile. I would have to examine him – there has been great progress in diagnosing and treating male infertility and there are some problems which can be fixed – but I won't lie, there is still very little we know or can do to help in most of such cases."
Edith left the doctor's office in a complete daze.
Swire, Weatherby & Crawley, Darlington Branch, Darlington, January 1916
Gwen swallowed hard on her way to Mr Crawley's office where she had just been summoned. The clerk, Mr Harper, was summoned there first and came out with a deep scowl on his face, kicking petulantly at the carpet. Whatever it was Mr Crawley had to say, couldn't be good.
His serious face when she entered only confirmed it further.
"Sit down, Miss Dawson," he said, indicating a chair opposite his desk. Gwen perched on the very edge on it, her hand clutching each other nervously in her lap.
"Miss Dawson, I decided to volunteer for the Army. I'm leaving for officers' training next week."
Gwen swallowed again.
"And what about the firm?" she asked. What about me? Am I out of a job?
"I talked it over with my partner, Mr Swire, and we came to a sad conclusion that the Darlington Branch will have to be closed for now. My practice here has not had the time to grow big enough to require hiring more lawyers – not with me working in London half of the time – so with me gone there is unfortunately no way to keep it in operation. Mr Swire and his team will take over those clients who wish to continue with our firm, even though there won't be a local representative anymore."
"And what about me and Mr Harper?" Gwen found the courage to ask.
Mr Crawley looked at her earnestly.
"I am very sorry for the upheaval it brings to your life, Miss Dawson. I talked with Mr Swire and with some of my acquaintances here in the north, and I have two possibilities for you. Mr Swire said he could find a place for you on his staff if you were willing to move to London."
"London!" exclaimed Gwen, feeling her eyes widen. It sounded both exhilarating and terrifying. And she had thought moving to Darlington was daring!
"Yes, London," confirmed Mr Crawley with a smile. "But if you prefer to stay here, there is another possibility. Do you remember our client Mr Brombridge? I was helping him with an acquisition of one of his competitors last year, and then with the contract with the local government."
"The owner of the telephone company?"
"The very one. His secretary is leaving him next month to get married and he agreed to hire you based on my recommendation."
"Without an interview?" asked Gwen, astonished.
Mr Crawley smiled again.
"He remembered you from his visits to our office last year and how efficient and polite you were. With my reassurance that I was going to give you a glowing reference for your truly amazing work and your quickness at learning new things, he was convinced by the time we finished our talk."
"Thank you, sir," said Gwen, feeling a bit overwhelmed with it all, but also truly touched by his consideration. He was going to war and took care to find her not even one, but two offers of alternative employment to make sure she was not left out in the cold with the firm closing! "Can I think a little about it before I make the decision? It all quite got my head in a spin."
"Of course! As I said, I will have to go next week, but I expect you and Mr Harper will stay until the end of the month, packing everything up and shipping it to London. Take a few days and let me know what you've decided – and of course come to me if you have any questions."
"Thank you, sir," said Gwen again and then dared to say more. "You've been the best employer I've had. I hope you will be alright and that maybe I could come back and work for you again when this is all over."
Mr Crawley bowed his head.
"Thank you, Miss Dawson," he said thickly. "I hope so too."
xxx
Gwen left Mr Crawley's office and fell heavily into her chair.
"So, he told you too, didn't he?" grumbled Mr Harper from his own desk. "Bloody war!"
"He did," admitted Gwen, then asked hesitantly. "What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to the main office in London," said Mr Harper. "Nothing to keep me here, and a job is a job. They are short-staffed there as it is, with half the chaps at the office gone or soon to be gone. Not that it matters. The Army will get me sooner or later, no doubt about that."
"And you don't want to go?" asked Gwen curiously.
Mr Harper stared at her contemptuously.
"I've never pretended to be an honourable gentleman like our boss there," he scoffed, indicating Mr Crawley's door with his head. "I would prefer to go through life without being shot at or blown to pieces. But I am thirty, healthy and unmarried, and with no connections; they will come for me."
