[fic] you & me of the 10,000 wars, downton abbey modern au, 10k words, 1/4
Title: You & Me of the 10,000 Wars (A Downton Industries Fic)
Author: allthingsholy
Fandom: Downton Abbey
Words: ~10,000
Rating: PG-13 (R in later chapters)
Notes: A few months ago I posted this graphic on tumblr and, well. The damn idea wouldn’t let go. This is equal parts modern adaptation and modern au. Thanks to juniperlane & lulabo for the betas; thanks to Mary for the britpicking. Any errors or Americanisms that remain are entirely down to me. Thanks to everyone on tumblr who’s been so enthusiastic and interested, particularly Sam & Olivia. Cheers. [Also at AO3.]
Summary: Robert Crawley, president and CEO of Downton Industries, wants to make sure his family’s company lives on after he’s gone. Heir-apparent to the company is Matthew Crawley, industrial lawyer and Robert’s new-found right hand man. Less than thrilled with Robert’s decision? His eldest daughter, Mary. Expelled from Oxford and a constant tabloid presence, Mary’s rebellious streak constantly puts her at odds with her father. She very publicly butts heads with Matthew, much to the displeasure of her family. But Matthew quickly learns that there’s more to Mary than meets the eye, and Mary might’ve made a few misjudgments of her own.
Chapter One: Make Us Take Our Different Sides
By the time she wakes up, late afternoon light is filtering in through the curtains and there’s a steady drumming behind her eyes. When she slides a hand across the bed, she finds herself alone. There’s an indentation on the pillow next to hers and a familiar soreness in her back and legs, but the sheets are cold beside her and she counts it as a blessing. She wipes the sleep from her eyes and takes a few deep breaths before throwing the covers off and dragging herself from bed.
She pulls on a robe and nearly trips over one of Evelyn’s jackets on the way to the kitchen. There’s a half-empty bottle of champagne on the counter; last night it made her giddy, made her laughter climb two octaves, but it’s lukewarm now and bitter and it drips down between her fingers when she drinks. She stands in the middle of her silent flat and slowly stretches out the tightness in her neck and shoulders. The walls around her are a dusky pink that catches on the photos there, the light brushing over all the faces staring blankly from their frames. Mama and Edith at a birthday party, her sister’s gap-toothed grin wide and beaming; Granny and Sybil at a piano recital, flowers clasped excitedly in her sister’s small hands. The photos are all older than they should be and her father is absent from all but the smallest, which sits at the end of a shelf, half-tucked behind a stack of books. If any of her family notices on their infrequent visits, they’re not so foolish as to mention it.
Mary sweeps her eyes across the photos on her way toward the windows and squints into the glaring sunlight as it slips down toward the horizon. She reaches out to touch the glass, splays her hand out wide enough to cover a dozen city blocks. It’s there, between her first and second fingers, across the skyline and a taxi ride away. The ledges are crumbling and the windows full of sunset, but she still imagines she can see straight into her father’s office. When the estate agent first brought her in she went straight for the windows, found Downton Tower by force of habit and nodded, just once. She paid for it with her father’s money and signed the lease with a cold smile.
The fading light turns the tower’s windows orange. Mary’s fingers are sticky with champagne and they catch as she slides her hand along enough to press her palm over Downton, covering the whole building street to sky. She stands there until the glass warms beneath her skin and by the time she turns away, the sun’s slipped down beneath the skyline.
She drains the last of the champagne on her way to the shower, fills the bathroom with music and steam and doesn’t come out until her skin’s a fierce pink. She styles her hair, does her make-up, lines her lips and eyelids with colors so bold Granny’s eyes would roll back in her head. She’s methodical in her actions. She sways her hips as the speakers pulse and she runs her fingers along this blouse and that dress and a jacket Kemal gave her for her birthday. Buttons are done up and zips are zipped and when she walks across the foyer, she pauses long enough to check herself in the mirror. Her dress is tight, her jacket fitted, her hair curled just so against her shoulders. Chin up, shoulders back. There’s no give in the click of her heels across the tile, and when she steps out into the night she hardly feels the cold.
--
March, 2004
Mary wears the black chiffon for her mother, the hem grazing her knees and the fabric hugging her curves only loosely. When she was dismissed from Said (“dismissed,” her mother tells people when they ask, because it’s more forgiving than “kicked out” or “dropped out” or anything a bit nearer the truth) Mama had done her few favours, reigned her father’s temper in only slightly. What she feels she owes her mother is most often quite little, and yet. The black chiffon suits her, Mama says, when they’re finally sat for tea. Mary smiles demurely and pours milk into her cup, and doesn’t comment on the fact that Sybil’s sense of fashion wanders haphazardly toward the bohemian and no one seems to mind. Sybil just smiles and fiddles with one of her dozen bracelets.
Granny fills them all in on the latest gossip from around town: the Schaffer’s daughter is in rehab again, the Lennox boy ushered out of yet another school. Frederick Barton’s business is floundering and Jean Simpson’s been under the knife again. Mary sips her tea and wonders what the gossip about the Crawleys is these days. She hopes Jean Simpson looks as delighted to tell it as Granny does right now.
Sybil tells them about school, about the philosophers she’s studying and the books she’s read. Mama nearly beams and Granny says, with her usual air of satisfaction, “Of course you’re doing well. Crawley women are known for more than their looks, dear.” Maybe it’s Mary’s imagination but the silence that follows is unusually long and the look her mother and grandmother exchange seems more than a little pointed. Mary has the wisdom to keep her opinions to herself and ask after Sybil’s study groups instead.
Granny and Mama set off together after tea, kisses pressed lightly to Mary’s cheeks and her mother’s voice soft in her ear. “You should come to the charity ball,” she says. “Your father would love to see you.” Mary keeps herself from rolling her eyes, but only just.
She and Sybil decide to do a bit of shopping, though that gives way to walking up and down Knightsbridge just peering in the windows. Sybil keeps pointing out scarves in colors Mary wouldn’t be caught dead in, but Sybil’s always pulled them off well enough. There’s a bright blue spot of silk beneath her chin now, tucked into the collar of a leather jacket. Mary reaches out and teasingly tugs at the zip. As much as her family situation can be tense on its best days, things with Sybil have always run a smoother course. Sybil smiles and pulls away and asks, “How are things with Kemal?”
This time Mary doesn’t keep herself from rolling her eyes. She digs in her bag for a cigarette and lights it while they look through the window at a shoe display. “How should I know?” she says. She watches herself in the glass, smoke billowing away over her shoulder. “He’s abroad somewhere, I think.”
“You think?” Sybil’s eyes catch hers in the reflection; Mary tries not to notice just how grown up her baby sister has become. “You don’t know?”
Mary flicks ash onto the pavement and wipes at an imagined smudge of make-up in the corner of her eye. When he’d left two weeks ago--for a “sojourn in Italy,” as he’d called it--he’d swiped his thumb along her jaw and kissed her hairline. She hasn’t heard from him since and if she had to name the silence, she’d call it restful. “I’m not his keeper.”
Sybil’s laughter is just shy of mocking, but it’s still the kindest thing anyone in her family has had to say about her and Kemal in months so Mary doesn’t mind. They keep walking, tucked close together against the wind, while Sybil rambles on about her classes and her clubs and her committees, the thousand and one ways she’s intent on changing the world. “And I’ve been helping out at the office,” she says, very nearly under her breath.
Mary slows to a halt outside a display of evening dresses, fuchsia and violet and cobalt blue all flashing through the window. With all this talk of school and now the business, Mary’s fingers twitch and she lights another cigarette just to occupy her hands. She only takes one drag before Sybil’s fingers close over her own, pulling the cigarette away.
Sybil tugs at her jacket and pulls at her scarf, half turned away as she brings the cigarette to her lips and takes a drag. Mary waits a long moment for the cough and sputter that will surely follow, but they never come. “Don’t look at me like that,” Sybil says, exhaling. The smoke curls in ribbons above their heads.
“Give me that,” Mary says and Sybil doesn’t fight her. “That Branson’s a bad influence on you.”
“Don’t blame Branson.” Sybil comes to his defense as if by rote. Robert Crawley would be less than thrilled to find out his youngest daughter keeps company with a budding socialist, and if Mary loved Sybil less she’d have told their father long ago just to see the look on his face. “Gwen already harps on me enough.”
Mary breathes out a laugh. “As she should.”
Sybil smirks. “Hypocrite.”
“Bloody right.” They’re silent a long moment. Mary turns away from the window and watches the buses and taxis pass by. When the cigarette’s burned down to the filter, she finally says, “You’re helping out at the office?”
Sybil keeps her eyes on the gowns behind the glass. “Papa wants to get more involved with the charities the company gives money to. He said I could help.”
Mary crushes the stub beneath her heel and lets a wave of resentment creep into her voice. “Papa wants a tax advantage and to keep you under his thumb.”
