How dare she. How dare she? How could she invite them all for luncheon with everything going on and wrong in their lives, when all along she knew of her maid's more than questionable history? She invited his family into her house under the guise of offering a change of scenery when she knew fully well it would expose all of them to a scandal of such degree. She couldn't want that for them, could she? Not when her son was his heir. And she instigated them against him. There was no other way, that had to be the reason why they all stayed. Not even his mother got up and left with him. His mother! She could not want this type of scandal to besmirch their good name, not in good conscience. His mother had worked far too long and hard to keep up to let it all go to waste now over a goddamn Charlotte Russe!

They had welcomed Isobel into their family so graciously when Matthew became the heir through this utterly tragic turn of events so many years ago. They did not need to, least of all him. He could have tried to break rules and traditions and fought more just so that Mary could have inherited like they had all wanted him to, and yet he didn't. He accepted them in, showed Matthew the way things were done here and by now they were all family. So how could she possibly want any of this for them?

He had given them a house in the village, and even with Matthew living at the abbey now they let her stay there. She was living so comfortably, arguably much more comfortably than she had before in Manchester. They were inviting her to their house regularly to dine with them and socialise, and how did she repay them? By employing a former prostitute who had born a bastard child, a woman notorious in the whole village and even beyond? He could not believe it, not that he even wanted to.

And Matthew's recent revelation that he had talked to Murray about the running of this estate, that he thought it was being mismanaged — oh, he had quite a few thoughts on that as well. He did not make his son-in-law co-owner of the estate only to have everything he ever did for the survival of all this to be called null and void, or even worse, as Matthew had tried to that morning.

He had only ever tried to do his best. For them. For Downton. The audacity of both mother and son-

Her steps were light on the carpet, she was trying her best not to startle him as she stepped closer. Even though she only saw the back of his head, she instinctively knew that he was deep in thought. He always had this peculiar stance when he was pondering whatever was going through his head and she had become quite adept at recognising that even from afar.

"I wish you'd come back to the drawing room."

He was not surprised to hear her voice, he had faintly heard the footsteps and the creaking door hinge. Even so, he had hoped to hear someone else speak softly to him and not his eldest daughter.

Though it came as no surprise to him that it was Mary who sought him out; she was among the very few who still chose to talk to him almost normally. Everyone else just seemed so agitated by his mere presence in any room. They avoided him at all costs, and he understood their reasoning. Be that as it may, it still hurt to feel this constant rejection wherever he went.

Something about her unflustered voice coming from behind calmed him, it put a stopper on the anger simmering and bubbling deep inside he felt at everything that was going on at the moment and especially at the happenings of this, he turned around, his empty tumbler still in hand. "I'd only set your mother's teeth on edge."

"She'll come through it. She will," she retorted.

It was nice of her, but Robert somehow knew that it would not be as easy as she thought. The chances of Cora actually coming through it, as Mary put it, were abysmal at best with everything that had happened and been said already. The disappointment of that realisation surely registered on his face, but his daughter chose not to comment on that.

"Which brings me to your… performance today. How did that help?"

So this was what she had come to talk about, he should have known. Her cautious entrance was not to spare him a shock but to test the waters she was about to enter. If he was being honest, they might have been quite murky and unpleasant to walk through had he not been so deprived of human connection. With things being the way they were, however, he was thankful for every little word not laced with blame or anger directed at him that he could not help but appreciate it all.

Without even knowing she had hit the sore spot he had been agonising over for the past half hour since dinner had ended, she stood there and looked at him as he went to the liquor decanters all lined up on the silver tray to pour himself another whiskey.

"I was angry with Isobel for exposing you all to gossip," Robert all but sighed with his back turned to her.

It took a lot of self-restraint for Mary not to huff at that. Saying her father had been angry when he burst into the room at luncheon was quite an understatement; she had rarely seen him this enraged in public, or what could count as such given that there were servants present in the house.

