Chapter Eighteen

December 1962

Even the folds of his coat seemed too large for him, the woolen thing swallowing him up and suffocating him. He slipped the offending garment from the one arm he'd managed it onto and found his thick cashmere cardigan instead. In the small periwinkle light, he managed one arm through and after some time the other, taking a moment to rest before the infuriating task of the five buttons down the center. Just as they did the day before, his fingers would not obey him. The thickened knuckles he no longer recognized were stiff and achy as, slowly and patiently, he endeavored his task.

He felt as a child might, the former adult of himself mystifying the present with his dexterity.

He was pleased with just one buttoned—he'd never been one to push his luck too far—and he hoisted himself up from his bed to gather up a scarf and drape it over his neck. And then, he gathered up a second one. Then his hat.

And gleaming there, nearly whispering to him, was the glass top of his case, the case where all his snuff boxes slept in the dull light. Robert saw his little ticket. Nodding, his soft fingers worked to gather it up, the task made difficult by his worn-away fingerprints, the chill of his fingers, the slight, every-present tremble in everything he did. When at last he succeeded, he pressed the ticket into his hand and then suddenly, but just as surely as he felt the ticket in his smoothed palm, the movement in his room caught in the blurred periphery of his vision.

He turned and searched the dimly lit space.

"Yes?" he asked.

It was warmer now—he was warmer now, and he grinned. He chuckled. His chest felt broader and lighter, and he noticed that the trembling in his limbs had ceased.

He shook his head, allowing another small chuckle. "Yes, very well. I'm coming." And tucking the ticket safely into his pocket, he took his stick and left.


"Sybbie."

Sybbie heard the voice at a distance and pushed her face further into the pillow.

"Sybbie, love."

It was the shake to her shoulders that finally jostled her awake, and she lifted her head and peered at her husband who, bleary-eyed, was also blinking awake, looking at her.

"Wha-"

But then again, "Sybbie, come. Come. It's Robert."

"Donk?" The early hour scratched at her throat, her panic constricting it, and her voice coming out high and childlike. She shook her head, Paul beside her now already sitting up.

Her father only stepped from the bed.

"Dad? What? What's wrong?"

"You've just got to come. Come on." She could hear him moving about her room, opening the armoire, and then moving himself out into the hallway again.

"Dad?" Oh my God. He was dead, wasn't he? "Dad!" She kicked away the warmth of the blankets and coverlets, Paul finding her thick jumper and house shoes for her as she tried her best to stem premature tears. He was dead. Please let him not be dead.

She stumbled through the predawn dark onto the gallery and found Shirley, her father, and her aunts at the corner. Aunt Mary held a lantern in spite of the electric lamp four feet from them. Aunt Edith held a flashlight, it turned off and pressed between her forearm and side. Her father's hand rubbed Shirley's shoulder consolingly, and his other arm held Sybbie's coat and borrowed winter boots.

"—come earlier I would've seen him gone! And without a coat."

"Let's not think of that now. George and Henry have already left and I'm sure they'll find him." Aunt Edith's words were betrayed by the edge in her voice. "We'll find him."

"Oh, poor love. Out in the snow. I should've come earlier!"

"Shirley, please. If you'd have come any earlier, you'd have stayed the night. You mustn't take any blame."

"Dad?" Sybbie rubbed a coarse bit of sleep from her eye. "What? What's happened?"

But she was ignored by the others.

"Do you suppose I should phone the doctor? He will be so cold."

"No," Aunt Mary closed her eyes. "We must find him first, which standing here won't help us do."

Sybbie's heart beat too quickly in her breast. "What's happened?" she asked louder, though she had begun easily piecing it together: Donk. Cold. No coat. Out in the snow.

In response, her father handed her her coat. "Quickly, love, dress."

"But what—"

"He's gone again," Tom finally answered. "You'll come with us. Henry and George have gone toward the churchyard. And your boots."

Obeying, she stepped out of her slippers and balanced on one foot as she slipped them on, one and then the other. "Are we sure he isn't in the house somewhere?" she tried.

"We've just looked," Aunt Edith was wearing her coat, Sybbie realized, and she stared at the still-damp spots of her boots. "He isn't anywhere on the grounds as far as we could see."

"But he has to be." She stood straighter. "Dad's told him he can't go off on his own. Why would he —"

"—you've all been right."

They looked at Mary, her interruption soft but heard. They looked at her holding her lantern, the collar of her coat hitting at her jaw. Sybbie watched the light move against her face, and she saw that her aunt looked so much older.

"You've been right," she repeated. "He needs help." And when Aunt Mary's face began to crumble, Sybbie reached for her.

But Aunt Edith was first.

She pulled Mary into an embrace and Sybbie, her father, and Shirley watched as the two sisters held tightly to each other, Mary's chin and then nose pressed into Edith's shoulder, until at last Aunt Mary pulled away.

"We'll go together," Sybbie heard Aunt Edith say, and she and Mary led the way down to the car.

. . .

Sybbie angled her head to look better through the windshield, and she squinted in the sunrise. The lavender sky was warming on the horizon in long narrow stretches of bright pink, yellow, and white. The snowy earth beneath it and all around their car appeared to be almost blue, and Sybbie prayed for the thousandth time this morning that one of the many dark patches that interrupted the blanket of snow was not, in fact, her grandfather.