Ever since they were little girls, Papa’s treated Sybil differently. A bit gentler, less roughness in his speech and mannerisms, more generous with his affection. Perhaps it was because she was the baby and always sure to be; complications during the delivery meant her parents knew there’d be no more. Maybe that’s what made Sybil precious to their father; what makes her precious to everyone else is a tougher question to answer, but Mary supposes it has something to do with the kindness that creeps into Sybil’s eyes when she leans over and nudges Mary’s shoulder with her own. “I like doing it,” she says. “I have real meetings and everything. Well, lunch meetings. Matthew and I--”
And whatever spell Mary might’ve been under is snapped in two. “Ugh, Matthew again. If I hear his name one more time, I’ll spit.”
Sybil narrows her eyes. “He’s not so bad, you know.”
“He’s a twat,” Mary answers.
Sybil stifles a laugh. “You’ve never even met him.”
“And I still know he’s a twat.” Six months of hearing his name, of hearing everyone refer to him so reverently, have given Mary enough spite to last a lifetime. She only keeps herself from pouting through sheer force of will.
Sybil turns back toward the shop window and peers through the glass. “He’s cute you know,” she says.
A bus clatters by behind them, sending Mary’s hair whipping around her face. “Of course, he is.”
“And single.”
“How do you know?”
Sybil keeps her eyes trained on the window. “Never mind that. He’ll be at the charity dinner,” she says, “and I think you should come meet him.”
Mary laughs and the traffic carries the sound off down the street. “And why is that?”
When Sybil turns to her, the grin on her face is very nearly wicked. No wonder Gwen can’t get her to stop smoking; she can’t be denied anything with a face like that. “Because if you wear that blue number in the back there, you’ll absolutely flatten him.”
They’re still laughing when they step into the store.
--
“Do we have the proposals from Crowborough?” Matthew shuffles papers around his desk, flipping over files and checking underneath his blotter. “I can’t find them.” Molesley shouts something from the outer office but Matthew can’t hear it. He pauses, hands pressed down onto his desktop, and sighs. It’s especially long-suffering and makes him feel perhaps a little bit better, but does nothing to locate the papers he needs.
Molesley comes striding into the room with a file folder tucked under his arm. “Here are the proposals for the Crowborough deal. Mr. Crawley needs them by four.”
Matthew takes the folder from Molesley’s outstretched hand and flicks through them hurriedly. They’re in the final stages of a deal that’s taken six weeks and a thousand man-hours, and Matthew’s felt the pressure every day since the deadline started to close in. Six months on the job and he feels sure-footed enough until someone who thinks he could do better walks in. Which is to say, anyone whose place he took when he got promoted apparently out of the blue. Which is to say, everyone. Matthew sighs again and runs a hand through his hair. “Did Bates--”
“He filed the papers this morning. Nothing but a few signatures left.”
Matthew snorts out a disbelieving laugh. “Touch wood it goes off that smoothly.”
Whatever Molesley was going to say is cut off by a knock on Matthew’s office door. When he looks up, Sybil’s in the doorway with a paper bag in her hand. “Am I early?”
Matthew waves her in and points her toward the sofa. “No, I just need a minute. Getting Crowborough sorted today.”
Sybil nods her head understandingly, even though she probably has little idea what he’s on about. She sits down and starts setting out lunch while he and Molesley finish marking the pages for signatures, checking that every last thing is in place. Sybil waits.
It’s been nearly two months since they started working together on Downton’s charitable contributions. It was Robert’s idea. He went on for awhile about social responsibility and the necessity of giving back; he stopped short of saying “noblesse oblige,” but only just. What Robert didn’t explain quite as well was why his youngest daughter would be helping with the allotments and approvals, and at first Matthew hadn’t understood it either. She didn’t have anything to do with the company and didn’t seem especially interested in the way it ran or what he did, but by the end of the meeting he knew why she was there. Her eyes were bright and she talked with her hands, floating them in front of her face as she told him about articles she’d read and research she’d done: living conditions in eastern Europe and southeast Asia, hungry children and felled forests and species on the brink of extinction. Her enthusiasm was catching. She talked like she’d give away the whole company out from under them, from the money right down to the office supplies. Matthew liked her immediately.
It takes a few minutes to get everything settled and by the time Molesley leaves and Matthew takes a seat on the sofa, Sybil’s halfway through a salad. She pushes his sandwich toward him and tilts her head.
“Africa, Asia, or England today?” It’s very like Sybil, he’s learned, to rush forward and wait for everyone else to catch up. His sandwich isn’t even out of the wrapper yet. “Well,” he says, pretending to give it extra thought. “England, I suppose.”
And with that Sybil’s off, pulling out folders and brochures and proposals. A women’s refuge in Cheapside, a children’s hospital in Surrey. There are ten different institutions laid out on the coffee table by the time she’s done. It makes for an intimidating spread. It’s amazing how enthusiastic she is; maybe even moreso than during their first meeting. Matthew listens and nods along, genuinely interested in the things she has to say, in her unflagging belief that they can change people’s lives. He’s more than a little bit envious at her tireless enthusiasm.
“And there’s a youth group in Chiswick that needs new classroom supplies,” she finishes. “Don’t worry, I made sure some of them have plaques we can put the company name on.”
Matthew laughs. “Yes, that’s very important too.”
Sybil pokes at the last bits of her salad. “I just want to be able to help,” she says. “We have so much, we should give back.” It’s basically the same speech he got from Robert ages ago and it’s the same speech Sybil gives him twice a month, but it sounds different when she says it.
Matthew picks up a folder for the classroom in Chiswick. “Tell me again how your father took it when you changed your major?” There’s a hint of teasing in his voice, but Sybil just smiles.
“Very well,” she says. “Social policies are important.”
Matthew looks over lists of crayons and markers, rulers and sheet paper. “They are,” he says, “but I’m sure when you got accepted to the London School of Economics he might’ve had something else in mind. Something, I don’t know, a bit more to do with the building we’re sitting in?”
Sybil laughs good-naturedly. Sybil does everything good-naturedly. “It’s the school of Ecomonics and Political Science. And I was rubbish at the economics bits anyway.”
“I doubt that’s true.” It seems impossible that there’s anything she’d be bad at. Two months and maybe a dozen lunches in and she’s already the closest thing to a friend he’s made since he came to Downton.
Matthew polishes off the last of his sandwich and stands. “Put your three favorites at the top of the pile and I’ll look them over tonight.”
“You promise?”
“I do. Now you should stop by your father’s office before you head back to school.”
Matthew looks at the folder. The hospital, the shelter, and a food bank in Clapham. Those will do. He puts the folder for the classroom in Chiswick in his desk drawer. He’ll take care of that one himself.
--
“You know, you don’t have to do that anymore.” Anna ignores her. “You didn’t have to do that at all, actually, not even back in our flat.”
Anna doesn’t look up from the sink, hands full of suds and dirty dishes. “If I don’t do it, you’ll let it sit forever. Black mold will take over this flat and you’ll die.”
“Mm,” Mary says, flipping the page of her magazine. “Pity.”
“It would be a pity.” Anna turns off the water and wipes her hands on a towel. Mary tried to explain about her cleaning lady being sick a day, that someone would get to them eventually, but Anna’s never been one to let messes lie. She flops down on the sofa with a sigh. “If you died, who would I borrow clothes from?”
Mary laughs and dog-ears the page, marks a shoulder bag that Anna would love. Her birthday’s in a few weeks. “If I died,” Mary says, pulling her feet up onto the sofa and wrapping her hands around her knees, “you could have all my designer things.”
Anna smiles and kicks her feet up on the coffee table. She’s possibly the only person besides Sybil who feels at home here, Mary thinks, and she pokes at Anna’s thigh with her foot. “You want to borrow something for the charity ball?”
The grin on Anna’s face could light the room. “Of course, I do,” she says, pushing herself off the sofa. She’s practically sprinting to the closet, and Mary hears her call from the hallway, “Even the Chanel?”
Mary laughs. “Especially the Chanel.”
Anna tries on what seems like a hundred dresses. There are piles of clothes spread across the bed and Mary sits in the middle of them, scoring each outfit. Mary tells her she looks beautiful in every one, but Anna disagrees, finds some reason or another each one doesn’t work; an unflattering seam, an awkward silhouette. It’s the same scene they’ve played out a million times, ever since University and all the days since.
Finally Anna comes out with the blue dress Mary and Sybil bought, dangling from its hanger with the tags still on. “What about this one?”
Mary plays with the hem of one of Evelyn’s dresses. “Actually, I thought I might wear that one.” She very studiously does not meet Anna’s eyes.
“Wear it to what?” Anna’s turned away, studying herself in the mirror.
Mary barely keeps her voice steady. “To the charity ball.”
