Fic: A Girl in Black (6/?)
Title: A Girl in Black (6/?)
Author: mrstater
Fandom: Downton Abbey
Characters & Pairings: Mary Crawley/Richard Carlisle, Rosamund Painswick, Carson, Robert Crawley, Cora Crawley, Anna
Chapter Word Count: 4548
Chapter Summary: Mary awakens to surprising news--in the literal sense--about her unchaperoned night out with Richard.
Author's Notes: As always, thanks to my readers, who make it such a pleasure to share this fic, and most especially to ju_dou, who keeps me straight on such details as Mary's middle name in canon. ;)
Previous Chapters |
6. The Trial
The screech of the door on its hinges, followed by a thump against the wall as it is thrown suddenly open, disrupts Mary's dream, but she dozes on until a sharp voice rouses her.
"Mary Josephine Crawley, what in heaven's name were you thinking?"
She cracks an eye open, only to immediately cover it with her hand as Aunt Rosamund flings the draperies apart, wincing at the metallic scrape of the hangers on the curtain rod, as well as the unwelcome flood of white morning light. Mary's temples throb in time to her racing pulse.
"That I had no intention of waking up until much later," she replies, her voice rasping in her parched throat.
"No." Rosamund's skirt snaps as crisply as her voice as she strides back to the bedside. "I suppose you wouldn't have, after a night of cocktails and dancing at the Cave of the Golden Calf."
Mary's heart has only just begun to slow from being startled awake when it skips a beat. Before she can muster her voice to ask how her aunt knows about her previous evening's activities, Rosamund speaks again.
"I'm afraid you have to wake up, Mary. I've just been on the phone with your Papa--"
"There's no phone at Downton," Mary says through a yawn, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
"He used the one at Cousin Matthew's office. Not that that's the point."
Well Mary can imagine Aunt Rosamund having this exact conversation with Papa. She sighs. "What is the point, then?"
"That he insists you and I both be on the nine o'clock train back to Downton."
"Both of us?" Mary's mind feels as bleary as her eyes, now open just a slit and still smarting with the glare from the east-facing window.
"Do you think he'd let you go anywhere unchaperoned after last night's escapades?" Rosamund stalks back to the window, jerking the drapes together so that they block out a little more light. "I'm surprised he's not coming for you himself, except that he apparently doesn't think you can be trusted in London with me for the six hours it would take him to get here." She comes to stand at the foot of the bed, her shadow falling over the pale blue coverlet. "And I'm sure he relishes the chance to reprimand his formerly bossy elder sister in a manner befitting an errant schoolgirl."
Mary sits bolt upright in bed, the haze of sleep clearing from her eyes and head as her heart careers like a spooked horse. "Papa knows?"
"Everybody knows."
Rosamund tosses a newspaper onto the bed, and Mary claps her hand to her mouth as she sees her own pale face goggling back at her from the front page of The Sketch, her hands holding tight to Richard's arm as they enter the Cave. Squeezing her eyes shut again, she slowly leans back into the pillows. She presses her head hard against them, sinking all the way to the mattress, wishing as the down billows up on either side that it would swell to cover her face and suffocate her. When it does not, she contemplates grabbing the pillow on the empty side of the bed and smothering herself with it, if only her arms were not paralysed by this horrific turn her life has taken.
"It's all very well for you to make your own mistakes, Mary," says Rosamund, her hand whistling over the satin counterpane as she moves around the bed, "but I do not at all appreciate you making them mine. I trusted you…I trusted him..." Her voice rises in pitch even as she perches at the edge of the mattress, cradling her forehead in her fingertips, massaging her temples. "I'm sure a man like Sir Richard Carlisle can be quite forceful when it comes to getting his way, but--"
"Richard didn't force me to do anything."
Rosamund lifts her head, cocking it at an angle, removing her hand to reveal gingery eyebrows arched above the keen blue eyes inherited from Granny. At once Mary realises she failed to say Sir Richard. And that she has missed an opportunity to make him a very convenient scapegoat for her misdeeds. What was it she told the Duke of Crowborough? That she always apologises when she's in the wrong? She's not sure she is in the wrong here, or that apologies are due, but she's not about to let another person take the fall for her choices.
Not when she finally has choices.
And not when that person is an ally.
"Sir Richard was reluctant to go out with me at all after he learned you weren't coming along to chaperone," Mary admits, deciding to omit the part about him not having made use of his chauffeur as a substitute chaperone. "And I insisted we go to the Cave. Nothing scandalous happened there--except for Diana Manners, but isn't her life a long succession of publicised scandals?"
"I think you'd best omit Lady Diana from whatever narrative you give your parents." Rosamund gives a wry smile, which promptly falls, as if shaken off by the wagging of her head. "Why, Mary? Why would you insist on going to such a place?"
Mary's throat closes up so that she can hardly speak. "Because home was a cage. I wanted to be free."
The bed shifts as Rosamund stands. "I hope it was worth it, my dear, because I'm afraid you'll return to Downton to find it quite as confining as a gaol."
~*~
Hers is the most common feminine name in England; nevertheless, Mary's ears prick to it as it echoes through the brick and concrete and glass terminal of King's Cross Station, sharp and resonant as a shot fired from a gun further down the concourse, aimed directly for her hearing. She draws in a sharp breath as it reaches her, sitting rigid for a moment on the bench beside her aunt, until the staccato clip of shoes on the pavement--like the intentioned punch of typewriter keys, she thinks, forming the carefully plotted narrative of a story--solidifies her certainty that she is, indeed, the Mary in question.
No, not in question...in demand.
She rises from the bench and turns just in time to see Richard Carlisle pushing through the crowd toward her.