"You were angry, alright," she gave back instead. There was no use in downplaying anything about his abrupt entrance at noon. He was aware of the disruption he had caused, she only hoped he would see why it did not help his case at all. "But not with Isobel or Ethel. I think it is because the world isn't going your way. Not anymore."

This hit the sore spot again, or at least it got very close. Things truly were not going his way at all at the moment but Ethel being employed by Isobel was at the very least a part of all his problems, which reminded him of his musings before she had entered, reigniting something in him. The problem with their disgraced former housemaid was pushed to the back of his mind when he asked: "Has Matthew told you about his latest plans for Downton?"

"I know he wants to change things."

A dangerous glint in his eyes and with a snide quality to his voice he only very rarely used, he belligerently retorted: "Doesn't he just."

"You mustn't let him upset you," she sighed weakly.

Matthew only wanted the best for Downton. He was the heir, one day upon her father's death he would be at the helm of all this her father insisted he was protecting and so it was not just in Matthew's own best interest to get the estate up to snuff but for all of them. Mary knew how much her father had taken to Matthew and vice versa — he had become the son he never had, and so she could understand why he would feel so betrayed by Matthew wanting to modernise things. She also had to concede that getting started with that by talking to their lawyer the day after her sister had passed was in quite bad taste, adding to the fact that he only told Robert weeks later. She thought Matthew would have known better than to do this, but apparently she had been mistaken.

"He's more or less told me I've let the estate fall to pieces."

"I'm sure he didn't mean that."

"Didn't he?" The daring glint from before had gone, and in its stead was now a look of defeat when he turned back to focus on the glass of whiskey he had just refilled. Lowly, he replied: "A fool and his money are soon parted. I have been parted from my money, so I suppose I am a fool."

Mary realised that she had run into a dead end, she would not get anywhere with him on the matter tonight, and that fact elicited a deep sigh from her. But there were still other problems waiting to be resolved, some more pressing than others.

"You won't win over the christening."

Robert, who had been stoically looking anywhere but at her for most of this conversation, now finally let his eyes meet hers. Maybe he thought that this would help win her over to his side of the argument, or maybe he was merely assessing her — Mary was not sure as to why he suddenly decided to stop evading her, but she would not budge. He was determined to get his way, but so was she. And she had inherited her stubbornness not only from him but from her mother as well, which made for a lethal combination when it came to persistence and sometimes even pigheadedness. She was quite likely to win this battle of exchanged looks, just as she knew she would and so she did not try to look away.

His blue eyes searched her brown ones, what for he was not sure. He was met with quiet determination and it told him that he had indeed lost this battle. He could only hope to win the war. Or at least make it out alive; and with the way things were currently he was not likely to do either. Certainly not on his own.

"Not if you're against me," he gave back quietly, his gaze not wavering.

Upon this, Mary simply stated what he had already seen in her eyes: "I'm never against you. But you've lost on this one."

A pause. He contemplated her words once again, trying to make peace with the fact that his only granddaughter would be raised Catholic against his wishes.

"Did Sybil truly not mind?" he asked doubtfully a little while later.

"She wanted Tom to be happy. She loved him very much, you know," Mary said, trying to keep her emotions at bay even though it hurt having to talk about her darling sister like this. She should not have to do this, she should not have to fight in her and Tom's corner in her stead. Sybil should be the one to talk their father into agreeing, and she would have had a far easier job than Mary herself. Sybil had always had both their parents wrapped around her little finger. Only she could dare to elope with the chauffeur and still manage to wrestle a blessing from their Papa. "We all need to remember that."

He knew he needed to remember that, and so did she. At times, it was easy to still view Tom as the chauffeur, to view him as someone who did not belong to their family. He did now, though, and he had the right to decide what he thought best for his little daughter. Whether they liked it or not, he was a part of their family now and Mary had vowed to Sybil that she would do her utmost to help him adjust as she had sat vigil at her bedside in the dead of night until Edith had come in with Tom.

Mary was still looking at her father as he let her words sink in. After a few seconds, she saw something change in his expression. Just ever so slightly.

