1928
It was an outrage of the highest order!
No one could believe that it had come to this. The law, in the infinite wisdom of a lack of foresight, really had no precedent for the matter in hand. Of course, it seemed a typical "he said, she said", which, generally, took place in a hearing in front of a court of law. A judge presiding and giving a ruling on the matter, then it would either go to court or it wouldn't. It was simple British Imperial Justice - envy of the world. But the matter seemed entirely confused when the accuser was in the hospital, half her body covered in mutilating third-degree burns. And the defendant in question was merely a boy, not yet a tweeny. But the case was even more complicated a matter, because, there was no guilty verdict to be had.
The defendant in question, in fact, fully admitted to pushing a woman in her sixties into a boiling bathtub of bleach. His argument wasn't even self-defense, fore he had broken into private property. To this, many would say that the argument was a moot point. The boy in question had broken into not just a house, but a castle of great importance and governance, assaulted its staff, and had brutally disfigured a member of the noble family that lived there. To anyone in the world, that seemed like no better reason to lock the boy up.
But there were questions that called much into uncertainty of the simplicity of the case. The first question: why would the boy break into Brancaster Castle? If you asked the Lord and Lady, they'd say it impossible. The boy in question was always welcome there, he could come and go at his leisure. Lady Hexham even going as far as wishing he'd come and live with her. If he was accused of breaking and entering, the charges would be falsely filed – fore, there was no time that exists in which he would be an intruder.
The second question: Why was there boiling bleach in the guest bathroom in the first place? To that, no one could say. The staff of Brancaster seemed at a loss of words when questioned. The Royal Detectives and the Chief Inspector had their doubts that Lord and Lady Hexham's staff had no idea about the boiling vat of chemicals. Surely, they knew why they did it and to who's orders it was commissioned. But still they toed the unified line of this person gave an order and that person called it in, till it seemed even the scullery maid had a hand in giving messages.
And the final question: What's the motive? Anyone would tell you that the accuser and the defendant did not like one another. They would dare to say that the boy did not like most titled women over the age of forty-eight. And the defendant had always thought the boy a very, very, bad influence on her son and daughter-in-law's angelic ward.
Yet, the investigators would be willing to give the benefit of doubt if the whole story wasn't so incredibly far-fetched, so impossible and horrifying.
It was the boy's side of the story that seemed so outlandish to even the most hardened sensibilities of veteran law enforcement. The evidence was there, the timetable was there, but the story of what happened was something they couldn't get their head around. With speed - smuggling on the last train out of Downton Station - a young boy snuck past armed guards and onto the vast Brancaster Estate under cover of stormy night. There, he found that Mrs. Mirada Pelham, mother of the Marquess of Hexham, was attempting to dunk her son and his wife's ward into a bathtub of boiling bleach to cleanse the golden-haired angel of her 'sinful taint' and 'restore her purity'. The very thought of such a thing chilled the Royal Investigators to their very bones. To think it was possible that a woman such as Mirada Pelham, a vocal crusader for morality, was capable of such barbarous acts. But when questioned why she would do such a thing; they were flat out, top down, horrified.
It was the boy's account for the reason that Marigold Drewe was nearly boiled alive in a chemical bath was because she saw something she shouldn't have. That an innocent and perfect little girl, frightened of the violent storm, had walked into her best friend's guest room - the niece of Lady Hexham - seeking comfort and shelter in her sister in everything but name's arms. But when she entered Ms. Sybbie Branson's room, in a flash of lightning, she saw Mirada Pelham … doing something a grown woman shouldn't ever be doing to a young girl.
Marigold, frightened and horrified to see her best friend, her sister, with her wrists bound by silk scarfs to the headboard, her mouth gagged with their Aunt Edith's used golden satin knicker's, while "Granny M" was … doing what she was. The sight of the too young victim mewling into her gag and looking away in shame of the horror and unnatural pleasure, caused young Marigold to freeze. And in the very moment when both loved one and her foster grandmother looked up and saw her standing there, little Marigold fled. Running faster than anyone thought possible, outpacing the castle butler who was supposed to have been keeping watch for his "Mistress". Little Marigold ran all the way to the phone. And it was there that she called her other best friend. He was a boy she loved so much that she could not think of anyone else to call upon to save her and their sister. And when Mirada Pelham was too late to stop the children's private emergency signal from going out over the phone to Crawley House …
George Crawley armed and perilous - came.
"Did some fine work here, he did." As the Northumbrian police constables said.
The boy had cleaved through the staff of the castle like cutting a cake. Three footmen had serious injuries, including traumatic concussions from a guerilla style ambush in Brancaster's Painted Hall and other such places as they walked patrol down the haunted corridors. The Sergeant-At-Arms of the Hexham Estate broke his leg in two places when he fell over the railing after being struck between the eyes by a smooth volcanic rock flung from the shadows by a Samoan native sling. But the Butler of Brancaster had it the worst of all the staff. Mirada Pelham's lookout and co-conspirator had his kneecap shattered with an iron fire poker and his laborious gut had been beaten to near catastrophic bruising. It was clear that the stories had been true about George Crawley. He was, indeed, highly trained in matters of swordsmanship, stealth combat, and a myriad of other disciplines covered under the arts of altogether "ungentlemanly warfare". There was an air of "The Thugee" about his tactics and training that made some of the older men nervous.
It was then, in the eleventh hour, just as Mirada carried a terrified and begging Marigold into the bathroom like a holy sacrifice, the boy leapt upon the woman. The two grappled in furious battle then - like a hunting hound against a mad dog. They used nails, fists, and teeth as they fought savagely over the sobbing little girl in question that hid in Sybbie's protective arms. Poor Marigold cradled bloody fingers whose nails were torn off from gripping doorways and wall corners as Mirada ripped her free and continued to drag her down the hall. She lay across Sybbie's half-naked body, unable to sit, after Mrs. Pelham had lifted the girl's nightgown and gave her cruel spankings on her bare bottom till Marigold let go of the obstructions she clung too in protest. But eventually, all wounds were avenged when George finally brought an end to their fight over Marigold and Sybbie. Lowering his shoulder, the trained fighter rammed the old woman's thighs, forcing her onto bleach slickened tile. There she slipped into her own boiling chemical bath.
Taking both girls away, it was the next morning that they found the three of them together at Crawley House. When their parents and guardians came upon them, the two girls were snuggled together in George Crawley's bed. They both looked like beaten and traumatized kittens as the two girls lay atop one another, wide awake, haunted and traumatized in their quiet cuddling. Meanwhile, their rescuer sat in his father's leather chair pulled up by his bed. Bloody scratches on his cheek, George quietly sharpened a Rajput sword with the runes of Westernesse upon them, while sitting in protective vigil by the girls he loved most. It was there that their family saw that Ms. Marigold Drewe and Ms. Sybil Branson - two of the most beautiful and perfect girls in the whole Imperium - had been utterly broken.
But the question remained how could someone do something like that to young girls? One girl molested for months, right under her father, step-mamma, and mamma's own noses. A girl bribed with jewels and finery if she didn't tell anyone. A girl who suffered in silence, afraid that if she refused the old woman's lecherous advances that she would go after Marigold in her stead. When they met young Ms. Sybil, she was as beautiful as the finest dolly, but flinched at all mature female presence that wasn't Lady Grantham or Mrs. Hughes. They witnessed her startle and flee to the other side of the room, having to be held and talked down by Lucy Branson and Lady Mary. The entire incident had been triggered simply by Lady Bagshaw coming up from behind and touching the girl's shoulder in deeply felt compassion in the most maternal and loving way imaginable. The girl's response was proof enough of the young Lord of Downton's claims.