"Did you phone him before we left the house?" Rosamund asks in tones as arch as Mary imagines her eyebrows to be.
"Of course not." Though Mary had not thought to inform him of her sudden hasty departure from London, she is not surprised to see him here. Perhaps her subconscious even expected him. As she steps away from her aunt, she says, "You need to fire your chauffeur."
"Miss Fields showed me this morning's Sketch," Richard says without preamble, his agitation evident in the flare of his nostrils with his rapid indrawn breaths and puffs of exhalation. Yet when his leather-gloved hand flies up to remove his Homburg, unshading his blue eyes as he dabs beads of perspiration from his brow with a handkerchief, they search her face with genuine concern.
"I intended to ring you at a reasonable hour, but then I heard..." His gaze flickers over her shoulder, where Rosamund stands guard, before he pulls it back to Mary's face. "You're returning to Yorkshire? Don't, Mary, I assure you, it's not--"
"It's not my decision. Papa--"
She shuffles back a pace, away from his hand as Richard reaches out for her; he looks down at his hands, almost as if he'd not been aware of the action, as if it were instinct, and slides his fingertips over the brim of his hat. He cannot seem to stop moving, and Mary's own pulse quickens at this ordinarily controlled man's loss of composure, almost to the point of being flustered, at her departure.
"Well," she says, "I think it's safe to say that this is the angriest he's ever been at me."
"Would it help at all if I phoned him? Explained that I never meant--"
"We don't have a telephone."
Richard's downturned eyes widen, looking at her askance as he puts his hat back on his head. "You don't have a phone?"
"We only just got electricity in the ground floor rooms. Papa believes in maintaining the integrity of the house. Mama describes him as a typical Englishman who hates comfort."
"A good old-fashioned letter, then," Richard says. "Written with a pen. Or is it quills at Downton?"
His mouth turns upward at the corner, the dimple appearing above it, and Mary cannot help but laugh softly. Even Aunt Rosamund gives a little snort of amusement at her brother's expense.
But the tension is only relieved for a moment, Richard's features thrown into harsh relief as a cloud passes over the sun, casting the shadows of the steel beams of the glass roof over the platform and the people waiting on it.
"Our behaviour last night was above reproach," he says. "Anyone at the Cave would vouch for that. And believe you me, Mr Ingram, the editor, will know exactly how I feel about his intimation in The Sketch to the contrary. I would of course explain all of this to Lord Grantham, were I to write."
While Mary hesitates, wondering just what Richard will do to this Mr Ingram, shivering at the determination and the danger that darken his voice, Rosamund inserts herself into the conversation.
"That's very gallant of you, Sir Richard, but I'm afraid it won't help. On the contrary," she adds, stepping from behind her niece, as if to catch his attention, though his gaze never wavers from Mary's face, "it will only make it worse. My brother will think you've risen above your station and grown too accustomed to having your way simply because you can buy it."
A muscle ripples beneath Richard's cheekbone, and Mary hears the quiver of anger in his voice as he asks, very quietly, "You don't think that of me, do you, Mary?"
For a moment Mary considers the paradox that stands before her, clad in a business suit. If their interactions over the past several days have told her anything, it's that Richard very much craves a place in high society--yet having the approval of everyone in her set seems not to matter to him. She shouldn't be pleased that her approval, apparently, does. Just as she should not envy the fluidity of his position and the freedom it affords him to cobble together the bits of society he likes, piecemeal, casting aside the rest so effortlessly.
She tilts her chin and replies, "I did."
He swallows. "But no longer?"
"Of course." When his face starts to harden, she adds, trying not to smirk as her test of the power she has over him proves her hypothesis, "But I no longer see that it's a problem."
As a train whistle blasts, his face relaxes, his lips pressed together and curving upward as he raises his chin. "When may I expect the pleasure of your company again?"
His confidence ought to put her off, but instead it makes her think of the admiration and affection that shone in his eyes last night under the porch light, when he told her she was worth stopping work for, when she wished he would kiss her. Downton may not fully run on electricity, but she feels a slight shock in her heart at the thought of leaving him alone again with his work.
And Diana Manners.
"Alas, I don't foresee Papa permitting me to come to London again till I'm sixty. Even then he'll probably insist on serving as my chaperone himself."
"Mary," says Rosamund, impatiently, "It's time to board."
Mary's eyes sting--from the acrid black smoke chuffing from the train engine--and she turns away before Richard can see. But he catches her hand, tugging her back to him.
He opens his mouth to speak, though his lips and tongue don't form any words, and no sound emits from his throat.
"Goodbye, Sir Richard," Mary says.
He doesn't return her farewell as her gloved hand slides from the slackened grip of his fingers, but she feels his gaze on her retreating form as she turns and boards the first class car.
As the train chugs out of the station, she does not look back.
~*~
"Welcome home, Lady Mary," Carson greets as he stands aside for her to pass through the front door. "Lady Rosamund."
"Ordered home." Mary breezes into the vestibule, though in truth she thinks she could not be more reluctant to enter Downton than the Bastille, the stone archways and leaded glass windowpanes of her home striking her as imposing for the first time in twenty years . Even when she is set free of it, someday, her hopes will remain locked within to serve her life's sentence. "I'm not sure how welcome I am."
She falls silent as she stops to unbutton her coat, but when Carson pads softly up behind her to help her out of it, says, "I expect they're waiting for me? Judge, jury, and executioner?"
Carson's large but nimble fingers give her shoulders a light squeeze that has nothing to do with the removal of her coat; his sonorous tones rumble through her and warm her aching chest like a hot dram of brandy after a brisk winter's walk as he says, "The Dowager Countess is not here."
