A/N: Hello! Long time no see. I've recently been rewatching DA, and the scene in 3x08 where Mary is rocking Sybbie just sort of stuck out to me. The way Mary held Baby Sybbie, the way she looked at her and rocked her and cradled her was really an indication of what a fantastic mother she has the potential to be. So I suddenly had this idea of exploring her relationship with Sybbie. Because of that cricket match scene, and a few other scenes (Mary visiting the nursery and cradling her, holding her at the christening) I got this idea of Mary being a mother figure to her. Below is the result. I hope very much that you will like it :)
May 1921
The baby is gurgling in her arms. Sweet, pink-faced, soft… A familiar feeling of tenderness sweeps through Mary as she gently smooths her niece's hair. In the little room, shadows of grief still mark the walls.
"Look out there, darling," she murmurs, showing her the view from the nursery window. "Beautiful day, isn't it? Isn't it?" Sybbie giggles in response, and her tiny fingers close around Mary's wedding ring with a surprisingly strong grip.
"You're very good with her, you know," Tom observes softly from the doorway. Mary turns around at him and smiles in welcome.
She walks over to the wooden armchair and seats herself in it, bouncing the baby, tenderly tracing her face that bears echoes of her mother. Sybil would have been an excellent mother, of that Mary is quite certain. She was cut out to be one, a proper one… She sighs pensively and bites her lip.
Lightly, she brushes a hand over the swelling in her abdomen that is only just beginning to show. Despite Matthew's kisses and reassurances, deep down she still has persistent, nagging fears of the kind of mother she will become.
Suddenly, Sybbie giggles again, and then…
"Mummy."
The word reverberates in the air. The room is silent. It sends a complicated, nameless thrill through Mary like an electric current.
"Mummy," the baby says, more distinctly. This time it is unmistakeable.
I'm not your mummy, darling, her mind says, but the words will not escape her. She can't say it; it sounds so terribly cruel. Mary looks up just in time to catch the look on Tom's face. Heartbroken and crushed. That one innocent word from the baby has unwittingly shattered her father's heart.
"Tom –" Mary begins, but he has shaken his head and quickly left the room, a handkerchief pressed to his eyes.
Simultaneously, she feels like she has betrayed Sybil, usurped her place… And yet, how beautiful it had sounded, if only for a moment. How wonderful it had felt to be called that, to be seen as a mother. To have Sybbie look at her, so adoringly, so trustingly, and call her Mummy.
For the first time, she feels it is possible. That she will be a worthy mother to their baby, hers and Matthew's.
Perhaps it is simply her pregnancy hormones. Perhaps it is the lingering grief of Sybil's death that still clutches her at unexpected moments. Hot tears start in Mary's eyes, and she kisses Sybbie's dark hair and cradles her close. Her lips curl into a smile. Joy and pain battle with equal ferocity in her breast.
November 1930
Mary is walking along the corridors one winter afternoon, past Sybil's old room. Inside, she heard a child's footsteps and a slight stumble. She opens the door gently and peers in.
"Sybbie?"
"Oh hello, Aunt Mary. I… I was just exploring," she said hesitantly. Mary's eyes twinkle. She remembers well the delight of traversing these very corridors, exploring dusty bedrooms, discovering their secrets during childish games of hide-and-seek in her youth.
"I see." She sits herself on the bed and watches her beloved niece, smiling as she potters about the room, examining whatever strikes her fancy. Suddenly she stops, picks up a framed photograph resting on the bedside table. Her tiny fingers brush the film of dust coating it.
"Is this… is this my mummy? When she was young?"
Mary puts an arm around her niece's shoulders and draws her close.
"Yes, darling," she says, patting Sybbie's hair. "That was taken after she and your Daddy were married."
"What was she like?"
The question gives her pause as she wonders how to answer. How should she describe Sybil, summarise her in just a few sentences, cut down her character into a couple of concise phrases? Finally, she decides on something. The truth, plain and simple.
