Pheasant shooting at Loxley, October 1913
Nobody was surprised by Edith volunteering to chum Sir Anthony when the Crawleys arrived for his shoot at Loxley. Sir Anthony himself smiled so happily that Edith's mouth turned up in immediate response. It felt so nice to know that she was wanted!
Their peg was the furthest from the house, but none of them minded the walk.
"You really are a very good shot," noted Edith, watching as Sir Anthony hit one bird after another.
"Thank you. I do enjoy it," he answered, sending her a smile before aiming his gun again.
"What do you enjoy the most about it?" she asked with interest, shielding her ears from the noise.
"The chance to test my skill and come on top, I guess," he said, considering it. "Ever since I was a boy, I've often felt awkward or uneasy in company. But I know that as soon as I have a gun in my hand I am going to succeed in what I set out to do – that I am truly good at it."
He smiled self-deprecatingly.
"So I guess it appeals to my ego."
Edith smiled back.
"I think we all need something like this from time to time. My first motivation to keep practising at the piano was to be better than Mary – she was better than me at so many other things, but not at playing – but with time, when I got really good, it became enjoyable for me all in itself. I didn't care anymore about whether Mary played or not. I wanted to be the best I could be just for myself."
"Do you think I could have the pleasure of hearing you play?" asked Sir Anthony shyly. "I've had an occasion or two at Downton, but it was usually such a crowded evening that I barely could hear the music."
Edith blushed.
"Gladly. But you mustn't assume I am exceptionally talented. Just proficient enough for a schoolgirl."
"I seriously doubt it," said Sir Anthony with another smile, then looked up at the sky with a frown. "Don't you think it looks like rain?"
xxx
As much as Matthew was looking forward to seeing Mary again, he was also strangely apprehensive about it. What was it going to be like, to see her for the first time since he realised he loved her? Would he be able to behave normally towards her or was he doomed to make an utter fool of himself?
His fears were not at all lessened by the fact that the first time they were going to meet was during a shoot at Loxley Park. It was very kind of Sir Anthony to invite him, but Matthew did not feel nowhere near confident with a gun in his hand. Shooting was not a big part of his upbringing. In fact, the only reason he knew how to shoot at all was participation in Officer Training Corps at Radley – which used different guns than the double barrel ones used for shooting pheasants – and one or two occasions when his friend Jack invited him to his father's country estate and explained things. Robert was of course more than happy to show him the ropes since he became his heir, but Matthew arrived at Loxley on this overcast autumn morning feeling gloomy, nervous and like a total novice.
His mood immediately improved, however, when he saw the brilliant smile appearing on Mary's face as soon as she spotted him among the crowd milling around Loxley's front drive.
"Matthew!" she exclaimed happily. "It is nice to see you."
"Not as much as it is to see you," he said, glad to find out his voice sounded normal even as his eyes were drinking her in after not seeing her for nearly three weeks. An eternity, truly. "Scotland must have agreed with you, you look very well."
She really did, dressed in a crisp tweed suit and a fetching green hat, which made her hair and eyes look even deeper shade of brown than usual.
She inspected his clothes with a mocking look, but he could tell that it was intended to tease, not hurt.
"If I didn't know any better, I would assume that you've been shooting since you got out of short trousers," she said solemnly. "You do look the part."
"An impression which is only going to last until I start shooting," warned Matthew drily. "Are you sure you want to partner me for this? It might be rather humbling for me, I'm afraid."
His stomach made a flip-flop as she smiled at him again.
"Then we are going to lie, of course, when they ask us how well you did," she said, her eyes sparkling with mirth. "It wouldn't do to damage our reputation as the winning team."
xxx
If it looked like rain, it was for a reason, because no sooner that Sir Anthony opened his mouth to propose going back to the house than a veritable flood opened straight over their heads.
"There is a hunting lodge just behind those trees!" cried Sir Anthony, grabbing Lady Edith's hand and leading her towards it as fast as he could. "A rain so strong shouldn't last long."
They reached the lodge in record time and entered it with relief. Their outer clothes were thoroughly wet.
"I will try to build a fire," said Sir Anthony, averting his eyes as Lady Edith started opening the buttons of her drenched coat. "We need to get warm if we are going to take off our coats and let them dry."
The cabin was modest and offered only the most basic comforts, but it had a functional fireplace with the wood already stacked and the matches on the mantelpiece. It took Sir Atnhony just minutes to start a small fire. He turned around to smile at Lady Edith in triumph and froze.