For they'd not found him yet. They'd driven all around the estate, Dad driving slowly and Sybbie surveying every nook and cranny from the passenger seat. She'd only glanced behind her once, at where her aunts sat together, but had turned around quickly and sent up another prayer.

They had been holding hands.

"It's nearing eight-thirty," Aunt Edith said as they rounded the last great turn to Downton. "What do we do now?"

But no one answered her right away, and Sybbie noted that they'd been searching for over an hour. As their car drove forward, closer, they all watched as the Abbey rose up out of the distance in a light that made it appear invincible, and Sybbie heard the echo of her cousin's words in her head: a grotesque picture of Dorian Gray. What did it mean now, with the morning sun behind them shining on the house, turning the stones to sunny gold in midwinter? What did it mean that the house looked immortal, almost godlike? What did it mean for Donk?

Her father lifted his chin and sighed. "Let's pray Henry and George have him."

"And if they don't?" Aunt Mary's voice felt cold.

"We phone the police," Tom answered, and then there was only silence as the car slowly made its way back through the gates. The police? God, Sybbie's mind betrayed her. She thought of the journalists who'd been there only twenty-four hours before and wondered how they'd hear of it. How would they write it up in their spread? Police find Ancient Earl of Grantham frozen to death. Tickets to view his house priced at £1.

Dad parked in the front, not caring to pull around to the garages, and immediately the four of them spilled out, the clunk of heavy doors closing behind them, quickly, as their booted feet crunched through the icy gravel into the house. She could feel their common hope in spite of the silence.

Sybbie stepped aside when her father did, letting her aunts go through first, but did just what they had done once they entered. She searched for George. For Uncle Henry.

"George!"

Aunt Mary had not even taken off her coat, so neither did Sybbie.

"George!" Her aunt called again, through the entrance, into the Great Hall, and just as they'd turned to the stairs, they heard the sound of feet on the marble of the entrance hall.

"Mummy!" Sybbie spun at George's voice. "Here! He's here!"

"Oh, thank God."

Her aunts reached for one another, spinning, too, and following George into the small library; Sybbie felt emotion climb up her throat, choking her, but she steadied herself. He's alive.

"We found him in the churchyard, half-frozen," she heard him say as she rushed after them, and then stopping sharply at the sight of him. "We just returned ourselves."

"Should we get him upstairs?" Aunt Edith's voice was the least even it had been this entire morning.

"No. We saw this fire was already laid, and we didn't think we'd be able to get him up the stairs."

They'd pulled the sofa so near to the burning fireplace that Sybbie had a sudden fear that an ember would spark it. But that fear was just as quickly smothered by the bent, bundled person that sat upon it.

Uncle Henry sat beside Donk, rubbing his shoulders beneath the heavy flannel blankets and – yes, that was Uncle Henry's coat — that were piled upon him. Uncle Bertie stoked the already roaring fire. She could sense as Shirley came in the far side of the library, muttering "here" or "there," a cup of … something in her hands. But Sybbie could not tear her eyes from him.

His soft white hair was still covered by his hat, but a stream of blood ran into the tufts of one of his brows. His lips were pale, and nearly blue … nearly blue as the snow had been.

Frozen.

"Donk," her subconscious mind whispered, and her conscious mind closed her mouth.

"We've phoned Doctor Tillman."

"No. George, go and fetch Doctor Tillman. Now."

Sybbie felt herself nod at what Aunt Mary said. "George, yes. Listen to her," she commanded, and she pushed past her aunts. "Let me look at him."

Sybbie bit at one finger of her glove, and tore it from her hand. Then the other. "Donk?" She tenderly took his soft chin into her fingertips. He was too cold. "Donk, I need to ask you some questions. Can you hear me alright?"

Donk didn't answer; he stayed hunched. In her periphery, Sybbie saw Uncle Henry make space for Aunt Edith to sit beside Donk. She watched as Edith took the cup from Shirley and angled her face closer to him. "Dearest Papa. Here. Have some tea."

"Wait," Sybbie cautioned. "Donk, please look at me."

At last he did, and Sybbie bent further to meet him eye to eye. She squinted. She cupped her hands around his eyes, watching his pupils, noting with thanks they were the same size. She nodded.

"Do you recall anything that happened?"

He only stared.

She took in a breath. "It's very important that you speak to me. I need to check that your head is alright. Remember, I was a nurse, Donk." She forced a tight smile. "Now, do you remember falling? You have quite a bump."

Again, he stared for a moment before, at last, he nodded.

She sighed. "Good. It's good you remember. Now, a harder question. Do you recall if you lost any consciousness? When you fell."

"I don't … it's hard to—"

"-it's alright." She shook her head, and she looked to Uncle Henry. "He needs ice on his head. Regardless of how cold he is. It's swelling terribly."

"Some snow, perhaps?" Aunt Edith suggested, and Sybbie nodded.

She looked back at Donk. The things she'd ask any other man suddenly felt feeble and cruel: do you feel unbalanced; is your vision blurred; are you confused? Again, she tried to smile. "Do you feel ill at all?" No response. "Does your head hurt, Donk?"

