Fic: A Girl in Black (16/?)

[mrstater]

Title: A Girl in Black (16/?)
Author: mrstater
Fandom: Downton Abbey
Characters & Pairings: Mary Crawley/Richard Carlisle, Gwen Dawson, Robert Crawley, Evelyn Napier, Anna Smith
Chapter Word Count: 4206
Chapter Summary: As the household cope with a death at Downton, Mary is reminded that the matters which concern her are of little importance to anyone else--perhaps not even to Richard.
Author's Notes: Thank you all for bearing with me as writing time continues to elude me--though things seem to be slowing down slightly, so fingers crossed for weekly updates resuming. And as always, I cannot thank ju_dou enough for betaing and being as excited about this story as I am.
Previous Chapters


16. The Folly

The rap on the bedroom door sounds a little sharper than Anna's customary knock, startling Mary upright from where she rests her chin on her hands, elbows propped on the polished cherry surface of her dressing table. Abruptness, she supposes, is to be expected from the staff of a household no doubt thrown into chaos by a guest audacious enough to spoil a house party by dying on the grounds--a thought which she instantly recognises with a shudder sounds exactly like one of Granny's caustic remarks; she can just hear the Dowager Countess of Grantham saying, How very like a foreigner.

"Come in," Mary says, as if to silence Granny's voice in her head with her own. She's grateful for a knock at all, however abrupt, after being discovered with Richard by the scullery maid. Though her thankfulness wanes somewhat when the door swings open and Gwen enters.

"Couldn't Daisy find Anna?" Mary asks, an eyebrow lifting on her forehead as she sits up straighter on the dressing table bench. "Or is she as confused about which of you is which as she is about which bedroom is mine or Lady Edith's? It seems Mr Pamuk's demise sent her into a spin."

Or, more likely, Richard's threats did. The girl took mousey to new levels, trembling in the corner, watery eyes darting frantically about for a glimpse of escape. Richard loomed over her, pale blue eyes widened around pupils focused to pinpricks upon his prey, the corners of his mouth curved upward as he hissed that if she breathed a word about finding him in Lady Mary's room, she would discover that he had as much power to see that a girl never worked again as he did to take one into his employ.  And then he took a light step back, his tone almost a purr as he told Daisy to run along and fetch Anna to help her ladyship dress for dinner.

"She found her," Gwen replies as she crosses the room with a porcelain pitcher, her husky tones and stride as confident as Daisy's wispy voice and scurrying steps are timid, "but Lady Grantham asked Anna to see to Lady Edith. She was in rather a state."

As Gwen pours the contents of the pitcher into the basin on the washstand, steam curling upward from the water, Mary thinks longingly of the bath she would have ordered even if her day's activities had only consisted of a walk about the grounds with Richard. However, she doesn't voice the request, reluctant to create more work for the staff, but even more so to draw attention to herself. She gets up from her dressing table bench, conscious not of moving through her room in nothing but chemise and drawers in the middle of the afternoon, but of the unmade bed to which she darts a sideways glance, the sheets dinted with the outlines of two occupants, along with the other traces of the activity that occurred there. Untidy, indeed.

Mary dips her hands into the washbasin, droplets trickling as she draws them up to dab her face and neck with warm water. "Edith saw it happen, then?" she asks. "What did happen?"

"All I know's that the Turkish gentleman fell from his horse and... broke his neck."

"Heavens." Mary lathers a flannel with rose-scented soap and pats delicately under her arms. "Fell? On a jump? Or was he thrown?"

"I'm afraid I don't know, m'lady," Gwen replies. "My head's been rather in the clouds since my interview."

Indeed, Mary glances over her shoulder to see that by all appearance Gwen doesn't give a second thought to the state of the bed as she pulls up the coverlet and plumps the pillows.

"Quite." A wary eye trained on the maid, Mary bends and lifts the legs of her drawers to wash her thighs.  "And what's Mr Pamuk to you, anyway? He was a visitor here for what--all of three hours? Four?"