He had to swallow hard against the wave of desire coursing through him at the sight in front of him. She looked so incredibly lovely, with her hair heavy with moisture and falling against her face, still flushed from running. Her blouse was just slightly wet, enough to cling to her body in the way which highlighted all the wonderful curves of her slim figure. She was captivating, delightful, enticing.
He wanted her with every fibre of his being.
You are a gentleman and she is a lady, he reminded himself sternly. Get a grip, man!
"I'm sorry that I cannot offer you tea, but I'm afraid the cabin is not stocked with such luxuries," he said, praying he was not going to stammer like a schoolboy he hadn't been for thirty years. "There is only a bottle of brandy from what I see."
"Maybe a sip of it would do us good," pointed out Lady Edith sensibly. "It would keep the cold away until the fire builds up."
So they settled on hard wooden chairs in front of the fireplace, each with their own small cup of brandy and their outer clothes hanging around them to dry as the rain pounded the roof.
"May I ask you something?" asked Lady Edith, looking a little hesitant. "You don't have to answer it if you find it painful or awkward!"
"Ask away," he said with a smile, intrigued.
"What was it like, being married?"
He found himself lost for words for a moment, apparently long enough for her to feel embarrassed.
"You really don't have to answer," she assured him nervously, her pale skin getting rosy with heavy blush. "I only ask... well, because marriage is supposed to be my most important achievement in life and yet I see so few happy couples. My parents are happy, at least, but it's hard to think of them as a couple, not just my parents. But I was thinking, since you obviously loved Lady Strallan so much, maybe you could..."
She trailed off awkwardly, clearly regretting asking him in the first place, and he could not have that, not when her innocent question did not bother him in the slightest, just surprised him.
"I don't mind," he said quickly. "I was just gathering my thoughts. There's no simple answer to it, and I would like to give you a proper one."
She nodded gratefully, smiling at him in relief.
"It's good to hear. I was horrified I made a horrible blunder by asking."
He shook his head with a smile.
"Not at all."
He thought back to his marriage with Maud, trying to put something so intangible into words.
"It was having the best and dearest companion in the world," he said finally. "Somebody to share jokes and troubles alike. Somebody, whose company was never boring or irksome – unless we quarrelled, of course, which happened sometimes. Somebody you could laugh with and rely on."
He had to swallow after his last words, and not just because he missed Maud fiercely – although he did – but also because he was imagining sharing such a bond with Lady Edith and craving it so much.
"Such marriage sounds truly lovely," she said wistfully. "I wouldn't mind it at all if it was like that."
"Do you fear it won't be?" he asked, frowning in concern.
She shrugged uneasily.
"It's not a given, is it? My parents were very lucky to find each other, like you and Lady Strallan, but my grandparents weren't and so many other couples aren't."
Something she said before struck him.
"Do you really consider getting married the most important achievement in your life?"
Lady Edith smiled wryly.
"I said it's supposed to be one. Nobody expects anything else from girls like me. As long as I marry respectably – or even better, advantageously – I'll fulfil my purpose in life according to society."
"What would you like to do instead?" he asked with interest.
"I hardly know!" she laughed. "I was never taught or pointed towards anything different. But I like to think that there must be something more waiting for me in the next fifty or sixty years of my life. It would be disappointing to reach one's life goal in one's twenties, don't you think?"
"I'm sure there is," he said. "And that whatever you decide to do, you will excel at it."
She sighed, smiling ruefully at him.
"Then you are the only one who believes it. Most people do not even believe I am going to marry, never mind do anything more with my life. And it's really not like I have some grand ambitions, not like Mary who wants to be a prominent figure in society, or Sybil who wants to go to university. I just want something more... but this something is very ephemeral at the moment."
"Most people," said Anthony with emphasis, "are obviously blind. And a person doesn't have to get everything figured out at twenty-one."
They smiled at each other as they took one more sip of the brandy in companionable silence.
"I think the rain is lessening," pointed Lady Edith and he was forced to agree, although with reluctance which strength took him by surprise. He did not want this time alone to end.
As they were leaving the cabin, Sir Anthony's mind was made up. He was going to ask Lady Edith to marry him.
xxx
The sudden downpour took Mary and Matthew by surprise as well.
"Is there any shelter nearby?" asked Matthew.