He nodded, barely, but Sybbie had seen. She nodded back and stood away from him, Aunt Mary slipping into her space.

"Doctor Tillman will know what to do," she told Mary who barely moved aside as Henry rushed in with a pack of snow, already melting. Sybbie nodded again. "We need to get his head warmer. Does anyone have a knit hat?"

Edith pointed at Bertie; he moved away from them.

Aunt Mary, though, did not move at all. Instead, she stood before Donk, shaking her head, breathing deeply.

"What were you thinking?" She tipped his hat back and shook her head yet again. "You–what happened? Did you slip? It's icy. And where is your coat?"

"I apologize."

Sybbie stepped further from him then. She stood away, for his voice. His voice was so frail.

"I'm not certain. I–"

"Tom told you. You mustn't go without telling anyone."

Dad tried to say something, a "Mary, that isn't—" but he was ignored.

"Oh, and your head. Papa! Did you know it's bleeding?" At this, the melting snow was passed back to Henry who, glancing around him, offered it to Shirley who held out a towel. "And you left your coat! Your coat. How could you not remember to wear your coat? Of all things!"

"I apologize. I am …" and no matter how small his voice, it was the loudest thing in the room, silencing everything else around them. "I don't … I … I'm very sorry."

"Oh, Papa." Aunt Mary, quieter now too, took the length of her cashmere scarf and pressed it gently to the bleeding cut that had already begun to bruise deep, deep purple. "So am I."

. . .

Marigold sipped from her teacup and put it back in the saucer. Sybbie could hear the polite clink of porcelain reverberate through the library. Then, as if to ask for forgiveness for the noise, her cousin brought her round eyes up and blinked at everyone before pressing her lips. Sybbie grinned at her as lifted her own teacup. Her tea burnt her tongue, and she put it aside.

Cousin Eddie, his irritation evident in the crease between his brows, crunched the newspaper he held. Sybbie's eyes went to him, sitting by the fireplace and clearing his throat suddenly, his brother behind them near the windows, asking "Eddie?"

"What's taking them so long?"

They all knew to whom he was referring. Everyone but George, Grace, Sybbie's aunts and uncles, and her father had been excluded from the room with Donk. Sybbie understood, but evidently, Eddie did not.

Finally, beside her, Caroline uncrossed and recrossed her legs. "I would rather Doctor Tillman take his time than rush, Eddie." She also didn't hide her annoyance, and Sybbie gave her a sideways glance.

"That isn't what I meant." Eddie glowered at their cousin. "I'm only wondering if we should be concerned with how long it's been." His voice carried a bite, and now Sybbie glanced across from her, back at Marigold. Control your brother, she tried to communicate. But her cousin only took another sip of her tea.

"Why, especially? Hmm?" And now Caroline was angry. "Do you have somewhere more important to be? Planning another trip around the world? Or can't you give Donk an hour of your time?"

Control this! Sybbie tried again, flashing her eyes at her cousin.

"Caroline–" but sweet Marigold's voice carried no weight.

"-Oh, I see!" Eddie turned on her; again he crushed the newspaper. "You flounce in here, with your furs and your French and your 'Look at me! Look at me!' attitude, hardly speaking to Donk all year, and then somehow feel entitled to act as if you know everything!"

"I do know everything." Caroline lifted her chin.

"Shut up!"

Sybbie gasped, and she looked at Eddie, but Caroline was unperturbed.

"Eddie!" Marigold was still too quiet.

"For instance, I know that while you lived at Brancaster, and Eton, and now wherever your head drops at night, you haven't stopped traveling long enough to even take a second glance at Donk."

"And I'll have you know–"

"-But I lived here! I grew up with him, Eddie. George and me. Not you! So stop acting as if you're some knot of nerves when you couldn't care less!"

"Stop it!" Sybbie dropped her arms to her lap. She pushed out breaths; she waited for her younger cousins to look at her. "What has happened? Why have we devolved into arguing like children over who loves Donk best? It's absurd. You're being absurd."

Her cousins, all grown adults, looked at her and then one another. Then to their laps. Sybbie's head hurt.

"I'm upset." Eddie's voice was smaller, and beside her, Sybbie could feel Caroline softly deflate.

And the group turned as the door to the library opened.

"I hope you don't mind me being here with you. I … I can't bear to go home without knowing."

"Oh, Shirley!" Marigold stood, placing her teacup on the little table beside the sofa. "Please, come and sit by us."

But Sybbie watched as Shirley began to cry. "I should've come earlier! I should've been here! Oh, poor, old Lord Grantham!"

"No, Shirley. Please." Caroline shook her head.

"Honestly. None of this is your fault!" Marigold embraced the housekeeper, now. "And we're sure Donk is fine! Just some scrapes and bruises. That's all!"

"He was out in the cold for a long time, Marigold." Everyone looked at Eddie for what felt like a long moment. Until at last, Eddie shrugged; Sybbie noticed that he worked on smoothing out the paper he'd been holding to very, very tightly. "A very long time. If he's fine now, do we worry about a broken hip? Pneumonia? Who really recovers from that at his age?"