"Yes, m'lady," is the only reply Gwen makes, though Mary can hear Richard's voice in her mind as clearly as if he were still here in the bedroom: We've all worn black for someone we don't care two pence about…I can't think of any reason why you ought to care more about a cousin because of the tragic manner of his death. And then there is sweet, sympathetic Sybil, who would no doubt stubbornly insist that beneath the stony veneer beat hearts of flesh. Could any friend of Sybil's really be as unmoved by even a stranger's death as Gwen's m'ladying implies? Is she merely being polite? Or too preoccupied to really consider Mary's words?

She wonders if the young woman realises just how tough her future employer truly is. Only during Richard's visit here has Mary seen that side of her future husband. Before she can ask Gwen about her impression of him, however, the maid inquires about Mary's choice of eveningwear.

Upon turning, she sees Gwen drape the discarded walking clothes over the bench at the foot of the bed to be sent for laundering. Including the rent corset. Good. Maybe Anna won't see it, and Mary can blame the missing hook on the overzealous laundry maid.

"Well," she says as Gwen opens the wardrobe doors, "I had thought about the ivory..." Her cheeks  grow warm, and she purses her lips together against a smile at how insistent Richard was about her wearing it. "But that will hardly do now, will it?"

Will he be satisfied, she wonders, if she defers to etiquette in the case of showing respect for a stranger who died at her home? Or will he expect her to rebel against convention in this matter, too? Her pulse beats against the delicate skin of her wrists like a moth against a lighted window as her imagination takes another turn Richard no doubt would deride as gothic. She can almost feel the press of the carved edge of the boiserie at her back and the warmth of his breath on her forehead as he corners her in the drawing room after dinner and demands to know why she didn't comply with his request; she imagines how her heart would race with the exhilaration of tilting her chin to make a defiant--and flirtatious--answer: I didn't think it would matter so much to you as you'd only be taking it off me later.

"Oh, Lady Grantham said no one will dress for dinner," Gwen says, the hangers of the evening gowns scraping against the road as she pushes them aside to better view Mary's day clothing. "She asked Mrs Patmore to put out a light supper instead so everyone can eat when they feel hungry. If they feel hungry."

Practicality winning out over her initial vexation that her fantasy will not come to fruition--it will be easier to keep their tryst, if the party is limited to members of her family keen to turn in early, or too distracted to notice whether the guests keep to the guest rooms--Mary replies, "In that case, my black skirt and striped blouse, then. Keep it simple."

"I'm afraid your coif will have to be," Gwen picks up the conversation a few minutes later as Mary, dressed, resumes her seat at her dressing table and the maid takes her place behind her. "I haven't Anna's knack for dressing hair."

"It's hardly a skill necessary to secretarial work, is it?" Mary smiles as the younger girl glances up from twisting back a section of hair, furrowed brow relaxing slightly the offered congratulations. "Tell me, Gwen--I know your new situation will be less drudgery than service, but do you think you'll enjoy working for Sir Richard?"

"Well, I think mostly I'll working for his secretary."

"Miss Fields."

"Did you meet her?" Gwen's eyes gleam, seeking Mary's almost hungrily. It would be obvious how wrong she is for domestic labour even if she were not making a hash of Mary's hair.

At the moment, however, it is still her occupation, and Mary chides her gently, keeping a watchful eye on the pale fingers that twist and pin her hair for a moment before answering.

"I spoke with Miss Fields on the phone. It seems she handles a deal of Sir Richard's personal matters as well as his business."

"But..." Her gaze having drifted up to the mirror again, Gwen quickly averts it; after a moment's hesitation, she goes on with her question. "Didn't you visit the newspaper office? Lady Sybil said--"

"I did. And I did make Miss Fields' acquaintance. We didn't sit down to tea, of course, and I'm hardly in a position to judge a good secretary."

In fact the only real thought Mary gave Richard's secretary was superficial: she recalled Miss Fields as being of about her own height, nondescript--this she noted with a slight amount of relief--though not unstylish, for a working woman.

"Sir Richard seems to find her work more than satisfactory," Mary goes on. "I believe his standards of professionalism and competency to be exacting." Quirking an eyebrow, she draws Gwen's gaze and asks, "How did you find him?"

If she is honest, she was not entirely comfortable with how aggressively Richard dealt with Daisy--though she herself had found it rather exhilarating--even arousing--to watch. But if he really means to be a gentleman, he can't bully his employees--especially not their household staff--as he may be accustomed to doing.

