Chapter Thirteen: Among the Ruins
"Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically. The cataclysm has happened, we are among the ruins, we start to build up new little habitats, to have new little hopes. It is rather hard work: there is now no smooth road into the future: but we go round, or scramble over the obstacles. We've got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen." DH Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover, 1928.
Summer 1919
The transformation in the cottages in the week since work had re-started was so extraordinary that even Mary, having done so much to organise it all, was surprised.
The air of quiet abandonment that had hung over them had been replaced by the chaos of a building site, with timber and tools strewn across the floors and work benches set up under a temporary shelter in the backyard. Saturday afternoon saw the workmen absent, but the air of industry and activity remained, awaiting their return on Monday.
Willis, however, had been perfectly willing to spend what should have been his day off showing them around and updating them on what work had been done and what was to be started in the next week, apparently eager to demonstrate his suitability and enthusiasm for his supervisory role in the proceedings despite the missing right arm that had ended his career in the more active aspects of building work. He had been polite with Mary when he had supervised the work she had organised during the war and when she approached him to return to the role, but it had been a distant, respectful politeness. It took only minutes for him to relax properly with Matthew, and Mary tried not to resent the easy camaraderie men only ever seemed to display towards other men.
Yet it wasn't hard to let go of the resentment when Matthew turned to her as often as he did to Willis and she found that both men listened to her ideas properly rather than simply humouring her. She couldn't help drawing the contrast with Patrick leaning on the wall and glugging spirits from his hip flask, making schoolboy jokes with the men, and still thinking he knew more about anything and everything than she did.
But after they had seen enough and released Willis to return to his weekend, the heavy grey skies had opened in a downpour they had hoped would hold off until the afternoon. They had walked down from the house rather than taking the car, and felt no desire to return until the downpour had abated, neither of them in any position to hurry back quickly enough to avoid a drenching with her long skirt and his necessarily slow pace with his sticks. Neither had thought to bring an umbrella.
Instead, they returned to the one kitchen in working condition where the workers had been taking their lunch breaks. The small room felt comfortable and homely, the benches and chairs that had been temporarily left there for the workmen rough but not uncomfortable, and the light from the single lamp soft and welcoming against the dark skies outside.
When they had settled on chairs next to the window to watch the rain as they waited for it to stop, Matthew sighed and looked at her with an expression she couldn't quite decode.
"What is it?" she asked.
"It's just that… since we might be here a while, there's something I ought to discuss with you," he said.
"About the entail?" she guessed.
"In a manner of speaking," he replied cryptically.
She raised her eyebrows in a clear indication of her impatience with his evasions. He acknowledged it with a half-smile, but still looked uncomfortable.
"I've been looking at the books," he began cautiously.
"Yes?" she replied, "And did you find anything?"
"I did," he said, still speaking in a cautious tone that worried her. "And I do think we might be able to make the argument to break the entail because the estate is in danger based on the way it's being run. But I'm not sure we can leave it that long."
"What do you mean?"
He looked down. "I'm sure you understand it better than I do, but… Downton appears to be being mismanaged."
"Mismanaged?" she repeated, instinctively offended. "You don't mean Papa or Jarvis are…"
"I'm not accusing anyone of anything," he said quickly. "Nothing criminal or immoral at any rate. But… it's a large estate, with good farming land, and yet there's been no real investment in modern machinery or in the farms themselves. Which I suspect is because there isn't the money for it. There are rents going uncollected, and they're far too low anyway, and the farms are losing productivity when they need to be doing better than ever just to break even. The cottages are a start, but everything else has just been left as it must have been in your grandfather's day."
She hesitated. It wasn't a surprise, not really, but to hear it all laid bare, to hear her own vague fears reflected back… "There's been a war. You know there's a whole host of reasons people might not be able to pay their rent, and Papa couldn't bear to squeeze money from tenants in no position to pay."
"I know," he said. "And I'm sure Cousin Robert is a good landlord. But it's been going on longer than that, and it's not sustainable. In order to maintain an estate in the modern world, there has to be some means of increasing productivity and reducing waste. And while I can see you've been trying to do that, and I know you've seen success in sharing what little modern machinery there is, it's not happening quickly enough. I've only met Jarvis a handful of times and I can see already that he's the greatest obstacle."
She got to her feet, restless and dissatisfied, and cleared a patch in the condensation on the window to look out across the fields.
"I suspect I like Jarvis even less than you do, but remember this is not some city business," she said. "We run the estate for the good of the people who live and work here, to protect a way of life. It is not all about taking as much money as we can from the land to spend on what you see as our frivolous and extravagant way of life."
"I'm trying to understand, I really am. But it won't benefit anyone if it goes under," he said earnestly.
She froze abruptly and turned to stare at him in shock. "You think it's truly as bad as that?"
He hesitated, but only for a moment. "I think it could be, someday, if nothing is done, or if something unexpected happened." He frowned, obviously finding it difficult to talk about. "Did you realise that it's Cousin Cora's fortune that keep the estate solvent? It's not self-sufficient, not by a long way, and Robert's been bailing the place out for years to make up for the shortfall."
She sat down again. "No," she said quietly, coldly furious, "I didn't know. I was allowed to have my projects and try to save us from what I could see was happening to other estates, but Papa just gave me a budget, he never showed me all the books. I know Grandpapa needed Mama's money to get him out of some financial hole, but I had thought… I had assumed it was a temporary thing."
"I'm sure he meant it to be," Matthew said, frowning. "But Cousin Robert seems to think money is still abundant, that the great estates are going to carry on as they are forever."
"And you disagree?" she asked. "You don't think they will carry on?"
"Not without more careful management," he said. "There are things we can do, but I don't think Cousin Robert wants to hear it, and I might be on a steep learning curve, but I don't know enough about farming to approach him with any kind of sensible plan."