The other girl was healing physically but not mentally. When the Royal Investigators came to talk to Lady Edith, they found her little ballerina unable to sit, for her fanny had been beaten raw. Her fingers were bandaged, covered in deep gashes. She was also terrified of bathtubs. The girl could only bath if Lady Edith got in with her, showing her that it was just warm water and soap. Then, Marigold would sob uncontrollably, clinging to her guardian, as her Aunt Edith bathed her – trying so very hard to stay strong and not cry herself. It was then that one had to question how it was possible that someone so vile could do something like that to such lovely young roses not yet bloomed. The answer was simple, given from way up high in the chain of command … and it was that those investigators weren't paid to ask those questions. They were paid to make this go away - by Royal Decree.
After all, George "The Comet" Crawley, 38th Lord of Downton, Heir to the Earl of Grantham and the House of the White Queen, was a rebel and a traitor … even if he told no word of a lie.
The truth was spoken plainly by the young heir to the House of Grantham. But the truth was also that the Aristocracy could not afford another scandal of such magnitude. Forever scarred by the death of his look-alike cousin and his family in Russia, the King and the Monarchists saw red in their periphery wherever they went. And with the worker strikes stoking fires in Yorkshire, they would not give the Northmen another reason to rise up. The idea of such perversions, such grotesquery from a leading voice of morality in the upper classes was unthinkable. But the Palace would've left it up to the Houses of Grantham and Hexham of how to handle such a matter, if their ear was not gained by others. Fore it was, in the chambers of the House of Lords, that there were some men who saw an opportunity in the making.
Ms. Sybbie Branson was a new and modern commodity to the British Imperium. An Heiress. The lovely young girl stood to gain an ever-expanding and booming motor fortune - which would be attractive enough in the next ten years. But what if they could sweeten the pot? What if, in addition to her immense beauty and her parent's lucrative motor trade, she also could come with the largest agricultural producer in the entirety of the great island kingdom? In the recent years, it had come to the attention of many in high places in government and society that the greater Grantham Estate produced numbers and profits only seen by Plantation owners in the Colonies.
George Crawley was the last heir to the House of Grantham - There was no other. If these men could - somehow - take the young Lord of Downton out, then the ancient House of Grantham, with all its titles, would become extinct. The Grantham Estate, then, would revert to its majority holder, Lady Mary Talbot. Thus, with her only son, George, out of the way, and a dependable 'expiration date' to Lord and Lady Grantham, the only viable successor of Lady Mary was her niece and adopted daughter, Ms. Sybil Afton Branson. Indeed, there was an opportunity here to relieve the House of Grantham of their great burden of existence and acquire a fortune beyond any Peer's wildest dreams - all in a beautiful and pearly silk marriage purse.
After all, no one of good character and sense in High Society even liked George Crawley. He may have been a boy of exceeding youth, but already he was an odd sort. The boy's curls were not long, but thick, shaggy, and mop like, which draped over his ears and covered the back of his neck. His dress was common and rugged, like that of a farmer or fisherman's son. The cloth of his clothing was of some strange making, with even stranger hieroglyphic adornments on his jacket sleeve. His speech was not of England, akin to something American like. On top of such a thing, the strange boy spoke half a dozen languages, including being known to utter Gaelic, in the open English street, like some uncouth barbarian. This, most deemed, had come from him being uncommonly and incredibly studious, steeped in strange knowledges and owner of even stranger texts of ancient and even pre-history that seemed unbelievable.
Those many of the county who befriended him, often fell under such a spell, learning much of the world and speaking of strange tales and places of forgotten lore of the likes that many Lords and Ladies would say were not meant for those of their class. Yet, the common people loved him so, even if they did find him a bit of an acquired taste with his adventuring and not wholly English ways. But to the British upper classes, those with a little more influence in places of governance, found him absolutely cracked. The House of Lords - in the least - knew of the boy's master, the old Sikh science pirate. And though his service to the Empire in the past had gained him peace, it was not bought nor borne with a great love between the Imperium and mysterious captain of the ocean fathoms. And of the old villain's hatred for the Royal House of Windsor, he taught heartily to his young apprentice. There were whispers from Princess Mary's own household of names such as "Hanoverian Tyrants" being slandered upon the Royal family by the young Viscount in open Republican sedition against the King-Emperor and the Prince of Wales themselves.
It was these rumors that caused the mysterious "M" of the shadowed MI6 to whisper in the Prince of Wale's ear of the opportunity to smother in the crib any future dissidence from a boy that would grow into a powerful and charismatic leader of men. To their credit, the Royal House showed a much greater restraint than what "M" proposed. Princess Mary arguing fiercely against this plot of her eldest brother, ambitious lords, and their 'Spy Master', all of whom had lusted after a future heiress of surpassing beauty which could acquire by inheritance much that their heart hotly desired. But the King-Emperor, none the less, saw the wisdom of cutting off a Republican head before it could grow into a foe. Thus, he gifted his decree to a son who bore a great hatred for a young adventurer who had taken something precious from him in the ruined kingdom of Kor during their African adventure.
It was then that Lady Maude Bagshaw had been sent from the Palace to ensure that her House's heir understood the Royal terms, as did the Royal Court's own Lord-Leftenant.
It was a no-win scenario that had been handed down so callously. In fact, when Richard Ellis - newly promoted as dresser of the King - had asked his highness about it 'casually' before dinner, the old monarch couldn't quite remember the name of the chap the decree was addressed too. It was some enemy of the Prince, or other, he said before giving a gruff and distracted chuckle. 'Playing the odds, Ellis, playing the odds, you know.; It was clear, in that moment, that the entire episode - including his own daughter begging him not to placate to her brother's vanity and "M' – the Royal House of Windsor's very own Rasputin's ambitions - was forgotten so easily.
Meanwhile, the queen simply said that their own family's peace was more important than some squabble in their Court between a minor Peer with an ancient title and the mother of a Marquess. She assured Lady Maude that "David" would lose interest in his current "White Wale" - this Lord of Downton who made him a fool in Africa of some sort. And that Princess Mary was always fickle with her causes. But when Lady Bagshaw pointed out that Princess Mary's objections came that her brother's "White Wale", The Lord of Downton, was a young boy, The Queen paused from her letter writing. 'How terribly droll …' it was all she said before going back to what she was doing, forgetting the entire conversation already.
Now the choice was before young George Crawley. The King's terms were that the youth keep the story of the molestation of Sybbie and the attempted murder of Marigold to himself. That never again would he speak in public of such things. In the legal document, drafted by a Prince's bruised ego, and every word written by the dark, mysterious, and dangerous, shadowy head of MI6 - they laid out the contrary evidence to his claims that was not founded by any detective or medical expert. Furthermore - as Royal Decree - if the boy did not sign the contract or breached it in anyway, he would have all his titles and lands stripped from his person and condemned to an Asylum as a creditable threat to Sybbie and Marigold's well-being.
The threat alone was made wholly more dangerous by stating that it would not be just any Asylum, but "Carfax Asylum: Imperial Penitentiary for the Criminally Insane". There, in those desiccated and diseased walls, was housed the madness of three hundred years of the worst Criminals from every corner of the Imperium. And by the King-Emperor's signature, it was made clear that the House of Windsor had no reservations of throwing the young boy in the deepest and darkest cell in one of the worst 'madhouses' in the entire world, perhaps on par with "The Mission" in Saltillo, Mexico.
The very thought of the boy in that rank darkness of evil terrified Ladies Hexham and Grantham. Lady Bagshaw had agonized over it for a week. While Lucy had such terrible nightmares, unable to bring herself to tell Tom Branson, her husband, the fate that could await their now both beloved nephew with the face of his lost Sybil. It seemed that the only person yet to be daunted by the prospect of being locked away in one of the worst criminal asylums in the world was George himself. The boy was forthright, steadfast, and valiant to the last. He did not cow to threats from a 'fat and empty-headed doddering old man' nor his 'foppish princeling who cries during sex'. How he knew that about Prince Edward no one was sure. But the Princess, in the least, as usual, found the young adventurer's candor and unassailable courage enamoringly admirable.