"What I mean, Gwen, is did you find him intimidating?"

"I wouldn't put it like that."

"You don't have to mince words because he's my..." Lover, she mentally completes the sentence, though of course she cannot say that. Suitor sounds so antiquated, and worst of all, so chaste. Frida Uhl, the proprietress of The Cave, would probably say boyfriend in her guttural Viennese accent which, ridiculously, makes Mary blush. At length, she settles for, "My beau."

"I'm not. Sir Richard was very...forthright..about my lack of experience about my shortcomings. He says I'll have to moderate my accent..."

Gwen's cheeks redden slightly at that, but Mary smirks. "Is he going to take a walk-on role as Professor Higgins?"

"I beg your pardon, m'lady?"

"Nothing. A reference to a play we saw. Pygmalion. Go on."

Gwen's brow wrinkles again as she places a pin in Mary's hair, then, apparently satisfied with the result, answers, "Sir Richard was very patient, too. I think he does have high expectations, as you say, but he's fair. That's not so different from what I'm used to under Mrs Hughes and Mr Carson."

"I wouldn't let Carson hear you compare him to the nouveau riche newspaper publisher."

Gwen smiles, though not, Mary thinks, at her quip. "Sir Richard said someone took a chance on him once, too."

"And he rose to the top of the newspaper business. He'd better watch out for you." Mary turns her head to check the different angles of her hair in the mirror. She pats the side, then swivels on her bench to look Gwen in the eye. "Good luck, Gwen."

"Thank you, Lady Mary," she replies, beaming. "I feel like the luckiest girl in England. It's all I've ever wanted." Her grin falters as she colours again, hastily adding, "Not that I'm not grateful for my time here. Especially as I'd never have had this opportunity with Sir Richard if I were anywhere else."

"We'll be sorry for you to go. Sybil, especially."

"Perhaps I'll see her when she visits you in London." Gwen's flush deepens as Mary raises her eyebrows. "I mean...forgive me, m'lady, I didn't mean to overstep...It's just downstairs there's been talk that you..."

"Of course there has," Mary says, getting up and sweeping to the door. "I invited one of England's most eligible bachelors to Downton for the weekend."

~*~

Mary's stride slows, but her heart beats quicker in her chest as she steps out of the family corridor at almost the same moment as Papa rounds the corner from the guest wing. She stops at the top of the staircase and waits for him, because she cannot very well turn and go back in the direction from which she came without him finding her behaviour strange, and perhaps from there wondering how she occupied herself while everyone--except Richard--was on the ill-fated hunt. Reason takes over, too, calming her, at the observation that Papa, still wearing his hunting jacket and mud-spattered breeches and caked riding boots and a stunned expression, would hardly be of a mind to notice if she did have a scarlet letter pinned to her breast, which she doesn't. Indeed, he scarcely looks at her as he gives a perfunctory weary smile and they ascend together.

"Is Mr Pamuk in one of the guest rooms?" she asks, her voice smooth as the oiled wooden banister over which her fingertips glide, and revealing nothing of her moment's panic.

Papa nods. "I just saw Dr Clarkson up to determine the cause of death."

"The broken neck, I should think."

"Edith says he clutched his chest before the fall. Simply ghastly business." He blanches and glances back over his shoulder in the direction of the girls' rooms above. "Is she resting?"

"Bathing. Anna's with her."

"And your mama."

"Is Sybil still at Granny's?"

Papa stops on the staircase and inclines his head toward the ceiling as if in supplication before pinching the bridge of his nose. "I'd forgotten about them. I'm sure your mother has, too."

"Someone will have to go over and tell them the dinner party's off," Mary says.

Papa shakes his head. "It will only hasten the inevitable. As soon as she hears what's happened your grandmother will want to come over and offer her assessment of the situation, in perhaps not the most sensitive of ways." Mary snorts, and Papa glances down at her as he pushes off the balustrade to continue their descent. "Better for her to come later. When the dust has had a chance to settle."

Mary is guilty herself of thoughts which are perhaps not the most sensitive, chiefly that a man's death restored the rapport she and her father haven't shared since Patrick's name appeared on the Titanic casualty list--or certainly not since her picture appeared in The Sketch with Richard. The red-carpeted staircase spiralling down into the saloon below blurs with sudden tears at the thought of how quickly they would revert if he knew that it was not the Cave of the Golden Calf that was the den of iniquity, but his own house.