"Thank heaven for small favours," Aunt Rosamund says, slipping her arms out of the sleeves of her coat as Thomas holds it; Mary catches the footman's eyes dart away from her, though not quite quickly enough to hide the insolent smirk that tells her the entire household has been appraised of her scandal--no doubt by O'Brien--odious woman--who would have seen The Sketch on Mama's breakfast tray.
But Mary looks back over her shoulder at Carson and gives him a small smile. He returns it, but it's the crease between his bushy brows as they knit together above dark eyes that regard her with the same fond and conspiratorial glimmer as when she was a little girl, who came to his pantry begging for money, that emboldens her enter the library. She remains untarnished in Carson's eyes, at least.
"The prodigal has returned," she announces before Thomas has even shut the double doors behind her and Rosamund. She avoids Papa's eyes as he rises from his desk, in her periphery glimpsing Mama stretched out on the high-backed red settee like an invalid, and fixes her gaze on the tea things laid out on the side table by the window. "Only sandwiches? How disappointing. I was expecting the fatted calf."
"I think we've all had more than our fill of calf, wouldn't you agree, Mary?"
Papa's mouth is a small o between his sagging cheeks as he speaks in tight syllables. He looks at her as though he hardly knows her, as he's looked at her since he told her Patrick was drowned and she expressed her wish not to mourn him as a fiancé. I'm not as sad as I should be, she hears her own voice in her head, sees her pale black-clad reflection in the mirror of her mind, and that's what makes me sad.
"Oh, Papa," she says, rolling her eyes and turning away to pour herself a cup of tea. She adds no sugar or cream, but cradles the hot china cup of steaming black tea in both hands for a moment to bring the life back into fingers so cold they might well have been frozen and clutching to a bit of driftwood in the north Atlantic . "You're making far more of this that it's worth."
"I don't think you grasp just how much worth we place on your reputation," Mama chokes out.
"This is the real world in 1912, Mama, not a nineteenth century novel of manners." Mary studies her mother over her teacup, and is unable to stop another roll of her eyes at the impossibly bright blue pair goggling from puffy red lids, her hands twisting a crumpled and soggy handkerchief; most likely she's been weeping since she saw The Sketch on her breakfast tray. "Even if it does rather resemble one, with the mother with the poor frazzled nerves and the house full of daughters entailed away to an undesirable middle-class cousin."
"If only you'd take the time to get to know Cousin Matthew--"
"It's my reputation," Mary cuts Mama off, though she means this is her trial, not Matthew's. "The whole family won't be ruined because I attended a rather crudely named nightclub."
"No, but you might be," says Papa. His chest rises and falls with a deep indrawn breath as he reins in his temper; as he strides slowly toward her, he clasps his hands together behind his back. "My dear, I know you never thought it mattered what anyone thinks of you, everything being settled with Patrick...But Patrick is gone, and you won't be an heiress, and your reputation is all you have. Or was, before it was splashed across the tabloids."
"On the cover of The Sketch is hardly being splashed." Mary seats herself at the edge of the sofa opposite Mama's, and sips her tea. "Or appearing in a tabloid."
"In some ways that's worse," croaks Mama, eyes welling again. "All our friends read The Sketch...Your grandmother...When I think of all the times Diana Manners' picture's been in there up to all sorts of unladylike behaviour..."
As Mary thinks of Rosamund's unnecessary admonition against mentioning Diana's presence at the club, her gaze automatically flicks to her aunt, who lingers in the corner of the library, partly obscured by one of the monstrosities Mama calls a flower arrangement.
"And what about my charm?" Mary asks. "Or my beauty? Everyone I met at the Cave seemed much more concerned with those qualities than with my reputation." Her cup chinks against her saucer as she replaces it with a little more force than she intends. "I danced with Raymond Asquith, for Heaven's sake. It was hardly a gathering of social deviants."
"The Prime Minister's son, Asquith?" Papa splutters, swinging away to look at Mama, his mouth gawping slightly as if to ask, Did I hear her correctly? Mama only shakes her head vaguely, twisting her handkerchief around her fingers.
"Mary," he says, turning back to her, his face reddening, "you do realise that man is actively seeking to limit the power of the House of Lords? Or didn't it come up when you were waltzing with his son?"
Though she's more than a little tempted to tell him of course it didn't, as she'd danced the night away to ragtime music, and ended it with an Argentine tango--he can hardly be any angrier, after all, at hearing she socialised with a Liberal politician's son--she only picks up her teacup again and says, "When have you ever known me to talk about politics, especially during a dance?"
If only he knew that last night she volunteered the subjects of inheritance law and women's suffrage.
"This tale keeps getting more and more lurid," Mama sobs into her handkerchief, which Mary can't imagine O'Brien will ever be able to iron the wrinkles out of. "Dancing with Raymond Asquith...Photographed on the arm of Sir Richard Carlisle..."
"And where were you?" Papa rounds on Aunt Rosamund, apparently not as unnoticed as she wished to be, his footsteps almost martial upon the floorboards. "Dancing with the Prime Minister himself? I expect you quite agree with Asquith's politics, in loving memory of Marmaduke."
"I was at home," Rosamund replies, steadily, giving no indication that she is cowed by her brother's domineering manner. Her chin tilts upward--in defiance, certainly, Mary thinks, but also in a recollection of the days when Rosamund was the taller sibling, as well as the elder, "in bed with a headache."
"At home, with a headache? While my daughter was off gallivanting at a cabaret called the Cave of the Golden Calf?"
"I had no knowledge of her plans to visit such an establishment. Originally Sir Richard Carlisle invited both of us to the theatre, followed by supper. As he had proved quite above board at our previous excursions with him, I saw no harm--"
"Previous excursions?" Papa is starting to sound like an echo, the impression enhanced by Mama's wuthering."You were in London for half a week, Mary," he says, stalking toward the settee again, pulling a fresh handkerchief from his breast pocket and handing it down to Mama. "What did you do with Carlisle? How does Rosamund even know him?"