He laughed bitterly, shaking his head.
"My father was a soldier, you know. Fought the Boers twice. He liked to tell stories when he got drunk, and boy, did he get drunk often! Wanted me to be a good little soldier too when I grow up, and I told him there is no bloody way I'm ever going to. And here I am, going to a war soon anyway. I wonder, if I and the boss will come back, will we be drinking like dad did, to deal with the nightmares stuffing our heads? Because let me tell you, it did not look like a fun way to live."
Gwen looked at his eyes, defiant and terrified in equal measure, and then at Mr Crawley's door, and shuddered.
Nursery, Eryholme, January 1916
They were sitting with Irene in the nursery, Matthew in the rocking chair, getting her to sleep, and Mary on the window seat, looking at them with clenched heart.
"She will probably forget me", said Matthew mournfully, keeping his voice quiet as Irene's eyes slowly closed and her head snuggled against his chest.
Then you shouldn't abandon her, thought Mary viciously, feeling her heart break into million jagged pieces. Babies forget easily. If you want her to recognise and love you, you should stay with her and be her father.
She bit her tongue. She was supposed to make an effort. There was no point in fighting further, even if some big ugly part of her yearned to lash out and hurt him just as much as he hurt her.
"Come back and she will love you again in no time," she said instead. "You have always been her favourite. Unfortunately telling her about you is not going to have much effect now, but I promise I will do my best when she's older."
Matthew gave her a look.
"You really think this war will drag so long?" he asked and Mary thought she could detect some trepidation in his voice.
Good. Would have been more useful if he had listened to her before though.
"You know I do," she said only. "The sides are too evenly matched. It will take years to break the stalemate."
"I hope you're wrong," said Matthew, wrapping one of Irene's wispy blonde curls around his finger. "But I'm afraid you're not, as usual."
He looked up at her.
"Thank you, Mary. Thank you for giving me this week. I know you haven't forgiven me yet, not truly, so I appreciate it even more."
"Come back and I will forgive you," said Mary fiercely. "Eventually. But if you die, I will resent you for the whole eternity."
Matthew's lips twitched upward.
"Duly noted, darling. I promise to do my very best."
Master bedroom, Eryholme, January 1916
They made love that night, as they had last night too, the night they reconciled – desperately, passionately, both determined to forget that they were going to be parted for God knows how long, with no guarantee of ever seeing each other again, and both unsuccessful at forgetting it for even a moment. They were kissing and touching as if they wanted to map each other's body and commit every little detail and sensation to memory, to not lose even one second of their lovemaking to imperfect recollection.
Then, after resting for a while and getting their breaths back, they did it again, slower, more languidly, with more tenderness in every touch of caressing fingers, in every meeting of lips, in every exchanged look, but the desperation was still there as well underneath it. It was still there when Mary was lying in her customary place on Matthew's chest, listening to the familiar song of his heartbeat: alive, alive, alive. It was still there when Matthew's arms embraced her as tightly as he could make them. It was still there when they slept through the night, neither of them letting go of the other.
Library, Downton Abbey, January 1916
They planned farewell dinner with the family and an overnight stay at Downton Abbey in the middle of the week, since neither of them wanted it to be their last night together before being separated for three months. Branson drove them, Anna and Nanny Lewis travelling with them and Irene, while Molesley followed by train. Matthew joked that they were descending on Downton with the whole entourage in tow and Mary just gave him a dry look and answered that he had not seen the true entourage if a couple of necessary servants gave him an impression of one.
Matthew raised his eyes heavenward.
"Necessary," he said, shaking his head. "Right."
But he was looking at her with that fond amused look of his which made it plain that while he found her position ridiculous it was also somehow completely endearing to him and he wouldn't have changed her for the world. Every time he did it, Mary was feeling that warmth and assurance of being utterly accepted, just as she was – something she was not accustomed to get from anyone besides Matthew and Carson.