She blinks them back, so that the image of Richard rising from the deacon's bench tucked into the corner of the staircase is unobscured as she alights. But the sight of the man with whom she rebelled against her father does not bring the expected smile or racing of her heart; instead, the organ plunges into the pit of her stomach as her eyes take in every detail of his dark pinstriped suit.

"I know there was some confusion as to country leisure attire," Mary says, "but even you must be aware that a scarf and briefcase are unusual accessories for an informal dinner."

"I'm leaving, Lady Mary," he replies; his gaze flickers briefly to Papa behind her.

"Leaving?" she repeats, the heaviness in her stomach tightening. Her lungs won't quite fill with air, and she wants to grasp for the carved finial at the end of the banister as the saloon seems to spin around her, but she doesn't. Is this what a punch feels like? "Now?"

"As soon as Dr Clarkson has examined Mr Pamuk and I have interviewed him about his findings. If I can make the five o'clock train and write my article during the journey, I should just have time to get the story to print and break it in the morning edition."

"Really, Sir Richard," says Papa, barely moving his lips, "is this really the time or the place? Mr Napier is sitting just over there." He nods through the archways into the saloon proper, where Evelyn hunches in his shirtsleeves with his head in his hands in a wing-backed chair before the fire. "Mr Pamuk may have been a stranger to you, and to my family, but he was a friend of our friend, and you're speaking of him in this crass manner--not as a person but as a...a scoop--within his hearing."

"You might as well have sent for Granny," Mary adds, not bothering to keep the resentful edge from her voice. "It seems we've finally met her match for insensitivity."

Richard's forehead twitches as his pale eyebrows raise. "It wasn't me who introduced the gentleman's name into the conversation, Lord Grantham."

"Excuse me," Mary says, and pushes past Richard to go to Evelyn, who is oblivious to Thomas’ attempt to ply him with brandy.

Before she is out of earshot, she overhears Papa address Richard: "And it would seem Mr Napier is not the only one wounded by your business tactics."

Mary would be pleased that Papa has--inadvertently--fought for her; but when she darts a glance back at him and sees him moving away from Richard with a twist of his mouth almost like a smirk of victory, she feels instead that he has kicked her while she is already down. Lady Mary has more suitors than the Princess Aurora, she hears his smug voice in her head, taunting Richard earlier. This is not about her, but about his own need to put a social climber in his place.

Well. She twitches her thumbs against the forefingers and draws in a long breath through her nostrils, and straightens up. She doesn't need anyone to fight for her. Richard is wrong.

"Evelyn," she says in a low voice, touching his shoulder. "Thomas brought you a drink." She takes it from the footman's tray and he pivots away as she raises it to Richard, whose eyes narrow as he tries to work out her game. "It won't help, not really, but you'll believe it will, for a while."

He lifts his head, normally tidy hair disheveled from his hat and his fingers clutching at it; his grimace seems like an attempt at a smile as he lifts the glass to his lips.

"I must say, Lady Mary, I was initially disappointed you opted not to ride, but I'm jolly glad you weren't with us now. You'll be able to sleep tonight."

"I hadn't planned on it," Mary replies; Evelyn and Papa regard her a little askance, though Richard snorts. She goes on a little more pointedly, "But we seem all to be victims of a certain adage about the best laid plans."

“Perhaps you should ask Clarkson to give you something, old chap," says Papa. "I asked him to see to Edith after..."

Evelyn drains his glass. "No, I must be alert. I'll have to contact the Turkish embassy to speak with Kemal's father. So he'll know before he reads about it in the papers."

This comment, delivered in Evelyn's bland tones, does not seem to be particularly aimed at Richard, though Papa shoots him a glare. Richard, however, remains impassive, as if his business suit is armour to deflect any stray bullets--though a glance at his hand reveals his knuckles tensed to whiteness around the handle of his briefcase.

"Lord Grantham hasn't a phone," he says. "But if you drive with me to the station, you'll be able to use one there. Or send a telegram."