Marigold held Shirley closer. "Eddie, please. We don't need to think of any of that until we know–"

"-Not to mention his … is he the same?"

Quiet. Even Shirley's sniffling ceased.

Eddie shook his head. "He seems so–why didn't anyone tell me? He's senile."

Sybbie hated that word. "He isn't senile."

"He was out in the snow without a coat, Sybbie. He can't remember half the childrens' names. He … George told me about yesterday. He thought Granny was–"

"-I don't care what Mummy says," Caroline sat straighter. "I'm hiring a nurse. Before I leave. If I have to stay through the New Year, I will."

"And me." They looked at Eddie. Caroline looked at him, too. And then her cousins stayed quiet for a moment, watching each other until Eddie patted the paper and nodded. "I am sorry, Caroline. For snapping. Really. I'm …"

"It's alright, Eddie–"

"-I wasn't here when Granny died and it felt like I wasn't part of the family then."

Sybbie furrowed her brow. "What? Eddie, it couldn't be helped. Your mother wasn't here, either."

"And now I'm here and feel like I've been lied to. Like you all knew and forgot to tell me. I came to celebrate Christmas with Donk and he's … he's not the same as he was."

"No." Marigold's quiet voice gathered up the authority it had been lacking moments ago, and Sybbie brought her gaze to her. "I suppose we can't ignore that this is likely the beginning of the end." Sybbie wanted to cry just looking at Marigold as she spoke. The soft way she stroked Shirley's round shoulder, the softer way she tipped her curly head. "With Granny gone, it felt terrible of course. But for us to lose Donk, too?"

"Do we really have him now?" Sybbie didn't meet the gaze of her younger cousins when she spoke, but she could feel their attention train on her all the same. "Daddy said that when the heart is ready, the body will follow. And I think his heart has been ready for a very long time." She swallowed. "Perhaps when we were all around, when we were living here or in London and popping in and out, maybe he felt Granny was still here with him? Through us. The children. But we're all gone. We're all grown, and our family is –" She stopped and sighed. "I know we love each other, and we'll always be family, but … we're people who share more of the past than we will of tomorrow." She chanced a glance up now and saw, plainly, that her cousins knew she was right.

"Alright." Caroline was the one to eventually break the strange quiet. "Let's agree? We will do anything in our power, no matter where we live, to support those people sitting in there with Donk now. I mean it. Especially George, especially because he'll be Lord Grantham sooner than I think he would like." She offered everyone a rueful grin. "What is it that my mum likes to say? 'We Crawleys stick together.'"

They didn't have a chance to respond. The commotion from the small library echoed toward their meeting, and Sybbie stood. She counted the children, all tumbling over one another, all the boys, some hanging on Coco whose nose was red.

"Paul?"

"Sorry, Syb." Her husband looked contrite. In fact, so did Caroline and Marigold's husbands, both furiously rubbing and blowing into their cupped hands. "We kept them out as long as any of us could stand it."

Philippe shuddered. "Oh, but it is too cold!"

Paul shook his head. "I can't believe your grandfather was out there. Really."

Sybbie had to turn from him. She saw as Eddie sniffed and crinkled the paper he'd been holding. "'One of the coldest Decembers on record,'" he read, and shook his head. "'Perhaps the coldest.'"

Sybbie felt ill.

"Well, they're taking him in for a series of X-rays." Aunt Mary hadn't announced herself. Her coat was on. She was tugging at a glove. "Eddie, your mother thinks George can use another able-body to help move him. Come. I'll be sure to phone with any news."

"Mummy! Does Doctor Tillman think it's very bad?"

Sybbie was grateful Caroline asked even as Aunt Mary whirled away from them. She was more grateful when Aunt Mary paused to reply.

"If there're no broken bones, it's better news. Though he is worried about a concussion." She shook her head. "Now I must fly! I will phone. Eddie, come. Your mother has your coat."

Everyone looked on as Eddie obeyed.

. . .

She stroked her youngest son's hair as they sat cuddled on the small sofa in Granny's forgotten sitting room. The television room now, Sybbie smiled, thinking that Granny would've actually quite approved of that. How excited she'd have been to see it here, even in spite of the tinny, rather annoying echo of the children's program her boys gathered around: Noggin the Nog. She'd never heard of it before, but watched in distant fascination as the animated Viking nodded and spoke.

Again, she stroked Benjamin's hair, and she sighed deeply, relaxing into the sofa, trying her very best not to worry over the time or indeed how many hours had passed between them taking Donk away to the hospital and now. Aunt Mary had said she'd ring them. She would phone them. She would.

But her mind reminded her that that was still early this morning. It was now nearing two.

She peered over and looked at Paul. Her sandy-haired Paul, his green eyes squinting in confusion at the television, and she snorted.

He must've felt the way she laughed at him. He only shook his head and whispered, "What am I watching?"

"I like it!" one of their boys called from the floor, and Sybbie smiled, a small warmth healing some of the chill she couldn't quite shake since this morning. Her children may've sounded as if they had nothing to do with this home of her own childhood–their American accents so unlike her own English one, her father's Irish one–but there it was. They were part-Crawley, after all. And, thank God, for not everything had to be high-pitched and dizzyingly quick, contrary to her American husband's belief.

