AUTHOR'S NOTE: Another fic sitting on my drive for the last few months. Since I am writing now rather angsty chapters for some of my other stories, I decided to cleanse my palate (and hopefully my readers') with this one. I'm not going to promise that there won't be ANY angst (I am writing about Mary and Matthew!), but generally it's intended as a lighthearted Season 1 fun.
I hope you will enjoy it!
Drawing room, Downton Abbey, August 8th, 1913
"As for your giggling like a ridiculous schoolgirl with Cousin Matthew! It was pathetic."
"Poor Edith. I am sorry Matthew's proved a disappointment to you."
"Who says he has?" Edith's chin jutted defiantly.
"Matthew," answered Mary with triumphant glint in her eyes. "He told me. Oh, sorry. Wasn't I supposed to know?"
Edith felt herself boiling. Her insufferable, cruel, heartless sister!
Cora noticed and decided to intervene before the situation escalated. She unfortunately knew very well what her daughters were capable of. People often commented on Mary's tendency for cutting barbs, but she was very well aware that Edith was perfectly capable of viciousness of her own. Besides, she was grateful to Edith for being nice to Sir Anthony – and seriously displeased with Mary for disobeying her and throwing away her chances of settling down in respectable marriage before her scandal erupted out of control.
"You were very helpful, Edith, looking after Sir Anthony like that. You saved the day."
"I enjoyed it. We seemed to have a lot to talk about," said Edith smugly, casting a rather superior look at Mary.
Mary made a face at her and came closer, to keep their conversation private from their mother.
"Spare me your boasting, please," she hissed.
"Now who's jealous?" answered Edith in sing-song voice which just pushed Mary further.
"Jealous? Do you think I couldn't have that old booby if I wanted him?"
"For a while, maybe," scoffed Edith scornfully. Mary's eyes widened.
"Whatever do you mean?"
"Well, you sure can get attention from potential suitors, but they never stick around, do they? Has any of them ever proposed to you or have they all run away after they got to know you better?"
"Not like anyone proposed to you either! Or even paid you the slightest attention."
"But I am not the one boasting that I could have anyone I wanted."
"I sure could, if I wanted to. At least sooner than you could."
"Oh really? So do you think you would get Cousin Matthew to propose to you, despite how horrid you were to him for ages?"
"Sooner that you could get that old booby down on his rheumatic knee, that's for sure."
"Is that a challenge?"
"If you like."
They glared at each other. The game was on.
xxx
Robert was leading men out of the dining room, talking companionably with his heir.
"I hope our salty pudding didn't spoil the evening for you."
"On the contrary," answered Matthew, his eyes twinkling at the memory of sharing a laugh with Mary, which did not escape Robert's notice.
"I'm glad you and Mary are getting along," he commented lightly, extremely pleased to see Matthew smile in response. "There's no reason why you can't be friends."
"No. No reason at all."
Something in his tone emboldened Robert.
"I don't suppose there's any chance that you could sort of... start again?"
"Life is full of surprises."
Overjoyed and hopeful, Robert led the men into the drawing room with a laugh.
xxx
As soon as the men entered, Mary and Edith exchanged competitive glances and set off.
Mary went across the room towards Matthew, a warm smile on her face.
"I've been waiting for you. We didn't get the chance to finish our conversation about the cottages. I would love to hear what exactly the project entails."
"Really?" answered Matthew with a bright smile of his own. He was clearly very pleasantly surprised. "Then let's find a quiet corner and I will gladly tell you."
He led her to a more private space in the crowded drawing room, passing Edith and Sir Anthony.
"I was very taken by what you were saying over dinner about the way we must find ways to soften the blow to our tenants and dependents."
"It is truly the biggest challenge, Lady Edith. We cannot forget our responsibility to them, that would be most callous and unkind, and yet we have to modernise or our estates have no hope of long term survival."
"So what can be done? If we start using all those modern machines you were describing, won't that mean that we need less labourers?"
"Again, you hit the point precisely! How clever you are, Lady Edith. This is exactly what we have to be aware of. Yes, of course one of the advantages of mechanisation is increase in efficiency and less reliance on labour. But then a new problem is created – how are the men who until now made their living by being farm labourers to support themselves?"
