For a minute, they all just stared at each other. None of them said a word; they did not dare to. And none of them knew quite what to say, either way. At least Mary did not, and she could only assume that neither her parents nor her aunt did either judging by their quite varied expressions.

Her father had a blank stare on his face. He did not give anything away that was going on inside him for once. Usually, it was quite easy for Mary to read her father and his expressions, he did not have a great variety of them after all. Anyone could read him, really. It never took her long to figure out what mood he was in; he was not very adept at keeping his emotions in check. But this once — just this once — he seemed entirely unreadable to her. It was not that he was not feeling anything, or thinking. No, she could see in his eyes that his mind was spinning with all sorts of thoughts, but she could not place their nature. This had never happened before and that fact alone somewhat unsettled her regarding what was to follow.

Her mama was typically much harder to read than her papa as soon as a matter was of a more complex nature than choosing what to drink at dinner, and whatever her mother felt mostly went straight over her father's head. Where he saw and took things at face value, her mother always tried to see the bigger picture. She wanted to understand people, their feelings and their motives. Her mother was the one to try and look at it from different angles and only then form an opinion, hiding what she thought behind a mild smile while her husband's face gave away everything he thought.

That was, however, not the case now. Mary saw that her Mama had already figured out what that plaque meant. She also knew without a shadow of a doubt that the look on her face was not just plain pity, but something much more profound. Mary knew both of their histories, and she could clearly see that her mother's heart was aching and breaking for her aunt and the fate she had to shoulder, just like she had to herself years later.

After chancing a quick glance over at her aunt, Mary thought and said: "Actually, I think I will go and join the rest of the family again before they start looking for us. It is quite suspicious enough that all of us have gone."

The redhead seemed more than slightly overwhelmed, unsure who to look at first while her breaths came out quick and shallow. Maybe having one less person there to address might help her. Granting her aunt another reassuring smile, Mary turned and walked away.

She had barely reached the table that still had her teacup waiting there for her when Edith sat down next to her in their aunt's chair. The blonde looked her over with concern in her eyes when she saw her sister's shaky hand as the elder reached for her cup.

Mary needed something to calm her nerves, not only because of the unsettling conversation her parents were about to have with her aunt, but also because seeing all these names on the plaques brought back many memories. Most of them were happy memories, but not all of them. Some were bittersweet, some outright sad. Reading her beloved husband's name on the way to show her aunt Marmaduke's plaque had once again reminded her how much time she wasted with Matthew. If only she had not been so stuck in her ways, so childish, when he had first come to live with them, they would have had so many years more to spend together. Even despite his death. And maybe he would have never died that day if things had gone differently from the get-go. Things would have been different, things would have been better, if only she had not been so callous and jealous.

And scared.

She should have seen that her father, no matter how much he had always wanted a son and heir — finding all that in Matthew, and more — he would have never loved her any less for it. He never had and he never would.

"Where are Mama, Papa and Aunt Rosamund hiding away?" Edith asked softly with a smile playing on her lips, trying to ease into a conversation with her sister.

"Papa wanted to show Rosamund some of the plaques, I believe. And you know how Mama is, she had to go along with them. She and Papa have become truly inseparable," joked Mary. It was obvious that she was glossing over whatever was truly going on, but she could not very well just tell Edith everything here, no matter how much she wanted to, deep down. That thought alone had her suppress a chuckle, she would have never thought that there would come a day she would be so willing to share something with her sister.

"Mary, can I ask you something?"

Setting her teacup back down gently, Mary turned her head to look at her younger sister. Having no clue what she would get herself into, she replied: "Of course."

"I know I asked you this once before, but seeing as the circumstances have changed since then, I thought I might just as well ask again."

"Yes?"

Mary shifted uncomfortably in her seat. She had no clue what would follow, but she sensed that it would not be an easy question if her sister was so careful with her words.

Hesitantly, Edith drew in a breath and then continued: "Will we be seeing more of Mister Barber in the future? It's just that you two seemed to get along so well together when they were all here to shoot the film last year, and I know that you thought he was more than just easy to look at. We all did, honestly. I had not seen you so at ease around anyone since -" Edith stopped for a second, worriedly looking Mary over. The last thing she wanted to do was upset her. "Well, since Matthew. I certainly never saw you like this around Henry."