Anna spins around so fast, the pattern on her dress blurs together. “You’re going?”
“I’m thinking about it.”
Anna hesitates and Mary rolls her eyes. As long as they’ve known each other, as many things as they’ve been through together, there’s still a part of Anna that shies away from pushing too hard or saying too much. It’d make Mary laugh if it didn’t make her so sad. And Mary always thought aristocrats were the repressed ones.
She watches Anna pick her words carefully and only because it’s Anna, only because there are a hundred debts unpaid for a thousand different favours, does Mary keep herself from telling her to just spit it out. Mary’s not known for her graciousness, but she does have her moments every now and again. Anna finally settles on an acceptable phrasing. “Why the change of heart?”
Leave it to Anna to mull over her words and come up with the most inoffensive statement possible. Mary shrugs her shoulder. “No change of heart. Sybil asked me to come.”
“Sybil always asks you to come.”
It’s easy enough to lie to everyone else, but Anna sees right through her every time. Mary sets her jaw and her voice goes cold. She counts it as a small victory. “I want to meet Matthew.”
Anna’s always been a bad liar and Mary can read the surprise that crosses her face plain as day. There’s not nearly as much of it as she thought there would be; her features slide toward sympathetic almost instantly and it’s all Mary can do not to hit her with a handbag. Anna hangs the blue dress over the closet door and picks her way through Dolce wrap dresses and Gucci skirts. She clears herself a small spot on the bed and tucks herself next to Mary. Not too close, but close enough. “You want to meet him?”
Mary can’t keep the bitterness from her voice; even if she could, she wouldn’t bother. “Papa picked him out of the mail room and made him his pet, and all because we happen to have the same last name.”
“First of all, he didn’t work in the mail room, and second of all, you know that’s not why your father keeps him around.” Anna traces the pattern of a dress with her finger; Mary wore it to dinner with Kemal last month and she saw it later splashed on the inside fold of the society page. Anna's voice is quiet when she says, “He’s nice.”
Her father would call the groan that escapes Mary’s lips petulant. “Bollocks to nice and bollocks to Matthew Crawley.” She pushes herself off the bed and stalks over to the closet, pulling the blue dress off its hanger as she passes. Sybil had made her try on a few more just for fun, but in the end she’d bought this one. It dips low in the back and gathers at her hip and Sybil had been right--she looks amazing in it. She holds it close over her curves and feels Anna watching her, knows the exact look on her friend’s face without even having to check. Anyone else would accuse her of vanity as Mary studies herself in the mirror; Anna knows she’s just buying time.
Mary forgets sometimes that even though there are whole chunks of her life that her family and the company don’t touch, Anna isn’t one of them. Anna is still deep in the heart of Downton and as much as Mary will never admit it, as much as she denies it every time Anna asks, it bothers her, that the lines she tries to draw between Downton and everything else still blur and smudge together. She forgets sometimes that Anna knows more about the people Mary spends her time resenting than Mary does.
The sudden rush of anger feels good as it settles into Mary’s hands and chest. She sees herself in the mirror the way Matthew and her father will see her: steely and proud, unyielding. Chin up, shoulders back, just like Granny taught her. It’s a buoy she’s all too familiar with. When there’s a place inside her full to burst, these are the things she covers it with: next-season jackets and costume jewellery, and a disdainful expression like a knife. It’s harder with Anna on her best day and this is certainly not her best day.
Whatever changes Anna sees in her face, she doesn’t say anything as she walks up behind Mary and gently tugs on the ends of her hair. “You wear that. I’ll wear the silver Chanel.”
Mary doesn’t answer. Chin up. Shoulders back.
--
The Crowborough deal goes off without a hitch. The papers are signed and the deal is done and Matthew’s made them all a great deal of money. Robert sweeps him into his office after everything’s finalized and pours him a glass of scotch.
“To Downton,” he says, holding out his glass in salute.
Matthew clinks his drink against Robert’s. “This was a good day for you.”
Robert gives him a benevolent smile. “It’s a good day for us all.”
Matthew never feels quite so middle class as when Robert talks about Downton as a great moral and social responsibility. It had taken awhile for Matthew to realize: this company is Robert’s life as well as his livelihood, and he looks on it as a parent and a spouse and a child, all three together. Matthew still doesn’t entirely understand; his thoughts must be easily read on his face because Robert props himself on his desk and shakes his head.
“You don’t love it yet,” he says, swirling the liquor in his glass.
Matthew takes a seat in one of the chairs facing the desk. “What do you mean?”
There’s a strange look in Robert’s eye when he says, “This place. Downton. It’s still just a company to you. You don’t love it yet.”
Matthew doesn’t actually have anything to say to that. Truth be told, Downton Industries is really the last place he thought he’d be working, and he never possibly imagined he’d be heir apparent to Robert Crawley. But Robert, for reasons Matthew still hasn’t worked out, had pulled him aside in a meeting six months ago, picked his brain over a long lunch meeting, and nothing has been the same since. He’s never asked for Robert’s reasoning lest the man suddenly come to his senses and send Matthew back downstairs to stale deposition summaries and boilerplate contracts.
Just as the silence is about to get uncomfortable, there’s a knock on Robert’s door. Robert’s senior assistant, Mrs. Hughes, peeks around the frame. “Mr. Carson is here to see you, sir.”
Without quite realizing it, Matthew’s suddenly sitting much straighter in his chair, elbows tucked in and shoulders back. It’s not that he finds Mr. Carson intimidating, exactly, but he’s so perfectly composed all the time. It’s a bit unnerving.
Robert waves Carson in with a smile. “Carson, what can I do for you?”
Carson glances back and forth between Robert and Matthew. “I had a question for you, sir, but if you’d rather I come back--”
“No,” Robert says, shaking his head. “We’re just celebrating about the Crowborough deal, come in.”
Matthew’s never seen Carson be anything but entirely deferential to their boss and now is no exception. Carson walks to precisely the centre of the room and says, in his low, reverberating baritone, “Ms. Smith informed me that the eldest Ms. Crawley is planning to attend the charity ball.”
Matthew suddenly has a very strong desire to be absolutely anywhere else. He’s only been at Downton for six months and already he knows that any conversation revolving around Robert and Mary Crawley is best avoided. The air in the room is very, very still. “Did she?” Robert asks, and the edge to his voice is unmistakable.
For just a moment, Carson’s whole face seems to soften, the strong lines of his jaw easing ever so slightly, but only for a split second. Matthew probably wouldn’t even have noticed if Robert’s features hadn’t done the exact opposite, closing off with not even a moment’s hesitation.
Matthew has never met Mary Crawley. The closest he’s come is seeing the picture hung behind Robert’s desk of a beautiful wife and three beautiful daughters, and even that is years old. He’s seen her in the papers occasionally; while he doesn’t frequent the society pages or the style section, he’s seen her there, photographed at this fashion show and that club premiere. The photo behind Robert’s desk is, for lack of a better word, entirely too picturesque. Sybil’s smile is too small, less brilliant than it is when she’s harassing him about his energy usage or his eating habits. Edith’s eyes don’t have the mischievous glint to them he’s seen whenever she leans down to whisper something in Robert’s ear. He wonders about the ways Mary’s different, what more there is to her besides the tight smile she wears as she sits very primly between her sisters.
When he looks back at Robert and Carson, their voices are hushed and he can’t hear what they’re saying, so the only thing he’s sure of is that they’re suddenly looking quite apprehensively in his direction. It’s Carson’s expression that’s catches him off guard. As head of PR, it’s his job to keep the company’s--and by extension the family’s--image spotless. Matthew can’t imagine that’s an easy task with Mary Crawley waltzing onto the inside pages of The Daily Mail twice a month. But whatever they’re discussing now, Carson’s the one looking sympathetic and Robert’s harder around the edges than Matthew has ever seen him.
With a few more muted words, Carson leaves the room with just a small nod to Matthew on his way out. After a long minute Robert sets his glass down on the desk and takes the seat beside Matthew. He’s never seen Robert so unsure of himself as when he casts his eyes about the room, hands tensing around his knees, and says, “So Mary’s attending the charity ball this weekend.”
“Yes,” Matthew answers, “I heard.”
“You’ve not met, but--” Robert stalls again. Matthew looks over at the picture on the wall and wonders what about Mary Crawley has her father so tightly wound. If the gossip were true--though it hardly ever is--it could be any number of things.
When Robert speaks again his voice is changed; Matthew wonders if this is what he sounds like when he’s explaining something to his daughters. “Mary can be a bit difficult,” he says carefully, “and a bit of a child at times. And she’s sure to have no surplus of kind words for you.”
Matthew shakes his head. “Well, as you said, we’ve not even met.” By the look on Robert’s face and the rumours in the halls of Downton, there’s much more to this story than Matthew knows and he’s none too keen to waltz into the middle of anyone’s family affairs.