"Not that I know of!" answered Mary, shaking her head. "I'm afraid we have to run back to Loxley."
Matthew grinned at her through the rain as he grabbed her hand.
"Then we run!"
There was something freeing and exhilarating about running through the rain with Matthew, hand in hand, laughing despite the water pounding on them and drenching them to the bones. They soon had the house in sight, but since they had to cross a wide meadow to reach it, Matthew pulled her under somewhat questionable protection of a large oak tree on the border of it.
"I think it might be better to wait out the worst here," he said, panting from their run. Mary, unable to breathe well enough to answer, just nodded.
Slowly, as their breaths calmed down, awareness of each other's proximity seemed to grow between them. Their eyes hardly left each other, the blue transfixed by brown, the brown transfixed by blue, except to flicker briefly lower, to the lips, only to quickly shy away from the temptation waiting there. Mary thought distractedly that she somehow never realised just how blue Matthew's eyes were, or that his hair got so wavy when not kept ruthlessly in order with pomade, as she could see now when he took off his cap to shake off the water from it.
She had never before wished so much to be kissed by someone and it terrified her.
She forced her eyes to turn away from Matthew's face – too close, too alluring, too dangerous – and looked dubiously at the distance to the house.
"I think the rain is getting lighter," she said, even though it wasn't, not really. But Matthew didn't quarrel with her, just offered her his hand again – maybe he felt the danger of staying here too – and once again they ran, laughing at each other as they stumbled through the mud.
xxx
Cora, who didn't accompany the shooting party and chose to stay with some of the other ladies in the Loxley drawing room waiting for them, sent the chauffeur for supplies as soon as it started to rain. Branson managed to go to Downton and return to Loxley with changes of clothes for everyone and with Anna to help the girls with changing into theirs before their host and Edith reappeared from the woods, causing quite a stir. Edith bit her lip in apprehension, seeing Cora take an immediate notice of Edith's dishevelled hair, mostly dried clothes and the smell of brandy on her breath. A sharp look from her mother silenced any explanations until they were alone in one of the upstairs guestrooms with just Mary and Anna present.
"Where have you been?" asked Cora, making Edith cringe. She wished dearly that Mary was not in the room with them for this conversation, although to her credit she restricted herself so far to throwing curious glances at Edith.
"We took shelter in a hunting cabin near our post," she said quickly. "Sir Anthony made the fire to dry out clothes and we had some brandy to keep warm. That's all, nothing else happened, I promise!"
To her surprise, Mary rolled her eyes and Cora smiled indulgently.
"Of course nothing happened, darling. Nobody thought it did."
"But... we were alone and we had the brandy..."
Mary sniggered as she put on a dry dress with Anna's help and sat at the vanity to have her hair brushed.
"It would take more than a sip of brandy to get Sir Anthony to misbehave."
Edith wasn't sure how to respond to this taunt – she could hardly quarrel that Sir Anthony was a rake! - so she settled at a withering glare at her sister.
"Would you like us to assume Sir Anthony behaved inappropriately with you?" snapped Cora in much too familiar frustration caused by her daughters' eternal bickering.
"Of course not!" cried Edith, still extremely dissatisfied with the whole thing. Of course she didn't want them to think Sir Anthony a cad. But it was also somehow offensive that they all assumed there was no reason to worry. That nothing hadn't happened because nothing inappropriate could happen, not between them. Because... because Edith wished that something had happened!
She nearly gasped at that realisation. But it was true. She wished that something had happened. She wished he had kissed her. She... she would have not objected at all if he had wanted to. She blushed furiously at the thought but did not feel ashamed. How could she when she... she loved him! She really, truly loved him!
The thought startled her, but seemed so right she was shocked she harboured any doubts about it before. All the signs were already there, really: she felt protective of him, she loved spending time with him, she adored how he treated her, with respect and consideration nobody else had ever shown her. She truly, dearly wanted to be his wife. She still wanted to win the bet, but suddenly the most important thing was that if he proposed, she would have a chance to say yes.
She couldn't remember or imagine wanting something more.
Dower House, October 1913
Edith sat opposite her grandmother and eyed her warily over her cup of tea. Being summoned to the Dower House was not completely unheard of, but being singled out in the invitation all too often meant a lecture or interrogation on one topic or other. And Edith had her suspicions what the topic was going to be this time.