"Your mother was… fearless. Absolutely fearless, never afraid to speak her mind, to say what she thought of things… And friends with everyone despite it!"
"Was she really?"
"Oh yes. She was marvellous, darling, an absolutely wonderful person… Rather like you, in fact. And she loved you very, very much." Mary squeezes Sybbie's shoulder and kisses her cheek, watching as the child attempts to sketch a mental portrait of a woman she does not remember.
Sybbie nods and gazes quietly, the framed photograph still cradled in her hands. Aunt Mary is the only mother she's ever had, but she is glad to treasure the few remaining relics of the mother she's never known.
May 1936
"Mussolini's signed a pact with Hitler," Sybbie said indignantly, brandishing a newspaper over her breakfast.
"What sort of pact?" George asked, halfway through his bacon and eggs.
"A military alliance. They've got a 'common goal', apparently," Sybbie said, her tone dripping with scorn. Matthew and George both looked deeply troubled. "Common goal – like subjugating their people and doing away with their freedom, I suppose! Trying to justify every atrocity they inflict!"
"Oh, dear," George said, looking very grave. "Things seem to be going from bad to worse."
"What's all this?" Mary breezed, sailing into the room. She kissed Matthew's cheek, then George's, and finally Sybbie's, finally sitting down on the chair adjacent to her husband's. "Nothing very terrible, I hope?"
"It is terrible," Sybbie wailed, and proceeded to vent her outrage at the news to her aunt and uncle. The news shook Mary, too, though she was outwardly calm. Behind the warm spring sunshine, she could see the storm clouds gathering.
A while later, while they were alone and the children (no matter how grown-up they'd become she still thought of them as such) had gone outside for a walk, Matthew observed quietly to her exactly what she'd been thinking for the last few minutes.
"Sometimes… I marvel at just how much she reminds me of Sybil."
"I suppose we should all have seen it coming," Mary tells her husband softly, arching her eyebrows. "Considering whose daughter she is."
April 1940
"I'm going to train as a nurse. At St Thomas' in London."
Sybbie's eyes are bright, her jaw set. Daily, the papers report more news of the war, more danger looming, more threats and invasions by the Germans. Every day more boys enlist. She can no longer remain where she is, ensconced in this idyllic Yorkshire village, protected by Downton's grandeur and the love of her family. She knows she must do something; she cannot stand to watch this continue while she does nothing.
Mary gazes at her from her seat on the library sofa. Suddenly she is no longer speaking to a child, but to a determined young woman who knows her own mind, willing to go after what she wants.
Sybil…
"I know what you'll say, Aunt Mary," Sybbie says defiantly, her voice rising passionately, "that I'm far too young and all that – but I've told Daddy, and he says I should do it if that's what I really want. I'm going to be a nurse. I can't stand back and watch while… while this goes on. I need to do something."
"Yes," Mary says. She tilts her head at her surrogate daughter, and an odd, wry sort of smile touches her lips at the bittersweet memory the words provoke. Echoes of another young woman in a time long past, speaking more or less the same words in a similar situation. "I know, my dear. I understand."
"You do?"
"I do."
She rises, threads her fingers through Sybbie's dark hair. She caresses her face, kisses her cheek. "Well, you have my blessing. Do be careful, won't you… and write to me often. I'll come up tonight, and help you pack."
"Thank you, Aunt Mary," Sybbie whispers, her breath quivering, and envelops her in a hug. She turns to leave.
"I'm really not surprised, you know," Mary says quietly, that odd look still on her face. "Your mother would have been proud."
Sybbie nods and smiles, and exits the library.
June 1945
The hospital is in chaos.
Dirty, bloodstained soldiers lie draped over every available bed, nearly all of them bared to the waist. Their faces and bodies utterly deformed. The sight is beyond human comprehension. Death and pain permeate the air, as do the cries of ruined men who have been through hell and will never be quite the same again. Burnt faces, severed limbs, mutilated flesh… And there in the midst of it is Sybbie
"Oh – Aunt Mary – Uncle Matthew!" She kisses them both quickly on the cheek, and leads them to where they ache to be. The Earl and Countess of Grantham have come to visit their son. Their faces are lined with six years' worth of worry and anguish – but most of all relief at being spared the terrible pain that might have been inflicted upon them.