Matthew remembers once when he was small and got into trouble. He’d broken one of his mother’s crystal vases and his father yelled so loudly Matthew ran and locked himself in his room. When his father had come to apologize, had sat Matthew down to explain himself, his face had been anxious and drawn, and even though it was decades ago and his father’s long since dead, he’s never forgotten the look on his face. It’s very nearly what Robert looks like now as his eyes wander toward the photo of his family on the wall and he says, “Things between Mary and myself are strained, which you’ve surely heard. I’m under no delusions about the gossip at this company. So you should know that any ill will she bears toward you is certainly directed at me.” Robert leans forward, and in another man Matthew would call it affection but with Robert he’s not so sure. “I’d thought once, with Mary and Patrick, that they might--that the company should go to them, but--” Matthew’s not sure where to look, so he keeps his eyes on the ground. “But Mary left school, and then Patrick was in New York when--” Robert pushes himself out of his chair with an off-balance, lurching step. “Never mind,” he says and Matthew certainly doesn’t press him. “The dinner will be fine,” he says. The confidence creeps back into his voice by small degrees. “I’m sure you’ll make a wonderful impression, same as you’ve done with the rest of us.”
“Thank you,” Matthew says. The clock on Robert’s desk reads 3:00 and Matthew hurries to finish his drink. “Well, I’ve a meeting to get to.” The scotch is still burning down the back of his throat as a beats a hasty retreat to his office.
Matthew spends the meeting thinking about Robert and the strange edge in his voice, about Mary Crawley’s flat smile trapped on the wall in her father’s office. When he gets back to his desk, he hesitates for a reasonable minute before he clicks on his computer and types “Mary Crawley” into the search bar of his web browser. The results that come up are mixed, but third from the top is a spread from a fashion show, complete with pictures and a small blurb underneath. Mary Crawley, daughter of business tycoon Robert Crawley, walks the catwalk for the Napier collection wearing a sapphire evening gown. Her face is unsmiling and her features schooled into what he imagines is a perfect catwalk look, but it doesn’t sit much more naturally on her face than the smile in the photo on Robert’s wall. Both look like window dressing; neither reaches her eyes. Matthew spends longer than he’d like to admit staring at the photo and wondering exactly how painful the charity dinner is going to be, and whether or not the tight knot that’s settled into the pit of his stomach is dread or something else, something warmer and harder to name.
--
Evelyn likes to think he’s “of the people” or “part of the masses,” but the space he rents as his studio is still in the poshest part of the city and his dresses cost the average person’s weekly wages. Mary likes to remind him of that as often as possible but Evelyn never says anything in response besides, “It’s the thought that counts, dear.”
She spins a dress on one of the dolls and watches the fabric swirl out and settle back in, out and in as she moves it round and round. It’s not quite grey but barely silver and it’s more beautiful than any of Evelyn’s sketches. It makes the light dance. “Careful,” Evelyn says, pulling her away by the hand, “there’ll be plenty of time for twirling once you’re in the damn thing.”
“It’s for me?” She can’t help but bounce up on her toes a bit and slide her arm through his. “You don’t want someone taller?”
Evelyn rattles off a bunch of words about the draping of the fabric and the proportions of the design but Mary’s too busy looking back across the room at the dress, its fabric still swaying ever so slightly on the doll. Evelyn catches her staring and lifts her chin with a finger. “Not yet,” he says. “Have a look at these first.”
He steers her toward a table spread with sketches and swatches and bits of jewellery all around, pats her on the shoulder and says, “Have at it.” She shrugs out of her jacket, settles down on the stool and picks up the first sketch.
It had happened mostly by accident, their friendship. They’d been sat next to each other in class during their second year, something horribly boring and tedious like “British Economic History since 1870,” and he’d spent the first month making her laugh behind her hands while the professor lectured on in his insufferable drone. She’d known him a year before he’d shown her his sketches and designs, and it had taken two bottles of wine before he’d confessed he wasn’t studying finance with the family business in mind, thank you very much, but he wanted to know how to run his own company. She’d called him mad back then. She calls him mad now for entirely different reasons, but there have been enough nights spent stumbling toward the other’s couch after a long night on the town that the affection there is understood.
It had been Evelyn who’d introduced her to Kemal back at university. She’d been smitten instantly--with his dark hair and dark eyes, his olive skin and sly smile. He first kissed her the night she decided not to sit her last set of exams, not to go back to school at all, and the steady thrum of her blood when he touched her, equal parts rage and lust and a few different flavours of rebellion, has never gone away.
It’s not what she’s meant to be thinking about while she thumbs through the pages of Evelyn’s sketches and runs the bits of silk and chiffon between her fingers, but she can’t help but imagine her body in the gowns and jackets he’s designed, the way they’d pull across her hips and shoulders and set Kemal’s teeth on edge. When Evelyn comes back, pins held tight between his lips, she slides a few of the sketches forward and says, “These. The jacket there’s a bit matronly, and the lines on that gown won’t flatter anyone with a figure.”
“Like you’d know anything about that.” He knocks her shoulder with his. “What about the fabric? The patterned bits?”
They spend the next hour going over the designs and materials, finalizing accessories for his show next month. When he finally pushes back from the table and waves her toward the silver gown, now sitting still on its doll, she all but runs across the room to be fitted.
It’s tight in the bodice and loose below her natural waist, piles of fabric and amazing beadwork and a colour that makes her look like she glows, like she’s got lights pressed up beneath her skin and at the sharp edges of her bones. Evelyn leans back against the mirror and looks her up and down. “I knew it’d suit you,” he says, stepping forward to lift the hair off her neck. She raises her chin and pulls her shoulders back, adopts the studied catwalk look she’d worked so hard to get right.
“You’d think it’d come naturally,” Anna had said at her first show, surprised at Mary’s nerves. Of course everyone would think she loved the attention, the lights, every eye pinned on her as she walked up and down the catwalk. She’s got better at putting on the face since then, and truth be told, she loves helping Evelyn, even with something as superficial as this.
“I meant to ask,” he says, fiddling with a seam beneath her left shoulder, “I left something at Kemal’s awhile ago and he’s nowhere to be found for weeks now. Can you get it back for me?”
“You can’t get it?” She jerks away from a pin pressed too close to her skin.
Evelyn’s reflection scowls. “You know that doorman. Bit of a prick. Won’t let me up.”
Mary meets his eyes in the mirror. “Why did you try to use the front door?” Kemal had long ago showed her all the secret ways up to his flat, back stairwells and service lifts, all best used when avoiding unwanted attention. They’ve used them more than a few times, if only for the fun of it. “What do you need? I can go round tonight.”
“He borrowed a jacket of mine, black overcoat.”
“And you don’t have another one you could wear instead?”
Evelyn pouts at her, an oft-used expression in their friendship. “I like that one. I tailored it especially.”
Mary rolls her eyes. “Fine.”
Evelyn goes back to checking the seams and the lay of the fabric and it’s a long minute before he says, quietly enough that she could ignore it if she wanted--and that bit of kindness is why they’ve stayed friends so long--“Have you heard from him lately?”
He must know she hears him, if only by the sudden tension in her shoulders and chest. She opens her mouth to speak but shuts it just as soon. It’s no yearning heartache that stops the words in her throat but the words stop nonetheless. Evelyn lets the silence sit and when he finally steps back, the smile he gives her is best called kind. “Alright then,” he says. “Let’s see.”
Mary spins. The light dances.
--
The ballroom is decorated in silver; the centrepieces are blue. Matthew’s suit too tight in the shoulders and his hands tingle slightly when he first glances around the room. Beside him, his mother stares openly at the decorations, the baubles and streamers and lights hung from every corner and engulfing the room in an almost over-bright shine. He can’t help but feel out of place, even as he smiles at his mother’s apparent delight. There’s a flurry of people around all the tables and a band in front playing old standards. “Matthew?” His mother’s voice shakes him to action and he pushes them forward through the crowd to find their table.
Matthew recognizes only a few faces: Mr. Carson in the corner talking to a blonde woman--Ms. Smith, he’s fairly certain; someone whose name he ought to know from board meetings; someone he’s fairly sure won a BAFTA last year. They’re almost to their table when a figure clad in scarlet steps in front of them, the expression on her face as joyous as ever.
Matthew pulls his features tight into what he hopes is a smile. “Mrs. Crawley, the ballroom looks wonderful.” His voice doesn’t waver and he’s unreasonably proud. “You and Mrs. Crawley have outdone yourselves.” It seems a benign enough compliment, but judging by the expression on her face, Violet Crawley can find something to take issue with. Violet Crawley can take issue with everything, it seems.