"And I know only a little more, and nothing about accounting and finances," she said worriedly. "Have you spoken to Papa?"
Matthew hesitated. "I've tried to bring it up, but Robert isn't exactly receptive to it. And I thought I ought to talk to you first before I went too far."
She couldn't deny that the sentiment pleased her. "And you think it can't wait?" she asked.
"Not for as long as it might take to break the entail," he said. "Things might go on well enough for a while, but the capital's leaking through the cracks. An investment that turns out badly, a run of few bad harvests, more trouble with the economy, some unexpected taxes, any sort of shock might be what tips it over the edge. We should act sooner rather than later."
Something inside her calmed a little at the way he was still saying 'we', that she was no longer alone in this even if he did intend to leave someday. "You're truly still interested? Even though you know it won't be your responsibility?"
"I never wanted it to be my responsibility," he said frankly. "But I do care. About the people who will live here, about the prosperity of the farms that are their livelihoods, about the security of yours and Lily's future. Of course I'm still interested."
"Have we reformed the city boy so thoroughly?"
He paused for a moment, his expression losing the lightness it sometimes acquired when they teased each other.
"I'm not much of a city boy anymore," he said, his voice low. There was clearly more to that than she understood, but the sudden closed-off darkness of his expression warned her away.
"Can we afford all the renovations?" she asked, trying for practicality to ease the tension. "I can work to the budget we've got, but is the budget itself reasonable, given the state of things?"
"Yes," he replied immediately, and she breathed a silent sigh of relief. "It's irresponsible to be relying so heavily on Cousin Cora's fortune to keep the place going, and it can't go on, but it truly is a fortune, and it's invested sensibly enough."
"Irresponsible," she repeated carefully, simultaneously in agreement with Matthew's assessment, and instinctively indignant at his criticism of Papa.
He exhaled loudly, clearly frustrated. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to criticise your father, it's only that if we're to fight Parliament to make it yours, I want there to be something left for you to inherit, something that can give Lily a stable future."
Her indignation melted considerably. She looked away over the fields, blurred and distorted by the rain on the windowpanes. "I've known for some time it will be a fight to keep it," she said with a sigh. "No matter whether it belong legally to you or to me, with Lloyd George and the rest of them in parliament, things are only going to get more difficult."
When he didn't reply, she turned back to him, and saw something in his expression that gave her pause. She narrowed her eyes. "You like him," she accused.
He gave her a small lopsided smile. "I don't hate him as much as I suspect you do."
"I dislike him to the precise degree he deserves to be disliked," she said firmly. "I don't think he's quite the devil incarnate Granny sometimes seems to suggest. But things are hard enough after the war even without whatever else he intends to throw at us."
"I know I was wrong about a lot of things when I arrived," Matthew said cautiously, "but surely you must see that it's absurd for us to live in luxury while people starve."
"We won't let that happen here," she insisted. "I thought you were beginning to see the way things work. If Lloyd George and the rest of them start disrupting it all, I don't imagine our tenants would be any better off than we would be."
"I simply think the world would be a fairer place if wealth was a little more evenly distributed," he said. "Many of Lloyd George's policies have that aim."
"But whatever the intention, the result is never equality and fairness," she said bitterly. "It's just new money instead of inheritance. I'm sure half of the fallen estates are being bought by war profiteers. And however limited my altruism and compassion might be, I assure you everyone on the Downton estate will be taken care of far better than anyone unlucky enough to still be tenants on Haxby land."
"Haxby?" Matthew asked.
"One of the bordering estates," she explained. "It used to belong to the Russells. Friends of ours since forever. But the house is big and expensive, and they were never very interested in farming, and Billy…" she paused, remembering Lady Russell's visit before they left for the last time, her red eyes and black dress and trembling voice. A ghost of the charming hostess Mary had known and looked up to as a girl.
She swallowed hard and continued. "And Billy, the heir, was killed on the Somme. So they gave up. Sold out and left. And now the Wilcoxes have it. The son was at the salty pudding dinner, you must have spoken to him more than I did, but they're all…" she sighed again, wondering how to explain it to him, to convey quite how wrong it was that they had taken over land that had belonged to the Russells for centuries without knowing the first thing about estates or understanding the duties to the land and the people they ought to be taking on with the house. "They're city business people who got rich enough to want an estate. You wouldn't believe how much they seem to have walked straight out of Howards End."
"Wilcoxes," Matthew repeated, almost amused. "Are you sure you're not letting the name colour your judgement?"
"I won't deny it was my first thought when I heard the name," she conceded, "but they've lived up to it beyond even my expectations. If anything, they're far worse."
"I wouldn't have thought you would have read it," Matthew said, studying her curiously.
"I don't know why I did really," she said. It wasn't Papa's sort of book, and she'd bought it herself on a whim, in London. It had made her cry, although she wouldn't tell Matthew that, and she did have the excuse of pregnancy for such an uncharacteristic display of emotion even if she hadn't known for certain at the time.
It may not have been written as a tragedy, but anything written soon before the war was painful to read now. The shadow of war hung over the whole book, ominous and inevitable, but neither the characters nor the author could possibly have contemplated how destructive and terrible it would be.
How innocent they had all been, concerned with the dangers of the advancing modern world, how terribly ignorant of the magnitude of what was to come.
"I'm not sure I could read it now," he said, as if he had read her thoughts. "When I was… there… we used to read about home. There was more time than you might think, plenty of time to be bored. There were Bibles of course, but there was always someone with Cranford or The Peacock or Howards End. Something so quintessentially English, we could pretend that world still existed. Now I'm back… I can't think like that. That world isn't real anymore."
"But you liked it before?" she asked.
"Yes. I like Forster."
"How very middle class of you," she commented lightly, wary of the dangerous territory they had entered when he had mentioned there.
"Is it? Even though you enjoyed it too?"