"Sybbie?"

She looked at the door. Uncle Bertie smiled inside.

"Might I steal you for a moment?"

She nodded, desperately, and kissed Benjamin's head as she tipped him over to Paul.

In the hallway, Sybbie nodded again. "Did they ring?"

"She did phone, yes. Nothing broken."

"Oh," Sybbie gave thanks; she pressed a hand to her chest and tried to calm her heart.

She began to walk with Uncle Bertie as he moved down the gallery. "Edith said they will monitor him for just another hour more, and that while the head injury is quite bad—"

"Yes," Sybbie agreed.

"—that with special monitoring he can come home."

"And is he suffering from a concussion?"

She watched Uncle Bertie shrug his narrow shoulders, a bounce in his step as they now descended the stairs. "Hard to say, really. No one saw him fall. Though Doctor Tillman says it's a better idea to assume so and treat it as such."

"Poor Donk."

"We've been warned he'll be very sore. And that he must never be without his stick." They turned left at the bottom of the stairs. "And no more walking outside without proper support. Especially with all the snow and ice."

"He'll hate that."

Uncle Bertie chuckled. "I told Edith to be ready to stand firm. She can be a bit tender-hearted where Robert is concerned."

Sybbie smiled. "Can't we all?" And then she furrowed her brow as they entered the dining room. "What are we doing?"

Her father stood at the table, a large blueprint of the house covering the expanse of where they usually had their meals. "You'll help us, love?"

"Help with what, exactly?"

"This is proving to be a bigger task than we'd imagined."

Sybbie blinked at Uncle Bertie and then peered down at the map before her, penciled lines circling and arrows pointing. "Is this for the house opening?" She frowned. "Surely it can wait."

"Not if we want to have pamphlets printed in time. And, with Robert's fall, it looks like we'll have to move some things around."

"Oh," she put her hands on her hips. "Where's Caroline? Or Marigold? Marigold could do this in her sleep; I'm sure she does things like this all the time at the museum."

"Marigold is helping Shirley prepare Donk's space. Getting things together he may like," Dad answered. "And Caroline's in London."

"London?" Sybbie shook her head. "What? But she was just here this morning! What is she doing there?"

"She phoned up a friend and raced down," Uncle Bertie smiled. "Seems she's more than determined to find a nurse."

Sybbie smiled, too. "She never fails to impress," she admitted, and she suddenly felt a rush of affection for her cousin. For all her cousins. "Alright. If I'm your only option, I'll do my best."

She chuckled when her father patted her back. "You'll be grand, love."

"Alright, Sybbie. There's a notepad just there."

"Ah," she sat across from Uncle Bertie, taking up the pencil and pad, and then smiled at her father who placed a cup of tea before her. He remembered the way she took it. "Shall I play scribe, then?"

"Yes," her father answered. "We'll have them come through the front doors, of course. Jot down to include the history of the Great Hall there first. And make a note we'll need to ask Mr Hodges to pull any history he can."

She finished a sip of her tea and scribbled the note. "I'm sure Aunt Mary will know," she suggested casually; at the sound of both men laughing, Sybbie lifted her eyes. "No?"

"I'm afraid we tried that once before," Uncle Bertie took a red pencil and drew a long line from the entrance of the Great Hall and into the dining room. Then across to the library. He was chuckling. "Though I daren't tell her, we believe she isn't right for the job."

"What?" For the first time today, Sybbie's shoulders felt less heavy. Her smile felt easy. "When was this?"

"Don't you remember?"

Dad sat next to her now, his own notebook covered in numbers written in neat columns. She spied the words groups of ten to twelve, number of rooms, and tickets. She shook her head.

"You were about five, or there about. We opened it before: the house. Bertie helped." He nodded over at her uncle who grinned at them. "It was to raise funds for the Village Hospital. Right at the time your grandfather had his gastrectomy, actually. Of course, we didn't have the opportunity to print pamphlets. Bertie had your grandmother and aunts act as tour guides."

"What?" Her smiles felt easier and easier. "I don't remember this a bit!"

"Your aunts will be glad to hear that," Uncle Bertie tapped the map, and her father made three tally marks on his paper. "They know stunningly little about this house."

Beside her, Dad was laughing, and Sybbie looked at him. "Why weren't you a guide?"

"You forget," he glanced at her and the wrinkles around his eyes crinkled. "I came here to be the chauffeur, not a tour guide."

"Cora was rather good, actually," Uncle Bertie added, and with his red pencil, drew a line to the drawing room. "Or at least rather good at faking it. Ah, I wonder if we should have them walk straight through the Great Hall, into the drawing room, through the music room, into the library–"

"-small library, Great Hall, then Grand Stairs?"

"Exactly," Uncle Bertie redrew a line; Tom made new tallies and wrote something. He nudged Sybbie. "Make a note of the order, love?"

She sat straighter in her chair. "Sure, Dad." She picked up her pencil. "Great Hall … Grand Stairs." She paused. "What about Granny's room?"

She knew they weren't there yet. Her room was near the end of the gallery on the first floor, but they'd be there soon enough, the journey from the Grand Stairs to Granny's bedroom not very far.

