Crawley House, September 8th, 1913
Matthew was dying to know whether Tony Foyle had actually proposed to Mary – and if he had, what her answer had been. He tried to tell himself that if there wasn't any announcement, then it either hadn't happened or ended in Mary's refusal, but lack of news was too trying for his nerves to be accepted as a definite conclusion to the matter. He had to know .
The simplest solution would be to ask Mary outright, but imagine Tony had decided to wait a bit longer after all? Matthew cringed at the thought of questioning Mary about a proposal which hadn't happened. The more secure method would have been to ask Tony, but Matthew didn't consider their relationship close enough to justify sending a letter with such an inquiry. He was still astonished that Tony had confessed to him at all, but he wrote it off as nerves, perfectly natural immediately before making an offer to a lady such as Mary. If it was him, he imagined he would have been a nervous wreck as well and could have very well confessed his intentions to a near perfect stranger.
He only realised he was pacing when he heard Mother's irritated huff.
"You're making me dizzy and wearing a path in the carpet," she complained. "What troubles you so?"
"Nothing," answered Matthew, wincing at the look Mother gave him in response. Apparently, he was unconvincing. He tried again. "Work problems?"
Isobel scoffed.
"If you don't want to confide in me, don't," she said. "But don't treat me like a simpleton."
Matthew laughed ruefully.
"I'm sorry, Mother. It's just... I learnt something in confidence, actually, and would love to know the conclusion of the story. I have no way of enquiring about it though and it is quite frustrating!"
"I imagine it would be!" agreed Isobel, looking at him with interest. "And it must be some story to work you up like that. Do you think you will learn how it ends in time?"
Matthew nodded emphatically.
"Yes, eventually it will be public knowledge, one way or the other."
"Then you just need to find some patience until then, don't you? If only out of pity for my carpet."
Matthew acquiesced with a laugh.
Loxley Park, September 10th 1913
Cora might have her doubts regarding Sir Anthony as a suitor for her daughter, but she was not going to get in his way if he was determined and Edith inclined to have him. She still hoped for a better match but discouraging a suitor went completely against her pragmatic approach to husband hunting. After all, so far there were no other prospects for Edith on the horizon and Sir Anthony did seem keen. So when he issued an invitation for her and Edith to come to Loxley to see the farming machinery during harvest, she gladly accepted and took Sybil with them, so she could busy herself with talking to her youngest daughter and give Sir Anthony and Edith a chance to converse more privately.
If Sir Anthony noticed that Lady Grantham and Lady Sybil fell somewhat behind him as he was walking alongside a field and explaining mechanisation to Lady Edith, he did not mention anything. Edith was most happy with the arrangement.
"What we have here, Lady Edith, is a combined harvester," he was saying, pointing at the enormous machine. "It can do in several hours what a dozen of farm labourers used to do in three days."
"Isn't the cost of such machine prohibitive for most farmers though?" asked Edith with genuine interest, earning herself one of Sir Anthony's beaming smiles.
"Yes, of course – but it can be borrowed or shared between them, same as other farm equipment. Tractors are another example which comes to mind – so very useful at a farm, for such a wide range of tasks, but since they are not needed daily, they can be shared either for a small fee or as a joint possession."
"Or lent by a generous and modern minded landlord such as you, I imagine?"
"I hope to be a good landlord for my tenants, Lady Edith, although it is for them more than to me to say whether I'm succeeding or just deluding myself."
"I find it exceedingly unlikely that you would delude yourself about anything, Sir Anthony. You're much too sensible," said Edith with a smile. "But tell me, are you also introducing such improvements to your house? Or are your efforts concentrated on the estate only?"
"I have endeavoured to make some improvements to the house as well, yes. Not so much in decorating – I do not have touch for it, I'm afraid – but in practical matters like plumbing or installing electricity. I hope it makes the servants' jobs easier."
"It certainly does, Sir Anthony, and I am sure they are lucky to work for you. And as for decorating – you will just have to find a new mistress of the house to provide that female touch."
"Ah, yes, that would be one way to do this," stammered Sir Anthony, blushing nearly as much as Edith when she realised what she implied.
But for the first time she imagined herself properly as Lady Strallan and she did not find the prospect unpleasant.
Not at all.
Cricket Match, September 13th, 1913
"Is Mr Foyle going to join us today?" asked Matthew with casual air which immediately piqued Robert's curiosity. He himself would admit that he was not the most astute or observant of men, but even he could see that Matthew was for some reason very much interested in the answer to his question.