"Mary knew him," Rosamund answers before Mary can. "There was an invitation waiting for her when she arrived at my house."
She might have omitted that, Mary thinks, her eyes fluttering closed. It sounds so much worse than admitting to spending an evening in the same company as Diana Manners.
"I met Sir Richard at Agnes Belcher's engagement ball last May," she says, feeling three pairs of expectant eyes watching her. "We had a rapport."
"I should say so," says Papa, "if he was apprised of your travel plans and courted you."
"He took us to tea at the Ritz, and gave us a tour of his newspaper office and printing press. Then we saw Pygmalion--"
"I read a review of that play." Mama's voice is muffled by her handkerchief. "The critic said it contains simply appalling language."
"It's a satire on social class," Mary says, rolling her eyes. "A Cockney girl passes herself off as a Duchess by learning to speak properly. Of course she must speak improperly first."
Papa snorts. "I expect the irony was lost on Carlisle?"
"I expect so, as his eyes were glued to his newspaper instead of the stage." Mary finishes her tea, sets cup and saucer on the end table, and stands to face her father, hands open at her sides. "Yes, I went out with Sir Richard without a chaperone. We saw a play. We had supper at an avant-garde nightclub. Really, Papa, you needn't make it sound a gothic seduction."
Their heads turn as Mama makes a strangled sound in her throat. "Did Sir Richard propose to you?"
"If he had," Mary says, arching an eyebrow at Papa, "I'm sure you'd have read about it in the tabloids."
"I'm sure we wouldn't," says Papa. "Because I'm sure you wouldn't accept. He must mean to propose."
"Must he?"
"Why else would he go to such lengths and eschew the most basic rules of polite society to spend so much time in your company?"
"You needn't make him sound so mercenary, Papa. It may be that he simply likes me."
He regards her with a faint smile, a patient look which Mary well remembers from her childhood. When he speaks ,however, he says, "You cannot be so naΪve. You are, indeed, beautiful and charming. As well as young, and the next rung up the social ladder for climbers like Sir Richard Carlisle. And Rosamund should have been your first line of defence against a man like that."
"I trusted Mary," her aunt says, "and I trusted Sir Richard. It seems in both instances, my trust was misplaced."
"As was mine."
Mary has been braced for these words, softly spoken, since Aunt Rosamund told her Papa had called to demand she return home, yet they still strike her squarely in the stomach, knocking the breath from her. Oblivious to her pain, Papa clasps his hands together behind his back again and strikes a pose befitting a lieutenant-colonel reprimanding a lower-ranking officer, pacing the length of the carpet before her.
" I suppose it goes without saying that you will have no further contact with this man? Nor will you accept any invitations from anyone without my having expressly reviewed them?"
"I thought you said it went without saying."
Papa halts on the rug, red flooding his face as his chest inflates with anger. Before he can release the hot air, the dinner gong sounds in the hall. Bless Carson and his good timing, Mary thinks, her eyes fluttering closed as if in prayer. When she opens them, her father exhales.
"It's time to dress for dinner."
"I'll just take a tray in my cell," Mary says, striding past him toward the library doors.
"Mary--"
"Let her go, Robert," Mama says.
As she slips out into the hall, Mary hears him say, "I'm afraid that was the problem to begin with."
~*~
The warmth of the fire crackling in the bedroom fireplace--a bit much for this Indian summer, though the Yorkshire nights are cooler than London--has Mary half-dozing on her cream-coloured settee when a soft knock on the door precedes Anna's entrance bearing a tray.
"Evening, Lady Mary. Mr Carson said you weren't feeling up to dressing for dinner after your journey, so I've just brought you a bit of supper."
"I'm not sure I'm up to eating dinner, either," Mary replies, not lifting her head from where it rests in the corner of the settee. "But thank you, Anna."
The maid nods as she sets the tray on the low oval table before the settee, her blue eyes darting briefly to Mary's face, searching it with concern, before she turns away to unpack the trunk brought up earlier by the footmen.
"I'm sorry your visit to London had to be cut short," Anna says after a moment.
"I have only myself to blame," Mary replies, her gaze drifting across the room to her recumbent reflection in the dressing table mirror, "for breaking the rules."
"Did you enjoy yourself, though, m'lady?”
For a moment Mary doesn't answer. She relaxes against the arm of the settee and closes her eyes, listening to the snap of the logs in the fireplace but hearing the rasp of Richard's voice last night--could it only have been less than a day ago?--and again feeling the warmth it had prickled up all over her skin: Tonight, and these past few days, have been the most enjoyable I've had…
"Yes," she murmurs, squeezing her eyes tighter shut against the sting of tears behind her lids. "I enjoyed myself very much."
"Good. I think sometimes when too many rules keep us from enjoying life, it's all right to break a few of the less important ones."
Anna continues unpacking in silence, and then Mary hears the rustle of the maid's taffeta skirt as she stands. She expects the light footsteps to carry Anna across the room to the wardrobe, but instead she approaches the sofa. Mary opens her eyes, her vision slightly obscured by the unshed tears, though not so much that she can't make out Anna's hand reaching into the front pocket of her frilly evening apron.
"Mr Carson says to tell you he probably shouldn't be giving you this, but a telegram was delivered before you arrived."
"A telegram?" Mary repeats, sitting up to take the card Anna presses into her hand.
A smile curls on her lips as she reads the brief message.