So here she was, in the drawing room at Downton, finding herself momentarily alone with Irene. Papa locked himself in the library with Matthew, stating important business – Mary tried not to feel bitter that of course it was not anything she needed to be included in – Mama was coordinating some details with Mrs Hughes, and Sybil was out at a committee meeting. To be honest, she did not even give a thought to Edith, even though she knew she was expected to come, until she raised her head from showing Irene the colourful vases on the mantel to see her sister standing in the doorway and staring at them.
"One usually greets people when entering an occupied room," she said, self-conscious at the thought of Edith listening to her nonsensical babbling to Irene. She was usually very careful that nobody but Matthew heard her like that and preferably not even him (although he made an even bigger fool of himself when trying to entertain their baby so he had no room to talk).
"You're always so lucky, aren't you?" noted Edith bitterly, looking at Irene with haunted eyes and completely ignoring Mary's words. "Whatever you do, you always fall right on your feet."
"And you, in your typical fashion, chose my husband's farewell dinner before he goes to the front to raise this point?" asked Mary with an eyeroll. "It might surprise you but I don't feel particularly lucky tonight of all nights."
"Oh, he will be alright!" said Edith dismissively, still in the same bitter voice. "Nothing is ever going to happen to him, not with your kind of luck. The universe would implode if something went so wrong in your charmed life."
It was a good thing that Irene squealed and squirmed in Mary's arms, requiring her attention and both hands to secure her grip on her daughter, because otherwise she might have done something regrettable, like slapping her sister – something she hadn't done since their nursery days and thought herself above now, dealing with her easily in scathing words instead. But to hear Edith mocking the probability of Matthew's death and unwittingly bringing back all of Mary's viciously but unsuccessfully repressed memories of losing him just when she was the happiest in her life… It made her see red, literally.
But Irene did squirm and tried to reach for Edith's shiny necklace and in that moment Mary saw a flash of pain on her sister's face – and for once, the instant understanding of its cause did calm her temper, despite the worst kind of provocation she had just received.
If anyone could understand the need to lash out at people due to the excruciating misery raging inside her own head, it was Mary.
"You've seen Doctor Ryder, haven't you?" she asked quietly, bouncing Irene to distract her from Edith's jewellery. "And he didn't have good news for you."
Edith closed her eyes for a moment.
"He said Anthony is most probably sterile," she whispered, defeated. "So I will never have children of my own. I will never be a mother."
Mary stared at her in shock, her arms instinctively tightening around Irene.
"Is he certain?" she asked. "Has he examined Anthony?"
Edith shook her head.
"I only went to see him last week," she admitted. "I was putting it off for months, hoping there won't be any need… I haven't seen Anthony yet since I learnt of it, he's been in France. Or maybe Belgium. Who cares where exactly, somewhere not here."
"So maybe there is some hope yet…" started Mary carefully, but Edith once again shook her head, more vehemently this time.
"Doctor Ryder said we might try to investigate it, but that treatment options for men are extremely limited at present. We probably will… If I ever get the courage to tell Anthony what he said."
"Why not tell him?" asked Mary matter-of-factly. "He can hardly not think of it anyway, with his history."
"Because he will blame himself and say he was wrong to marry me," answered Edith tiredly. "And I am not equipped to deal with that discussion right now."
"Ah," said Mary, barely restraining an eyeroll. Anthony Strallan and his damn self-esteem issues. "Of course."
As she was bouncing Irene a little more and automatically entertaining her by tapping her nose and finger-walking on her belly, she was wondering what was worse: being jilted at the altar, in full view of half of society, or this.
"Do you regret marrying him, in the circumstances?" she blurted out, unable to resist. "Would you prefer to take your chances and wait for somebody else instead?"