"I keep forgetting she's gone," he then said lowly. His eyes glazing over, he added: "I see things in the paper that would make her laugh. I come inside to tell her that her favourite rose is in bloom. And then, suddenly…"

He never finished that sentence. He didn't have to. Mary knew well enough what he meant. She herself couldn't help but think about Sybil over the smallest, most insignificant, and ordinary everyday things. It was rare, though, for her to hear her father talk about things like this. The entire time, he had been taking care of everything as best he could. He had taken it in stride when her mama had banned him from her bedroom in favour of being alone when it was clear that he had needed nothing but to be close to her. One could have almost forgotten he had gone through the same unimaginable loss as the rest of them, the way he kept going about his business after only taking two days off when it all had happened. And yet, he was no better off. In fact, he seemed worse, and he had no one.

Her father's brutally honest words brought tears to her eyes, and she couldn't hide the quiver in her voice when she said: "Say that to Mama. Please."

For a brief moment, his eyes once again met those of his daughter and she caught a glimpse of all the pain he was feeling, of how much he was still suffering deep down. She saw the heartbreak he felt even before she heard it so clearly in his voice.

"She doesn't want to hear it from me."

With that, Robert set his unfinished glass of whiskey down on the small side table in front of him and then left the library without uttering anything else that night.

Not even a single word to Barrow was said as he got ready for bed. Luckily for him, they had somehow found a type of routine that seemed to work alright enough for now, so there were no pesky and unnecessary questions about wake-up calls and breakfast times that evening.

Not too much later, he was lying on his back in the single bed in his dressing room, staring at the white ceiling above him. A part of him wanted it to cave in, to end all this misery he was in and bury him in the rubble. A small and quite cynical voice inside was even trying to convince him that they would all be better off then, that they would be better off without him. Matthew could take over and modernise to his heart's content, Isobel could keep Ethel without setting anyone's teeth on edge, and Cora would be rid of him at last.

No. That was wrong. Even with things between them being as they were currently, there surely would be no elation there for his wife.

Or would there?

She could not even stand to look at him, and if she did she was glaring daggers. Maybe there would-

No. He could not think like this, he should not. And yet he could not seem to turn off that small voice inside his head that kept whispering these godawful things to him, the one that kept getting louder and louder as the time passed.

As he lay there in the dark with nothing but the stark white ceiling bathed in the sallow moonlight passing through the half-drawn curtains in his field of vision, he could not help but notice not only the absence of warmth in his life but also the complete absence of sound.

Robert assumed that she was upstairs by now, sitting in bed in the room next door with a book in her hands, the warming glow of a fire illuminating the room, even in the warmest of summer nights. He tried to listen for some sort of sound; her light footsteps on the carpet, the rustling of the bedsheets or the clicking sound of her bedside lamp being turned on or off.

And yet. Nothing. There was absolutely nothing. Not even the crackling sound of a dying fire in the hearth was audible through the connecting doors.

The silence enveloping him was deafening and stifling. It weighed on him like an elephant sitting on his chest, making every single breath he took a struggle in itself. Concentrating on supplying his lungs with a sufficient flow of oxygen, he closed his eyes, only to open them wide again almost that same instant.

Suddenly, he thought he heard something crumble. His eyes still wide in surprise, he frantically looked around, scanning the walls and the wardrobe standing pushed to one of them. But it was not something in the room, it was not the walls surrounding him coming down all of a sudden. Looking back straight up at the ceiling he realised that he was imagining it. He realised that it was the waning of his hopes for a reconciliation with Cora that made him imagine this crumbling noise; an accurate depiction, come to think of it.

Every single day that passed without his wife so much as acknowledging his existence unless she absolutely had to with other people present distanced him further from her. As if the ground separating them was stretching further and further, pulling her off into the distance and out of focus.

It had already been far too long since he had gazed upon her sparkling blue eyes from nearby, too long since he had seen her flawless complexion and had been allowed to run his hands through her formerly intricately done hair at the end of a long day. It had been far too long since his name had left her lips, enunciated so lovingly it could only ever be by her sweet voice, and too long it had been since he had got to kiss her good morning and good night. All he got nowadays was silence and stolen looks at her from afar. Worst of all, he knew that he deserved her silence and her anger. He deserved her avoidance and her silent scorn. It was all justified for he was the one who spoke against the only thing that could have saved their daughter.