She leaves them over to his bedside. There lies George, a bloodstained bandage over his eyes, his body war-scarred, his arm in a sling – but still mercifully, miraculously alive.
Sybbie stays behind the screen while her aunt and uncle whisper to George, showering his dear face with kisses. She will not intrude.
When they finally emerge from behind the curtain, she reassures them once again. Their tired, wan faces tug at her heart.
"He'll be alright," she tells them with a nurse's conviction, a sister's love. "He's going to be fine, his eyes should heal properly…Don't worry, Aunt Mary I'll look after him."
"We know," Mary says, pressing her lips to Sybbie's forehead. Matthew gives her a one-armed hug. "We know you will, darling." She means every word. She and Matthew can rest assured their son is safe, in the care of his first playmate, first sister, first friend.
December 1946
It is Sybbie's wedding day. Her wedding dress is simple, and so is her makeup. The wedding is in the village church – a small, intimate affair, with only the closest acquaintances, friends and family of the bride and groom. A delicate necklace traces her throat. Her something old, from her mother.
Mary had given it to her, from a little velvet box only days ago. A thin gold necklace, two strands braided together, with tiny pearls sewn between them. All these years later, its glint has not dulled.
Sybbie had lifted it from the box, taken it in her hands with reverent care. Somehow, instinctively, she'd known whose it was.
"Is this –"
"Your mother's," Mary had told her gently. "Yes."
Charlie Bryant stands at the altar, a little unsteadily. George stands at his side – his best man. Mary has known him vaguely as George's friend from Oxford, and in the past months has grown inordinately fond of him. Charlie Bryant, who'd lost a leg at Dunkirk, and needed to have it amputated and replaced with a prosthetic. Charlie Bryant, who has blossomed into a fine man, a better and kinder one than his father. The prostitute's son… If they'd all known, that day in the dining room with Mr and Mrs Bryant, that the baby in Ethel's arms would one day become part of their family…
The organ plays: the bride has come. Sybbie is making her way slowly down the aisle, face aglow, hanging on to Tom's arm.
Strange, Mary reflects, the turns life takes, the mysterious destinies that link the people she knows and loves, the way the fabric of one person's life becomes intertwined with those of many others.
"Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God, and in the face of this congregation…"
Matthew's fingers thread through hers. His thumb rubs tenderly over her knuckles. Mary smiles at him, kisses his cheek. She feels no less pride than if it were her own daughter being married. That is how she has always thought of her little niece. That was the promise she'd silently made to her sister so many years ago, on the night she was snatched from all of them. That she would give her baby all the love she had the capacity to give. To try and make up, in some small way, for what had been wrested away from her.
"Sybil Branson, wilt thou have this man for thy wedded husband…?"
Mary remembers another wedding many years ago, in the spring of 1919. How another young woman had stood in a simple gown in a church in Dublin, reciting her wedding vows, her face bright with love for the man who'd stood at her side. How she'd promised him eternal devotion, and he her. How proud Sybil would have been, how pleased that her daughter had found love just as she had done.
All these years later, Mary is not sentimental. She still doubts sometimes, still does not completely believe that her darling sister is watching, that her phantom presence lingers in this church, but… She hopes she is wrong, she hopes that somehow, somewhere Sybil knows what a wonderful woman her daughter has become. She is content, and satisfied with herself, too, for all years in which she has had a hand in Sybbie's upbringing, becoming and embodying a mother figure to her, treating her no differently than her own children.
She has been a mother to Sybil's baby girl, in all the ways that matter. And she is happy.
A/N: Thanks so much for reading, I really hope you enjoyed it. Feedback is much appreciated as always :)