She remembered one of her most hated memories from the stash of six months full of them – Edith, all smiles and happy blushes, dancing up the stairs while holding a valentine and planning a meeting with her editor, definitely not to discuss her column. She didn't know of course how this story was going to end, last thing she remembered was Papa thawing to him after that house party, but would it be better for Edith to get years of loneliness and pining ended in humiliation and heartbreak with that hope of happiness at the horizon than to get her early wish for a marriage and end up heartbroken anyway, just in a different way and with no way out?
Edith stared at her with wide eyes.
"No!" she exclaimed ferociously. "How can you even ask that? Would you regret marrying Matthew in such circumstances?"
Mary bit her tongue very hard before she could answer that no, of course she wouldn't, but the difference is she married Matthew for love. Twice.
"No," she said gently. "But I wouldn't blame you if you did, even just a little."
"Well, I don't!" snapped Edith defensively, but then her face crumpled. "There's no guarantee in such things, is there? You are young and healthy and you needed an operation for it to happen. I just wish… I just wish so much…"
She burst out crying, unable to finish what she wished so much for, but Mary thought it was painfully obvious. She dearly wished they had this conversation without her baby's present to make it all more raw.
Then again, would they have this conversation at all without Irene present or would they have another vicious fight it had started as?
"I'm so sorry," said Mary honestly, moving Irene to her hip so she could use her free hand to put it on Edith's arm. "I'm more sorry than you realise."
Edith nodded, still too overwhelmed to speak, but her hand grasped Mary's and she clutched it desperately as she continued to cry.
Library, Downton Abbey, January 1916
"It's been confirmed," said Robert with barely restrained excitement in his voice. "I've been given a Colonelcy in the North Riding Volunteers. General Robertson confirmed that I am expected to oversee their training starting in February and deploy with them to the front in May."
"Congratulations," answered Matthew, his throat suddenly dry as he looked at Robert's elated face. "I know you wanted it very much."
"How could I not, with so many good men doing their duty while I was sitting here, perfectly useless? You at least worked on all those army contracts, helping to ensure our boys got outfitted in what they needed and all I did was cutting some ribbons and making pretty speeches. I'm going to send a case of some of my best wine to thank Richard for making it happen."
"Richard?" asked Matthew, raising his eyebrows in surprise. "What has he had to do with it?"
Robert huffed impatiently.
"I've been told repeatedly that I wouldn't get a post," he says, bristling at the perceived injustice of it. "That I'm fifty, and married, and running an estate, so I was unwanted there and needed here, all that nonsense. As if all my Army experience meant nothing! It's a different war, Grantham, you've been out for too long, let the younger chaps earn their spurs. But I grumbled a bit to Richard over port several times, and he has all those connections at the War Office, so he made it happen – I am going to the front!"
For all his deep conviction that he himself needed to go and do his duty, Matthew's thoughts towards Sir Richard Carlisle were hardly charitable at the moment.
"I guess he is not planning to volunteer himself?" he asked drily.
Robert waved a hand.
"Of course not. He is forty four with no previous military experience and, much as I hate his rags, he is doing an important job of keeping the public informed. But it might be good, under the circumstances."
Matthew frowned, puzzled.
"How so?"
Robert looked seriously at him.
"With both of us in the Army, and Anthony as good as, Richard will be the only man in the family left in England. I was thinking of putting him in charge of Downton and the family's finances in my absence."
"Him?!" exclaimed Matthew, unpleasantly surprised to say the least. "What does he know of running an estate?"
"Less than could be written on a post stamp," answered Robert easily. "But he clearly knows how to manage money. He's practically rolling in it. He can oversee things when we are gone and look out for Cora and the girls."
If there was a person Matthew would like less as protector of his wife and daughter, he could not think of any.
"You are of course entitled to put anybody you want in charge of Downton," he said carefully. "But as for me, I gave Mary full power of attorney for any matters involving both Eryholme estate and our money. She's been managing Eryholme for two years as it is, while I was busy with my firm, and she's done a tremendous job. I wish you would be willing to trust her more."