"Sign the document!"
"I already told-"
"You do not dictate to me what you have and haven't told me, boy!"
"I won't sign it."
"You will put an end to this, now!"
"Or what?!"
"Do not test me …"
"Robert, enough!"
The Library of Downton Abbey was hot, both in temperature of room and people inside. No one knew how long they had been going at it. What was supposed to be a simple family meeting to discuss options had turned into a full-on shouting match between a Lord and his heir. Meanwhile, everyone else watched in disbelief and conflicted emotions. No one, not a single person in that library on that day, knew what to do. It had come out of nowhere - the Royal Decree. Their first reaction was outrage, anger, betrayal. Then, there came helplessness - a fight against the inescapable gravity of the mighty mass of such a great figure in the pantheon of, certainly, their universe. It never occurred to them that when given a direct order from the King of England that it was possible to say no.
But George Crawley did just that.
Lady Grantham placed a comforting hand on the Lord's shoulder. Though, it seemed more a physical restraining to her husband's temper. She paced forward toward a young boy with his arms crossed defiantly. The deep scratches on his cheek were already healing - they wouldn't scar … that was for other wounds given that night. Cerulean eyes – the exact matching of his granny - stalked his grandfather who frustratedly paced to the mantel of the fireplace. There, he rested a folded elbow, while his other hand scrubbed his face with a low growl under breath. He found it hard to fathom being placed in this situation again. And by his king, of all people.
"Darling, please …"
"You're not going to talk …"
"Think for a minute!" Cora snarled rancorously over her grandson and ward when he tried to interrupt her. "They're not asking you to deny that it happened! They only want your word that you won't speak of it to anyone." She explained.
"And what about that hag, huh?! What will be done with her?!" He shrugged his granny's hand off his shoulder, striding toward Robert who was disengaged from the headlong rush into a grandson sized fortress wall.
"I promise, your Uncle Bertie and I will deal with Mirada." Edith reached for the boy's hand. But she looked hurt when he rebuffed his beloved aunt and legal guardian's affection.
"Don't lie to me!" The boy shouted at Edith who was suddenly taken back by the ferocity. "You know that it takes eyewitnesses, reliable sources, to have someone committed to the Nuthouse!" He pointed at Edith. "The staff of Brancaster were hired by her, she holds their contracts, they're loyal to her! If I sign that document, then there will be no witnesses! It's her word against Marigold and Sybbie! And who are they gonna believe, huh? A couple of little girls, born to working-class fathers? Or the moral crusader of Northumberland?!" He shouted at the closest thing to a mother he ever had. Edith shrank deeper into the red sofa, eyes watery again.
George spoke the truth. Much of Bertie and her household had been set up by her mother-in-law in the gap between them breaking up about Marigold and then getting married. Yet, furthermore, when they both stumbled out of the gate as Marquess and Marchioness - Bertie having been a soldier most of his life and Edith a writer - she had been truly grateful to Mirada. The woman had helped both of them in so many aspects of issues that required Bertie and Edith's attention that neither were quite adept at handling.
Now she saw that her mother-in-law was not trying to help them. All she had been doing was cultivating political and domestic relationships for her own ends as a power broker. Edith and Bertie might have been Lord and Lady of the ancient House of Hexham, but everyone knew who the real mistress of Brancaster Castle was. It was why she thought - and so brazenly - that she could do what she did to Sybbie for so long without fear of reprisal. It made Edith sick to her stomach to think of her own house as the lair of a gluttonous black spider that lured Sybbie into her webs so she could be feasted upon.
"If I sign that document, nothing, NOTHING, will be done!" He roared at all his family around him pounding a fist on the table that startled everyone.
"Something will be done …" Lady Maude Bagshaw spoke gravely as she stood by Lucy and Tom at the refreshment table by the glass doors to the estate gardens. "It will just be you that will face the consequences." The woman was quiet but direct, looking almost mournful.
In the end, it was fear, a great deal of fear of the future that endangered them all. It was not the eleventh hour, but the time was slowly closing in. The boy now had two days to sign the document. Yet, he still would not yield the point nor bury what had happened that night. And it was his unyielding devotion to truth and justice that made it so incredibly hard for Lord Grantham, and especially Tom Branson, to argue any contrary point with him. In the least, Tom himself knew George to be in the right.
There was a larger, older, part of the boy's uncle who cheered for the young rebel - perhaps the loudest of them all. At most, this 'decree' could only deepen his hatred for the Royal Family further. In any other circumstance it might have driven him to put a bomb under the Prince of Wale's car when he drunkenly stumbled out of a nightclub some morning. But the more reformed and experienced Irishman knew that none of it would help his little girl. He wanted justice for her, but revenge would gain nothing.
The awful truth was that he didn't even know what to say to Sybbie. He was truly beaten, thoroughly defeated, by something he never thought possible. There was not a time, at any moment of his life, when he entrusted his daughter's care to Mirada Pelham - who would turn sixty-one years old next month - that she was in danger. Indeed, that very blind side was almost impossible to explain to a girl who sought a simple 'why' from her daddy. And as terrible as it was, if it had been a man, there might have been many explanations of the degenerate sickness of lusting after young girls. But when it was an old, matronly, woman who kissed and fondled a young girl, tied her to Edith's head bored and lathered oils over her nude body … how does one explain that to their daughter? How could he convince his girl that she could trust anyone ever again?
"My dear …" Lady Rosamund suddenly spoke kindly and with understanding. They all turned to the red headed dowager as she stood out of her chair. "I understand what you want." she sighed tiredly. "And if I were in your shoes, I would want justice as well. What Mrs. Pelham tried to do to Marigold was unforgivable." She paced to a confused boy. "But, my dear, it's time to come clean." She was neutral, standing authoritatively paternal in front of their suddenly confused but stalwart heir.
"About what?" The boy frowned.
"I know you love her, that the two of you are very close. I also know that you want to protect her at any cost." Rosamund clasped her hands at her lower stomach .
The boy frowned. "What the hell are you talking about, old woman?!" He snarled with a shake of his head in confusion.
"George!" Cora snapped in rebuke before Robert could blow up, her hand frozen in restraint on his chest.
"I've constantly said to everyone here that you are the smartest person in the room. So why you can't see what is going on around you, seems to contradict everything we've staked our lives on! Think, boy! The Prince does not just want you to refuse to sign the decree, he is counting on your defiance! Your pride and devotion to Marigold will doom this family!" There was something prophetic in her words that struck a chord in the very ether of the Library. "Out with it!" She snapped.
"I don't know what you're talking about!" George shouted back.
"Rosamund, what are you getting at?" Robert was also confused.
"Isn't it obvious …?" the handsome older woman looked around at her family. But no one seemed to see the situation the way Rosamund did.
"She lied."
Everyone turned to Lady Mary Crawley who was sitting by Edith. The woman had not said a word till that point. When the fighting started, she only stared. Yet, the entire time her gaze was trained at no one else but her son. It was not with hatred, or anger, nor with love, either. The beautiful ivory great lady simply watched her child as if studying his silhouette in a mist. It seemed that she was trying to recognize him, see him in true detail. No one quite knew what was in her mind, but they knew, in the least, that her son had consumed every facet of it. Edith would almost say, watching her sister, that it was the way that Mary used to look at Matthew when he first arrived. A hated rival to which the very notion bore a connection of great affinity and, dare one say, deep admiration. Like it had been with his father - determined to not let Downton change him - there was a quiet obsession in Mary's heart for one more passionate rebel to which she despised for how much she loved him.