MARY STOP I WANT TO BE WITH YOU STOP I ALWAYS GET WHAT I WANT STOP RICHARD
Read Chapter 7
Author: mrstater
Fandom: Downton Abbey
Characters & Pairings: Mary Crawley/Richard Carlisle, Rosamund Painswick, Carson, Robert Crawley, Cora Crawley, Anna
Chapter Word Count: 4548
Chapter Summary: Mary awakens to surprising news--in the literal sense--about her unchaperoned night out with Richard.
Author's Notes: As always, thanks to my readers, who make it such a pleasure to share this fic, and most especially to ju_dou, who keeps me straight on such details as Mary's middle name in canon. ;)
Previous Chapters |
6. The Trial
The screech of the door on its hinges, followed by a thump against the wall as it is thrown suddenly open, disrupts Mary's dream, but she dozes on until a sharp voice rouses her.
"Mary Josephine Crawley, what in heaven's name were you thinking?"
She cracks an eye open, only to immediately cover it with her hand as Aunt Rosamund flings the draperies apart, wincing at the metallic scrape of the hangers on the curtain rod, as well as the unwelcome flood of white morning light. Mary's temples throb in time to her racing pulse.
"That I had no intention of waking up until much later," she replies, her voice rasping in her parched throat.
"No." Rosamund's skirt snaps as crisply as her voice as she strides back to the bedside. "I suppose you wouldn't have, after a night of cocktails and dancing at the Cave of the Golden Calf."
Mary's heart has only just begun to slow from being startled awake when it skips a beat. Before she can muster her voice to ask how her aunt knows about her previous evening's activities, Rosamund speaks again.
"I'm afraid you have to wake up, Mary. I've just been on the phone with your Papa--"
"There's no phone at Downton," Mary says through a yawn, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
"He used the one at Cousin Matthew's office. Not that that's the point."
Well Mary can imagine Aunt Rosamund having this exact conversation with Papa. She sighs. "What is the point, then?"
"That he insists you and I both be on the nine o'clock train back to Downton."
"Both of us?" Mary's mind feels as bleary as her eyes, now open just a slit and still smarting with the glare from the east-facing window.
"Do you think he'd let you go anywhere unchaperoned after last night's escapades?" Rosamund stalks back to the window, jerking the drapes together so that they block out a little more light. "I'm surprised he's not coming for you himself, except that he apparently doesn't think you can be trusted in London with me for the six hours it would take him to get here." She comes to stand at the foot of the bed, her shadow falling over the pale blue coverlet. "And I'm sure he relishes the chance to reprimand his formerly bossy elder sister in a manner befitting an errant schoolgirl."
Mary sits bolt upright in bed, the haze of sleep clearing from her eyes and head as her heart careers like a spooked horse. "Papa knows?"
"Everybody knows."
Rosamund tosses a newspaper onto the bed, and Mary claps her hand to her mouth as she sees her own pale face goggling back at her from the front page of The Sketch, her hands holding tight to Richard's arm as they enter the Cave. Squeezing her eyes shut again, she slowly leans back into the pillows. She presses her head hard against them, sinking all the way to the mattress, wishing as the down billows up on either side that it would swell to cover her face and suffocate her. When it does not, she contemplates grabbing the pillow on the empty side of the bed and smothering herself with it, if only her arms were not paralysed by this horrific turn her life has taken.
"It's all very well for you to make your own mistakes, Mary," says Rosamund, her hand whistling over the satin counterpane as she moves around the bed, "but I do not at all appreciate you making them mine. I trusted you…I trusted him..." Her voice rises in pitch even as she perches at the edge of the mattress, cradling her forehead in her fingertips, massaging her temples. "I'm sure a man like Sir Richard Carlisle can be quite forceful when it comes to getting his way, but--"
"Richard didn't force me to do anything."
Rosamund lifts her head, cocking it at an angle, removing her hand to reveal gingery eyebrows arched above the keen blue eyes inherited from Granny. At once Mary realises she failed to say Sir Richard. And that she has missed an opportunity to make him a very convenient scapegoat for her misdeeds. What was it she told the Duke of Crowborough? That she always apologises when she's in the wrong? She's not sure she is in the wrong here, or that apologies are due, but she's not about to let another person take the fall for her choices.
Not when she finally has choices.
And not when that person is an ally.
"Sir Richard was reluctant to go out with me at all after he learned you weren't coming along to chaperone," Mary admits, deciding to omit the part about him not having made use of his chauffeur as a substitute chaperone. "And I insisted we go to the Cave. Nothing scandalous happened there--except for Diana Manners, but isn't her life a long succession of publicised scandals?"
"I think you'd best omit Lady Diana from whatever narrative you give your parents." Rosamund gives a wry smile, which promptly falls, as if shaken off by the wagging of her head. "Why, Mary? Why would you insist on going to such a place?"
Mary's throat closes up so that she can hardly speak. "Because home was a cage. I wanted to be free."
The bed shifts as Rosamund stands. "I hope it was worth it, my dear, because I'm afraid you'll return to Downton to find it quite as confining as a gaol."
~*~
Hers is the most common feminine name in England; nevertheless, Mary's ears prick to it as it echoes through the brick and concrete and glass terminal of King's Cross Station, sharp and resonant as a shot fired from a gun further down the concourse, aimed directly for her hearing. She draws in a sharp breath as it reaches her, sitting rigid for a moment on the bench beside her aunt, until the staccato clip of shoes on the pavement--like the intentioned punch of typewriter keys, she thinks, forming the carefully plotted narrative of a story--solidifies her certainty that she is, indeed, the Mary in question.
No, not in question...in demand.
She rises from the bench and turns just in time to see Richard Carlisle pushing through the crowd toward her.
"Did you phone him before we left the house?" Rosamund asks in tones as arch as Mary imagines her eyebrows to be.