Edith nodded, extremely pleased by his compliments and attention, and, to her own surprise, truly interested in the issues he was raising.
Meanwhile, Cora and the Dowager were observing both developments with interest.
"Since when is Mary so solicitous towards Matthew Crawley?" asked Violet, eyeing the couple, clearly involved in a lively discussion and having eyes just for each other.
Cora shook her head in bemusement. Her plan to match Mary with Sir Anthony was obviously being thwarted – both by Mary's apparent disinterest and Edith's avid interest – and yet she could not be sorry if Mary suddenly decided to set her cap for Matthew, after all this time and vehement protests. He was ultimately a better prospect than Sir Anthony and at least her fortune would one day belong to her own child.
"Maybe she finally decided to act reasonably," she ventured. Her mother-in-law sent her a contemptuous glance.
"Maybe it's just the result of us giving up on the match and stopping pressuring her. She doesn't enjoy doing what she is told to do. It might be as simple as that."
Cora nodded thoughtfully, thinking of Mary's earlier comparison between Sir Anthony and Matthew. Perhaps she just realised that with her options diminishing by the day Matthew was a much more attractive one than Strallan.
"No matter what caused it – let's hope something comes out of it soon," concluded the Dowager. "Now, what do you think of that development?" she asked, pointing her cane at Edith and Sir Anthony, still locked in an animated discussion of their own.
Cora frowned, not sure how much she liked it. Sir Anthony wasn't a bad option per se – he had a title, a nice estate in the neighbourhood, and enough money to ensure his wife enjoyed comfortable and easy life. He was as old as Robert though, and why she considered him good enough for Mary in her current desperate circumstances, Edith was just twenty years old and with unblemished reputation. She could probably do better. On the other hand, it was Edith...
"I'm not sure if we are quite so desperate yet when it comes to Edith," she said finally. To her surprise, Violet nodded emphatically.
"I quite agree. We focused so much on Mary – with good reasons, of course, she really must be settled soon – but I am afraid we rather neglected Edith. Was there anybody during the season who might be worth following up?"
Cora shook her head with regret, vexed once again when thinking about the disappointing season. Mary had enjoyed plenty of general attention from men, but nobody had expressed particular interest in pursuing her. Maybe it was due to the fact that it was Mary's third season – they had missed the one in 1912 due to mourning for James and Patrick – or maybe due to circulating rumours about her less than virtuous conduct, but her current flirting with Cousin Matthew was the first promising sign of hope since that awful hunt. And Edith... Well, Edith hadn't even enjoyed the general attention Mary did. It was a complete waste of time and money from Cora's point of view.
"Then who do we know who we could invite to one of the oncoming events? Somebody closer to her age?"
"Billy Russell is coming to the garden party," said Cora slowly. "And then we are invited to Haxby for theirs."
Violet pursued her lips.
"They knew each other since they were little children and there never was any romantic interest between Billy and any of them. But he is a very good prospect, even without a title, and one never knows, maybe he will finally notice they are not in pigtails anymore. Who else?"
"Larry is supposed to come with Lord and Lady Merton."
"I always thought he liked Sybil more, even though she is a bit young for him yet. But yes, he is a possibility. Maybe we could encourage him to look at somebody closer to his age. Anybody outside of our usual circle?"
Cora hesitated.
"We haven't invited the Gillinghams for years, ever from that falling out between Viscount Gillingham and Robert, but they saw each other at Lady Cunard's ball and were friendly. It is pretty late, but maybe I could send them an invitation to the garden party as the peace offering."
"I did see Tony Foyle in London in June. He did grow up into a nice looking man. Do send them an invitation. It wouldn't hurt to renew the acquaintance. Even if they don't come to the garden party, maybe they could attend the November hunt."
While the two Countesses were plotting, Mary and Matthew were getting along better than any of them anticipated.
"So the plan is to do the whole two rows of cottages off the railway road and then do several more every year?"
"Yes. If we have those two rows ready, we can give some to the tenants of other cottages which we want to renovate. The works could proceed much faster if we had alternative accommodation to offer them for the duration of the renovations."