"Marigold lied … that is what Aunt Rosamund is saying." Mary stood up casually. "She thinks that Marigold made up what happened to Sybbie, knowing that George would overreact violently … as usual." There was a cold cut in her finish aimed at the young boy. "She's convinced that George is protecting Marigold's reputation." The woman poured herself a cup of tea, not even looking back at her family.
Indeed, it was the greatest enemy that faced George Crawley and Marigold Drewe. Even in the room of their family, there was a contingent, non-vocal, but reeling at the story they told. There were some that had convinced themselves that there was a mistake. That perhaps Marigold didn't know what she was looking at or didn't understand what was going on. There was a thought that perhaps the girl had done something incredibly naughty and was lying all together.
"Aunt Rosamund!" Edith's mouth hung agape with anxious outrage on her glamorous elfin face.
"No, no …" Rosamund turned, strict and maternal, familiarity in her voice with the woman she still saw as a young girl in her heart. "Now, my dear, you cannot deny that I love Marigold more than anything or anyone in the world! She is my granddaughter – I won't let anyone in this room deny me that. You cannot accuse me of being against her, not when I took great pains to see her …" She suddenly paused immediately, glancing at a suspicious George who didn't know what she would say next. Of all in the room, the boy was the only one not privy to the great secret that laid in the weeds, stalking two children with a great doom of cruel irony set against their love.
"Adopted by our family." She recovered flawlessly, causing Cora to give a slight sigh of relief. "But while even I admit that it seems almost far-fetched to say this, Marigold is not perfect." She explained to a flabbergasted Edith.
"Marigold would never do such a thing as lie about something so large!" Edith protested.
To this Rosamund only tilted her head. "My dear, Marigold is a little girl, all little girls lie … or have you forgotten Jack Daughtry?" She reminded.
To this, even Mary turned with a raised eyebrow at a name that nobody had heard in many long decades. Suddenly, there was a flush of deep embarrassment on Lady Hexham who sank into the red sofa in shame.
"That … that was different." Edith shook her head.
"The statue of Cupid in the garden lost its head, and you blamed it on the stable boy, if I remember correctly. His father beat him savagely till he was lame for losing his place, and it was Patrick - If I recall - who admitted that it had been you, all along, who had broken the statue." The ginger haired handsome older woman leaned in heavily, observing Edith with a knowing and condescending look.
"It was Patrick who broke the statue." The golden-haired woman almost whispered.
"Yes, I know, my dear …" Rosamund nodded. "Patrick was a decent boy, but he had streaks of his grandmother … a nasty piece of work. Cora harshly punished you for what you did to that boy. When in reality, you did nothing. But, still, you lied … and to protect Patrick." She cornered her niece with a tilt of her head.
Edith looked up. "Mamma condemned me to Porridge for breakfast, Eggs for Lunch, and soup for dinner for a month - only letting me out of my room for Mary and my studies with the governess. Patrick would have been locked in his room till he was sent away to boarding school! I was all he had!" The woman defended in shame, trying once more to come to terms with the darkest chapter of her childhood.
Yet, she was grateful for parents who loved her completely- despite their low standards for her. She had witnessed Patrick's mistreatment, cried over him as he was forced into dark basement closets when he misbehaved or was deemed to be disobedient. Their Uncle James had quite the black temper that both Papa and Sybil had shown shadows of. But while both Papa and Sybil barked fiercely, they never bit, for it was not in their nature to ever lay hands on the ones they loved. Yet, Patrick Crawley's father was all bite and dark cruelty hidden under congenial gentlemanly manner.
In those days of her youth, Edith had been in an impossible position. Patrick Crawley was meek and weak - kind but frightened of much. And everyone from Granny to Mary enjoyed dominating him from the time they were children. And yet, Edith couldn't lose her only friend in the world for much of her life. She took responsibility when he lied on her, knowing that her punishment would be severe but humane compared to what Uncle James would've done to Patrick who nearly gave himself a seizure in panic when he broke the statue.
"That is precisely my point, Edith!" Rosamund argued. "Who knows what Marigold did? Perhaps it was a miniscule piece of minor mischief. Most likely, knowing our girl, it was a small trifle that she felt incredibly guilty about. So, she lied! Perhaps, Mrs. Pelham came on too strong, over reacted and scared Marigold. But either way, you, of all people, should know that little girls - even the perfect ones - have many reasons to not tell the whole truth in these matters." She was grave in her manner, looking nowhere but right into the Marchioness's golden eyes.
"The hell are you clucking at?!" George suddenly broke in with nothing but insult and contempt.
"I'm clucking at reason, boy!" She whirled on her nephew. "Protecting that little girl's reputation is not more important than the future of this family!" She raised her voice. George strode up to Lady Rosamund swiftly, causing Lucy to flinch backward. All the air in the room was stolen as Matron and Heir, the past and the future of the Crawley family, stared down one another in deep contrasts.
"Women do not do things like that to young girls." Rosamund scoffed, lowering herself to match eyes with the boy.
"Marigold-doesn't-lie!" George said slowly, lowly, and perilously.
"Says you." They turned to find Mary sipping her tea, looking positively frigid as an Artic night.
"Says Sybbie!" George was rancorous in his dismissal of his mother while turning back to Rosamund.
"That's not what she told me." Mary gave a smug and slight turn of her head. Slowly, George turned back to his mamma, who was vibrating with bottled anxiety. But still she drank neat and dainty, looking her son over with red tinted amber eyes from her turned up cup.
The boy glared darkly at her. "What do you mean?!" He demanded.
"Exactly what I said." Mary's cup clinked on the porcelain saucer. "As far as I know, Sybbie doesn't recall anything of the sort happening to her." She shrugged, moving across the library.
"That's a filthy lie!" George said in sudden outrage, his heart dropping from his chest into an abyss without end.
Mary sat gracefully on the sofa next to Edith and straightened her silk skirt. "Oh, so now it's a lie." His mother gave a condescending voice. "I thought you said …" She began.
"Marigold doesn't lie!" George reiterated. "All Sybbie does is lie!" He accused his twin sister in everything but birth and name. "She lies all the time to get what she wants!" He continued. "And she's lying now!" He roared.
"Well, then …" Mary played with her pearls. "Perhaps she lied to Marigold." She shrugged.
"But she didn't …" George said defensively. "I was there that night!" He had such a vivid look in his own eyes that it was almost as if he was standing in that dark corridor of the castle once more. He could almost smell the bleach fumes overpowering him. There was a flickered second of hesitation that manifested in the lightening of sympathy in Mary's lovely face.
"But she's told me the same thing …"
It was timid and gentle, but still Lucy Branson spoke out from her spot by Tom and her mummy. Never had she ever been privy to such a row before. It seemed another world, another place, from where she grew up and went to school. For so long it had been just her mother and her. Now, in two years, she was an heiress, with a husband, an extended family, and a stepdaughter that most people didn't get the point of … that went beyond her considerable looks and her money.
But Lucy's kindness, her empathy, was like a flame to a young girl's moth. The two bonded over hair and make-up, Sybbie always wanting to look as glamorous and regal as Lady Mary, her 'mamma'. It had been Lucy's way into the girl's life, and, like most young girls, Sybbie was talkative and loved to gossip while Lucy and she 'experimented' with different stylish looks. Indeed, as two heiresses of new fortunes, they felt a kinship that was unrivaled. And, in truth, Lucy knew that Sybbie looked up to her. The girl didn't think she was born with the natural feminine ease of her mamma, and so always she looked to her 'Aunt' Lucy to see how an heiress carried herself at all times. Thus, at the vanity, or in the dressing rooms on shopping trips, Sybbie spoke her mind and many truths that she was otherwise too afraid to speak to her daddy or her 'perfect' mamma.