Unfortunately and predictably Robert looked like he was holding back what he truly thought of Matthew's folly due to sheer good breeding alone.
"Eryholme is a very small estate, in no way comparable to the scale of Downton," he pointed out. "And what does Mary know about finances or shares?"
More than you, thought Matthew immediately, but knew better than to say it out loud.
"Surprisingly much," he said instead. "I've been discussing all my investments with her since we've been married and her comments and proposals were always extremely insightful and wise. I have yet to make a bad decision based on her judgement. All the financial choices she proposed worked for us very well."
"I'm sure they did," said Robert dismissively. "But again, Cora's fortune is on a whole different scale. I need someone more qualified than my daughter to oversee it. I would advise you to rethink your decision too, but I know better than to quarrel with a besotted young husband."
Matthew sighed. He tried. He was not looking forward to informing Mary about this development though.
Mary and Matthew's bedroom, Downton Abbey, January 1916
He was right not to.
"He's going to do what?" exclaimed Mary, her face tight with sudden fury as she paced the room.
Matthew shrugged, fully comprehending and sharing her emotions, if not their strength.
"I tried to talk him out of it," he said with resignation. "But he won't listen to reason. Richard is the only man in the family left, he's good with money and he earned Robert's eternal gratitude by getting him back into the Army proper."
Mary blanched at the reminder.
"What if something happens to Papa?" she whispered with bloodless lips. "He's too old to fight!"
Matthew pulled her immediately into an embrace.
"He's a colonel," he said comfortingly. "He won't be leading charges himself. He's more likely to be behind the lines most of the time, at a command post of some kind."
That unfortunately turned out not to be as comforting as he intended.
"But you will be leading them," she said, looking at him in renewed horror. "You're only a 2nd Lieutenant. You will be expected to run in the first line."
Matthew swallowed thickly, trying to push out the images she brought up out of his mind. The truth was that he was terrified of that prospect. He remained convinced that he had made the only right choice he could have made, but it did not mean he felt ready or suited for any of what was likely awaiting him in the very near future.
"I will just have to hope that my luck won't abandon me," he said. "Because I cannot think of a more lucky chap than me, not after gaining you as my wife."
Drawing room, Downton Abbey, January 1916
Dinner that night was uneventful and mostly subdued, with Robert the only one of them in a truly good mood. For herself, Mary found it hard not to scratch his eyes out and was supremely glad they were sitting too far apart for direct conversation. She was not sure if she was more furious with him for gleefully putting himself at such unnecessary risk or for planning to saddle her with Richard of all people.
She pounced on Granny as soon as the women went to the drawing room. If anybody could help her make Papa see some sense, it was his mother.
"Granny," said Mary with determination. "I won't be working directly with this man. I can't."
Violet looked at her sharply.
"Has he tried anything with you since getting involved with Rosamund?"
Mary shuddered, but shook her head.
"In all fairness, no, he hasn't," she admitted honestly. "But…"
She stopped, finding to her extreme frustration that she had no words to put her vague feelings and impressions in.
"But you don't trust him," finished Violet for her, observing her closely. "And you're afraid of him."
"Not afraid!" protested Mary immediately. She hadn't been afraid of him when she had been in his actual power, not truly, and she definitely was not afraid of him now! She dismissed the thought that maybe she should have been afraid of him then; that maybe she had always underestimated him, had been wilfully blind to the depth of his capability for malice and violence.
"But wary, at least," stated Violet levelly.
"Yes," acquiesced Mary reluctantly. "I can't help but be suspicious of his motives for all that help he's been giving or offering Papa. It's like he is trying to snake his way into every aspect of our family, to put himself in a position of power over us…"
"Over you, you mean."
Mary threw her hands.
"Oh, I know it all sounds awfully melodramatic and silly! But I don't want him in charge of Downton when neither Papa nor Matthew are here to counter him. Anyone but him!"