Mary had expected anything. Anything at all. Just not this, and her surprise must have shown on her face, for Edith quickly added: "It is alright, you needn't answer. It's quite insensitive and impertinent to ask, I know."

Sheepishly, the younger woman looked away and over at the children playing on the lawn.

Sybbie, George and Marigold were completely engrossed in their small-scale game of cricket a little off to the side. Especially George had taken a liking to the sport, much to his grandfather's pride and joy, and more often than not, the young blond boy cajoled his cousins into playing with him. On particularly good days, he even managed to convince Andrew to play with them. The boy knew he was supposed to call him Parker now that the man was officially the butler, but for the duration of their games it was always Andy.

While Edith smiled at the sight, Mary was still at a loss for words. Not because she did not know what to say, but rather how to say it. Following suit, Mary also turned to look at their children all playing together.

After a while, she confidently replied: "You are right, I did like him and he was certainly very easy on the eyes. And I think he would have actually treated me far better than Henry ever did. But I turned him down when I was married, and I will not go back on my word. I had my true love before. Nothing will ever compare. I put myself out there again against my better judgment, and it almost completely ruined me." Mary paused and looked at Edith, her eyes wandering over her sister's profile. "I had my fair share of heartbreak and grief, and I do not know how much more of it I can handle."

Edith did not reply, there was nothing she could say that could not just as well be expressed in an understanding smile. Mary decided to ignore the hint of pity in her sister's big brown eyes and instead, she turned away again to look at the children romping around with their cricket bats.

"I want to take care of Downton; the abbey, the estate, and all the people who spend their lives here. I want to one day hand the running of all of this over to George when he is old enough and has learnt enough. And until then I simply want to be there for my children, I want to help them navigate this changing world as best I can, just like Mama and Papa always did. And I know that I do not need any man for that, no matter how handsome he might be. There are more important things," she said almost voicelessly. Then she stopped and suddenly turned to face Edith again. A newfound sense of pride and determination reflected in her tone, she continued: "I've had my one true love, Edith. Matthew was who I was supposed to grow old with, and I will never get to do that. It was him, all along. Matthew was my one true love, and I will spend the rest of my life wishing for what could have been. This is what my life is like, and I have accepted that. I have made peace with that reality. I am ready for this next part of my life that will be dedicated to all of you, my family. And to Downton."

"And just like that, Downton has found its new queen who will rule the realm with an iron fist. Granny would applaud you, Mary, and she would be so proud of you, too."

Mary smiled appreciatively at Edith and stretched out her hand to take her sister's in her own. The gesture caught the younger blonde woman off-guard, but she smiled at Mary nonetheless. Giving her hand a gentle squeeze, Mary said solemnly: "She would be proud of all of us if she could see this."

They had all watched Mary leave, but each with different emotions. There was Robert's silent confusion, Cora's futile esperance and Rosamund's exasperation and quiet panic.

"Rosamund?"

The redhead seemed to be trapped in some sort of panicked trance, the way she stood there and stared into nothingness where her niece had previously been. However, when her sister-in-law gently reached out, she snapped out of it and stared directly into Cora's eyes. It almost seemed to Cora that she was staring right through her as if she had seen a ghost.

Rosamund's rapid breathing began to slow down, steadily normalising again under both of their watchful eyes. Suddenly stifling a sob, she swiftly turned around to face the stone, her eyes reading the name engraved once more.

Her voice was quiet when she eventually began to talk slowly, and it sounded much more vulnerable than her brother ever recalled hearing her speak. "Marmaduke and I, we always wanted children. We tried for a long time after we got married, but it never happened for us and we had made our peace with the fact that maybe having children was just not in the cards for us. However, after years, our prayers were finally heard and I got pregnant. It was a tumultuous year, with you volunteering to go fight in the Boer War, Marmaduke deciding to follow you, and then Papa dying unexpectedly just after you had left. I was fortunate enough that mourning clothes were not flattering, so nobody suspected anything at the funeral. And if they did, they were too preoccupied otherwise to pay me any mind or give it a second thought. Once everything was taken care of here, I went and hid away in London. I was missing him terribly, and it made me sick. I was worried sick day in and day out, hoping he would come home to me."

"You were pregnant, Rosamund?" Cora asked, trying to carefully dig deeper as she stepped up to Rosamund. She, too, looked at the memorial on the ground again, reading the inscription while the knot in her stomach tightened. She knew the answer. It was there, written in stone at their feet, but the spoken confirmation did not quite want to register with her.