And it was at the vanity that Sybbie had spoken of that awful night. But what Lucy remembered most was the blank look in the lovely creature's eyes. Her polished and heavenly voice was bereft of emotion as she spoke. It was as if she was in a trance state. In fact, it worried her step-mama greatly - the sudden dissociation in which she was enraptured in. Then, she turned and repeated the words over and over again with sputtering sobs till she was nearly manic.
'It didn't happen, it didn't happen … no, no, it was all in Marigold's head, she doesn't know … she doesn't know … Women don't do that … they don't, they don't … no, no, Aunt Lucy they don't! She didn't kiss me, she didn't put her tongue in my … because, it didn't happen. Grannies don't do that. No, they don't, right? Right?! No, Marigold is lying, that's not what happened, it's not Aunt Lucy! I didn't let her do that to me! It didn't happen to me! Marigold is Lying! She's Lying! She's Lying! She's a Laiherherer!'
"See there you go, corroboration." Mary tilted her head, waiting for George's next move.
"You weren't there!" George suddenly shouted at Lucy who backed away. "None of you were!" He pointed out to his family. "You didn't see the look in her eye! You didn't see the silk scarfs on her wrists where she was tied to the bed! Or the smell of rose scented body oil on her! It happened! I don't care what Sybbie says, she knows it happened!" He ranted.
"No!" Robert spoke up again. "What happened is that a violent and uncivilized child assaulted his aunt's estate, and nearly murdered six people! I'll admit, I found it amusing when Isobel made a pact with the old Sikh villain to take you on as his Apprentice, but I see now that I was a fool! This is not Africa or Hong Kong, Sybil, and it, certainly, is not wherever else it is you go on your "Expeditions"! In the real world, people do not attack others based on the hear-say of young girls, nor beat them into comas!" Lord Grantham engaged.
But everyone else watched him, ears perked up in sudden wonder. In his desperation he had called the boy something, a name, that he did not even realize he had done. Fore, in this moment, he did not see his Grandson, but a daughter who only ever fought and defied him in this same exact manner. It was fear of loss, a memory that came from the same place of love where both youngest daughter and only grandson resided together in his heart. Both shared the same face and personality ticks when angered, as if they were two people in one. And for a moment …
Robert Crawley forgot which of the two – Sybil or George – that he was even fighting with.
"In the real world, people are convicted of their crimes! They're brought to Justice!" George did not back down, unfazed by being called the name of a woman he never met, and yet whose very ghost he could never escape from within the eyes of those who loved her most.
"How much more justice do you think is required?!" There was a sudden clatter of china. "She is in a body cast, covered in paste and ice from head to toe! You won, for God's sake! What else do you want?!" Mary was now clearly frustrated.
She had thought, hoped, that dancing circles around the boy would make him concede. But, instead, he doubled down. Indeed, there was never a more dangerous figure than George Crawley with his back against the wall. He would never back down - dragging the entire world into war, before ever surrendering. It was as if he had no sense at all of what awaited him if he did not yield.
"She has to pay for what she's done!"
For a second they saw the madness of a Science Pirate's influence. Then, they realized that he would never be satisfied with the mutilation of Mirada Pelham. She had raped and attempted to murder the girls he loved. Only when she was expunged from the world, the universe itself, would he find peace. In him - for all to see - was the first wisps of the great shadow inside that would frighten many evil men and older and fouler things of the world in the years to come. Yet, in it, carried the seeds of many terrible mistakes and tragedies that would befall him when possessed by that same darkness that sparked in his cerulean eyes.
"And what about Marigold and Sybbie, should they pay too?!" Mary stood at full height, frightened by the hate in a small boy's voice. And somewhere inside her, she knew that she was the blame for it ever being there in the first place. "What happens when you get what you want?!" The pale beauty stepped toward George. "What happens when you get your day in the courts? What happens when they call Sybbie up there to the stand?! Have you ever been to a criminal court, George? I have, it's terrible!" She gritted her teeth.
"They'll tear Sybbie apart, knock her stuffing all over the courtroom floor, ask her all sorts of questions!" She ranted bitterly. "Did she touch you there? Did she kiss you with her tongue? Where else did she put her tongue?! Have you ever had unnatural thoughts about other girls?! They'll destroy her on that stand!" Mary lost all her composure. She was, in that horrible stretch of time, an exposed wire sparking.
"Not to mention her reputation, her future, will be in tatters! All anyone will remember, forever, is the girl who was molested, raped, by an old woman! Or worse – pray - that she lied about it! Is that what you want for a girl you claim to love?! Is that what you want for Sybbie?!" She shouted at her son, squaring up to him between the two red sofas of the Downton Library.
It was then, that Lord and Lady Grantham, and the Lady Rosamund, looked away. They did not hear a concerned mother then. What they heard in her stead was a frightened and confused teenage girl crying in her mother's arms as they lay in Cora Levinson's childhood bedroom at "San Sochi" on Fifth Avenue in New York. It was the fears of a young girl begging her mother, her grandmamma, not to turn her grandfather into the authorities. She couldn't bear the questions that the inspectors would ask about her time alone with the old Earl of Grantham. She was terrified of being blamed, of her dreams of being the grandest Lady in all of England being squashed, because, her grandfather liked to pleasure himself onto her face or belly while watching her in the bath or coming to her bedroom in the night. She didn't want anyone to know, no one could know what that man did to her.
What would she tell them? What could she tell them? She didn't tell him no, not ever, even during the times he did ask if it was alright. They would think her an awful tease, that she was trying to exploit an old Lord, who wrote her love letters every day, to advantage. He had been a sick and twisted old man who died believing that his eldest granddaughter was the true love of his life. It was then that her parents and aunt knew that these similar sins, now visited upon Sybbie on Mary's own watch, only brought the specter of those awful days that she never could face. Instead, she was possessed by the old fear for another beautiful young girl who suffered cruelly by the hands of someone who was supposed to protect her.
But it was then that George got a cold realization, for her reaction was telling in another matter.
"Wait a minute …" The boy looked enraged. "This is down to you, isn't it?!" He pointed an accusatory finger. "You're the one who told Sybbie to say all those things! You're the one who convinced her to lie, didn't you?!" When Mary didn't speak, the boy gave her a sudden shove. This sent Tom forward, hand outstretched in a cautionary body language. "You're telling Sybbie to lie! You're the one brainwashing her into thinking that it didn't happen!" The boy was rancorous and snarling. He looked around to see if anyone else was hearing what he was saying, if they also realized it. But then he paused …
In one glance, looking into every face, he realized that they all knew, that they all had a hand in the lie.
"You all …" The boy stumbled backward as if he had been shoved himself. "You all convinced her to lie. You all, knew what happened to her and still …" He couldn't comprehend what was going on.
"Oh, George!" Lady Grantham scoffed, looking away in sudden shame. "It's not that simple!" She said glassy eyed.
"It is that simple!" He roared back at his benefactor. "She raped Sybbie for months, she tried to murder Marigold! And you told them to forget about it?!" He was reeling in confusion and betrayal.
"The King-Emperor has spoken!" Lady Bagshaw said with conviction. "What do you suggest we do, boy?" she asked. "Throw away a thousand years of history and heritage, for a fight we cannot and will never win at any cost?!" the older woman asked delicately, feeling dirty for saying what she was.
"We're assuring that the girls have a future beyond this …" Robert added. "We are working so that this 'incident' does not define them for the rest of their lives! Our only concern is that Sybbie and Marigold will have lives, happy and normal ones, when all of this is over!" He fought back.
"And your principles?!" George asked in accusation.
"They remain till one's family is threatened … then, they become flexible in favor of protecting the ones you love." Tom broke in. "I learned that the hard way once, when your Aunt Sybil was pregnant, and I put my principles and causes ahead of her and the baby's welfare. It is not a lesson I'd be likely to forget." He spoke gravely.
