She could hear his voice — muffled by the doors as it was — but she could hear it. She hadn't heard this voice in a year, the deep and calm timbre that once brought her comfort. It only caused distress at what lay ahead.
So this was it. This would be another turning point in her life.
Mary busied herself with sorting through some papers on the desk, effectively only pushing them from one side to the other, but she couldn't care less. She chanced a quick look at the clock on the tabletop.
5:53 pm.
They had a little more than an hour until the dressing gong would be rung to discuss this, and they would need it. She knew her husband well enough to be sure of that.
The heavy wooden door creaked slightly behind her back, the hinges having required tending to for some weeks now, but she always forgot to tell someone about it. She did not turn around, not even at the quick and heavy footsteps drawing closer and closer to her. After all, she knew only too well who had entered.
"Mary?"
She closed her eyes, mentally preparing herself before turning around to face him after this year of being apart. Mary stayed put in her place, still sitting at the desk in front of the big window, and did not do what she had imagined herself to do so many times before. Back when he had first left for his travels, she would lie awake at night, imagining what his return would be like and how she would likely run to him, or at the very least kiss him passionately. That was who she was back then – a woman in love with her husband. But she was not that woman any longer.
"Henry."
She finally turned around and stood up from the desk.
He stood there, slightly dishevelled from his journey, his arms outstretched as if to invite her in for a hug with a lopsided grin plastered onto his handsome and sun-kissed face.
Mary started walking, but not to him. Instead, she went to the fireplace and pulled at the cord that would ring for the butler. She saw the slightly disappointed look on her husband's face, but he couldn't be that surprised, could he?
Only mere seconds later, the library door opened and Andrew walked in.
"You rang, milady?"
"Yes, Andr- Parker." He was training to be the butler with Carson helping him, she should already get used to calling him by his last name. "Could you please bring tea for two? And then inform Lady Hexham that Mister Talbot has arrived, she'll know what to do. Thank you. Oh, and please tell someone to have a look at the door, the hinges have been creaking for a while now."
The young man nodded at her and then swiftly left the room again to set about the tasks he had just been given.
"She'll know what to do? What was that about?" Henry asked, walking closer to his wife, who was still standing near the fireplace. His arms were no longer outstretched, and his lopsided grin had turned into a slight frown at the reception he had received, which was cordial at best. This was not at all what he thought would await him upon his return.
"Edith will keep the children upstairs in the nursery for now."
"What? Why? I want to see them. Why should she keep them upstairs?"
"Because we need to talk, Henry. And we need to do that alone, without our children or anyone else present for that matter."
He seemed surprised, sitting down on the settee closest to him, keeping his distance from his wife. He knew that coming closer would be a mistake when she was in a mood like this.
Almost hesitantly, he said: "Talk about what, Mary? What could be so important that I can not say hello to everyone first?"
"Us. We need to talk about us."
"What is there to talk about?"
"I should have known you would not see the point in that. But I had hoped you would, I truly did, because then my decision might have been a different one."
Her tone was flat and matter-of-fact – and it left no room for discussion. Or so she had thought. She had intended to keep this from being too confrontational, that was however not what Henry seemed to have in mind, judging by his immediate reaction.
"What decision?" he asked in a deadly tone, suddenly much calmer than before.
She heard his voice get increasingly more agitated with every short sentence he uttered in reply, so the sudden calmness should have served as a warning. Maybe she should have chosen her words differently, more carefully, but she did not. Instead, she simply stated what had been weighing heavy on her mind since she talked to her sister that morning.
"I want a divorce, Henry."
He was dumbfounded, gobsmacked, flabbergasted. There were not enough words to describe what he thought and felt then. This was truly not at all what he had imagined his return home to be like. He had been gone for a year and all he got upon his return was this – his wife asking for a divorce, not even three years after they got married.
A burning rage started to bubble in him – how dare she? He had done nothing wrong. He had done nothing that would warrant an ask like the one she just put on the proverbial table. At least nothing she knew of and he certainly would not tell her, as it would only give her more leverage in the matter – something he did not at all care for.
Then, Parker entered the room again, carrying the tea tray over to its usual resting place on a table near the windows.
"Thank you, Parker," Mary said with a smile, already starting to make her way over there. At this point, anything that would get her to move further away from him was fine, and this was the first real opportunity.
"I looked in on Lady Hexham, she is currently reading all the children a story in the nursery along with Lord Hexham and the children seem to have loads of fun."
Mary nodded and smiled appreciatively at the young man, and he took that as his sign to leave the room again. He was aware that something was going on, the hostile and distant mood in the library was a dead giveaway of that.
"A divorce? What did I do that makes you want to ask this of me?"