"I'll call. I can think of no more horrible way to have news delivered of a loved one's death than between stops."

"I'll go with you," Mary offers, and that seems to find the chink in Richard's armour. "No one should have to break that sort of news alone."

"You ought to change first," says Papa, patting Evelyn's shoulder and turning him to the stairs. "Carson ordered you a bath."

They start up the stairs and Mary starts to follow, only to be restrained by Richard's iron grip on her elbow. She submits to his indication that she should turn to him, but her raised eyebrow and chin are defiant as he hisses at her..

"If this is some childish attempt to punish me for not indulging you--"

"Why should I punish you for rushing off to break a story that will, presumably, sell a lot of papers and make a lot of money to indulge me with? Or don't you still intend to marry me?"

Richard's fingers clamp harder on her arm and he pulls her against him, but as his lips part in hot retort his gaze drifts over her head and he releases her abruptly to meet Dr Clarkson on the stairs.

Of more interest to Mary is Edith at the physician's side, looking tired but otherwise distracted from the trauma of witnessing a fatal accident by the delight of watching her sister's hopes snap as surely as Mr Pamuk's neck.

~*~

"It's such a sad thing, isn't it?" Anna says when Mary makes the mistake of giving an audible sigh as the maid runs the brush through her hair and she cannot stop her thoughts turning to how she thought it would be Richard's fingers through it, not Anna plaiting it for her climb into bed, alone, and go chastely to sleep. "The Turkish gentleman, dying so suddenly as he did."

Mary lifts the lid from a small pot of cold cream and leans in toward the mirror as she applies a bit beneath her eyes  and over the line of her jaw. "I'm afraid I have very little feeling about the matter. The timing of it made rather a tragic end for our house party. Call me heartless, but it's the truth."

"It's not my place to call you anything but m'lady," replies Anna. "But that's just what I mean--we may not feel sad, exactly, about a stranger's death, but it does affect us all."

"How is it affecting everybody downstairs?" Mary asks as Anna moves to lay the brush on the dressing table, then returns to stand behind the bench and gather the brushed hair at the nape of her neck. "Mr Pamuk's accident was gruesome, but it can't have cast quite the pall as, say, the news of the Titanic, surely? The little scullery maid..."

"Daisy."

"She was rather morbid about that, wasn't she? I hope Mr Pamuk's misfortune hasn't  set her off again."

She watches Anna in the mirror as she deftly divides Mary's hair into three thick strands for the plait.

"Now that you mention it, Daisy did seem a bit jumpier than normal. Only a very little bit, mind," Anna  adds, grinning. "Should I tell her your ladyship is concerned? It may make her feel better, poor dear. I don't think she's used to anyone being very concerned about her feelings."

"I'm not," Mary says. "More curious than anything. No, I think mentioning me would only make her even more nervous."

Or rather, mentioning her would lead Daisy to think of Richard threatening to have her fired. Which, Mary is convinced was not the right tactic to ensure the girl's silence.

"What about you?" she asks, looking up at Anna as the maid ties off the tail of the plait with a ribbon. "How does the death of a Turkish diplomat's son who never even noticed the house maid's presence affect her?"

Anna gives a little shrug as she goes to turn down the coverlet; Mary holds her breath lest she too closely inspect the sheets, though thankfully the light is poor and Anna scarcely glances down at the bed.

"I suppose it just reminds me how short life is, and how suddenly it can come to an end. I've been thinking of what's most important to me."

Mary climbs into bed, lying on her side so that her back is turned against the side Richard occupied mere hours ago, though she can feel the indentation of his body in the feather mattress pulling her toward it, almost as surely as his grasp. "I know a person who would stand to think about what's most important to him."

Sitting up all night alone in an office instead of with her this room? Hunched over a desk when he could be stretched over her in bed? Coaxing stories out of the cold keys of a typewriter instead of caressing her warm skin to evoke lovers' sighs?

"Lady Mary, did something happen with--?" Anna stops, abruptly.

"What?"

"Nothing. I was sticking my nose where it's got no business being. Good night, then, m'lady."

Mary makes no response as Anna puts out the lamps, but when she hears the creak of the doorknob turning, she rolls onto her back and confesses the words to the dark.

"We made love. And then he left."



Read Chapter 17