"It's not right …" the youth said quietly at first. He looked to his Uncle Tom - the least reasonable man he knew in matters of when honor was at stake. But even the Irishman was unmoved.
"You all conspired to accuse Marigold of lying … to betray her!" He shouted.
"We aren't betraying anyone. Marigold knows what she saw and what happened when it happened. Unlike you, she was satisfied with the outcome that you perpetrated! And unlike you, her concern was for Sybbie's well-being, not her own revenge!" Robert was rancorous.
"That's because you told her what to say, you told her to lie!" George yelled back, feeling suddenly threatened.
"Perhaps, but her lie will save this family, her and Sybbie's future, and most importantly, your life!" Lady Rosamund snapped righteously.
"I'd rather spend two days in freedom and leave the circles of the world forever with Marigold and my honor intact, than trade it for a thousand more years of your worthless compromise!" The boy proclaimed defiantly to his family. In that moment it seemed to take everything that Tom Branson had to not stand by his nephew's side in solidarity … for somewhere in his voice they heard the very ghost of Matthew Crawley in his words.
Robert, hearing it himself, looked on in a deep pain. He sighed heavily and tried to find condemnation in his heart for the boy. But from that time, he brooded bitterly to know the highest of quality of courage and ideals was found in his very own grandson and heir. His wits having been shielded by the many prejudices toward a future he didn't envision nor want for one he loved. And it was that not since the days before Matthew's death had he found such absolution and comfort to know of the gallantry that would replace Cora and himself when it was time.
But it was irony borne with a great pain that this quality of valiant heart shown true at the precise moment when the darkness of compromise, in this, the real world, turned its ugly head. But it was not in Robert to explain or crush the admirable lad in a shining moment of such innocent integrity. How could he tell him that survival and the protection of loved ones meant compromise, even in the face of such evil acts? Would it even be possible to teach a boy so young and brave that the attrition of these small cuts was a parable of life for men such as them? The prospect tore him apart, and he could not speak, only touch Cora - his love, his rock - to steady himself. It was then, seeing her soul mate faulter, knowing his mind and heart, Cora strode forward with compassion and great deal of love.
"Sign the decree, George!" she grabbed the paper. "And I swear to you, that when you're older, you, Donk, and I, we'll talk about what happened here, I promise." There was a softness in her voice of an unaffected manner than Cora Crawley had ever shown in her entire life.
"Darling, please …" Edith stood up. Gently she paced over and knelt. With maternal warmth of a true love for a young child, she took his hand and kissed it. "You and I, my darling … you and I love Marigold most in the world. You know that I would never do anything to harm her, not ever." Her tears wetted his knuckles. "I'm begging you, Luv, please, sign the decree. Marigold will not hold it against you, it will only show how much you care for her. Please, George, please sign it. You won, my darling, you've won already. Mirada will never hurt another little girl again. You did that! You did! And despite everything that has been said, none of us will ever forget what you did for the girls. As Long as we live, I promise you, my darling." Edith begged.
And for a long beat, the boy was entranced by his glamorous aunt with her golden shimmering curls and teary eyes. When she was done, she showed a moment of intimacy that was usually private between them. Gently, burying her fingers into his waving curls on the back of his head, she gently placed her forehead against his. Such a thing, an outward and deeply chaste and maternally loving gesture, was rare for the boy these days. And it was in the warmth and affection that radiated from the Marchioness of Hexham – the only mother he would ever have – that there came just a second that perhaps she was right. That Mirada Pelham would spend years - maybe the rest of her days - in pain, needing aid to do the simplest thing. Never again would she touch or kiss Sybbie with the evilest of intentions, never again would she lay a hand on Marigold with murder on the mind.
Perhaps, it truly was over.
But every time he tried to see it his family's way, his Aunt Edith's way, the boy remembered the begging cries of Marigold as she was cruelly spanked and dragged down the stone corridor. He could still hear Sybbie screeching for Mrs. Pelham to not hurt Marigold, to leave her alone. He could still see her tied to their Aunt Edith's headboard; the milky glint of the pale night reflected off the glistening rose pedal oil that was lathered upon her supple pearly body. Tears were in her broken eyes as the final words of Mirada Pelham stung – Marigold would pay so that Sybbie could see what happens to 'naughty little trollops' who tattle instead of enjoying the gifts that are given freely for simply laying back and receiving pleasure. Then, his blood boiled, and he was overtaken by a rage as black as midnight. He moved away from Edith, backing away till he faced everyone. There, he stood steadfast against them all.
"Never."
Lady Mary gave a sudden cold snarl under her breath. She seemed emotionless and aloof in her dealing with George this day, but they all knew that it was just a façade. Underneath that beautiful and ivory skinned picture of sleek elegance there was a woman that was absolutely petrified. Anyone who knew Mary - as her son did not - also knew what that meant. In the woman's mind, when she was overcome with fear, she spoke of having a burst of sudden unconquerable calm and reason. But, in reality, what most knew of Lady Mary Crawley, those who truly loved her, was that when afraid there came a terrible streak of absolute cruelty that congealed in her heart.
She could never bear to be hurt so badly, so she felt the animal instinct to claw and slash first. She would not submit to meekness, and what she mistook for proactive strength was, indeed, a horrible turn of phrase from a blackened heart. And never had a woman so misread situations with such eagerness than when facing the mind-numbing horror of her children, any of them, in such danger. Thus, she pushed when she should pull, and put on airs of bravado when she should've been honest about her feelings. And it was through much misunderstandings of the eldest daughter of the Earl of Grantham "knowing thine-self true" that some of the greatest of evils were whisked when Lady Mary Josephine Crawley loved completely and yet feared too much for its loss.
"You speak of honor, and yet, it seems effortless in the many, countless, ways you dishonor the very name of this family with every breath you take!" Something hateful and venomous overtook Mary.
"I'm sorry you think so." The boy shot back arrogantly dismissive.
"Me?" She asked. "You think I'm unaware of my burdens?" She continued coldly. "I'm fully aware of my dishonor, because all of it comes from you! I had a husband, whom I loved, that you murdered to come into this world! I had a daughter who meant the world to me that you let die! I had a life, I had suitors, and a dashing and handsome husband who drove racing cars! And it was you that drove him, drove all of them, away with your low cunning and uncouth behavior!" She snarled in the boy's face.
"Mary …" Tom Branson nearly whispered in shock at what was being said.
"You are an ill-bred, vengeful, violent, plague upon this family and its noble legacy! And it is by some cruel joke of fate that we're forced to watch you strut about our county, with the promise that someday you'll turn our ancestral home for three-hundred years into your personal pirate's lair! So, you can fill it with drunken natives, black savages, heathen Chinamen, and the other odious malcontents you find and befriend on your adventures. But no more!"
Suddenly Mary snatched the Royal Decree out of Lady Grantham's hand. There was a moment of protest from all around the woman when she suddenly and angrily ripped it in half, and then in fours. There was a look of pure madness in the woman's eyes. She took the pieces and threw them in the face of the young boy vindictively. In response, she was shoved violently backward by George, and may have fell had Lucy and Tom not caught her. Quickly, they tried to restrain both of them – Tom clutched at Mary, while Lucy's instincts as a new mother was to step in front of George to shield him from Mary's venom. Yet, neither mother nor son, could be kept away from the other. Mary ripped her arm free of Tom's restraint, and George pushed Lucy behind him where Edith, her best friend and new sister, supported her from behind by hugging her waist.
Both Mary and George met again, eye to eye, toe to toe, at the center of the library.
"I have spent many nights convinced that Isobel, in some madness of self-righteous charity, switched my boy at birth with some Tenant daughter's mistake left at the village church doors. And it warms me – truly - at times to think that our real heir is safely tucked away on some kindhearted farmer's homestead, pining for the day that I can finally come to him and have a sigh of relief to know this farce of an heir, this charade of Isobel's, can finally come to an end! Yet, I couldn't find him nor bring him home till now, because, no matter how hard I've tried, I could not convince Mamma and Papa that you are not mine!" There was nothing but a snarling, inky black toxicity, that dripped from the woman's voice in venomous hate.