"I didn't say anything of the sort."
"But I'm right. You did like it."
She couldn't keep back her smile at that. "Perhaps."
He returned her smile, obviously pleased to have deduced her meaning.
"Of course, it's not about people like us," she said with a small sigh. "It seems Forster had already decided we were a relic of the past, even before the war."
"I'm not sure it's supposed to be read like that," he said after a moment, considering. "It's about mixing and sharing, compromise and complexity. Connecting, I suppose, and how difficult it is when there is so much that divides us. And how there is value in trying anyway."
"I'm afraid we're not terribly good at compromise and mixing. That's not how our sort of people work."
"And yet here I am, and here you are, talking to me. What is this if not connecting?"
"You're hardly a Leonard Bast. Or a Wilcox," she said dismissively, although she saw his point.
"I think you believed me to be far worse when I first arrived."
"You did not give the best of first impressions," she reminded him with a small smile.
"And you hardly gave me the warmest of welcomes," he shot back without malice.
"And yet you don't blame me for it now."
"And yet I don't blame you for it now," he agreed softly. "And may I ask the same privilege of forgiveness?"
"You can ask. But I warn you, I'm not known for forgiving easily."
"I'm not asking you to forgive easily. Forgiveness isn't easy." He looked down. "I know I could have handled it better. You must have thought me terribly priggish and miserable. And so unwilling to listen and understand."
She smiled wryly. "You were terribly priggish and miserable. But I suppose I can hardly blame you for it." She sighed. "I know none of this has been easy. Trying to find a place in a new world. Forster was certainly right about the complexity." She shook her head. "And if Sybil's choices are any indication of what awaits us, I suppose he was right about the mixing too."
"Do you think she will be happy?"
She thought for a moment. "I think she has a chance of happiness. As good a chance as she would have if she let him go."
"Then I suppose that's all anyone could wish for her. A good chance at happiness."
They didn't need to speak the truth that hovered in the air between them: that a good chance at happiness was more that it seemed they would be granted now, more than was possible for most fellow survivors in a generation torn apart in the unspeakable horrors of war. Sybil may have chosen an uncertain future, but nobody's future could be certain now.
"Forster could never have imagined the truth," Matthew said after a moment. "That the question of who would inherit England would so soon become almost irrelevant."
"What do you mean?"
He gave a short, humourless laugh. "I mean he was so concerned with inheritance, and who the future of England belonged to, and now… it's no longer a question with any historical, political or philosophical answer. It's too simple for that. Those who will inherit England are those who have survived. All of us walking in dead men's shoes for the rest of our days."
There was nothing to say to that, so she said nothing.
"I'm sorry," he said eventually. "I'm sorry I'm always bringing it back to the war, and… everything."
"Oh, don't be," she said easily. "It's impossible to avoid. And you're right, in a way."
She looked away. "Nothing will ever be the same again, will it?" she said.
"No. I don't think it can be."
"Papa can't understand it. Or won't. I'm never sure how much of his blindness is wilful."
"It protects him," Matthew said after a moment. "I think I can understand it. I'm almost envious. He's not had an easy time of it, but he never had to see…" He swallowed. "Once you've seen what men can do to other men, how villages that have been there hundreds of years can be destroyed utterly in days, how minds and bodies shatter and decompose in the mud…"
His voice cut off suddenly, and her heart ached as she watched his jaw working as if he were trying to speak but couldn't get the sound out.
"Matthew," she started softly, reaching out to touch his arm.
He shook his head, the movement stiff, jerking. "I'm sorry. I ought not to speak of it. Certainly not with you."
"I don't mind," she said. "I know I can't understand, but if I can take even the slightest part of the burden, I will."
"Thank you for that. But… I don't think I can talk about it, not really. Sometimes bits and pieces spill out, but once I think about trying to explain… I just can't. There aren't words to express… and then when I try, I'm back there, and…" His voice broke off again and he closed his eyes. His hands were shaking and she almost gave in to the urge to reach out and hold them.
"That's what Patrick used to say," she said. "I asked only once, and he said he couldn't talk about it. I didn't understand then, not at all. But he had nightmares when he was home. He never spoke of them, but I woke him up from them almost every night, saw the look in his eyes when he woke up. I won't forget that."
"You think you want to know," he said, his voice sounding terribly forced. "But you don't, not really. It won't help, to have more people haunted by it all, knowing the truth of what humanity is."
"We're already haunted by it, Matthew," she said. "Every moment of every day. We know the truth of what humanity is, even if we haven't seen it first-hand. Downton was a convalescent home. There were men whose faces were so badly disfigured, not even their parents could have recognised them. Men who screamed in the night, who tore at their own bandages and reopened their wounds and fought anyone who tried to help them as if they were a deadly enemy. And they just kept coming and coming, week after week, for years." She looked at him fiercely. "I will never know what it was like for you. But never think that those of us who sat at home waiting and worrying don't understand the magnitude of what has happened."
He looked away, his jaw working. "You're right, of course. I didn't see it before, never accepted that everyone at home… that Lavinia had lived through a war too. But I see it now."
His sigh hung heavy in the air for a long while.
When Mary broke the silence, her voice came out louder than she had intended. "Sometimes, I can't help being jealous of Papa, with his blinkers to protect him from reality."
"Your father is old enough, I think, that he can carry on believing what he was brought up to believe, what his life has taught him to believe. My father was more open-minded, I think, but he would have been the same. But it's different for us, now. We've come through it all, and we still have our lives to live. As if that's possible, after all that's happened. After we've lost so many of the people who should have lived their lives alongside us."
Mary found herself unexpectedly fighting tears at the thought. She thought of Sybil's coming out ball, the crowds of eager young men desperate for her favour, Patrick still little more than a boy watching her with adoring eyes. Billy Russel making elaborate plans for hunts and shoots and parties for when he and Patrick would one day be masters of neighbouring estates. A world vanished forever with a generation of young men.