Robert barely restrained a smile when he deduced the most likely reason for his heir's curiosity.
"I haven't invited him, but he might show up anyway now that he is officially courting Mary," he answered blithely, hiding a smirk at Matthew's starting at his words.
"Courting?" he asked, clearly giving up on pretence of disinterest.
"Oh, he wanted more than that!" continued Robert jovially. "He actually proposed, if you can believe that, but Mary judged that a childhood acquaintance is a bit too trifling for marriage and requested to be courted before she is able to make a decision. Tony definitely knows his mind on that issue though, there was no doubt in him that he wants to marry her as soon as she agrees."
"It would be a very good match for Mary, of course," admitted Matthew with what seemed to Robert suspiciously like gritted teeth. "But I think she is wise to wait with making a decision and getting to know him better."
"Of course, of course. Although if I know her mother, she is lecturing her to not to dawdle too long. As I would advice any suitor of Mary's, if I were asked. The competition seems to be getting fiercer by the day."
Robert hid another smirk as he walked to the pitch. Hopefully he just gave his heir a nudge he needed. He liked Tony all right, but if there was any chance of Mary ending up with Matthew, he knew where his own preferences laid.
Shackleton House, Yorkshire, September 13th, 1913
Sir Anthony accepted another cucumber sandwich and sighed quietly. He had to admit he was supremely bored.
He had been invited to the cricket match at Downton Abbey, but considering how often he was visiting there in recent weeks judged it prudent to accept Dowager Lady Shackleton's invitation instead. The problem was that now, surrounded as he was by this venerable lady, her rather insipid son and his equally insipid wife and several other neighbours he had known all his life, he found himself missing Lady Edith something fierce.
He was never bored while in her company.
She never made him feel old and awkward either, unlike the girl he was sitting next to now, a Miss Harper if he remembered correctly. Poor thing looked desperate to escape his company and while the feeling was mutual, Anthony did feel sorry for her.
Suddenly he startled by the mention of a familiar name.
"Lady Edith? I've seen her last during the garden party at Haxby. Nice girl but so plain! Maybe it wouldn't be so striking if she didn't have such beautiful sisters."
"Well, at least Lord and Lady Grantham will have her company in their old age. There is some use for spinster daughters."
"Excuse me," said Sir Anthony, unable to keep quiet with all the uncharacteristic rage suddenly seething inside him. "But isn't Lady Edith just twenty? It's rather premature to consign her to spinsterhood."
Lady Shackleton and Lady Merton stared at him in open astonishment, but even though he felt himself blushing, he stared at them defiantly right back.
"Of course it is too early to say for sure..." started Lady Shackleton, the more easily intimidated of the two, but Lady Merton talked right over her.
"Sometimes you can just say," she said authoritatively, with her usual sneer firmly planted on her face. "I am fond of Lady Edith – a nice, obedient girl, quite unlike my husband's spoilt goddaughter – but she is neither pretty nor interesting and doesn't have an attractive bone in her body. If ever somebody takes her of her parents' hands, it will be a small miracle."
"Then I hope you are a religious woman, Lady Merton, because you might yet see yourself witnessing one."
Nobody was as astonished at those words as Sir Anthony himself but he did not regret any of them.
Library, Downton Abbey, September 15th, 1913
A rainy afternoon found Matthew and Mary in the library, with benign chaperone in form of Robert, who took care to get properly engrossed in the estate accounts and didn't seem to recall that Matthew's stated purpose for visiting was to discuss some of them with him. Not that Matthew seemed to recall it any better, considering that he was busy discussing books with Mary for the better part of the last hour. A theme of forgiveness, to be exact.
"We discussed deeds which were forced upon someone, like for both Tess and Jonathan, and deeds done in the name of survival. But what about bad things done out of someone's free will and for no noble reason? Can they be forgiven?" asked Mary, looking at him intently.
"This question is too generic to answer. We would have to specify more what kind of deed we have in mind."
Mary thought it through for a moment.
"What about Mr Rochester and his lovers? Was Jane right to forgive him for his past?"
"For that more easily than for his sins against her specifically. As appalling as his adulterous liaisons were, it wasn't Jane he betrayed. From her perspective his attempt to trick her into bigamy and false marriage must have been more difficult to forgive."
"So you judge that sins committed before the relationship in question are more acceptable?"