"With Donk ill, it does feel a bit . . . invasive."

"It is one of the lovelier rooms," Uncle Bertie grimaced. "And seeing as though the article is written about her…"

She picked up her teacup and sighed.

. . .

His color looked good. Her years of nursing came flooding back to her as she stood beside his bed, making mental notes on his appearance. Even in the dim light of his bedroom, she noted that his color looked good. It was pale, of course, but not sallow. Or peaky. The bruise she'd seen this morning looked awful, she had to admit. The red and pink center, where the cut was, had been bandaged, old blood winking at her through the cloth. But the purple expanse of it now covered most of his wrinkled forehead, a terrible contrast to the white of his soft hair.

If he didn't prove to have a concussion, Sybbie would be shocked.

George pulled the chain of the floor lamp in the corner, light illuminating him, and Sybbie watched as every wrinkle in her cousin's face caught at a shadow. "Now, then. Is that too much light?"

"No," Donk answered. "That's fine. Thank you."

George had told Sybbie how they found him: outside the gate of the churchyard, lying on the snowy earth, his walking stick far beyond reach, trying to lift himself with little success. She hated to wonder what would've happened if they'd been even twenty minutes later. No coat. He'd worn no coat.

"Alright. Someone will be up later with something for you to eat. And you will eat it, won't you?"

Donk hummed.

"And another cup of tea."

Sybbie smiled as George leaned close to their grandfather and as he peered into his eyes. "You mean quite a lot to me, you know, dearest old Donk."

She smiled broader as Donk's similarly bruised right hand patted George's shoulder, then squeezed it.

"Go now," he commanded gently. "You've earned a bit of rest, darling boy."

George straightened, nodded, and then turned to pass Sybbie and go out. She touched his arm as he left.

Then she looked around. There were books and spectacles and a magnifying glass sitting on the chest of drawers across from the bed. Next to the bed, on a tray, she saw a bottle of aspirin tablets. There were playing cards and a folded newspaper. And yet another magnifying glass. Sybbie chuckled.

"I'd ask if I can get you anything, but it seems that Marigold's done a splendid job at feathering your nest."

He chuckled too, hoarsely. "My prison, more like."

"I hate to say this," she lifted a brow as she sat in the chair pulled near his bed, "but it is a prison of your own design."

"You're right, of course." She watched him bring a hand up to his bandage. "I'm a silly, old fool."

"You aren't. Not at all." She reached to his hand, the wrinkled and bruised thing that fiddled, shaking, at the bandage, and she stilled it. "Truly. No one thinks that."

"Hmm." He did not sound a bit convinced, and his fingers worked again at the taped bandage.

"And you're looking better than when I saw you this morning. You look well, even." She tugged at his hand, at last pulling it away from his forehead. "But you mustn't remove this yet."

"People only say 'oh, you look well' to people who do not."

"No, they don't." She smiled at her grandfather, whose trembling fingers were now digging in his cardigan pocket for his handkerchief. "Or at least, they don't always."

She was grateful for his laughter. He wiped his nose. "At last, some honesty."

"What?" Sybbie leaned forward. "What do you mean?"

"I know I'm not all here, as they say." Sybbie bit the inside of her cheek, that ugly word Eddie had said earlier turning her stomach; Donk pushed his handkerchief back in his pocket. "But even I have noticed people talking over my head. Though I suppose you must."

"Donk—"

"I'm an old man, and I've lived a long life. I heard the new plan—"

"—plan?"

"A nurse, indeed. I won't drag it out longer than God allows. You'll tell your sister that."

He meant Caroline, and Sybbie shook her head at him. "Drag what out?"

"My life."

His life?

She blinked. She couldn't breathe for a moment. And then, she tried her best at a response. "Don't say that. You are well. Very well for your age, actually."

His perpetually teary eyes did not meet hers. "I am, and … and I'm not." In the low light, Sybbie wondered if the tears she saw now were real. Real tears. They squeezed at her heart. "I'm well enough to know I'm not. More's the pity."

She knew what he meant, she felt what he meant—her heart aching acutely—and she grabbed his hand. It was cold, and she rubbed it between her own warmer ones. "If you mean your memory, please, don't worry. You have a wonderful, large family who loves you very much, Donk. And we'll take care of you. I promise. We want to take care of you."

He nodded, slightly, his unruly brows twitching ever-so-slightly. "You have. You've all done too much for me. I'm afraid I'm not worth it in the end."

"Donk." She kissed his knuckled hand, emotion welling up behind her words. "You're worth more to us than you can possibly imagine." For it was true. It was all-too-true. He was their family, in the end. And without him … Sybbie didn't want to put herself there, in the inevitable future, the future where Donk was gone and with him their living link to everything that had built their lovely family. To everything that made them family. The emotions of the day, the stress and anxiety of the week–the article, the bedroom, the tiny little ticket and book and memorials, the letters–they grew jagged in her tired and raw chest. And Sybbie choked, and she began to weep.

It was Donk now who lifted her hand. It was Donk who pressed his chapped and cold lips to it. And when Sybbie laughed a bit through her tears at him, Donk smiled at her.

