The abbey was empty. She was all alone. This was not the first time it happened, but it had never been so painfully obvious to her than at that moment right as she was standing at the foot of the stairs in the great hall.
Slowly, Mary turned around on her heel, taking it all in. She looked at the worn wooden floors peeking out from underneath the carpet, the age-old paintings on the walls, the beautiful stone gallery up above and the coats of arms lining it. This hall alone had seen so many things. So many festivities, so many dances, so many first and last kisses; so many weddings, and funeral receptions, so many beginnings and endings. It had seen it all, this hall, centuries of Crawley family history loudly and proudly lived inside the abbey.
And now it was empty.
Not empty of people, no. There were still many servants living under this roof, going about their duties to ensure her and her family's lives were spent in comfort. No doubt they were already busy as bees down in the kitchens and the servant's hall, preparing tomorrow's breakfast, polishing some silver, or cleaning shoes.
No, the abbey was certainly not empty of people, but its many rooms were empty of life — empty of family life.
George and Caroline were presumably — hopefully — already fast asleep in their beds upstairs; and who knew what Henry was up to, or if he was even in his room at all. Tom had moved to Brampton a few weeks ago after the work there had been almost completed, and Edith had gone back to Brancaster with her family. Even Aunt Rosamund had left again, joining Mary's parents on their ride down to the capital the day after their small New Year's celebration.
It was only her. In this house, living the way they were all so used to. It was just her. She had spent the day alone, had eaten her dinner alone, and afterwards she had sat in the drawing room nursing her glass of port alone. And now here she was, standing in the hall of her ancestral home — all alone. She suddenly felt so small and insignificant, a sensation that was new to her. Was this what her life would be like from now on? Would it forever be so lonely? If so, it would be infinitely sadder and lonelier than she ever would have thought.
She thought about her children, her beautiful, lovely children; how they were so blissfully unaware of how much their lives would change yet again, and soon at that. How they had no idea of the heartbreak and grief that had already settled deep within her, that had built a nest in her chest that seemed to grow and expand with each passing day, that was devouring every fibre of her being.
Her gaze roamed the hall again. Glancing up at the coat of arms added less than a decade ago, chiselled into the light stone up on the gallery, she abruptly struggled to breathe. Suddenly, her throat felt tight, so incredibly tight, as if no air could possibly pass through to reach her lungs any more. Breathing was a struggle, a fight. It was ragged, shallow. Her corset felt much too tight all of a sudden, restricting her every move, her every breath. She felt like a prisoner in her own skin, suffocated by her thoughts and feelings. Her blood was rushing through her veins, the drumming and swooshing sound filling her ears was all she heard as the world around her started to contort weirdly. With violently trembling hands she reached for the bannister, panic-stricken. What was happening to her?
Unsure what to do, she held on tight to the wood, her knuckles turning white from the sheer force employed. She tried not to give in to this sudden feeling of panic and helplessness, and instead somehow climbed the stairs and went to her bedroom, ringing for Anna the instant she set foot inside. Desperately, she tried to loosen her corset on her own but failed miserably — she could not reach the strings that tied it together underneath her dress. Struggling to breathe through her mouth, her chest heaving heavily as she fought for air, Mary sunk to the ground by her bed, drawing her knees close as she cowered down.
"Milady?" Anna's familiar voice rang out only shortly thereafter in her dimly lit room.
The blonde maid had entered the room, Mary's nightclothes folded neatly over her arm, thinking she would already be sitting at her dressing table as usual, but she was not. Anna asked again into the room, but still got no reply. She couldn't see her anywhere, but she heard quick and uneasy breathing coming from somewhere in here. Tentatively, she walked in further and finally caught sight of Mary sitting on the floor on her side of the bed, her arms wrapped around her bent knees, staring at the wall with unblinking wide eyes.
Anna crouched down, gingerly putting a hand on Mary's shoulder and asked in the softest of tones: "My Lady? Are you alright?"
The maid saw her gulp, the silence that filled the room afterwards dragging on and on, until she got a reply finally.
"I don't think I am, Anna," Mary whispered breathlessly, slowly turning to look at the small blonde woman next to her. "I really don't think I am."
Anna had no idea what to say to that. She had seen John wake up from night terrors before, and those left him looking similarly as traumatised and equally as breathless. But this could not have been a night terror, Andy had come into the servant's hall saying Mary had gone up just a few minutes ago. Feeling utterly helpless in this situation, she decided to do what she usually did with John and see if that helped.
Anna put the nightclothes on the bed and sat down next to her, leaving just enough space for their shoulders to almost brush against each other, and just stayed there by Mary's side. "Just try to breathe, milady. It will pass. I know it will," she said.
The two women simply sat there, looking at the red wallpaper in the dimly lit room, the only sound filling the air both of their breathing. Slowly but surely, Mary's breathing became less laboured, less ragged and rapid; its pattern started to align itself with Anna's, who had decidedly been very deliberate in her slow and steady breaths.
When Anna felt that her mistress had calmed down a bit, she said again: "This will pass, my Lady. I promise you it will."
"Will it?" Mary asked, still looking straight ahead.
Anna turned her head to look at her, contemplating what to say, only to smile with sadness in her eyes at the sight next to her. With vigour in her voice, she stated finally: "Yes, I do not doubt that, and you should not either."
"I know I should not, but everything is so uncertain."