"Of course not." Though Mary had not thought to inform him of her sudden hasty departure from London, she is not surprised to see him here. Perhaps her subconscious even expected him. As she steps away from her aunt, she says, "You need to fire your chauffeur."
"Miss Fields showed me this morning's Sketch," Richard says without preamble, his agitation evident in the flare of his nostrils with his rapid indrawn breaths and puffs of exhalation. Yet when his leather-gloved hand flies up to remove his Homburg, unshading his blue eyes as he dabs beads of perspiration from his brow with a handkerchief, they search her face with genuine concern.
"I intended to ring you at a reasonable hour, but then I heard..." His gaze flickers over her shoulder, where Rosamund stands guard, before he pulls it back to Mary's face. "You're returning to Yorkshire? Don't, Mary, I assure you, it's not--"
"It's not my decision. Papa--"
She shuffles back a pace, away from his hand as Richard reaches out for her; he looks down at his hands, almost as if he'd not been aware of the action, as if it were instinct, and slides his fingertips over the brim of his hat. He cannot seem to stop moving, and Mary's own pulse quickens at this ordinarily controlled man's loss of composure, almost to the point of being flustered, at her departure.
"Well," she says, "I think it's safe to say that this is the angriest he's ever been at me."
"Would it help at all if I phoned him? Explained that I never meant--"
"We don't have a telephone."
Richard's downturned eyes widen, looking at her askance as he puts his hat back on his head. "You don't have a phone?"
"We only just got electricity in the ground floor rooms. Papa believes in maintaining the integrity of the house. Mama describes him as a typical Englishman who hates comfort."
"A good old-fashioned letter, then," Richard says. "Written with a pen. Or is it quills at Downton?"
His mouth turns upward at the corner, the dimple appearing above it, and Mary cannot help but laugh softly. Even Aunt Rosamund gives a little snort of amusement at her brother's expense.
But the tension is only relieved for a moment, Richard's features thrown into harsh relief as a cloud passes over the sun, casting the shadows of the steel beams of the glass roof over the platform and the people waiting on it.
"Our behaviour last night was above reproach," he says. "Anyone at the Cave would vouch for that. And believe you me, Mr Ingram, the editor, will know exactly how I feel about his intimation in The Sketch to the contrary. I would of course explain all of this to Lord Grantham, were I to write."
While Mary hesitates, wondering just what Richard will do to this Mr Ingram, shivering at the determination and the danger that darken his voice, Rosamund inserts herself into the conversation.
"That's very gallant of you, Sir Richard, but I'm afraid it won't help. On the contrary," she adds, stepping from behind her niece, as if to catch his attention, though his gaze never wavers from Mary's face, "it will only make it worse. My brother will think you've risen above your station and grown too accustomed to having your way simply because you can buy it."
A muscle ripples beneath Richard's cheekbone, and Mary hears the quiver of anger in his voice as he asks, very quietly, "You don't think that of me, do you, Mary?"
For a moment Mary considers the paradox that stands before her, clad in a business suit. If their interactions over the past several days have told her anything, it's that Richard very much craves a place in high society--yet having the approval of everyone in her set seems not to matter to him. She shouldn't be pleased that her approval, apparently, does. Just as she should not envy the fluidity of his position and the freedom it affords him to cobble together the bits of society he likes, piecemeal, casting aside the rest so effortlessly.
She tilts her chin and replies, "I did."
He swallows. "But no longer?"
"Of course." When his face starts to harden, she adds, trying not to smirk as her test of the power she has over him proves her hypothesis, "But I no longer see that it's a problem."
As a train whistle blasts, his face relaxes, his lips pressed together and curving upward as he raises his chin. "When may I expect the pleasure of your company again?"
His confidence ought to put her off, but instead it makes her think of the admiration and affection that shone in his eyes last night under the porch light, when he told her she was worth stopping work for, when she wished he would kiss her. Downton may not fully run on electricity, but she feels a slight shock in her heart at the thought of leaving him alone again with his work.
And Diana Manners.
"Alas, I don't foresee Papa permitting me to come to London again till I'm sixty. Even then he'll probably insist on serving as my chaperone himself."
"Mary," says Rosamund, impatiently, "It's time to board."
Mary's eyes sting--from the acrid black smoke chuffing from the train engine--and she turns away before Richard can see. But he catches her hand, tugging her back to him.
He opens his mouth to speak, though his lips and tongue don't form any words, and no sound emits from his throat.
"Goodbye, Sir Richard," Mary says.
He doesn't return her farewell as her gloved hand slides from the slackened grip of his fingers, but she feels his gaze on her retreating form as she turns and boards the first class car.
As the train chugs out of the station, she does not look back.
~*~
"Welcome home, Lady Mary," Carson greets as he stands aside for her to pass through the front door. "Lady Rosamund."
"Ordered home." Mary breezes into the vestibule, though in truth she thinks she could not be more reluctant to enter Downton than the Bastille, the stone archways and leaded glass windowpanes of her home striking her as imposing for the first time in twenty years . Even when she is set free of it, someday, her hopes will remain locked within to serve her life's sentence. "I'm not sure how welcome I am."
She falls silent as she stops to unbutton her coat, but when Carson pads softly up behind her to help her out of it, says, "I expect they're waiting for me? Judge, jury, and executioner?"
Carson's large but nimble fingers give her shoulders a light squeeze that has nothing to do with the removal of her coat; his sonorous tones rumble through her and warm her aching chest like a hot dram of brandy after a brisk winter's walk as he says, "The Dowager Countess is not here."