"Now, I know, unequivocally, that God is in fact a Monarchist! And who could deny it? In one blessed swoop, His Majesty has single handedly saved the noble title of my father and his before him from its usurping by this nameless bastard of some braggard boisterous Tinker – cannon fodder on the Somme - and some teenage Sally putting out for a free drink!"
"Mary! That is quite enough!"
"So, go on, bastard, go fight your 'honorable' last stand with the King's huntsmen! What do I care if you end up like your dullard real father, some skeleton, I suspect, shattered in some muddy watery crater in Flanders! Go! And don't you dare darken my door again! You have taken my husband and my baby from me, but I won't let you steal my nor my family's future! I wish you, with speed, to whatever end you choose as long as you don't expect me to answer to the name mamma and I don't have to lay eyes upon you ever again! I said GO, CUR!"
Twice, Lady Mary gave the young boy a shove as she ranted. Her eyes were wild with a blind terror and helplessness that was filled with a terrible suffering. Most of what she said in that moment she would not remember, but yet, it would haunt her for the rest of her life - never giving her a moment's peace. Yet, even as she spoke cruelly, lashing out with words more hurtful than had ever been spoken to her, the boy's very appearance contradicted everything that she claimed. Fore, George Crawley stood his ground with a hard and cold look that made him seem more her child than any that she could've ever conceived by love or hate in any universe.
The library of Downton Abbey grew suddenly silent, shocked frozen by the vile things that came from Lady Mary. The boy in question, looked hardened, yet too much so – as a buckled and weathered stone showing pressure fractures. Still he had yet to look away from the woman who, seemingly, showed no emotion. The entire room, all eyes, fell on the boy and what he would do. Their faces expressed in horror at the dark and hateful words of the eldest daughter of the House of Grantham to their Heir. Yet, George remained stoic a moment longer.
"You wish I would've died instead …" He asked in a strange calm. Mary absorbed the question with a look as sharp and vicious as a jagged icicle. Yet, she hesitated under the weight of her staring family. But eventually, with a snarling hiss of hate, she spoke.
"Matthew and Caroline were irreplaceable. They were so very unlike you, with your provincial courage and grifter's swagger who any beggar can find in a dozen more orphanages all around the Empire. There was only one Matthew Crawley and Caroline Talbot. You? Dogs have the same courage and integrity, but with double the loyalty and thrice the breeding." She tilted her head.
"Mary! You will be quiet, this instant!" Robert Crawley shouted in shocked reproach of the wickedness in the very words of a woman he could not rightly say was any daughter he could make.
But it seemed the boy and the Lady did not hear nor acknowledge Lord Grantham. They locked eyes for what seemed a perilous and tense eternity. But eventually, George took a step back, then two, before turning to walk away without a word. But as he passed in front of Lady Bagshaw, he stopped. The youth turned and made a low sweeping bow toward Lord and Lady Grantham.
"M' Lord, M'Lady … I take my leave to pick my place to die." He said formally, as one who spoke to nobility from the place of a baseborn fatherless orphan, and not to grandparents.
For all her bluster, Mary was slack jawed. She thought, truly, that he would give her a fight, that he would attack her at best for the things she said. Only then, as she watched him go, did she realize how much her words alone impacted one so young. Sure, he had Mama, he had Edith, and he had Tom and Isobel – even Lucy now. But they still weren't the boy's mother, no matter how much he grew to hate Mary. And when his mother claimed him illegitimate, named him the bastard off shoot of Highland soldier and teenage girl, fit only to roll with the dogs in the reek of a country hovel … George could not naysay her. Thus, with great folly, from then on, and for many long years afterward, those terrible words spoken by Lady Mary in fear and anxiety for the very boy's life would define how he saw himself.
In his mind, since that day, he was no longer the Heir to the House of Grantham. Indeed, he would be no one, a perpetual stranger wherever he went, a nameless wanderer on an Arthurian quest for meaning and redemption that would never come. The name George Crawley would gain much fame in many struggles, battles, and adventures to come in the many years he would spend abroad. But that noble name, born from the great love of "The Lady and the Lawyer", would never be associated with the aimless wayfarer who traveled far and was unnoticed by most. George would leave it behind and dwell ever in the shadows of the world, in search of answers to many riddles posed to him in this hour. Then, with a soft click of the library door he walked away without looking back. Lucy took a step-in pursuit, deeply hurt on his behalf. But Mary only watched him, stiff, regal, and cold as an ice sculpture of a tyrant queen. And as their gaze followed him, no one, in that moment, would come to realize …
For most, it would be the last they would gaze upon George Crawley for many long years.
But when he was gone. Mary sank low in her stance, as if a sudden explosion of illness- terminally fatal - over took her. She thought she would die right where she stood. There was a true price for saying those many wicked and hateful things. Though physically unchanged, inside, she lost decades of her life, the stress of a black hearted sickness overtook her. Never, in her entire life, had she so bitterly regretted doing or saying anything as much as she did in that very instant.
Mary truly believed that she would die, right there in the library. She turned her head in self-disgust and hatred. Covering her eyes with her hand, Mary let out a sobbed and perilous breath as she, frustratedly, threw a clenched fist to her side. The pale beauty felt the venomous lies she spoke tearing away at her very essence that tethered her to the universe, their evil dissolving her soul slowly into a yawning, pitted, abyss.
All she knew was that she loved him, loved him till nothing made sense anymore. Yet, all he seemed to do, his answer to her love, was to hurt her. All she knew was that loving him brought her suffering in a way that she had never knew was possible. All she knew was that she hated him, hated every bit of who he was, and the very stardust his foolish and valiant soul was made from. Then, with every bit of herself, she had wanted to hurt him back. Mary wanted to make him suffer just a drop of what it was she felt every second cursed with a cold heart and weathered soul that she gave over to him forever to hold in thrall and ownership.
THAMACK!
But Mary, thoroughly shaken to her darkening soul, suddenly felt herself turn right into a stinging pained clap against her pale cheek. She stumbled backward, falling onto the couch. With wild red tinted eyes, the ivory beauty looked up in shock and amazement to see that her sister, Lady Edith Pelham, had strode up and struck her with a hard slap across her face. She was just in time to receive the full viciousness of Edith's snarling word of "BITCH!", her face contorted in outrage and black temper. In truth, Edith might have leapt upon Mary to express her further anger with more violence had Tom Branson not immediately placed his aggressor sister-in-law in a large bear hug from behind and lifted her off the ground the moment she twitched to press her assault. Quickly, Tom backed away, as Edith gave a half-hearted kick at her older sister, her arms restrained at her sides as she was carried behind the sofa in front of the writing desk.
"Edith, enough!" Robert roared.
Mary cradled her cheek, feeling the full deathly weight of Edith's small golden eyes that were widened in rage. The woman remained off her feet in her brother-in-law's restraint for another long beat, before she was set back down, one of her arms in his grip. Immediately she tried to move away to go after George, to reassure him. But she was pulled back by Tom.
"Let him go … for now." The Irishman advised. "We still have time." He said with a thousand emotions bottled deep, their condensation turning his eyes glassy when they turned toward his best friend with a hopeless look of pure disgust.
Suddenly, the door opened, and they saw Anna Bates stride in. She was timid, awkward, and unsure. Almost immediately, she felt the temperature rise two-hundred degrees and the atmosphere made up of sparking static that hit like lightning bolts. The pretty lady's maid in black silk stood at attention till she saw her mistress laying awkwardly on the couch. There was something in instinct that overcame the woman's maid and she rushed to Mary's side immediately. Cradling the pale aristocrat, she saw the yellow and greenish bruise on her cheek bone, with a gash at its center were Edith's wedding ring had caught her. For a second the blonde maid looked up to notice that no one had come to help or defend Mary.