"What if we start getting you ready for the night and you can tell me what is troubling you?" she suggested. And upon Mary's obvious hesitance, she added: "You are aware that Mister Bates and I have had quite some troubles ourselves, and we have come through them stronger each time. So I can safely say that I know a thing or two, milady." Anna chuckled slightly, trying to lift the blanket of heavy thoughts weighing down on Mary. Despite the humour in her voice, there was also a tragic truth in the words she said.
Mary couldn't resist the quiet and reticent laugh she let out before she stood up, nodded, and waited for Anna to help her undress. With a sigh, she started talking, her emotionally charged voice still trembling from time to time: "I have just never felt so alone here in my life. With everyone gone. Well, everyone but me."
As quickly as possible, Mary stepped out of the dress that had just fallen to the ground, pooling at her feet, after Anna had opened the buttons in the back.
"But his Lordship and her Ladyship will return soon, surely, and you have your children here with you. You are never alone," Anna said as she bent down to pick it up and quickly hung it neatly over the bed frame before beginning to work on her mistress' corset.
Slowly, with each loosened string, Mary felt the air return to her lungs that seemed to have been working overtime for no reason at all. She had no idea what had come over her, what had put her in such a state all of a sudden down in the hall. It must have been a combination of all sorts of things.
"There is no telling when and if her Ladyship returns, and I do not know what his Lordship would do if — well, if the unspeakable happened. And Nanny is keeping the children quite occupied, I haven't seen them at all today, not even after tea."
"What about Mister Talbot, then? I heard someone mention that he came to talk to you. Has he finally tried to make amends? Has he agreed? Or will you give it another try?"
"He has, and we talked. But there will be no second chance. He agreed to the divorce. And yet I do not feel as relieved as I should after fighting him for weeks for this," she said, looking at her maid through the looking glass in front of her after her night dress was slipped over her head and she wrapped up in her dressing gown. "Growing up, I always thought that I would end up living like my aunt, all alone in a big house with plenty of money to spend. I even said that I envied Aunt Rosamund to Edith and Papa a while after our cousins had died on the Titanic and Matthew had arrived. I envied Aunt Rosamund for the freedom she had, having no nagging sisters around and everything," Mary said, tying the sash on her dressing gown and turning away from Anna, looking out the window. "Until one day, I found myself so madly in love with Matthew. From then on I thought I would, one day, upon Papa's death, be the next Countess of Grantham. I thought I would be running this household like Mama, hosting grand dinners, with Matthew as the Earl, as my loving husband, by my side for many years to come. And that seemed like the perfect future for me, it still does. Suddenly, Aunt Rosamund's way of life did not sound that enticing to me any more at all. But by some cruel twist of fate it is what I should be getting used to. I am a widow, I will never be the Countess of Grantham and I am not running the house the way my mother is. Instead, I am managing this entire estate as a proxy for my father just until my son is old enough to take over. I told you, years ago, that I did not want a divorce upon a second marriage when Lord Gillingham was asking for my hand and I wanted to get to know him before agreeing. I got married again, not to him, but I am still about to file for divorce; it is exactly what I never wanted, what I was so afraid of. I am only relieved my grandmother is not here to see my failure. But I miss her, terribly, and my mother following her soon is something I do not want to think about. I do not dare. I wouldn't know what to do without both of them in these changing times. The world as I know it, the one my father grew up in and the one I was promised, is ending; our influence is all but finished. My whole life is crumbling in front of my eyes and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it."
Defeat. That's what Anna saw in Mary's eyes when she turned around again. A deep, painful sadness and utter defeat. She had never seen her like that.
"I sometimes feel as though I were standing in the middle of a vast field that extends as far as the eye can reach, while heavy rainstorms are raging all around me. I am standing there on my own. With no umbrella, no coat and no hat. And worst of all without any shelter in sight, nowhere, no matter where I look. There is no place to go, no refuge to find. And as soon as one storm passes, another one breaks loose, each one harsher and more unrelenting than the one before. No matter what I do, the storms — they just keep on coming."
"You are strong, you have proved that time and time again. And so is her Ladyship. She will make it through, I am positive, and so is Mister Bates. You will not be feeling like this in perpetuity. The storms won't keep on coming forever, my Lady, they can't. You just need to have faith. And if you ever need an umbrella, just say the word."
Mary was grateful for her maid, her friend. Anna's calm reassurance was exactly what she had needed. She had needed to hear someone else say that everything would be alright.
"Thank you, Anna, truly," Mary said, a grateful yet cautious smile on her lips. Suddenly, she was quite self-aware again of what had just transpired, what she just said. She wouldn't retract her words, she couldn't. Especially not since they were among the most honest things she said in recent weeks. But she knew she would have to change the subject, or else she couldn't stand it with Anna still in the room, obviously at a loss for words. "I do hope I have not kept you from your son for too long?"
"Oh, Johnny's waiting down in the kitchens with Mrs Hughes as we speak. And I bet Mrs Patmore has fed him plenty of biscuits already, so he will have been more than happy and content with waiting just a little while longer than usual," Anna said with a wide smile. Her son was her everything, and just thinking of him and his father made her insanely happy.
"I'll not keep you any longer than I already have, then. Good night, Anna."
"Milady," Anna nodded, walking towards the door with Mary's clothes on her arm. When she reached it, she turned back around. "This storm will pass, have faith."