In frustration he yanked the pillow out from underneath his head and pressed it to his face. This would be the perfect opportunity to let out a scream — it would be muffled enough, and he for sure felt like screaming his heart out. Maybe that would help to rid himself of these treacherous thoughts.

Yet, he found he simply had no scream left in him. He simply couldn't get any sound out. Instead, tears only all too quickly emerged and soon began to soak the pillow until he, at last, fell asleep a good while later, still in quite a desperate state and still enveloped in this all-encompassing silence he had begun to grow accustomed to.

They were the only two left downstairs. Isobel had said it would be for the best if she avoided the house at least for a little while following luncheon when they had asked her to please join them at the Abbey that evening, and her grandmother had left hours ago. Even Edith had gone to bed a while ago with Matthew quickly wanting the two of them to follow her upstairs but she had told him to go ahead for now. She had only been waiting for the chance to finally speak to her mother alone.

"Mama?"

She turned to her in surprise, letting her book sink into her lap in order to grant her daughter the attention she sought. Cora had let her guard down, she thought everyone else had left a while ago and so there had been no need to keep putting on a brave face for anyone. She thought she could distinctly recall Matthew bidding her goodnight. Or was she remembering the night before? Or the one before that? She was not sure, the days all mushed together in her mind, as did her memories. She was not even sure what day it was, whether it was still August or if they had already made it to September. To her, that did not matter any longer.

"Yes, dear?"

The view in front of her startled Mary. Her Mama had not looked well the past few weeks, but this was something else entirely. Her face was so sunken all of a sudden and her eyes looked almost lifeless. So dull, no longer bright blue but rather a muddy shade of grey with a blue tint here and there.

"I was wondering…"

Cora sat up straighter in the armchair she was in and silently motioned to the one next to her for Mary to take a seat when she noticed how uncomfortable her daughter seemed standing there clinging to her glass of port near the fireplace.

When Mary sat down next to her, her shock was even bigger. She had never seen her mother look so old, so worn, so weary of the world and something told her that this was only the tip of the iceberg, as had been her papa's words an hour or so before.

"Have you talked to Papa?" she asked sheepishly.

"Don't be ridiculous, Mary. You sat next to him at dinner. Surely you heard that we spoke," Cora gave back defensively. She knew that this was not at all what her daughter meant, but it was all she was willing to say on that matter at the moment.

"That is not what I meant and you know that. I only ask because he seemed particularly low today and I assume he still sleeps in his dressing room…" she trailed off.

Her mother's slender fingers were running over the clothbound cover of her first edition of Uncle Vanya by Chekhov, tracing the golden letters one by one — a book she knew for certain had once upon a time been gifted to her mother by her father after she had casually expressed an interest in the play one afternoon.

First, she heaved a deep sigh, then she replied: "I know that is what you meant. And no, I have not and I do not intend to today, either."

The way she said this signalled to Mary that for her mother, this topic was closed and no longer subject for then she remembered the look on her father's face and the words he had said and how hard that had hit her and caught her off-guard. She could not let things go this easily. She had to do something. She had to.

"But why, Mama? He really is not well, he is drowning himself in his work. Papa clearly still blames himself for what happened. I-"

"Enough of this, Mary!" Cora suddenly interrupted. She slammed the book in her lap shut and then quickly made to stand, dropping it onto the seat she had just left. "If he blames himself then he has every reason, and I have troubles enough of my own. I don't see why I should try and talk to him when he seems quite content managing the estate as if nothing had happened, as if our daughter was still alive. And now I bid you a good night."

With a dark look on her face, Cora strode out of the room and left Mary stunned in her awake.

What was she to do? This was even more grim a situation than she had thought after her father had left her behind in the library, feeling equally as stunned. This was not like them, they were not themselves. Neither of them.