She pushed the thought away. "But we have no choice. We must live, if only for those who need us to. Sometimes it seems everything I tried to build my life on has fallen away. But I must go on, for Lily."
"You would give her the world if you could," he said softly.
"And you intend to give her all of the world that matters to us."
He looked down. "It ought not to be mine to give."
"But it is. And you intend to give it anyway."
"I suppose she is the answer to it all, then. Who shall inherit England. It will be Lily, and those like her. Born into a world so thoroughly broken, they won't even recognise it as such."
"Sybil would say the old world needed breaking. Not in the way it happened, but it had to happen somehow."
"Perhaps she's right. But I hardly remember the old world now. It's all tinted and changed by everything that's happened. It seems as if it was always sunny, as if we were all living in an age of innocence." He shook his head, as if to dismiss his own thoughts. "It can't be true, of course."
"No," she agreed. "It was no age of innocence." She sighed, closing her eyes. "But that last summer was hot and bright and brilliant. We were innocent in a way we will never be again."
She remembered that last day of naïve innocence, presiding over the garden party and feeling like a queen, remembered the heat and the brightness of white dresses in perfect sunlight, the clockwork organisation of it all, the perfection of her world and the premature hope for an heir. It seemed like a childish fantasy now, and of course nothing had truly been perfect… but it had felt so at the time, if only for a moment. She remembered it only too well.
Matthew's voice brought her back. "But now we have no choice but to find a way to live in the ruins. To build a new world, and hope we don't make the same mistakes."
She looked out across the field. "It won't be kind to estates like Downton, this new world."
"No," he agreed quietly. "It won't."
"I won't surrender to it, you know. I realise that this new world is not going to be kind to us, to the great estates and those who own them. Even with whatever reforms we can persuade Papa into trying. But Lily will inherit Downton, intact and prosperous."
"I don't doubt it."
"And you?" she asked. "Where will you go, if we succeed?"
"When we succeed," he corrected her. He sighed. "I don't know. I'm not sure I can go back to Manchester. It's the same, or close enough, but I'm not. I don't think I can face everything I knew so well before. London, perhaps. I could lose myself there well enough, I think. Find work."
"And you want to lose yourself?" She thought of all the lost souls she had seen wandering around the streets of London, grey-faced and haunted, and shuddered at the thought of Matthew being among them.
"I don't know," he said slowly. "Sometimes I think I do. Then I think of Mother, and even of all of you at Downton, now. Sometimes I think I can find peace here, or somewhere like it. But then I wonder if peace is something I can ever find, or deserve."
"You do deserve it, if you want it. You all do, after all you've been through."
He didn't reply, and looked off into the distance.
"Paris, perhaps," he said after a long pause. "It seems fitting, somehow. I loved it, when I visited on leave. Even in the middle of a war there was something… special about it."
"I love it too," she said. "Far more than London."
"Then you can visit me, when I'm settled," he said with a small smile. "We can introduce Lily to all the sights. I'll be practically a local by then."
"We will," she said, smiling back. "Do you even speak French?"
"Quite well, actually, although I'm told my accent leaves much to be desired," he said, smiling ruefully. "Even the other English chaps used to laugh at me when we had a few days leave."
She laughed. "I must hear this."
"Absolutely not," he said, grinning in a way she had never seen before. "You'll never stop teasing me about it."
"As if I can't find enough reasons to tease you as it is."
His eyes went wide, disarmed by her comment. She smiled.
"And I suppose your governess taught you perfect French? And German? Italian, maybe?" he asked.
"Of course," she said. "Although Fraulein Kelder's Italian was shocking. Thankfully, I've never had cause to speak it beyond the barest courtesies. I understand the opera, that's all I've ever needed it for."
"I can see the value of that. I'm afraid I rely on the printed translations or what I can glean from the similarity to Latin."
She laughed again. "Of course you know Latin and Greek far better than any language that might be of use to you."
"I'll have you know that Latin is supremely useful for a lawyer," he said.
"And I suppose that given the use to which you are putting your knowledge of the law, I can hardly dismiss its utility."
He stilled, his expression turning suddenly serious and sincere. "We will find a way, Mary. I promise."
"I know," she said. "We will win the war. I just wish sometimes that there was no war to fight at all."
Their eyes met, and they shared a melancholy smile. "As do I," Matthew replied.
They met in York the next Wednesday on Matthew's afternoon off, having spent more time in the Ripon tea rooms than either of them particularly wanted to. They were ostensibly meeting to discuss plans for enlisting Granny's support and to decide how to tackle Papa over the estate, but in the end there was very little to be said; Sybil would be blowing everything apart any day now, depending when Branson heard back from his last job application, and very little could be done until that chaos had subsided a little.
But it hardly mattered that there was little to be practically accomplished. The warm sunshine had returned, more welcome than ever after the heavy rain that hadn't let up until that morning, and they took advantage of it to take a walk by the river, their pace necessarily slow and careful but their conversation easy.
Mary couldn't help reflecting on quite how long it had been since she had done anything like this, walking in the sunshine because she wanted to rather than because Sybil had dragged her out. She had hardly left Downton since her pregnancy had started to make things difficult just as they had heard finally that Patrick was no longer missing, that she was indeed a widow, and it seemed the months since then, more than a year really, had passed without her really noticing it even as she watched Lily grow.
Matthew, it seemed, had never been here at all, and was apparently relishing his ability to take a walk like this, declining several suggestions that they sit down when they passed unoccupied benches even as she could see him getting tired. She couldn't stop thinking about how much of a miracle it must seem to him after fearing he would never be able to do so again.
Eventually, however, a light sheen of sweat breaking out on his brow, he accepted that the next bench they passed was a good place to rest a while and they sat together to watch some small children feeding the ducks.