Fleetingly, Rosamund looked over at her. She was still desperately trying to keep her tears at bay, swallowing hard to get rid of the lump in her throat that seemed to make talking so impossibly trying. And so, she merely nodded in response, her lips pressed together into a thin line.

"Yes, I was," she whispered after another deep and steadying breath. "Shortly after Papa's funeral, though-" The redhead's voice broke at that, and a single tear began rolling down her cheek. Hesitantly, she wiped at it and went on after clearing her throat once more: "Shortly after that, I went into labour far too soon and had to be taken to hospital. The doctors managed to save me, but not the baby. It was simply too soon. It did not survive the birth. He did not." As she uttered that last sentence, her fingers stretched out again and ran over the cold stone once more.

Cora took another step, swaying slightly as she reached out to squeeze her sister-in-law's shoulder. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that Robert was about to follow her to steady her, but just a hint of a look in his direction put him off that plan. This was not about her, this was about Rosamund. She did not trust her husband not to shift the focus, albeit unknowingly.

"He was stillborn, and when the doctors came and asked if I wanted a name to be put on the birth and death certificate, I gave them the name Marmaduke and I had decided on years before when we had first tried for a child. Robert," she said, tracing the name on the stone with feathery light touches. "Marmaduke wanted to name him after his grandfather -" she said. Then she turned around and faced Robert, who was still standing a bit off to the side, watching the two women with vigilant eyes. "And I wanted to name him after you, my older brother. In honour of you and Marmaduke and the sacrifice both of you made by going to war, I decided I did not only want to name him after you, but also after his father. I wanted my son to carry the names of two strong men fighting for Queen and country on some distant shores, their fates not yet decided. I wanted him to carry the names of people he could have looked up to and who would have loved him."

Silence settled over them once more, each of them dwelling on their thoughts.

"And you never said a word," Cora then whispered in utter disbelief. Her stomach was in quite an uproar now that her earlier suspicions had indeed turned out to be true, no matter how much she still wished they were not. Her sister-in-law had not deserved the cards she had been dealt in life, not at all. It was as if a knot had tightened in the pits of her stomach and she had no way to untie it.

"No, I could not."

Robert's gaze flickered from Rosamund to the name engraved and back again. He looked at his sister; looked at her surprisingly still quite red hair, at the wrinkles on her face and those piercing blue eyes. He saw so much of their mother in her. But her looks were not the only aspect in which Rosamund resembled their mama.

Violet's strength, her resolution, and her resilience had most definitely been passed down to his sister as well. She was a strong woman, she always had been; just like their mother. But looking at her now, he also saw her vulnerable side, her broken side. Breaking down like this was simply not like her. He had never seen her this emotional, this distraught. It was not like Rosamund to lose her composure. He knew that he was looking at his sister, but all he saw was a woman who had been strong for far too long; a woman who had been all alone for too long. He saw a woman who had reached her breaking point years and years ago, but just kept going for everyone else's sake.

Robert did not know what to say. He recognised that whatever he could say at that moment would likely not help her in the least. Even despite his wife throwing warning looks his way, he walked up to the two women, coming to a halt on his sister's left, his shoulder almost brushing hers.

For a while, the three of them just stayed silent, and it was almost as if they were frozen in time. None of them said a word, there was no reason to. And none of them knew quite what to say for a second time that afternoon.

Standing there, staring at the name carved into the stone, Robert felt helpless. He had no idea what to do to help her. Her words were replaying in his head over and over, just like they likely were in Cora's.

He tore his gaze away from the plaque and slowly, he turned to his right. He did not want to startle her, that was the furthest thing from his mind at that moment. Cora was looking over at him from Rosamund's right, and she had that cautious expression on her face that she usually used to warn him with when she thought he was about to do something he had not entirely thought through. But Robert threw all caution to the winds. He did not want to hurt her and he was not going to say anything stupid, not if he could help it. He only wanted to comfort her.

Robert gently wrapped his arms around his sister and pulled her close. She did not fight back and she did not recoil, which he had assumed she would at first. But instead, she only held on tight to him. And so he just kept standing there, holding her close to him and rubbing slow, soothing circles on her back. He did not mind the tears. Not today and not in future, that he promised himself.

Carefully and so very quietly, he whispered to her: "Thank you, Rosamund."