If Robert sometimes makes him feel especially middle class, Violet makes him feel like a chimney sweep from Solihull. He only sees her at the bi-monthly board meetings, but her regard for him has been plain as day since the beginning. It’s not that her comments toward him are catty, exactly, but he’s often found himself at odds with his surroundings; he hadn’t fitted in at his posh public school, he hadn’t been like the other wealthy students at Cambridge. No one ever rushed to befriend the student on scholarship, with his jackets that came just a bit short at the wrists and were entirely too threadbare at the elbows. No one that wealthy is ever just rude, he’d learned quickly, but there’s a special tone of voice they take when talking to someone like him. Violet Crawley puts them all to shame.
“Thank you,” she says, managing to look down her nose at him even as he towers over her. “It’s so wonderful you could attend.”
He feels his mother getting anxious beside him and puts his hand on her back as he says, “Mrs. Crawley, this is my mother, erm.” Violet might as well be ten feet tall. “Also Mrs. Crawley.”
His mother extends a hand that Violet takes with a shockingly small amount of disdain, but the handshake is short-lived nonetheless. “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Isobel says. “Crawley and Crawley, that’s quite a coincidence. Do you suppose we’re related somewhere down the line?”
Violet has the good grace not to sneer. “Oh, wouldn’t that just be charming?”
“I think it would be delightful.” Cora Crawley appears behind Matthew, one hand already outstretched toward Isobel. “Mrs. Crawley, it’s a pleasure to meet you.” Cora clasps both hands around Isobel’s and Matthew can’t help but feel grateful, even as Violet narrows her eyes at her daughter-in-law. “Matthew always speaks so dearly of you.”
Isobel smiles warmly. “That’s wonderful to hear, Mrs. Crawley.”
“Mrs. Crawley, Mrs. Crawley, Mrs. Crawley.” Matthew smiles as Sybil leans around her mother, hair piled onto her head and long earrings dangling down toward her shoulders. Her dress is a deep purple and she looks entirely unlike the girl who pops into his office once a week with cheap Italian take-away and a folder full of charity information. He smiles, even as Violet’s eyes go wide at her grand-daughter’s choice of attire. If Sybil notices, she doesn’t show it, just squeezes in next to Matthew and says, “That’s entirely too many Mrs. Crawleys to be getting on with, don’t you think?”
His mother smiles and Matthew’s glad that Sybil’s here to diffuse the tension; he’s more than a little bit grateful when Sybil slides over and winds her arm around Isobel’s and says, “We’ll have to think of nicknames. Let’s find your table.” Matthew’s left staring after them, eyes darting between Cora’s and Violet’s. The former are warm if put-upon, the latter are edging toward hostile. He’s been around the both of them enough to know when to take his leave and he bows out gracefully before trailing after Sybil and his mother.
They’re all sat at a table in the corner, far enough away from the band that they won’t have to shout all night. He lets Sybil entertain his mother, only butting in to defend himself against the most embarrassing of childhood anecdotes. Sybil laughs so loudly at the story of Matthew and his punk rock phase that more than a few heads turn in their direction, but the sight of her and Isobel doubled over is enough that he doesn’t mind.
Just as he feels himself starting to relax, he hears a voice behind him. “Papa’s looking for you.” When he turns around, he finds Edith Crawley staring at them, her mouth pinched and her eyes narrowed. To say that Edith and Sybil differ in their demeanor and appearance would certainly be an understatement. It’s not that he dislikes Edith--as part of human resources they don’t interact too regularly, but she’s always seemed nice enough, if somewhat short-tempered and entirely too preoccupied by her father’s opinions. Still, he smiles at her and nods a hello.
Sybil’s smile never falters. “Where is Papa?”
“Over there talking to Carson and Mr. Bates.” Edith gestures across the room to where the three men stand huddled.
Their expressions are hard-set and Matthew perks up. “Is anything the matter?”
For a moment, Edith looks at him in a way she almost certainly learned from Violet. “He didn’t ask for you,” she says. She heads off after a pointed look at her younger sister, who smiles apologetically and then follows.
He and Isobel watch Sybil as she crosses the room and if anything’s the matter with Robert, he looks amiable enough when his daughters slide in beside him. “Sybil’s a charming girl,” Isobel says.
“Yes,” Matthew replies, “she is.” They watch more and more people file into their seats, all elegantly dressed and looking as if they belong right at home at five-thousand-pound-a-plate galas. The company footed the bill for the employees who were invited, thankfully; even though Matthew makes quite a bit more than when he did all his own filing, and even though the money’s going for a good cause, it’s enough to make his thoroughly middle class heart beat a bit too fast.
He’s busy calculating how many classrooms in Chiswick could’ve been sponsored on the money that was spent on centrepieces when his mother leans over. “Matthew, might you get us some drinks? White wine, if you don’t mind.”
“Certainly,” he says, and it only takes him a minute to squeeze past the assembled toffs before he’s at the bar. White wine for his mother, whiskey and soda for himself. The bartender turns away for glasses when he feels someone squeeze in by his elbow.
“I always feel a bit stuffed at these things,” Molesley says, signaling the bartender for another whiskey and soda. He pulls at his bowtie and looks around anxiously. “If you don’t mind me saying.”
Matthew huffs out a laugh and takes a too-large sip of his drink. “Not at all. I’m feeling a bit stuffed myself, now you mention it.”
He didn’t always get on quite so well with Molesley. It took Matthew the better part of a month to remember there was an office outside his, with someone there to answer the phone and make his appointments and do his filing and type up his reports. Truth be told, it had made Matthew uncomfortable at first, but after the initial gaffes and sputters, they’d got through it well enough. If nothing else, Molesley didn’t make him feel like he was better suited to a corner cubicle miles below the executive floor. It’s enough like having a friend that Matthew leans over and says, “Violet Crawley intercepted me earlier. I think if she had her way I’d be serving dinner instead of eating it.”
Molesley smiles. He’d worked his way up from the mail room himself, so the understanding look he gives Matthew isn’t faked. “Eh, never mind the old lady. It’s Robert you should concern yourself with.” Molesley gestures across the room to where Robert stands between Edith and Sybil, fatherly exasperation on his face. “And if you don’t mind me saying, the favour of one of them Crawley girls wouldn’t hurt too much either.”
Matthew laughs into his drink. “Oh, certainly. I’ll just get off with the boss’s daughter and then he’ll have to keep me around.”
“Well, that’s certainly one way to go about securing your new position.” It’s not Molesley who answers, and before he even turns around Matthew’s sure he knows who the voice belongs to. He tells himself the feeling that settles into his hands as he turns around is something other than fear.
Mary Crawley is both more and less beautiful than the pictures in the paper. She’s thinner than the photo in Robert’s office, her hair longer and her smile cooler. She’s dressed in a blue gown, sheer against her shoulders and cutting low on her chest. Her hair is gathered behind one ear, and when she steps toward him the fabric catches the light across her collarbone. To say she’s beautiful would be a ridiculously short sell, and it’s more than a few silent seconds before Matthew realizes he’s been staring, mouth half-open and eyes undoubtedly wide as saucers.
She steps between Matthew and Molesley and signals to the bartender. “Champagne,” she says, and Matthew gets no more than a sympathetic frown from Molesley before the older man heads quickly in the opposite direction.
There’s no avoiding it for Matthew. He stands awkwardly while the bartender pours Mary’s drink but once she turns back around, he steps forward. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean what I said, I was only joking.”
Mary gives him a long look up and down; he shifts uncomfortably on his feet, and when she speaks he can’t quite hold her gaze. “Sorry to tell you, but Sybil’s taken.” Mary takes a step toward him. “I know you two have been spending quite a lot of time together.”
Matthew nods and puts on what he hopes is a winning smile. “Yes, she’s been helping--”
“There’s always Edith,” Mary interrupts, “but I’m not sure you’re quite up for that challenge.” She looks him up and down again, lips purses and eyebrow raised. It’s like being in school, shuffled off to mingle with the girls of St. This or St. That. There’s a hollow pit where his stomach should be. “And then there’s me of course. And everyone knows I’m a sure thing.”
It’s like all the air is sucked out of the room. Matthew wouldn’t be surprised if he looked away to find everyone else staring at them, or everyone else making quickly for the exits to avoid witnessing the scene. But he can’t look away, not when she’s leaning toward him and pressing a hand against his chest, tugging lightly at his tie as she raises her lips to his ear. “Dear Matthew,” she says, “don’t believe everything you read.”
When she pulls back, there’s a gleam in her eyes that he’d almost call soft, but it sharpens in an instant when she looks over his shoulder and across the room. She straightens, lifts her chin, and all the sound comes flooding back in his ears, people jostling past them on their way to the bar. “Oh look, we’re being summoned.” She pushes past him and sets off across the room, and once he takes his eyes from the swing of her shoulders as she slides in and out of the crowd, he sees Robert and Cora at the table with his mother, glances cast warily in his direction. He drains the whiskey and soda in one gulp, grabs his mother’s wine, and heads toward them.