"Thank heaven for small favours," Aunt Rosamund says, slipping her arms out of the sleeves of her coat as Thomas holds it; Mary catches the footman's eyes dart away from her, though not quite quickly enough to hide the insolent smirk that tells her the entire household has been appraised of her scandal--no doubt by O'Brien--odious woman--who would have seen The Sketch on Mama's breakfast tray.
But Mary looks back over her shoulder at Carson and gives him a small smile. He returns it, but it's the crease between his bushy brows as they knit together above dark eyes that regard her with the same fond and conspiratorial glimmer as when she was a little girl, who came to his pantry begging for money, that emboldens her enter the library. She remains untarnished in Carson's eyes, at least.
"The prodigal has returned," she announces before Thomas has even shut the double doors behind her and Rosamund. She avoids Papa's eyes as he rises from his desk, in her periphery glimpsing Mama stretched out on the high-backed red settee like an invalid, and fixes her gaze on the tea things laid out on the side table by the window. "Only sandwiches? How disappointing. I was expecting the fatted calf."
"I think we've all had more than our fill of calf, wouldn't you agree, Mary?"
Papa's mouth is a small o between his sagging cheeks as he speaks in tight syllables. He looks at her as though he hardly knows her, as he's looked at her since he told her Patrick was drowned and she expressed her wish not to mourn him as a fiancé. I'm not as sad as I should be, she hears her own voice in her head, sees her pale black-clad reflection in the mirror of her mind, and that's what makes me sad.
"Oh, Papa," she says, rolling her eyes and turning away to pour herself a cup of tea. She adds no sugar or cream, but cradles the hot china cup of steaming black tea in both hands for a moment to bring the life back into fingers so cold they might well have been frozen and clutching to a bit of driftwood in the north Atlantic . "You're making far more of this that it's worth."
"I don't think you grasp just how much worth we place on your reputation," Mama chokes out.
"This is the real world in 1912, Mama, not a nineteenth century novel of manners." Mary studies her mother over her teacup, and is unable to stop another roll of her eyes at the impossibly bright blue pair goggling from puffy red lids, her hands twisting a crumpled and soggy handkerchief; most likely she's been weeping since she saw The Sketch on her breakfast tray. "Even if it does rather resemble one, with the mother with the poor frazzled nerves and the house full of daughters entailed away to an undesirable middle-class cousin."
"If only you'd take the time to get to know Cousin Matthew--"
"It's my reputation," Mary cuts Mama off, though she means this is her trial, not Matthew's. "The whole family won't be ruined because I attended a rather crudely named nightclub."
"No, but you might be," says Papa. His chest rises and falls with a deep indrawn breath as he reins in his temper; as he strides slowly toward her, he clasps his hands together behind his back. "My dear, I know you never thought it mattered what anyone thinks of you, everything being settled with Patrick...But Patrick is gone, and you won't be an heiress, and your reputation is all you have. Or was, before it was splashed across the tabloids."
"On the cover of The Sketch is hardly being splashed." Mary seats herself at the edge of the sofa opposite Mama's, and sips her tea. "Or appearing in a tabloid."
"In some ways that's worse," croaks Mama, eyes welling again. "All our friends read The Sketch...Your grandmother...When I think of all the times Diana Manners' picture's been in there up to all sorts of unladylike behaviour..."
As Mary thinks of Rosamund's unnecessary admonition against mentioning Diana's presence at the club, her gaze automatically flicks to her aunt, who lingers in the corner of the library, partly obscured by one of the monstrosities Mama calls a flower arrangement.
"And what about my charm?" Mary asks. "Or my beauty? Everyone I met at the Cave seemed much more concerned with those qualities than with my reputation." Her cup chinks against her saucer as she replaces it with a little more force than she intends. "I danced with Raymond Asquith, for Heaven's sake. It was hardly a gathering of social deviants."
"The Prime Minister's son, Asquith?" Papa splutters, swinging away to look at Mama, his mouth gawping slightly as if to ask, Did I hear her correctly? Mama only shakes her head vaguely, twisting her handkerchief around her fingers.
"Mary," he says, turning back to her, his face reddening, "you do realise that man is actively seeking to limit the power of the House of Lords? Or didn't it come up when you were waltzing with his son?"
Though she's more than a little tempted to tell him of course it didn't, as she'd danced the night away to ragtime music, and ended it with an Argentine tango--he can hardly be any angrier, after all, at hearing she socialised with a Liberal politician's son--she only picks up her teacup again and says, "When have you ever known me to talk about politics, especially during a dance?"
If only he knew that last night she volunteered the subjects of inheritance law and women's suffrage.
"This tale keeps getting more and more lurid," Mama sobs into her handkerchief, which Mary can't imagine O'Brien will ever be able to iron the wrinkles out of. "Dancing with Raymond Asquith...Photographed on the arm of Sir Richard Carlisle..."
"And where were you?" Papa rounds on Aunt Rosamund, apparently not as unnoticed as she wished to be, his footsteps almost martial upon the floorboards. "Dancing with the Prime Minister himself? I expect you quite agree with Asquith's politics, in loving memory of Marmaduke."
"I was at home," Rosamund replies, steadily, giving no indication that she is cowed by her brother's domineering manner. Her chin tilts upward--in defiance, certainly, Mary thinks, but also in a recollection of the days when Rosamund was the taller sibling, as well as the elder, "in bed with a headache."
"At home, with a headache? While my daughter was off gallivanting at a cabaret called the Cave of the Golden Calf?"
"I had no knowledge of her plans to visit such an establishment. Originally Sir Richard Carlisle invited both of us to the theatre, followed by supper. As he had proved quite above board at our previous excursions with him, I saw no harm--"
"Previous excursions?" Papa is starting to sound like an echo, the impression enhanced by Mama's wuthering."You were in London for half a week, Mary," he says, stalking toward the settee again, pulling a fresh handkerchief from his breast pocket and handing it down to Mama. "What did you do with Carlisle? How does Rosamund even know him?"