"Does Cousin Sybil know how long they'll have to wait until Branson hears back?" Matthew asked, leaning against the back of the bench and looking much more comfortable for sitting down.
"No. But soon, I think." Sybil was terribly impatient, but seemed to be expecting news any day.
"What does Cousin Edith think of… of the Irish Question?" Matthew asked after a moment.
Mary blinked. "Edith? Oh, she's really not very interested in…" then she realised, and smiled. "Oh. You mean…"
"Yes."
"Very clever," she acknowledged.
"I have a feeling you are quite accomplished at speaking in riddles," he said.
"And you're a lawyer, and therefore probably experienced in evading the truth when necessary."
"You have a rather low view of lawyers, I gather?"
"Most of them, certainly," she said easily. "In your case, however, I trust you only to evade the truth when truly necessary."
"Lady Mary," he said in mock-surprise, "is it possible that there might be a compliment hidden somewhere in that comment?"
"Make of it what you will," she said airily.
Matthew's delighted grin made her heart do something strange, and she had to look away for a moment.
"So? What is Cousin Edith's view on the… situation?" he pressed.
"She's too busy being pregnant to have a view on anything at the moment," Mary said scathingly. "But in the end, I think she sees it as Sybil's choice to… decide how she feels about Ireland." She couldn't help smiling again.
"So will you be able to present a united front?"
"A united front is likely to make Papa feel attacked. Edith will be there to deal with the aftermath. She doesn't know the details, so we're hoping she can convince Papa and Mama she's had nothing to do with it." She shook her head slightly. "I think Papa might be pleased if all his daughters haven't turned against him."
"But you don't mind him seeing that you've turned against him?" he asked.
She raised her eyebrows at him. "Given what we're planning to do with the entail, you must know going against Papa's wishes is hardly my most pressing concern."
Matthew gave a small lopsided smile in acknowledgement, but it didn't reach his eyes. She knew he didn't quite see Papa's position as she did, that he still believe he could be won over, but it wasn't an argument she wanted to have with Matthew, not unless it ever threatened his willingness to bow to her better knowledge of her own family. She enjoyed arguing with him well enough on most matters but this… it hurt too much to have to explain why her own father would never be her ally.
She looked away, and they sat in a silence that had lost some of the comfort they had together, until Matthew suggested they start heading back to the station.
They walked back talking of everything and nothing, of the cottages and Cousin Isobel's latest charity work and Matthew's new law clerk, and slowly fell back into an easiness of conversation that was becoming oddly familiar between them.
It must have been because of their earlier conversation that when she first saw a familiar-looking young couple rounding the corner in front of them, she dismissed the immediate thought it could be her sister, thinking it a trick of her imagination, bringing to life what was in her thoughts. But that was soon proved to be wishful thinking, because Matthew stopped short and turned to her, eyebrows raised.
"Hang on, is that…" he began.
"Sybil!" Mary finished for him. "With Branson. Oh, for goodness sake, how foolish can they be?"
They were walking far too close, not quite arm in arm but very clearly a couple, and even with Sybil in relatively plain clothes and Branson in a suit rather than his uniform (and how on earth had he managed that when he was supposed to be working?), they looked mismatched.
Branson saw them first, his expression flitting from relaxed laughter to panic to defiance as he alerted Sybil. By this time they were almost face to face, and a confrontation was inevitable.
"Good afternoon, darling," Mary said casually as soon as they were close enough, relishing Sybil's expression of horrified surprise.
"Mary! Oh, and Matthew, I was…"
"Hello, Branson," Mary said coolly. She turned back to Sybil. "And don't bother trying to come up with some flimsy excuse for Matthew's sake, he knows why you're wandering around York with the chauffeur."
Sybil's wide-eyed stare at Matthew was priceless, but Mary was too angry to appreciate it.
"Where's the car?" she asked.
"Not far," Sybil said quickly. "Just a little way beyond those gates."
"Then Branson can go and wait there while we take a walk."
After a brief glance between them, far too intimate and full of understanding for Mary's comfort, Sybil and Branson seemed to accept there was little point arguing.
Matthew cleared his throat awkwardly. "I suppose I'll wait in the car with Branson," he said carefully. "We might as well all go back together."
Mary wanted to argue, but his point was too reasonable to dispute, and besides, Matthew would probably appreciate only having to walk as far as the car. She gave a forced smile of acquiescence, and he gave her a far warmer smile of support before turning away to follow Branson.
As soon as they seemed to be out of earshot, Mary turned to her sister, exasperated beyond belief.
"How could you be so stupid?" she demanded. "It's one thing going out in the car more often than you should, but this… Sybil, what if someone saw you?"
"We're tired of sneaking around!" Sybil said indignantly. "We've been careful for years, but it will all come out soon anyway, what do a few days matter? I really did need to go to York, and it's far too hot to get straight back in the car and go home. We were only going to be out together for a few minutes."
"It matters because if you are to do this without making things very difficult for yourself and for the rest of us, we need to be in control of who knows, and when they find out." Honestly, she shouldn't need to explain it.
"We haven't seen anyone!" Sybil insisted. "And if we did, nobody we know would recognise Tom without his uniform, because they don't see him as a person when he's wearing it!"
Mary had to admit, in all fairness, that there truth to that. But it wasn't good enough.
"Well I saw you, and so did Matthew, and we both recognised you. What if it had been Mama? Or one of the servants? You know they could well be here on an errand here. Or if Matthew hadn't already known?"
"And how does Cousin Matthew know?" Sybil asked.
Mary rolled her eyes. "Because I told him."
Sybil stopped walking and turned to Mary with a look of deep betrayal. "How could you, Mary? You promised you wouldn't tell, you promised!"