"I'm sorry, Your Ladyship …" Anna stammered, noticing that it had been Lady Grantham who was standing near the pull bell. "Mr. Carson is unavailable at the moment." She replied in confusion. She wanted to ask what had happened, not liking to find her mistress on her side, with her skirt up, and ugly bruise on her cheek like she had been in a ring with Jack Johnson. But something told her not to ask, or to at least remain professional. So, she gave no emotion, though held Mary to her defensively.
"It's alright, Anna." Cora replied. "It was you who I wished to see." She nodded.
"At your service, Your Ladyship." Anna turned Mary's chin to look at the very fresh bruise before her hand was pushed away by her mistress who looked completely confused and dazed, and yet she seemed mortified at the very idea that she might give herself the impression of being a victim.
"Knowing our long history together, I feel that it would not be out of bounds to inform you that Lady Mary has, once again, dishonored herself." Lady Grantham announced. Anna frowned in confusion turning to her employer who suddenly looked up. It had been a long time since they had acknowledged their joint effort to carry a dead body across Downton Abbey many long years ago.
"I don't understand …" Anna pieced out.
"I will not repeat what Lady Mary has said, but it does not line up with the values that she has been raised with. And it, certainly, does not reflect the values of this household." There was no one in the world who could lob a good lecture in the third person to chastise and embarrass her daughters quite like Lady Grantham. "Therefore, I would like you to pack Lady Mary's suitcases and inquire for train tickets." Cora was cold and congenial expressing, not anger, nor disappointment. To this, the lady's maid looked to Mary, but her mistress did not protest, only sitting back up straight. Indeed, one might have thought that the woman in question would have suggested it for her own punishment.
"Where to, exactly, Your Ladyship?" Anna frowned.
"I do not know, and I do not care. All I know is that she will not sleep here tonight or any other night till she has redeemed herself in His Lordship and my eyes, am I clear?" She asked with a sudden dark tone in her voice.
"Ye … yes, Your Ladyship?" the maid responded, unsure what had happened.
"Am I clear?" The Countess reiterated coldly. The blonde woman opened her mouth but then stopped, realizing that Lady Grantham had never been talking to her.
"Oh course, Mamma …"
"No!" Cora immediately rebuffed. "You do not have any right to call me that!" Cora was rancorous. "No daughter of mine would ever dare to say the things you have today, and certainly not to her own child! You have shamed me and have broken my heart! You may call me your mother only when this evil spell lifts the fog in your heart, my darling, and you remember that you are my daughter and a mother! And not before!" She lectured in hardened emotions. Tears brimmed her cerulean eyes in devastation.
Lady Mary Crawley was a woman in her thirties, and yet, she looked like a shell-shocked little girl. She was wide-eyed, distant, and almost concussed. It wasn't the blow, nor her exiling, but the things she said that had somehow shorted the wiring in her brain. The very evil in her words seemed to have violated her mind, leaving her traumatized by her own cruelty. She had to be led away by Anna, the woman's maid sometimes wondering if she'd have to pull her mistress's arm over her shoulder and carry her out. When she was gone a new silence overcame the library.
"Cora …" Rosamund spoke up. "I realize that what Mary said was harsh." She began.
"Harsh?!" Edith cut her aunt off. "It is unforgiveable!" She fumed at the older woman in a voice of vicious outrage.
"Now, now, Edith …" She held her hand out to restrain her niece's temper. "They were certainly terrible, I concede. But they certainly are not the worst that a parent has spoken to their child in this room." She replied, looking right to her younger brother with knowing eyes of a deeply shared trauma.
"Not being Papa is a low bar." Robert paced out toward the window. "But Mary did a jolly good impression." He finished with a haunted voice.
"They were always more alike …" She said.
"Yes, he always seemed to think so." There was something reproachful and defeated in his voice – a man that had failed to protect both a sister and a daughter from an evil whose webs stretched throughout this house once.
"My point being is, Cora, Mary runs the Estate, you cannot just throw her off it." Her sister-in-law explained. "She's co-owner." She argued.
"And I am the Countess of Grantham, Robert and I own the County!" Cora argued back. "And I don't care how much money she has, or what her and mamma schemed and concocted in private for the future of this family. I did not raise my little girls to think, act, nor speak that way of their children. I have tolerated much of Mary's behavior, because, she's grieving for Caroline. But I will not allow her to treat any of my children that way, especially not her own. I will not have the poltergeist of your monstrous papa haunt the halls of my house!" She accosted her sister-in-law and best friend. "I have spent too many years of my life trying to repair and fix what he broke, just to see his ghost possess those I love!" She nearly shouted in frustration and anger.
There was no one on earth who needed less of a reminder of who and what they're papa had been than Lady Rosamund Painswick. Fore, she, above anyone, had spent many a year brooding, hating, and traumatized by what had happened to her when she came of age. And, indeed, many knew not but for Robert and Cora of the reason why Lady Rosamund had no children. Perhaps, everyone else had believed that after her husband, Lord Marmaduke Painswick, died that there was no point, or that there was never the right moment. Yet, it was not a failure of trying – even with many a handsome stranger at her lowest point in life. It was simply that she could not have children. And, indeed, Lady Edith made many assumptions of why her Aunt Rosamund feared gravely for when – in a madness of despair – she had been determined to abort Marigold. But of all reasons, assumed and believed, it never crossed her mind that it had been that Lady Painswick had once been forced into the same murderous procedure.
It was, that in a rage – a monstrous black mood of cruelty – had the Old Earl punished his rebellious son by making him watch as the Old Earl committed a terrible act to one that Robert loved dearly. The result of such a thing, was a pregnancy of abhorrent abomination by all laws of God and the rules of Men. She had no say, no recourse – Lady Grantham was abroad, visiting a frightful aunt. It was done quietly, deftly … and botched so terribly. And as a result, had there been many a terrible bloody mess on linoleum and bathroom tile each time Lady Rosamund Painswick attempted to conceive. Forever wrapped in a bloody towel would be a happiness never known, the fulfillment and promise of a womanhood that was robbed from her. All her purpose of a long and lonely life taken by a drunken surgeon's poorly sanitized tools and a father whose evil was well shielded and hidden by aristocratic protocol and stiff emotionless decorum of a Victorian Gentleman.
"Very well …" Rosamund turned to leave.
"You will not house her." Robert spoke with his back to his retreating elder sister.
"I beg your pardon?" She turned.
"You heard me, Rosamund." Lord Grantham said. "She can stay at the Ritz in London. She can look up the Kinema chap, Jack Barber. She can even buy or rent a house of her own. But Mary will not stay in the village, the estate, or any holding of ours." He finished.
"How … how, how can you say that?" Rosamund was outraged. "Robert, she's your daughter!" She looked the man up and down.
"Yes, and I hope she'll remember that someday soon." Cora answered. "But till she does, there is no place for her in this House." She finished sternly.
Rosamund drew herself to full height. She almost spoke in rancorous protest, but she said nothing instead. Finally, defeated, she strode away slowly, exiting the room to visit Marigold who was with Sybbie and Bertie. She needed to hold the closest thing to a granddaughter she would ever have – her perfect little angel.
"She'll do it anyway." Lady Bagshaw said to no one in particular.
"No …" Robert looked to the woman next to him. "Mary would never accept her accommodation." He explained.
"Why?" Lucy asked.
"She's afraid." Tom answered the woman he loved, now holding a teary and distressed Edith's hand comfortingly.
"Of what?"
"Herself."
Entr'acte Music
"I Won't Back Down" - Tom Petty