"Oh, my dearest girl. Don't be sad." He kissed her hand again. "We aren't sad."

She quieted her tears. She sat back upon her chair. She furrowed her brows. "What?" She shook her head and looked at the way he watched her in the lamplight. "Oh, no, b-but–" she stuttered. "But sometimes we are sad, and it's alright to be. There's no shame in tears." She stared at him. "We mustn't be afraid of our feelings."

His cold and soft hands patted hers. "I'm not sure your mother would agree."

She swallowed. Raw again. Jagged. Sybbie exhaled a long watery breath.

"I'm Sybbie, Donk." She felt his hands still. "Not Sybil."

And she watched as her grandfather blinked at her. "Oh." And his wrinkle brow softened. "Sybbie."

She did her best to smile and nod, but Donk did not speak for a long while. She let him look at her, and then at her hand in his, and then she let him quietly look about his bedroom. It felt a little like he was coming back into a room she'd already been in, his very presence changing.

And when she was about to speak again–when she was about to say his name–she heard the door behind her open across the carpeted floor. She twisted in her chair and saw her.

"Aunt Mary?"

Her aunt's silhouette was outlined by the brighter light from outside of the door. Tall and slender, yet somehow still imperious.

Sybbie went to stand, but with a wave from her aunt she sat again. "Do you want to sit with him for a while?"

"No, I–" she watched Mary flick something in her other hand: something green with flickers of gold. Sybbie looked at Aunt Mary's face. "-I just wanted to bring this to you, Papa."

Donk narrowed his eyes, and Sybbie knew, especially without his glasses, that he couldn't see. "Mary?"

Aunt Mary paused, and Sybbie could feel her hesitation as she glanced between Sybbie, sitting in the chair, and Donk, resting against his pile of pillows. At last, Mary seemed to give in. "It's Mama's book. The Portrait of a Lady. I felt that maybe you'd like it here, with you?"

Sybbie watched as Donk tried his best to sit straighter in his bed. "Your mother's book."

She watched as Aunt Mary came nearer and sighed. "Yes. As I said, I wondered if you'd like it here. Perhaps … well I wondered where you've been keeping the ticket you've found."

"Why? What do you want with it?"

"—Papa—"

"I suppose you're going to include that in her bedroom? Frame it? Add it to the story?"

Aunt Mary shook her head. "No."

Slowly, after staring at Mary for a long moment, Donk pointed at his glass snuff box case, the one to Sybbie's right, and she saw there the worn yellow ticket stub. Aunt Mary nodded for it, and Sybbie, glancing once at Donk, picked it up and then handed it to her.

Aunt Mary took it, and then she drew in a deep breath.

"We are opening her room, Papa." Her aunt spoke quietly, but firmly. "It'll be open because she is a part of this house. A very large part of this house." She watched as Aunt Mary looked at the ticket and then up at her father. "Just as Mama was, and is, a very large part of you."

Sybbie saw Donk's eyes, his pupils dilated and the whites rheumy, glisten in the low light.

Mary lowered her chin. "And I know you're upset about the article, but no one will think worse of you."

"It never got any easier."

His voice, unlike Mary's, sounded as thin as the little treasured ticket Mary held.

She and her aunt sat silently and waited for him, both of them looking at the way he moved his gaze to the fireplace. Both of them, Sybbie was sure, feeling in some small way, afraid of what he saw. What he thought. What he would say.

"I thought it would." He continued at last. "When time went on but now…ancient and wizened, and it hurts more now than–" he shook his white head, and what lingered at his eyes now…they were unmistakably real tears. Sybbie took up his hand. "I didn't want this."

"No," Aunt Mary agreed. "It's a wound that won't heal. And we've rubbed salt. I know, Papa." She paused, her still-dark brow pinching, and she tipped her head. "Although it will be open, would it please you at all if it was roped off? Perhaps people can peek inside but cannot go in. Just a lovely glimpse?"

Sybbie blinked. And then she brought her eyes down to her dear grandfather, who, too, blinked up at Mary.

"Yes," he uttered at last. "That should be fine."

"Good," Mary pressed a smile. "Now, here." She leaned over, Sybbie pushing back into her chair and out of the way, as Mary passed the green book and yellow ticket to her father. "Tuck your little ticket here, so it won't get lost?"

With trembling hands, Sybbie watched as her grandfather accepted the book. And then, with some surprise, he handed the book and the ticket to Sybbie.

"There should be …" he started and trailed off. He began again. "There's a marked page. Turned down. Open it there?"

Sybbie looked up at her aunt, and then down again to the book. "Alright." She found the dog-eared page, the spine creaking, and she smoothed her hand over the words printed across the open book.

"I want to say this. Since you've brought it up. Since it'll be printed–"

"Papa–"

"-I want to say that I've always been sorry that … that I didn't love your mother at the start. I didn't. She was," he swallowed and he brought his knobby fingers to his cardigan pocket. They waited, patiently, as he slowly removed his handkerchief and wiped his nose. He spoke again, slower, as he tried his best to nestle it back into his pocket. "She was rather young and rather more optimistic than I … I felt ashamed of myself. Even then. For stealing her chances at real happiness. Amongst other things." He cleared his throat, slightly, and adjusted himself again against his pillows. "Amongst…well, anyway."