Mary sighed in exasperation. "I had to tell him, darling, he overheard us talking about it weeks and weeks ago. That day we met him on the path near the village."
"Well you really ought to have told me!" Sybil replied angrily.
"What difference would it have made? He hasn't said anything, has he?"
Sybil huffed. "No," she conceded, "but he could have. You know how Papa is with him, what if he'd told him?"
Mary raised her eyebrows. "Of course he wouldn't tell Papa." Honestly, the thought that he could have done such a thing was ridiculous, when Matthew was surely the most likely to be sympathetic of anyone. "You know Matthew, he's always on the side of the downtrodden." she said.
Sybil watched her for a moment, eyes suddenly curious instead of angry. "Not as well as you do, apparently," she said eventually. "What are you doing out with Cousin Matthew anyway? I know you've been getting on better, but isn't he supposed to be at work on weekdays?"
Mary hesitated. "He finishes early on Wednesdays," she said carefully.
"That doesn't explain why he caught the train in the wrong direction," Sybil pointed out.
Mary suddenly felt rather warm. How could Sybil be trying to interrogate her when it was clearly Sybil who was in the wrong here? And this was so precisely not the time and place to discuss everything with Sybil.
"We're going to break the entail," she said shortly. "Matthew has agreed to help me."
Sybil stared at her, eyes wide. "You asked Cousin Matthew to help you break the entail?"
"You know I'd already tried everything else. And he doesn't want Downton when he knows the law that would make it his is unfair." She smiled again. "It's for Lily as much as for me, I think." She paused, then couldn't prevent herself from adding, "He's very sweet with her."
"When did he even meet Lily?" Sybil asked, her expression a little too sharp and interested for Mary's taste.
"He found us in the garden a few weeks ago," Mary said. "And then I brought her along the other week when we were discussing the plans for the entail. But none of this matters. What matters is that you make some effort not to make this whole thing with Branson into an even greater scandal that it already will be."
"This whole thing? You mean marrying the man I love?"
"Oh, stop being such a baby. You know very well how shocking this will be for everyone, however much the world has changed. You've kept it secret for years, can you really not manage another few weeks?"
"It will be less than that," Sybil said. "We'll have to tell the family this week. Tom heard back from the job he wanted in Dublin in this morning's post, and he'll have to be there to start work soon. And we can't leave in too much of a hurry or it will look like we're running away."
Mary felt a heavy weariness settle on her as she realised that this truly was it, the last couple of weeks she would have with her sister.
She sighed, then forced a smile. "Then we have a lot of planning to do." Because Sybil and Branson clearly couldn't be trusted to make sensible decisions themselves. "Let's go back. We can talk in the car. And don't think I agree with you that you can throw caution to the wind just because they end is in sight, it was foolish to walk with him."
Sybil opened her mouth to reply, but wisely thought better of it.
They found Matthew and Branson engaged in fierce but good-humoured debate on John Stuart Mill, apparently already firm friends, Branson back in his uniform jacket and Matthew sitting in the front seat like a servant. Mary rolled her eyes at her sister.
"I told you he'd be on your side," she said.
It felt like the longest car journey of Mary's life. Matthew and Branson, despite having very little in common as far as she could see, seemed to be enjoying disagreeing on politics too much for Matthew to move seats, and Sybil was eager to join them, and only with difficulty did Mary manage to force them all to focus on the matter at hand and start discussing a plan to tell the family.
She managed it in the end. By the time they were home after leaving Matthew at Crawley House, she had extracted a promise from Branson that they would leave if it became too dangerous, established that they would have enough money to live on until they were both earning steadily, and with Matthew proving to be an annoyingly accomplished mediator in Mary's frequent clashes of opinion with Branson, they had agreed a sensible plan to tell the family.
Sybil and Branson had wanted to do it after dinner in some dramatic declaration of love. Mary said no. They had argued. She had won, of course.
Papa did not need an audience for his predictable explosion of rage, especially not whichever footman happened to be in the room at the time, and Mama needed to feel that she could disagree with Papa without seeming disloyal, which meant it was imperative that Granny was not there.
Matthew had suggested that his mother would be supportive, but Mary knew this would likely cause more problems than it would solve. There was nothing that made Papa more certain of his conservative views than being directly challenged. Cousin Isobel might be useful to Sybil later, once things had settled down a little, but Papa must not be made to think that everyone was against him.
And so, rather than doing anything too dramatic, they would simply speak to Mama and Papa over tea in the library, ensure the servants were told they were not to be disturbed, explain Sybil's plans, and bring Branson in once the reason for his presence was explained and Papa's first explosion of rage had started to calm. Dinner that evening would be quiet, with only Matthew there to give Papa a sympathetic ear over their brandy and cigars and to do what he could to calm the situation.
It was a good plan.
Mary should have known better than to expect it to work.
First, Papa went out on the estate early that morning, and didn't return until it was too late to catch him in the library before dinner. Then, despite Mary's best efforts to persuade them to leave it until the next day, both Sybil and Branson categorically refused to wait. And just as Mary was thanking God for small mercies that Granny and Cousin Isobel weren't there, Mama mentioned that Granny had invited herself for dinner and was coming after all. Only Cousin Isobel unknowingly obliged them by having a prior engagement in Thirsk at some charity event the details of which Mary didn't care enough to remember.
Matthew, who must have shared a car with Granny, seemed to realise immediately that things had not gone to plan and came over to speak to Mary as soon as he could.
"What's going on?" he asked urgently. "I thought Cousin Violet wasn't coming, and your father seems far too calm, considering, and Cousin Cora..."
"We haven't told them," she replied quietly. "Papa's been out all day, and Mama had to deal with some crisis with the servants. I wanted to leave it until tomorrow, but Sybil's determined, so it's going to have to be after dinner."
Matthew raised his eyebrows. "Do you want me to make an excuse and leave early?"