"My dear," said Violet, looking at Edith intently. "I want you to consider one thing. Marriage is a very long business for our kind of people. There is no getting out of it. So while we all want to see you married and established in a household of your own, of course, I want you to think very hard about it before you decide to accept anyone's proposal. Don't just think that getting married is what you want and are expected to do; think whether you can see yourself happy with this man not just during the honeymoon but also twenty years down the road, when he is older and less handsome and you've heard all his jokes dozens of times."
"Are you going to give Mary the same speech?" asked Edith resentfully.
"I've already had," answered Violet, silencing her. "This is not about my opinion of Sir Anthony. He is not a brilliant match for you, but if you want him, truly want him, then he will do. You will have a title, a nice estate and a comfortable income, there is nothing to object to there. But if you only want him so you will get to marry before your sister, then I urge you to think a bit more about it."
For an uncomfortable and scary moment Edith wondered if Granny somehow learnt about the bet.
"It's not because of that, Granny," she said as firmly as she could. "I love him. If he asks me, I want to marry him."
"Then there's nothing more to talk about until he does," announced Violet. "Please pour me more tea, my dear."
Downton grounds by the lake, October 1913
To Matthew's elation, Mary easily accepted his offer of a ride and a picnic, just the two of them. As they rode together in silence, it was becoming increasingly apparent that despite Mary answering his questions with a smile, she was clearly lost in her own thoughts. By the time they settled by the lake and took out the provisions prepared by Mrs Bird, Matthew could not resist asking if she was alright.
"I'm sorry," answered Mary apologetically. "You once again have the misfortune of taking me out when I am not fit for company."
"You are fit for mine," stated Matthew firmly, looking at her in growing concern. "Aren't we friends enough to withstand a bad mood or two?"
His heart fluttered when she offered him a wan but sincere smile.
"I like to think so," she said softly. "Although it occurs to me that it's usually me inflicting my bad moods on you."
He felt himself smiling back at her.
"I'm made of strong stuff," he assured her, then urged gently. "Tell me what troubles you so. Is it your mother again?"
Mary sighed wearily.
"Yes. Mama, Granny, Aunt Rosamund – they all pester me to settle finally, for all kinds of reasons. As if it was so simple!"
Matthew dug his nails into his palm to hide his anger at them all. He could not stand the thought of them treating the woman he loved so callously. Never mind the fact that he hardly thought pushing Mary like that was going to help his own suit at all – and he did hope that he could, in time, gain Mary's affection – he could not stand the thought that they seemed to think of her only as a commodity to sell to the highest bidder before the expiration date.
"However much I disagree with their priorities or their treatment of you," he said seriously. "I cannot imagine you would find it hard to marry if you wanted to. I cannot imagine a man seeing how brilliant you are and not wanting to marry you."
He stopped, realising that he was saying too much; that he was exposing himself before he was ready, before he could be sure that she was ready to hear it. But thankfully for him Mary was too wrapped in her own thoughts to notice the implication of his words.
"Granny told me once that marriage is a very long business," she said with quiet desperation. "That whoever I marry, I might spend forty or fifty years with that man, so I should choose wisely. I used to think I could fulfil my duty to the family and be happy enough with that. But now I think I know better what I am capable of and forty or fifty years of boredom and duty is not that."
Matthew grasped her hand and looked at her intently.
"Neither am I."
She looked at him sardonically.
"But haven't you always held loftier ambitions for your future marriage?"
He gave her a lopsided grin but answered seriously.
"You know that I have. But it doesn't change the fact that it seems our views on the matter are starting to align more than they used to."
Mary sighed in frustration.
"I envy you. You have only yourself to please in the matter. Whatever I decide comes with the burden of all kinds of expectations and family pressure. And not only that. Whoever I marry will determine my value in society. My current place is due to Papa, to me being the eldest daughter of the Earl of Grantham – but it won't matter much anymore when I marry. If I marry well, I will have a position which will enable me to play an important role in society. If I marry beneath my station, half of the people seeking my company right now will drop me entirely. Whoever you choose, your life will stay mostly the same. Mine may change radically. It's never going to be just about my feelings for the man in question for me."
Matthew nodded thoughtfully.
"I've never really considered it this way," he admitted. "I guess you would consider a conviction that the feelings of the people involved should trump more material considerations rather naïve?"
Mary rolled her eyes.
"Love as the only thing which matters? Yes, I would say it's making everything all black and white. It's very idealistic to say that one would be just as happy in a cottage as in a palace with the right person, but do people actually believe it? What about the time when you have to cook dinner without any servants or cannot afford bread?"