The first thing he hears when he gets to the table is his mother’s laughter. Cora’s got one hand over her husband’s and Robert’s smile is as tight as a drum. “Yes,” Mary says, twisting to look at Matthew over her shoulder, “Matthew was just telling me about his plans for his future at Downton.” The panic that flares up in Matthew’s chest is quelled when Mary smiles brightly and says, “Everything with Crowborough? Quite a triumph.”
He tries not to let his relief show. There’s still a warm spot on his chest where her hand had been, or maybe that’s just his imagination. “Yes, that was quite a coup for us.” He tries to catch Robert’s eye but it’s Cora who smiles up at him, fingers ever tighter around her husband’s hand.
Mary gestures to Sybil as she takes a seat beside Isobel. “Sybil’s been telling me about your charity work, Matthew. What a wonderful idea, getting her involved. Papa’s always made sure we know that family is an important part of the business.”
Matthew’s wise enough to keep his mouth shut, but he sees the marks of Cora’s fingernails on the back of Robert’s hand. Beside Sybil, Edith leans forward and asks, loud enough for her parents to hear, “Where’s Kemal tonight? Surely you’d rather be with him instead of here with us.”
Mary takes a sip of champagne and looks at her sister with a syrupy smile, slick and sweet enough to trap a hundred flies. ““He has better thing to do than come here with me.” Sybil opens her mouth, eyebrows turned down questioningly, but Mary silences here with a look and continues, “I’ll be meeting him later. Would you like to come? I’m sure he could show you a good time.” There’s a bite to her words that twists Edith’s coy smile into a frown, and just as the younger woman is about to respond, Robert’s voice hisses out across the table.
“Enough,” he says. Mary doesn’t flinch; Cora does. Robert casts his eyes around the room and slips his hand from his wife’s. He pushes his chair back too roughly and if Matthew knew him better, he could maybe read the lines of his face--it’s more than anger that sets his jaw and narrows his eyes. If Mary knows him well enough to decipher the sad snarl of his lips, she doesn’t show it. Robert tugs at his vest and straightens his jacket. “You shouldn’t have come,” he says, almost underneath his breath. “Cora, we’ve other people to see.” He holds out an arm for her, expectant.
Mary looks at Robert; Cora looks at Mary. There’s a whole room around them of laughing, happy people and it fades just at the edges of this table, at the inflexible bend of Robert’s elbow and the concrete contours of Mary’s smile. Cora looks for a moment as if she might speak but a man appears at Robert’s shoulder and whatever Cora might’ve said, she’s silent now.
“Anthony,” Robert says, turning to extend a hand. Anthony Strallan smiles at Robert and then at everyone else, oblivious to the tension he’s interrupted. Matthew notices for the first time just how tightly Mary’s fingers grip the chair in front of her, how much tension there is in the lines around Cora’s mouth. It’s obvious that this isn’t the first time this scene has been played out and he wonders how many times Cora’s had to play peacemaker, how successful she’s been in the past. He wonders whether this was a step forward or backward in whatever is so obviously broken between her husband and her daughter. He gives his own mother a smile in sympathy and thanks and by the time he turns back to glance at Mary, she’s smiling sweetly again, the corners of her eyes turning down.
Anthony Strallan lifts a hand toward Sybil and smiles amiably. “I hear you’re helping out at the office now,” he says. “Your grandmother was telling me.”
Sybil’s as sweet as ever when she answer, “Just sitting in, mostly. Working on a bit of charity business with Matthew.”
“She’s doing brilliantly,” Matthew says. “Always keeping me on my toes.” The smile Sybil gives him is almost conspiratorial. Matthew pretends not to notice the way Mary’s back straightens in response.
Strallan doesn’t seem to notice a thing. “It’s always the mark of a true entrepreneur,” he says, “giving back to one’s community. I worry your generation might not know that.” His tone is even stuffier than Robert’s. Matthew’s about to make the same bland response he’s given a hundred times but Mary who beats him to it.
“I couldn’t agree more,” she says. Mary, who in the space of five minutes talks so sweetly and earnestly about social responsibility and giving that Anthony Strallan nods his head and smiles the whole time. Mary, who in the space of those same five minutes has secured herself a spot on Sybil and Matthew’s unofficial charity committee. Mary, who posits the idea in front of Anthony Strallan and gives her father no choice but to grit his teeth and say, “Of course, Mary, that’s a wonderful idea." It’s more impressive than any haggling Matthew’s ever seen between CEOs of top-market companies and he’s reminded all in a rush that she’s Violet’s granddaughter, Robert’s daughter, and a force entirely her own. By the time she’s finished talking, Strallan’s smile is so wide it doesn’t fade the entire time he walks back to his table, Cora and Robert on either side.
Isobel has the forethought to excuse herself after Robert and Cora. Edith is quick behind her, pushing out of her chair in a rush. Matthew’s eyes trail behind her until she disappears into the crowd.
It’s Sybil who breaks the enveloping quiet that falls between them. She looks uncertainly at Mary, fingers running along the stem of her wine glass. “I thought Kemal was away.”
Mary turns sharply, glances first at Matthew and then at Sybil. “Papa doesn’t know that,” Mary says. Her words are pointed, her mouth a sour pinch of lipstick and anger. “Let him think what he likes.” She slumps inward just a bit, only for a moment, and Matthew has the urge to apologize. It comes unbidden and sticks in his throat. Just as the words push up past his lips, Mary looks over at him and says, “I thought you’d look more like Patrick.”
Matthew has no response. He wants to apologize, to explain himself, to ask the hundred questions circling around in his head--but he says nothing instead. Everything will be wrong.
Mary takes a step away and draws her shoulders back. “You’re right you know,” she says. Her face is a mask. “This is all a complete joke.”
He watches her as she crosses the room, keeps his eyes on the stiff set of her shoulders as she weaves through the crowd and out the main door. The knot in his chest is equal parts ice and fire, and he stares after her long after she’s gone.
----
Chapter 2: One & One Make One
Author: allthingsholy
Fandom: Downton Abbey
Words: ~10,000
Rating: PG-13 (R in later chapters)
Notes: A few months ago I posted this graphic on tumblr and, well. The damn idea wouldn’t let go. This is equal parts modern adaptation and modern au. Thanks to juniperlane & lulabo for the betas; thanks to Mary for the britpicking. Any errors or Americanisms that remain are entirely down to me. Thanks to everyone on tumblr who’s been so enthusiastic and interested, particularly Sam & Olivia. Cheers. [Also at AO3.]
Summary: Robert Crawley, president and CEO of Downton Industries, wants to make sure his family’s company lives on after he’s gone. Heir-apparent to the company is Matthew Crawley, industrial lawyer and Robert’s new-found right hand man. Less than thrilled with Robert’s decision? His eldest daughter, Mary. Expelled from Oxford and a constant tabloid presence, Mary’s rebellious streak constantly puts her at odds with her father. She very publicly butts heads with Matthew, much to the displeasure of her family. But Matthew quickly learns that there’s more to Mary than meets the eye, and Mary might’ve made a few misjudgments of her own.
Chapter One: Make Us Take Our Different Sides
By the time she wakes up, late afternoon light is filtering in through the curtains and there’s a steady drumming behind her eyes. When she slides a hand across the bed, she finds herself alone. There’s an indentation on the pillow next to hers and a familiar soreness in her back and legs, but the sheets are cold beside her and she counts it as a blessing. She wipes the sleep from her eyes and takes a few deep breaths before throwing the covers off and dragging herself from bed.
She pulls on a robe and nearly trips over one of Evelyn’s jackets on the way to the kitchen. There’s a half-empty bottle of champagne on the counter; last night it made her giddy, made her laughter climb two octaves, but it’s lukewarm now and bitter and it drips down between her fingers when she drinks. She stands in the middle of her silent flat and slowly stretches out the tightness in her neck and shoulders. The walls around her are a dusky pink that catches on the photos there, the light brushing over all the faces staring blankly from their frames. Mama and Edith at a birthday party, her sister’s gap-toothed grin wide and beaming; Granny and Sybil at a piano recital, flowers clasped excitedly in her sister’s small hands. The photos are all older than they should be and her father is absent from all but the smallest, which sits at the end of a shelf, half-tucked behind a stack of books. If any of her family notices on their infrequent visits, they’re not so foolish as to mention it.
Mary sweeps her eyes across the photos on her way toward the windows and squints into the glaring sunlight as it slips down toward the horizon. She reaches out to touch the glass, splays her hand out wide enough to cover a dozen city blocks. It’s there, between her first and second fingers, across the skyline and a taxi ride away. The ledges are crumbling and the windows full of sunset, but she still imagines she can see straight into her father’s office. When the estate agent first brought her in she went straight for the windows, found Downton Tower by force of habit and nodded, just once. She paid for it with her father’s money and signed the lease with a cold smile.