"Maybe not more acceptable as such, but I assume easier to forgive and accept if you're not the directly injured party. Of course," he added. "There should be also regret and attempt at redemption. It's only when Mr Rochester expresses those that Jane is ready to truly forgive him for everything."
"Of course, there is an additional factor that Mr Rochester is a man. His actions, while dishonourable, carry less weight than they ever would have if he was a woman. People widely assumed that Adele was his natural daughter but it did not bar him from the drawing rooms or prospects for advantageous marriage. When a woman falls off a pedestal, even if she hasn't done anything, it is a wholly different matter."
"Do you have a specific case in mind?"
"Look at Edmund Bertram and Mary Crawford. She hasn't really done anything immoral, but it was enough that she did not condemn an adulterous affair with enough horror for Edmund to recoil from her and judge her as unworthy."
"You have a penchant today for picking characters I either dislike or at least feel ambivalent about."
"Angel Clare, I do understand, but I would assume you like Edmund?"
"I quite do," admitted Matthew. "I can even sympathise with him a lot and even relate to him on a lot of points. But he annoys me too, at times."
"Like when?" asked Mary, intrigued. To be honest, she did rather find Matthew and Edmund Bertram similar in a lot of ways. Except the fact that Matthew had a sense of humour. Delightfully wicked one, too.
"His treatment of Mary. I can understand the attraction, obsession, dare I say – obvious desire he feels for her? But I am annoyed by his willful blindness. Mary never hides from him who she is and what she thinks – it is him who deludes himself that she doesn't mean those things. He shouldn't have been so shocked by her views. He just never bothered to listen or to take her seriously."
"And you think you wouldn't have made such a mistake, even in the throes of passion?"
Matthew looks at her seriously.
"I like to think that I wouldn't."
"Aren't we all prone to deluding ourselves?"
"To a degree yes, of course. But I like to think I would not ignore the things said by a woman I love."
Mary looked at him curiously.
"Have you ever been in love?"
Matthew gaped at her.
"No," he stammered. "I cannot say I have been. I had crushes, of course – I think everybody has – but I've never been in love. Not properly. What about you?"
Well, she asked for that one, didn't she? Mary shook her head ruefully.
"I've never been in love either. I cannot even say that I had a crush. One of the many reasons most people think I don't have a heart."
"Then most people are wrong," answered Matthew steadily. "Because I not only think you do have a heart, but it is one which feels things very deeply."
"How can you be sure? Even I am not."
"Because" he answered softly. "I do listen to the things you say."
For a moment, all Mary could do was to stare at him, but before she could think of anything to say, Carson and Thomas entered with the tea service.
"Is it already the time?" asked Robert, feigning surprise. "You will stay for tea, won't you, Matthew?"
"Of course," stammered Matthew, suddenly conscious of the fact just how much he neglected his supposed host in preference for his daughter. Not that Robert seemed to mind, now that it came to it. Which reminded him...
"Your father mentioned that Mr Foyle asked to court you," he said, looking at Mary intently. To his relief, she rolled her eyes in clear exasperation.
"Yes, he did. Papa probably told you that he proposed first, didn't he?"
"He did, yes. I must admit it surprised me that he felt ready for such a step. My understanding was that while you knew each other as children, you did not see each other much as adults."
"You've witnessed all meetings we had as adults. I don't know what in heavens Tony is thinking, but it's nowhere near enough to marry somebody in my books."
Matthew allowed himself a smirk.
"I quite agree with you. Considering the unbreakable nature of marriage, one should enter it with a clear head."
"Careful, cousin," drawled Mary playfully. "Or I will suspect I have managed to drag you to the camp of reason. Aren't you supposed to be the romantic?"
"And I am proudly remaining one. But haven't we just discussed that it is my firm belief that loving someone should not preclude you from seeing them clearly? And how are you supposed to do that when all you've exchanged with them is a handful of conversations?"
"Not even very interesting conversations where Tony is concerned," sniped Mary, improving Matthew's already good mood exponentially.
"What are you going to do when we are gone to Scotland?" she asked while pouring herself some tea and Matthew honestly drew a blank.
"Do you know," he admitted with surprise, "I have no idea. Whatever I was doing before you decided to keep me occupied, I guess."
Mary sent him a saucy look.
"Just make sure not to forget me completely. I would be very cross to find my role as your partner occupied on my return."
"There is absolutely no danger of that," Matthew assured her and swallowed, realising how very much he meant every word.