"Well I won't stop you escaping the inevitable explosion, but there's no reason you shouldn't stay, as long as you don't let on to Papa that you know. I know you hate the dishonesty, but he mustn't think we're ganging up on him."
"But you won't hide that you knew?" he asked.
"No. She needs someone on her side, and I'm already at odds with Papa on so many things it hardly matters."
"What about Cousin Violet?" he asked.
"Well it's not ideal, but you can't keep Granny away when she's decided she's coming. I wouldn't be surprised if she's guessed somehow that there's something going on." She sighed. "At least she might be able to stop Papa from saying things he might regret. You haven't seen him truly angry yet, but it's not pretty."
"Crikey. Then I suppose I ought to stay and brave the storm," he said.
"Well, never say I didn't warn you," she said wryly.
Whether she had known before or not, Granny certainly knew something was going on by the time Mama signalled for the ladies to go through to the drawing room.
Dinner had been impossibly tense, and Mary feared that hers and Matthew's best efforts at diffusing the tension with a discussion about their plans for the cottages had added to rather than alleviated any suspicion given how rarely either of them had participated in polite dinner-table conversation in recent months. It was hard to remember sometimes that the ease they had found in each other's company in recent weeks had developed entirely without the knowledge of the rest of the family.
Sybil was practically vibrating with anticipation of what was to come, and Mary wondered how on earth she had managed to keep her secret so remarkably successfully for so long. It seemed unlikely she would withstand the interrogation Granny looked ready to subject her to.
Thankfully she didn't have to. The men didn't linger long in the dining room, and from the look Matthew gave her when he came in, she suspected it was his doing. She gave him a tight smile of thanks.
Carson had barely had time to set down the coffee tray when the door opened and Branson appeared, looking more determined and stubborn than Mary had ever seen him.
"I'm here," Branson said firmly. He turned to Mary. "I know you didn't want me here, but I'll not leave Sybil to face it without me."
Sybil sprang up from her chair and went over to him, clearly relieved not only to have him there, but to be able to move when sitting still was clearly such a torment for her.
"I can see you're here," Papa said, clearly annoyed at having a private conversation interrupted by a servant. "I would rather know why you're here."
Mary realised she was holding her breath and released it carefully, looking down and bracing herself as Sybil took Branson's hand and turned to look Papa squarely in the eye.
"Tom is here because we want to tell you that he and I are going to be married," Sybil said calmy. "I know you'll hate it, and I'm sorry it's not what you wanted for me, but I've made up my mind. I love him, and he loves me, and this is what I want."
There was silence for a long moment. Mary waited tensely for the explosion. It did not come.
"Married?" Mama said weakly.
"Yes," Sybil said firmly. "I love him, and he loves me, and we have decided to marry. I know it's a surprise, but I hope you will all be happy for us."
"A surprise is one way of putting it," Granny said, her low voice resounding in the silent room.
And finally Papa exploded.
Sometimes, it was better to just let him get the initial fury out before even attempting reasoned discussion, so Mary caught Sybil's eye and they agreed silently to let him shout without too much interruption for a while.
Only when his initial momentum seemed to slow did Mary take a deep breath and dare to speak. "I know it's a shock," she said carefully. "But it's not a sudden thing, Sybil's had years to think-"
She didn't get the chance to finish before Papa interrupted. "Then am I to understand you knew about this madness?" Papa demanded. "That you have known, and said nothing?"
Mary forced herself to be calm. "I hoped it would blow over. I didn't want to split the family when Sybil might still wake up. What good would it have done to tell you before she was sure?"
"We could have put a stop to this before it went so far. He could have been sent away, given a good reference even, so long as he was kept away from here."
"You might have the power to dismiss me from your employment, but you couldn't have kept me away from Sybil whatever you said," Tom interjected hotly.
"I most certainly could have," Papa said, infuriated by the interruption. "And it's clear now that I should have done so long ago!"
"You can't keep me locked in a tower like a fairytale princess," Sybil insisted. "I'm of age, and I know my own mind!"
"You are evidently not old enough to be trusted to know your own mind if this is the decision you've come to."
Mary rolled her eyes. "Oh Papa, that doesn't even make any sense. Just because you don't like her decision it doesn't mean she's not allowed to make it."
Papa evidently didn't have an answer to that, because instead or replying he turned back to Branson.
"And all the time you've been driving me about, bowing and scraping, and seducing my daughter behind my back!"
"I don't bow and scrape, and I've not seduced anyone. Give your daughter some credit for knowing her own mind."
"How dare you speak to me in that tone," Papa said, his voice low with fury he was just barely supressing. "You will leave at once."
"Papa…" Sybil started softly.
"This is a folly, a ridiculous juvenile madness."
"Sybil is not a child anymore, Papa," Mary interrupted loudly. "If you would just listen, they have a plan."
"I won't listen to another word of this nonsense, it's…"
"No, no," Granny said, raising a hand to stop him. "Mary's right, if they have a plan, we must hear it."
"Thank you, Granny," Sybil said. "Yes, we do have a plan. Tom's got a job on a paper in Dublin. We'll stay another week, to avoid the impression we're running away, and to say our goodbyes. And then we'll go to Ireland." She took a deep breath, evidently doing her best to stay calm. "Tom's cousin has found us a flat, so we'll have somewhere to live once we're married. And I'll live with his mother until then. Tom has savings, and we can make do on his wages for as long as we have to, but I'll find a job as a nurse soon enough, and we'll manage quite well."
"And what does your mother make of this?" Granny asked.
Branson looked down, and Mary tried not to find it funny when he said soberly, "If you must know, she thinks we're very foolish."
"Oh!" Granny put in. "Then at least we have something in common."
"But you can't live in Ireland!" Mama cried. "I hear all the time about how dangerous it is."