"And what do the renovations entail? I imagine it must be more than a lick of paint," said Mary with a smile which nearly managed to distract Matthew completely from the topic on hand, however passionate he had been about his pet project.
"Quite a lot more," he said in a little breathless voice. Mary heard and smiled even wider. "None of them had indoor plumbing or running water – and the ones we are renovating right now are close enough to the water pipes that it could be easily corrected. No possibility to connect them to the electricity, unfortunately, but we are installing new oil stoves in all of them. The rest is quite mundane upkeep – roof repairs, chimneys, making sure windows and doors are not drifty or porches rotten. But the end effect is going to be quite spectacular in my opinion and, as I said, I would love to show you."
Mary smiled flirtatiously.
"And I would love to see it. Maybe we could walk there tomorrow after the flower show?"
Matthew looked at her with delight.
"It sounds like a perfect plan to me."
They spent a moment content to just keep smiling at each other, until Mary decided to ask the question which had been interesting her for some time.
"Why the cottages?" she asked. "Papa said that it was completely your idea. What prompted you to take interest in them, out of all other issues on the estate?"
Matthew pursued his lip thoughtfully.
"Because it bothered me that they were neglected," he said finally. Mary bristled a bit at such an assessment but listened as he explained his point. "The ones belonging to tenant farmers are generally in good repair and prosperous, but the ones intended for estate workers, retired or married servants or just people who wanted to live near the village were not invested into to any great degree. It seemed an awful waste, and pretty easy to correct too. You see, when I came here, I obviously did know next to nothing about farming – I barely know anything about it now, despite your father's lessons – so I could not meddle too much in those affairs. But working on the cottages was a simple form of property development. For all practical purposes, there is little difference between the estate cottages and tenement buildings in Manchester, and I was involved in legal matters concerning such buildings in my previous firm."
"If it's such an obvious scheme, why Papa has not acted before?" asked Mary with a frown.
Matthew shrugged uncomfortably.
"From what I understand, it just not occurred to him. The cottages are not bringing much income to the estate – they are often given free of charge, as a benefit to the estate's employees – so they were never a priority."
"But renovating them will improve the quality of life for a lot of people depending or working on the estate?" asked Mary, then continued after Matthew's nod. "Then it's only right that we do the work. It's very good that you took charge of it."
"You care about those people, don't you?" asked Matthew, seeming to Mary unflatteringly surprised by that surmise.
"Of course I do," she said testily. "This is the estate of my family and it's our role to take responsibility and care for them. What would be the point of aristocracy if we didn't?"
"You're right, in principle," answered Matthew earnestly, "But you cannot tell me that all landowners treat their obligations with the same level of care. I might be new to your way of life, but I've seen enough to be full of admiration for people like your father and you."
Mary allowed herself to be appeased, even though she suspected that if he was asked quite a short time ago, he would not have included her in his example of caring landowners. In a rare moment of introspection, she had to admit that she had given him little enough causes to think well of her.
xxx
Sir Anthony Strallan drove back to Loxley in much better spirits than he expected when he accepted Lady Grantham's dinner invitation. Truthfully, it was the loveliest evening he had since Maud had died. Who could have thought that young, shy Lady Edith could be such a joy as a conversation partner? And she was sure easy on the eyes.
He found himself looking forward to the garden party next week. And maybe he should visit the flower show at Downton Village... It was not exactly his cup of tea, but he wouldn't mind seeing Lady Edith again a bit sooner.
xxx
Matthew took off his coat and was surprised to see his mother coming out of the sitting room.
"What are you doing still up, Mother? It is rather late."
"I was waiting for you, I was expecting you earlier than this. I'll tell Molesley to lock up."
"Thanks. Goodnight, Mother," Matthew kissed her and headed for the stairs with visible spring in his steps. Isobel took immediate notice of it.
"How was the evening? Did you enjoy yourself?" she asked casually and was slightly stunned by a brilliant smile on his face.
"Quite. I had really a lovely evening, rather surprisingly so. Goodnight."
He vanished onto the landing, leaving Isobel to ponder this.