The fading light turns the tower’s windows orange. Mary’s fingers are sticky with champagne and they catch as she slides her hand along enough to press her palm over Downton, covering the whole building street to sky. She stands there until the glass warms beneath her skin and by the time she turns away, the sun’s slipped down beneath the skyline.
She drains the last of the champagne on her way to the shower, fills the bathroom with music and steam and doesn’t come out until her skin’s a fierce pink. She styles her hair, does her make-up, lines her lips and eyelids with colors so bold Granny’s eyes would roll back in her head. She’s methodical in her actions. She sways her hips as the speakers pulse and she runs her fingers along this blouse and that dress and a jacket Kemal gave her for her birthday. Buttons are done up and zips are zipped and when she walks across the foyer, she pauses long enough to check herself in the mirror. Her dress is tight, her jacket fitted, her hair curled just so against her shoulders. Chin up, shoulders back. There’s no give in the click of her heels across the tile, and when she steps out into the night she hardly feels the cold.
--
March, 2004
Mary wears the black chiffon for her mother, the hem grazing her knees and the fabric hugging her curves only loosely. When she was dismissed from Said (“dismissed,” her mother tells people when they ask, because it’s more forgiving than “kicked out” or “dropped out” or anything a bit nearer the truth) Mama had done her few favours, reigned her father’s temper in only slightly. What she feels she owes her mother is most often quite little, and yet. The black chiffon suits her, Mama says, when they’re finally sat for tea. Mary smiles demurely and pours milk into her cup, and doesn’t comment on the fact that Sybil’s sense of fashion wanders haphazardly toward the bohemian and no one seems to mind. Sybil just smiles and fiddles with one of her dozen bracelets.
Granny fills them all in on the latest gossip from around town: the Schaffer’s daughter is in rehab again, the Lennox boy ushered out of yet another school. Frederick Barton’s business is floundering and Jean Simpson’s been under the knife again. Mary sips her tea and wonders what the gossip about the Crawleys is these days. She hopes Jean Simpson looks as delighted to tell it as Granny does right now.
Sybil tells them about school, about the philosophers she’s studying and the books she’s read. Mama nearly beams and Granny says, with her usual air of satisfaction, “Of course you’re doing well. Crawley women are known for more than their looks, dear.” Maybe it’s Mary’s imagination but the silence that follows is unusually long and the look her mother and grandmother exchange seems more than a little pointed. Mary has the wisdom to keep her opinions to herself and ask after Sybil’s study groups instead.
Granny and Mama set off together after tea, kisses pressed lightly to Mary’s cheeks and her mother’s voice soft in her ear. “You should come to the charity ball,” she says. “Your father would love to see you.” Mary keeps herself from rolling her eyes, but only just.
She and Sybil decide to do a bit of shopping, though that gives way to walking up and down Knightsbridge just peering in the windows. Sybil keeps pointing out scarves in colors Mary wouldn’t be caught dead in, but Sybil’s always pulled them off well enough. There’s a bright blue spot of silk beneath her chin now, tucked into the collar of a leather jacket. Mary reaches out and teasingly tugs at the zip. As much as her family situation can be tense on its best days, things with Sybil have always run a smoother course. Sybil smiles and pulls away and asks, “How are things with Kemal?”
This time Mary doesn’t keep herself from rolling her eyes. She digs in her bag for a cigarette and lights it while they look through the window at a shoe display. “How should I know?” she says. She watches herself in the glass, smoke billowing away over her shoulder. “He’s abroad somewhere, I think.”
“You think?” Sybil’s eyes catch hers in the reflection; Mary tries not to notice just how grown up her baby sister has become. “You don’t know?”
Mary flicks ash onto the pavement and wipes at an imagined smudge of make-up in the corner of her eye. When he’d left two weeks ago--for a “sojourn in Italy,” as he’d called it--he’d swiped his thumb along her jaw and kissed her hairline. She hasn’t heard from him since and if she had to name the silence, she’d call it restful. “I’m not his keeper.”
Sybil’s laughter is just shy of mocking, but it’s still the kindest thing anyone in her family has had to say about her and Kemal in months so Mary doesn’t mind. They keep walking, tucked close together against the wind, while Sybil rambles on about her classes and her clubs and her committees, the thousand and one ways she’s intent on changing the world. “And I’ve been helping out at the office,” she says, very nearly under her breath.
Mary slows to a halt outside a display of evening dresses, fuchsia and violet and cobalt blue all flashing through the window. With all this talk of school and now the business, Mary’s fingers twitch and she lights another cigarette just to occupy her hands. She only takes one drag before Sybil’s fingers close over her own, pulling the cigarette away.
Sybil tugs at her jacket and pulls at her scarf, half turned away as she brings the cigarette to her lips and takes a drag. Mary waits a long moment for the cough and sputter that will surely follow, but they never come. “Don’t look at me like that,” Sybil says, exhaling. The smoke curls in ribbons above their heads.
“Give me that,” Mary says and Sybil doesn’t fight her. “That Branson’s a bad influence on you.”
“Don’t blame Branson.” Sybil comes to his defense as if by rote. Robert Crawley would be less than thrilled to find out his youngest daughter keeps company with a budding socialist, and if Mary loved Sybil less she’d have told their father long ago just to see the look on his face. “Gwen already harps on me enough.”
Mary breathes out a laugh. “As she should.”
Sybil smirks. “Hypocrite.”
“Bloody right.” They’re silent a long moment. Mary turns away from the window and watches the buses and taxis pass by. When the cigarette’s burned down to the filter, she finally says, “You’re helping out at the office?”
Sybil keeps her eyes on the gowns behind the glass. “Papa wants to get more involved with the charities the company gives money to. He said I could help.”
Mary crushes the stub beneath her heel and lets a wave of resentment creep into her voice. “Papa wants a tax advantage and to keep you under his thumb.”
Ever since they were little girls, Papa’s treated Sybil differently. A bit gentler, less roughness in his speech and mannerisms, more generous with his affection. Perhaps it was because she was the baby and always sure to be; complications during the delivery meant her parents knew there’d be no more. Maybe that’s what made Sybil precious to their father; what makes her precious to everyone else is a tougher question to answer, but Mary supposes it has something to do with the kindness that creeps into Sybil’s eyes when she leans over and nudges Mary’s shoulder with her own. “I like doing it,” she says. “I have real meetings and everything. Well, lunch meetings. Matthew and I--”
And whatever spell Mary might’ve been under is snapped in two. “Ugh, Matthew again. If I hear his name one more time, I’ll spit.”
Sybil narrows her eyes. “He’s not so bad, you know.”
“He’s a twat,” Mary answers.
Sybil stifles a laugh. “You’ve never even met him.”
“And I still know he’s a twat.” Six months of hearing his name, of hearing everyone refer to him so reverently, have given Mary enough spite to last a lifetime. She only keeps herself from pouting through sheer force of will.
Sybil turns back toward the shop window and peers through the glass. “He’s cute you know,” she says.
A bus clatters by behind them, sending Mary’s hair whipping around her face. “Of course, he is.”
“And single.”
“How do you know?”
Sybil keeps her eyes trained on the window. “Never mind that. He’ll be at the charity dinner,” she says, “and I think you should come meet him.”
Mary laughs and the traffic carries the sound off down the street. “And why is that?”
When Sybil turns to her, the grin on her face is very nearly wicked. No wonder Gwen can’t get her to stop smoking; she can’t be denied anything with a face like that. “Because if you wear that blue number in the back there, you’ll absolutely flatten him.”
They’re still laughing when they step into the store.
--
“Do we have the proposals from Crowborough?” Matthew shuffles papers around his desk, flipping over files and checking underneath his blotter. “I can’t find them.” Molesley shouts something from the outer office but Matthew can’t hear it. He pauses, hands pressed down onto his desktop, and sighs. It’s especially long-suffering and makes him feel perhaps a little bit better, but does nothing to locate the papers he needs.
Molesley comes striding into the room with a file folder tucked under his arm. “Here are the proposals for the Crowborough deal. Mr. Crawley needs them by four.”
Matthew takes the folder from Molesley’s outstretched hand and flicks through them hurriedly. They’re in the final stages of a deal that’s taken six weeks and a thousand man-hours, and Matthew’s felt the pressure every day since the deadline started to close in. Six months on the job and he feels sure-footed enough until someone who thinks he could do better walks in. Which is to say, anyone whose place he took when he got promoted apparently out of the blue. Which is to say, everyone. Matthew sighs again and runs a hand through his hair. “Did Bates--”
“He filed the papers this morning. Nothing but a few signatures left.”
Matthew snorts out a disbelieving laugh. “Touch wood it goes off that smoothly.”