"She kept it for a reason," Aunt Mary said after a quiet moment. "This book. You do know that, don't you?"

And after another moment, he nodded at the book. "That Isabel …" His shaky finger pointed at the book Sybbie held. "She reminded me of Cora. When I read it. Lovely and innocent … and seduced for her money."

Sybbie looked into the open book and brushed her thumb over the page. She thought of how seventy years before, her grandmother had likely done the same. And her grandfather. She looked up at him.

His eyes rested on the book. "I didn't want to be the husband written there. The … the oh … what's his name?"

"Osmond."

Sybbie turned and found her aunt, and she saw that Mary blinked heavily.

"Oh, Papa. You weren't an Osmond to Mama. Not ever. And you never seduced her."

"I did at the start. I wooed her for her money. I–"

"-I know, but she told me." Aunt Mary interrupted. She sniffed, too, and lifted her chin. "Before she died."

"Told you?"

Mary shrank, every ounce of stiffness leaving her slender, imperious frame.

"She told me about what happened: why you sent her book back the night before your wedding."

And then, Donk's face changed, somehow becoming a shade younger, even in spite of the bloody bandage, the purple bruise that had bloomed across his brow. "She told you everything? Why we had the argument?"

"Yes," she nodded. "About Grandpapa being angry. And the contract. And … everything."

"Why?"

Her aunt shrugged. "I think she wanted to tell me."

Donk frowned. "What you all must think of me."

"There's no all, Papa. Mama told me in confidence. I haven't told anyone. I don't intend to." She clasped her hands before her. "And I don't think anything except that you were young, and that you shouldn't feel regret over it."

"And what if I do?" Donk's wavering, tired voice was quiet.

"Then you hadn't paid any attention to Mama." Aunt Mary smiled. "She would fuss at you for saying such a thing."

Donk's gaze drifted again to the hearth, and once again Aunt Mary stepped closer.

"She was happy, Papa. And she wouldn't want you to spend your final days regretting anything that you've done."

"Here," Sybbie, feeling embarrassed, interrupted them. She nestled the ticket against the words her grandfather had underlined a lifetime ago: I'm yours for ever — for ever and ever. "Let's keep it here. Safe and sound?"

Donk nodded, bringing his watery eyes back to the book, and sniffling. "Very good." He cleared his throat. "My heart pressed in a book. Like Percy Shelley."

Aunt Mary sighed, but Sybbie laughed.

"Oh, Papa. Out of everything, how on earth do you remember that sort of nonsense?"

"It's not nonsense," he tried to arrange his heavy covers over his lap. "Don't you know anything?"

"Apparently not," Mary replied, and cocked a brow.


Robert thought she'd return when the girls left. When Mary left.

She didn't.

In fact the only thing that returned, and with fervor, was the stiffness, the soreness, the distant throb of his hip they'd taken x-ray images of earlier that day. His shoulder. His elbow.

His head.

It pounded as if someone was inside of it, some angry sprite breathing slowly in and then out, in and then out, pushing its inflated body against the walls of Robert's skull ever so slowly, but rhythmically. Torturously.

It made his eyes ache. His already poor vision now abysmally poorer. Streaks of light, though they'd all tried their best to make his room as dim as possible, were instead rays of July sun. Pulsating sunspots.

Someone had told him they'd be up to administer the aspirin. Couldn't he have it now? Had he already taken it?

George. Dear George had said that.

God, how cruel was old age? How cruel that Robert's clearest memories were of days half a century ago … and his grandson hefting him from the frozen ground where he'd slipped and fallen.

Robert knew he'd tried to catch himself. He remembered that, too. He remembered the way his stick had gotten caught on some root or some other, how he'd lifted the thing to free it, how his heel had moved—only slightly—and then as he fell slowly to the earth, his mind yelling out for him to throw out his arms, to bend his knees—something—and Robert's body being completely deaf to its demands.

He remembered, too, that he found he couldn't move afterward. While he lay there.

And he remembered that it felt odd that he knew there should be some pain, but there was none. A small panic, yes. Small and brief. But no pain.

But the pain came now. Hours and hours later. And Robert couldn't recall another time he hurt so badly.

His eyes searched his room. Newspapers. Cards. Books.

Their book.

He watched it, the gilded ivy glittering.

Their book.

I'm yours for ever — for ever and ever.

He wanted her to come. He wanted it.

Was she real? He … he wasn't sure she was now. That had been Sybbie with Mary. Edith had brought him broth. Toast. She read from the paper to him. But he wanted her.

But … she couldn't be here. He knew he'd seen her just this morning. Distorted shadows of her, echoing syllables of her voice, but he had seen her, hadn't he?

No. He'd made sure to read her name on the stone.

In Loving Memory of Cora Levinson Crawley. Seventh Countess of Grantham.

Had they not included something about her being a mother? A wife? Why hadn't they? Had they on the private memorial here at home? Just an engraved CG. Cora Grantham.

His head hurt too badly to think on it now. She wasn't here. The pain was. She wasn't here and he didn't think she should be. She shouldn't be.

No, he knew.

He should be with her.