"Mary knew him," Rosamund answers before Mary can. "There was an invitation waiting for her when she arrived at my house."
She might have omitted that, Mary thinks, her eyes fluttering closed. It sounds so much worse than admitting to spending an evening in the same company as Diana Manners.
"I met Sir Richard at Agnes Belcher's engagement ball last May," she says, feeling three pairs of expectant eyes watching her. "We had a rapport."
"I should say so," says Papa, "if he was apprised of your travel plans and courted you."
"He took us to tea at the Ritz, and gave us a tour of his newspaper office and printing press. Then we saw Pygmalion--"
"I read a review of that play." Mama's voice is muffled by her handkerchief. "The critic said it contains simply appalling language."
"It's a satire on social class," Mary says, rolling her eyes. "A Cockney girl passes herself off as a Duchess by learning to speak properly. Of course she must speak improperly first."
Papa snorts. "I expect the irony was lost on Carlisle?"
"I expect so, as his eyes were glued to his newspaper instead of the stage." Mary finishes her tea, sets cup and saucer on the end table, and stands to face her father, hands open at her sides. "Yes, I went out with Sir Richard without a chaperone. We saw a play. We had supper at an avant-garde nightclub. Really, Papa, you needn't make it sound a gothic seduction."
Their heads turn as Mama makes a strangled sound in her throat. "Did Sir Richard propose to you?"
"If he had," Mary says, arching an eyebrow at Papa, "I'm sure you'd have read about it in the tabloids."
"I'm sure we wouldn't," says Papa. "Because I'm sure you wouldn't accept. He must mean to propose."
"Must he?"
"Why else would he go to such lengths and eschew the most basic rules of polite society to spend so much time in your company?"
"You needn't make him sound so mercenary, Papa. It may be that he simply likes me."
He regards her with a faint smile, a patient look which Mary well remembers from her childhood. When he speaks ,however, he says, "You cannot be so naΪve. You are, indeed, beautiful and charming. As well as young, and the next rung up the social ladder for climbers like Sir Richard Carlisle. And Rosamund should have been your first line of defence against a man like that."
"I trusted Mary," her aunt says, "and I trusted Sir Richard. It seems in both instances, my trust was misplaced."
"As was mine."
Mary has been braced for these words, softly spoken, since Aunt Rosamund told her Papa had called to demand she return home, yet they still strike her squarely in the stomach, knocking the breath from her. Oblivious to her pain, Papa clasps his hands together behind his back again and strikes a pose befitting a lieutenant-colonel reprimanding a lower-ranking officer, pacing the length of the carpet before her.
" I suppose it goes without saying that you will have no further contact with this man? Nor will you accept any invitations from anyone without my having expressly reviewed them?"
"I thought you said it went without saying."
Papa halts on the rug, red flooding his face as his chest inflates with anger. Before he can release the hot air, the dinner gong sounds in the hall. Bless Carson and his good timing, Mary thinks, her eyes fluttering closed as if in prayer. When she opens them, her father exhales.
"It's time to dress for dinner."
"I'll just take a tray in my cell," Mary says, striding past him toward the library doors.
"Mary--"
"Let her go, Robert," Mama says.
As she slips out into the hall, Mary hears him say, "I'm afraid that was the problem to begin with."
~*~
The warmth of the fire crackling in the bedroom fireplace--a bit much for this Indian summer, though the Yorkshire nights are cooler than London--has Mary half-dozing on her cream-coloured settee when a soft knock on the door precedes Anna's entrance bearing a tray.
"Evening, Lady Mary. Mr Carson said you weren't feeling up to dressing for dinner after your journey, so I've just brought you a bit of supper."
"I'm not sure I'm up to eating dinner, either," Mary replies, not lifting her head from where it rests in the corner of the settee. "But thank you, Anna."
The maid nods as she sets the tray on the low oval table before the settee, her blue eyes darting briefly to Mary's face, searching it with concern, before she turns away to unpack the trunk brought up earlier by the footmen.
"I'm sorry your visit to London had to be cut short," Anna says after a moment.
"I have only myself to blame," Mary replies, her gaze drifting across the room to her recumbent reflection in the dressing table mirror, "for breaking the rules."
"Did you enjoy yourself, though, m'lady?”
For a moment Mary doesn't answer. She relaxes against the arm of the settee and closes her eyes, listening to the snap of the logs in the fireplace but hearing the rasp of Richard's voice last night--could it only have been less than a day ago?--and again feeling the warmth it had prickled up all over her skin: Tonight, and these past few days, have been the most enjoyable I've had…
"Yes," she murmurs, squeezing her eyes tighter shut against the sting of tears behind her lids. "I enjoyed myself very much."
"Good. I think sometimes when too many rules keep us from enjoying life, it's all right to break a few of the less important ones."
Anna continues unpacking in silence, and then Mary hears the rustle of the maid's taffeta skirt as she stands. She expects the light footsteps to carry Anna across the room to the wardrobe, but instead she approaches the sofa. Mary opens her eyes, her vision slightly obscured by the unshed tears, though not so much that she can't make out Anna's hand reaching into the front pocket of her frilly evening apron.
"Mr Carson says to tell you he probably shouldn't be giving you this, but a telegram was delivered before you arrived."
"A telegram?" Mary repeats, sitting up to take the card Anna presses into her hand.
A smile curls on her lips as she reads the brief message.
MARY STOP I WANT TO BE WITH YOU STOP I ALWAYS GET WHAT I WANT STOP RICHARD
Read Chapter 7