"It's my home, milady, and I'll not put Sybil in any danger, that I can promise you. The greatest danger there is from the British, and they'll not hurt her."
It was well-intended, but was not a wise thing to say, Mary saw that immediately.
Papa turned back to Branson, furious. "The greatest danger is the British?" he said in disbelief. "The British are a danger to mad Irish rebels because they are murdering policemen and British soldiers and burning the homes of innocent people. It's not the British I'm worried about."
"They burn the houses as symbols of our oppression. And those soldiers would be safe enough if they would just leave Ireland. No man upholding British rule is innocent," Tom said, anger rising to almost equal Papa's fury.
"And Sybil?" Granny said. "Will she be seen to be innocent in all of this?"
"I'll keep her safe," Tom assured them. "I love her, I could never let anything happen to her."
Papa turned, if possible, even redder. "I suppose you believe you have some influence with those madmen because they're your friends!"
"They're not mad to be fighting for their country, they…"
"I don't think this is helping," Matthew interrupted loudly. "Surely it's Cousin Sybil's safety that matters, not the politics of it all."
"Of course it is," Mary said quickly when both Papa and Branson appeared to be about to argue the point. "And they have thought about it, and they have promised me they will come back to England if things start to look dangerous."
Mama made a soft sound somewhere between a sigh and a cry.
Granny tapped her stick on the floor, and everyone fell silent. "Sybil dear, these things are all very well in novels, but in reality, it can prove very uncomfortable. And while I am sure Branson has many virtues, love will not put food on your table."
"With respect, your ladyship," Branson said, without much respect, "my job will put food on the table. We won't be living luxury, but we don't need that.
"But the scandal… what will we tell people?" Mama asked weakly.
"The more of a falling out there is, the greater the scandal will be," Mary said firmly. "The best we can do is accept Sybil's choice and take Branson into our family as her husband. They will be living in Ireland, so they won't be here as a constant reminder of the scandal of it all. I'm quite sure somebody will find out he was our chauffeur, but he's a journalist now, and we can all leave his previous employment behind as rumour."
"You've certainly put plenty of thought into this, Mary," Granny said, watching her with more perceptiveness than Mary would have liked.
"When you should have been preventing this madness going ahead in the first place," Papa said, turning his fury back to her. "What can you have been thinking?"
"I have been thinking that we have all had enough of losing people we love," she replied coolly. "There's no need for us to lose Sybil too. I don't agree with her choice, but it is her choice to make."
"It is not her choice to make!" he shouted. "And I will not allow my daughter to be seduced into ruining her life."
"You can posture all you like, Papa, it won't make any difference," Sybil said hotly.
"Oh yes it will," Papa said darkly.
"How? I don't want any money, and you can hardly lock me up until I die."
"Then you will find yourself living a very different life," Papa warned, voice low. "And I don't imagine it will be long before you regret it."
"I will never regret marrying the man I love," Sybil said defiantly.
"Oh, you will. Any respectable friends you had will have to cut the acquaintance, and you'll never be received at court. And if you imagine we will ever allow Branson back in this house or visit you in some Dublin slum-"
"How many times must I say, I don't care about all of that!" Sybil insisted. "I don't want to hurt you, I don't want to give up my family, and you will always be welcome to visit us, but this is my choice to make."
Papa turned an alarming shade of red. "I won't allow it. I will not allow my daughter to throw away her life!"
Both he and Sybil looked ready to carry on shouting, but suddenly Mary found she couldn't stand it a moment longer and was on her feet before she had made any conscious decision to rise.
"Oh Papa, can't you see, that world is gone!" she said, her voice louder than she had intended. Everyone turned to stare at her, but suddenly it was all too much. "It's gone and it's not coming back. Why should Sybil care whether or not she's received at court? How many times must she tell you she doesn't care?"
She took a shaky breath. "And who is Sybil to marry, if not the man she says she loves? When all the men she might have considered, all the men we ever danced with or laughed with or sat next to at dinner, are dead or crippled?"
"Mary!" Mama said in shocked tones.
"It's the truth, Mama, and hardly anything to be shocked at when we saw so many of them pass through this house. Is she to marry some young boy still in university? Or an old man to match Edith's? One of the officers she was caring for with the missing limbs and gas-damaged eyes? Someone who wakes up screaming in the night?"
"Mary, that's quite enough," Papa said, clearly disconcerted enough by her uncharacteristic outburst to be distracted from the matter at hand.
But it wasn't quite enough, not at all, not when everyone was so desperate to dance around the realities of the way the world was now.
"Have you forgotten how many times Sybil ran out from breakfast in tears?" she said, feeling tears burning her own eyes, knowing she was losing control of the situation and of herself, "How many of the men she danced with at her ball are dead? There's no point acting as if the same rules apply now. And given everything we've lived through, it's hardly going to be a scandal that will bring down the family. The world's already fallen apart, how much can it possibly matter that Sybil thinks she's found a way to be happy?"
She was trembling now, furious and despairing and so very sad, and it seemed nobody could understand, and…
And then, somehow, Matthew was there, his hand just barely brushing hers, a steady presence at her side, and Mary found the presence of mind to take a deep breath.
"Sybil can't live the life you expected her to live, none of us can," she said, hating that her voice was coming out choked. "That's all over with."
"Mary, my darling girl," Mama started softly, but the pity in her voice only brought back Mary's fury.
"I did as you all wanted," she said in a strangled voice. "I married the right man, I made the sensible choice, and you all see how well that went for me."
Nobody had anything to say to that.
"Sybil, darling, go to bed, there's no point arguing any more tonight," Mary said in the silence. They would need their strength for the coming days.
But she didn't wait to see if Sybil followed her advice. She knew she was seconds from losing her composure entirely, and the heavy silence and pitying looks were too much to bear, even for Sybil's sake.
Her tears began to fall before she reached the foot of the stairs.