Henry's voice was quiet, dangerously so. He was still sitting on the red settee, not looking at her, but she could see the way his hands were flexing and she was sure that his face was already contorted into some sort of dark grimace.
Mary bent over the table, pouring herself a steaming cup of tea, just to busy herself. If she could, she would have asked Andrew to bring her something stronger, but that would not have helped in the least. Not with her husband's temper.
"Yes, Henry. What did you do? Write a few letters every now and then, saying you miss me occasionally, as if it was just an afterthought? You have not been home in a year, you have not asked how your daughter is doing in any of your letters, not to mention that we barely heard anything from you throughout the last few months. When the film people were staying here at Downton, I was asked quite often where my husband was, because you were never here, and most of the time I could not even give the people an answer. I truly had no idea where you were. Yes, what did you do? I don't know. All I know was that you were not here when I needed you the most."
Mary did her best to stay calm, stirring her tea while leaning back slightly onto the wooden table, keeping her own temper in check. It wouldn't do to lash out at him already, he would be doing that soon enough, she was sure.
He then stood up abruptly, turning to her with his face already getting red in anger. She simply knew her husband too well.
"How can you say that? I wrote to you as often as I could. There simply was no time within the last few months. I was travelling all across the globe, acquiring knowledge I could use in Tom's and my workshop. I even signed a few contracts with suppliers over in the US to help us get our foot in the door of the second-hand car seller market. And I did all that for you and our family so that we can live a comfortable life. How can you diminish all this just so?"
"You do not see the point, do you? This whole year was all about cars to you, and never once about your family, not primarily. It was never once about me. Cars are your priority, they always have been and always will be. You gave up racing and you resent me for that, I know. You promised me that you would change when I agreed to marry you. That you would not resent me, but you do. You love cars and racing, the thrill of it all. I do not doubt that you love me, but I doubt that you love me enough to not resent me for asking you to give it up. Cars will always come first, your family second. This past year has shown me that. I needed you, Henry. I needed you so badly and desperately. When my grandmother died, all I got from you was a telegram, after you had been gone for so many months already. You were not here for her funeral, eith-"
"But I am here now, Mary! I am here, I came as fast as I could. You say that you need me, and yet, when I am here, you ask for a divorce! You make it sound as if you regret our entire marriage, everything we have built for ourselves. I cannot believe this – I cannot believe you!"
"I do not regret the entirety of it, there certainly were nice times we spent together. But those days are long gone. In the beginning, I found your arrogance charming, and your strong will and determination admirable, but I was blind to what those characteristics were truly masking. I thought those traits made you an interesting man, the eccentric choice, as you once said. I was blind to the game you were playing. You all but bullied me into marrying you, you and Tom. You made me second-guess my self-knowledge. Some part of me always knew that if we got together, things would end like this, but both of you kept nagging and nagging, making me feel small and bad about myself. You made me believe that I am a worse person than I am. I know that I am not a saint, that I have my flaws and that I am not entirely without fault in this, but I am not the gold-digger you made me out to be when I rejected you. It was never about the lack of money, or the lack of a title, or the fact that you had a job – I do not hesitate to remind you that Matthew was also a working man. I just knew that eventually I would be hurt in some way. I did not want to end up as the widow of yet another crash victim, I knew I could not deal with that all over again. Do you remember Charlie's death? How low you felt that night you called and I broke up with you? The way you felt was in no small part how I felt for months on end after Matthew died. Breaking it off back then was the only thing I knew I could do to protect myself from that pain. It took me almost a year to come out of that mist of mourning and then you came along. You took us to Brooklands, and had us scared to death, thinking it was your car that crashed that day. That moment alone should have been enough of a warning to me. Yet, here we are. You are home after a year, and nothing is the same as you left it. I have changed, Downton has changed, everyone has changed. Everyone but you."
He stood there, his mouth gawping like a fish. His hands clenched into fists, only to unclench and then clench again. Mary had to give him at least some credit for trying to reign his temper in just slightly.
"Bullied you into marriage! That is grotesque. You and I both know that nobody could ever force you to do anything you did not want, you are far too stubborn for that!"
"I did not say I was forced into marriage, only bullied. There is a differe-"
"I cannot believe this, Mary! I-"
Suddenly, the door opened and interrupted Henry before he could finish his sentence.
Tom walked into the room, halting near the door, knowing instinctively that he had just interrupted something. "I heard shouting, is everything alright?"
His concerned eyes flicked from Mary to Henry and back again, waiting for one of them to reply.
"Yes, just marvellous," Henry answered sarcastically a few seconds later, throwing a dark and dirty look in Mary's direction.
Just then, the dressing gong was rung, putting an end to the heated discussion, and Mary took that as her sign to hastily leave the room that had felt so suffocating within the last hour.