Violet pursed her lips and nodded.
"We won't allow that to happen," she said decisively.
Nursery, Eryholme, January 1916
Matthew laughed, looking at his daughter cheekily running away from him on all fours in only a nappy before he could get her dressed in the outfit chosen by Mary.
"It's probably more comfortable that way," he commented gravely after catching up to her with two long steps and picking her up despite her indignant protest, silenced with a quick raspberry he blew on her belly. "But it is January. Not to mention getting about in your underwear is frowned upon among civilised people."
Irene released a long string of babbled syllables clearly conveying that she did not see any reason to put herself among civilised people if it required getting dressed.
"I see," answered Matthew. "But I'm afraid you are the future Lady Irene Crawley and you might just as well get used to it."
It struck him suddenly that she might not be. If he died before becoming an earl, Irene would never be a lady. The title would go to some even more obscure cousin or go extinct, and she would always remain plain Miss Irene Crawley, daughter of a solicitor she couldn't remember. He had to blink against the pricking of tears at that thought. Not that he cared whether his daughter would or would not have a title – he hardly wanted one for himself – but it all of a sudden seemed like a symbolism of everything else this charming little girl would lose if he did not come back.
"I love you so terribly much, little princess," he whispered thickly, tickling her kicking feet so she didn't notice his mood and got alarmed. "And you will always be a princess, whether you get a chance to call yourself Lady Irene or not."
Darlington Train Station, Darlington, January 1916
Mary blinked furiously against tears as they were waiting for Matthew's train at the platform of Darlington Train Station.
"You're sure you will get a leave before going to the front after your training?" she asked, her fingers desperately clutching a toy dog in her pocket.
Matthew nodded, caressing her cheek with a gloved hand.
"I should get a week then," he assured her. "We will have a chance for a proper goodbye before it happens."
She swallowed thickly.
"So we will see each other in three months," she said, smiling bravely and leaning into his palm.
"Yes. And in the meantime, we will write. I at least am going to write to you so often you will get sick of it. I'm sure I will be half mad for missing you."
Mary laughed through her tears.
"You better be prepared to be buried under an avalanche of my letters!" she inhaled sharply, gathering her courage. It was better to give it to him now, when he was only going to Sandhurst. She was afraid that if she recreated that scene from her past when he was actually going to the front, she might break down completely and this was not how she was planning to send him off. She took the toy dog out of her pocket. "Take this. It is my lucky charm, I had it always. Just promise to bring it back without a scratch."
His hand closed over the toy.
"Won't you need it?"
"Not as much as you," she said, her heart breaking at the deja vu. "I know it's just training, but I think you might need all the luck you can get. They expect you to hit the targets you shoot there, you know."
Now it was Matthew's turn to laugh.
"I've been trying not to think of that," he said, putting the dog into his pocket with a smile. "But you're perfectly right, as always. I will need all the luck to survive that without making a complete fool of myself."
The train came, much faster than any of them wished for. Matthew kissed her deeply, hardly caring for any possible onlookers among the crowd gathered at the platform.
"God bless and protect you, my darling," he whispered, still holding her face between his hands. "You're so strong, my stormbraver, I know you will manage brilliantly, but I will be praying for you anyway."
Mary clung to him, feeling anything but strong at that moment.
"I love you," she blurted out, wishing something as obvious as that wasn't so very hard to say. "Even when I want to kill you myself."
Matthew laughed again and she saw his own eyes glistening with tears.
"And I love you so terribly much, my darling. Please, remember that, even at times when you do want to kill me yourself, alright?"
Mary gave him one last kiss, before reluctantly releasing him so he could board the train. It was one of the hardest things she had ever done.
"I will," she promised. "I will."
She stayed at the platform until Matthew's train disappeared on the horizon and then walked slowly to the waiting car.
"Take me home, Tom," she said wearily, falling against the seat as if she was a marionette with its strings cut. "And don't say anything. I don't think I can talk right now."