"Now you're being dramatic," pointed out Matthew drily. "Whoever you marry, you are unlikely to ever encounter this level of deprivation, to say the least."
"Oh, very well," snapped Mary. "Then let's compare being a society hostess, throwing legendary parties and being a force of good by using her influence for a worthy cause, art patronage or politics versus enjoying the domesticity of living quietly in a little house with one or two servants, with nothing to do besides gardening and raising children. Don't you see any difference between those two pictures?"
That hit a bit too close to home for Matthew.
"Even if you somehow ended up in the second scenario, there is no reason your life would need to be so limited," he said, striving for calmness he did not at all feel. "Mother has always found multiple ways to be active and useful outside of home."
"I don't think I am very much like your mother," said Mary. "I'm exhausted just hearing about half of the things she does on a regular basis."
Matthew chuckled.
"Not many people are like Mother," he agreed easily. "But can you trust my better knowledge of middle-class life to believe me when I say there are multiple ways to fill your life with meaning even without a fortune or title?"
Mary scoffed.
"For men, easily. But I am a woman."
"I will use Mother once again to point out that there still are options. You could even go to university, you know."
"And do they even admit married women?" challenged Mary. "Even those few universities which accept any female students at all? Because your university still doesn't give them degrees, even though it magnanimously allows them to attend lectures."
Matthew had to admit he did not actually know. He got intrigued by the prospect though.
"Would you want to attend? If you could?"
Mary shrugged.
"I never considered it. It has never been a path designed for me," she bit her lip, thinking it through. "Even if I did, I am not sure I could. My education was hardly enough to prepare me for academia. I know French, and etiquette, and had to memorise what seems like half of Burke's peerage, but that's all my governesses taught me, really."
Matthew thought how truly intelligent she was and cursed the damn waste of it. She would have been brilliant if given half of the opportunity he had received in his own education.
"Last time we discussed it you also mentioned learning prejudice and dance steps," he said in hope of lightening the mood.
It made her burst into surprised laughter, so he counted it as a win.
"I did, didn't I? Well, I don't think either would help much with getting into a university."
She turned towards him curiously.
"How do you even remember it?"
Matthew didn't feel ready to confess to her that he remembered everything she ever told him, down to the littlest remark and every last insult.
"I have a good memory," he said instead with a smile. "And attention to details. Useful for a solicitor, you know."
Mary answered his smile with a companionable one of her own, but then she returned to their previous topic of conversation.
"But you understand why it cannot be so black and white to me? That it's not only how I was brought up to look at marriage but also how it will define the course of my whole life?" she asked with more anxiety than she probably wanted to show him.
"I'm trying to," answered Matthew honestly, grasping her hand again. "You have given me a new perspective to ponder and I will have to think about it – but I promise I will."
"That's one of the reasons I like Jane Austen, you know. For all the accusations of excessive sentimentality thrown against her books, they are more realistic than people give them credit for," said Mary unexpectedly. "Her characters do marry for love – but they all consider the practical implications of a marriage too. Elinor does not marry Edward Ferrars until his mother does give him ten thousand pounds. Anne Elliott breaks her engagement to Frederick Wentworth because they would have nothing to live on."
"She regrets it for the whole course of the book though," riposted Matthew immediately.
"Only because it turned out he earned a small fortune soon after!" Mary shot back with a grin. "So she knew it would have worked out. But think about it, it was just as likely that she would have ended up like Mrs Price, living in poverty in Portsmouth with a bunch of unruly kids, harried and bitter."
"But Austen does make a very strong point against marrying for money and status alone, even if she is practical enough to insist married couples need some kind of income to live on," insisted Matthew. "Elizabeth Bennet does refuse both Mr Collins and Mr Darcy, despite the material advantages either of them had to offer."
Mary nodded thoughtfully.
"And it's an important point, one which I agree with more and more as I get older. I told you before that I wasn't sure I would have gone through with marrying Patrick had he lived. Well, now I am sure I would never have married a man for his inheritance alone. There would have to be more to induce me into matrimony, however much it frustrates Mama."
Matthew grinned.
"At this rate," he said, his blue eyes sparkling teasingly, "we will make a romantic out of you yet."
"I heavily doubt it," countered Mary with a smirk. But Matthew noticed how her gaze softened when she looked at him and dared to hope.