Whatever Molesley was going to say is cut off by a knock on Matthew’s office door. When he looks up, Sybil’s in the doorway with a paper bag in her hand. “Am I early?”
Matthew waves her in and points her toward the sofa. “No, I just need a minute. Getting Crowborough sorted today.”
Sybil nods her head understandingly, even though she probably has little idea what he’s on about. She sits down and starts setting out lunch while he and Molesley finish marking the pages for signatures, checking that every last thing is in place. Sybil waits.
It’s been nearly two months since they started working together on Downton’s charitable contributions. It was Robert’s idea. He went on for awhile about social responsibility and the necessity of giving back; he stopped short of saying “noblesse oblige,” but only just. What Robert didn’t explain quite as well was why his youngest daughter would be helping with the allotments and approvals, and at first Matthew hadn’t understood it either. She didn’t have anything to do with the company and didn’t seem especially interested in the way it ran or what he did, but by the end of the meeting he knew why she was there. Her eyes were bright and she talked with her hands, floating them in front of her face as she told him about articles she’d read and research she’d done: living conditions in eastern Europe and southeast Asia, hungry children and felled forests and species on the brink of extinction. Her enthusiasm was catching. She talked like she’d give away the whole company out from under them, from the money right down to the office supplies. Matthew liked her immediately.
It takes a few minutes to get everything settled and by the time Molesley leaves and Matthew takes a seat on the sofa, Sybil’s halfway through a salad. She pushes his sandwich toward him and tilts her head.
“Africa, Asia, or England today?” It’s very like Sybil, he’s learned, to rush forward and wait for everyone else to catch up. His sandwich isn’t even out of the wrapper yet. “Well,” he says, pretending to give it extra thought. “England, I suppose.”
And with that Sybil’s off, pulling out folders and brochures and proposals. A women’s refuge in Cheapside, a children’s hospital in Surrey. There are ten different institutions laid out on the coffee table by the time she’s done. It makes for an intimidating spread. It’s amazing how enthusiastic she is; maybe even moreso than during their first meeting. Matthew listens and nods along, genuinely interested in the things she has to say, in her unflagging belief that they can change people’s lives. He’s more than a little bit envious at her tireless enthusiasm.
“And there’s a youth group in Chiswick that needs new classroom supplies,” she finishes. “Don’t worry, I made sure some of them have plaques we can put the company name on.”
Matthew laughs. “Yes, that’s very important too.”
Sybil pokes at the last bits of her salad. “I just want to be able to help,” she says. “We have so much, we should give back.” It’s basically the same speech he got from Robert ages ago and it’s the same speech Sybil gives him twice a month, but it sounds different when she says it.
Matthew picks up a folder for the classroom in Chiswick. “Tell me again how your father took it when you changed your major?” There’s a hint of teasing in his voice, but Sybil just smiles.
“Very well,” she says. “Social policies are important.”
Matthew looks over lists of crayons and markers, rulers and sheet paper. “They are,” he says, “but I’m sure when you got accepted to the London School of Economics he might’ve had something else in mind. Something, I don’t know, a bit more to do with the building we’re sitting in?”
Sybil laughs good-naturedly. Sybil does everything good-naturedly. “It’s the school of Ecomonics and Political Science. And I was rubbish at the economics bits anyway.”
“I doubt that’s true.” It seems impossible that there’s anything she’d be bad at. Two months and maybe a dozen lunches in and she’s already the closest thing to a friend he’s made since he came to Downton.
Matthew polishes off the last of his sandwich and stands. “Put your three favorites at the top of the pile and I’ll look them over tonight.”
“You promise?”
“I do. Now you should stop by your father’s office before you head back to school.”
Matthew looks at the folder. The hospital, the shelter, and a food bank in Clapham. Those will do. He puts the folder for the classroom in Chiswick in his desk drawer. He’ll take care of that one himself.
--
“You know, you don’t have to do that anymore.” Anna ignores her. “You didn’t have to do that at all, actually, not even back in our flat.”
Anna doesn’t look up from the sink, hands full of suds and dirty dishes. “If I don’t do it, you’ll let it sit forever. Black mold will take over this flat and you’ll die.”
“Mm,” Mary says, flipping the page of her magazine. “Pity.”
“It would be a pity.” Anna turns off the water and wipes her hands on a towel. Mary tried to explain about her cleaning lady being sick a day, that someone would get to them eventually, but Anna’s never been one to let messes lie. She flops down on the sofa with a sigh. “If you died, who would I borrow clothes from?”
Mary laughs and dog-ears the page, marks a shoulder bag that Anna would love. Her birthday’s in a few weeks. “If I died,” Mary says, pulling her feet up onto the sofa and wrapping her hands around her knees, “you could have all my designer things.”
Anna smiles and kicks her feet up on the coffee table. She’s possibly the only person besides Sybil who feels at home here, Mary thinks, and she pokes at Anna’s thigh with her foot. “You want to borrow something for the charity ball?”
The grin on Anna’s face could light the room. “Of course, I do,” she says, pushing herself off the sofa. She’s practically sprinting to the closet, and Mary hears her call from the hallway, “Even the Chanel?”
Mary laughs. “Especially the Chanel.”
Anna tries on what seems like a hundred dresses. There are piles of clothes spread across the bed and Mary sits in the middle of them, scoring each outfit. Mary tells her she looks beautiful in every one, but Anna disagrees, finds some reason or another each one doesn’t work; an unflattering seam, an awkward silhouette. It’s the same scene they’ve played out a million times, ever since University and all the days since.
Finally Anna comes out with the blue dress Mary and Sybil bought, dangling from its hanger with the tags still on. “What about this one?”
Mary plays with the hem of one of Evelyn’s dresses. “Actually, I thought I might wear that one.” She very studiously does not meet Anna’s eyes.
“Wear it to what?” Anna’s turned away, studying herself in the mirror.
Mary barely keeps her voice steady. “To the charity ball.”
Anna spins around so fast, the pattern on her dress blurs together. “You’re going?”
“I’m thinking about it.”
Anna hesitates and Mary rolls her eyes. As long as they’ve known each other, as many things as they’ve been through together, there’s still a part of Anna that shies away from pushing too hard or saying too much. It’d make Mary laugh if it didn’t make her so sad. And Mary always thought aristocrats were the repressed ones.
She watches Anna pick her words carefully and only because it’s Anna, only because there are a hundred debts unpaid for a thousand different favours, does Mary keep herself from telling her to just spit it out. Mary’s not known for her graciousness, but she does have her moments every now and again. Anna finally settles on an acceptable phrasing. “Why the change of heart?”
Leave it to Anna to mull over her words and come up with the most inoffensive statement possible. Mary shrugs her shoulder. “No change of heart. Sybil asked me to come.”
“Sybil always asks you to come.”
It’s easy enough to lie to everyone else, but Anna sees right through her every time. Mary sets her jaw and her voice goes cold. She counts it as a small victory. “I want to meet Matthew.”
Anna’s always been a bad liar and Mary can read the surprise that crosses her face plain as day. There’s not nearly as much of it as she thought there would be; her features slide toward sympathetic almost instantly and it’s all Mary can do not to hit her with a handbag. Anna hangs the blue dress over the closet door and picks her way through Dolce wrap dresses and Gucci skirts. She clears herself a small spot on the bed and tucks herself next to Mary. Not too close, but close enough. “You want to meet him?”
Mary can’t keep the bitterness from her voice; even if she could, she wouldn’t bother. “Papa picked him out of the mail room and made him his pet, and all because we happen to have the same last name.”
“First of all, he didn’t work in the mail room, and second of all, you know that’s not why your father keeps him around.” Anna traces the pattern of a dress with her finger; Mary wore it to dinner with Kemal last month and she saw it later splashed on the inside fold of the society page. Anna's voice is quiet when she says, “He’s nice.”
Her father would call the groan that escapes Mary’s lips petulant. “Bollocks to nice and bollocks to Matthew Crawley.” She pushes herself off the bed and stalks over to the closet, pulling the blue dress off its hanger as she passes. Sybil had made her try on a few more just for fun, but in the end she’d bought this one. It dips low in the back and gathers at her hip and Sybil had been right--she looks amazing in it. She holds it close over her curves and feels Anna watching her, knows the exact look on her friend’s face without even having to check. Anyone else would accuse her of vanity as Mary studies herself in the mirror; Anna knows she’s just buying time.
Mary forgets sometimes that even though there are whole chunks of her life that her family and the company don’t touch, Anna isn’t one of them. Anna is still deep in the heart of Downton and as much as Mary will never admit it, as much as she denies it every time Anna asks, it bothers her, that the lines she tries to draw between Downton and everything else still blur and smudge together. She forgets sometimes that Anna knows more about the people Mary spends her time resenting than Mary does.
The sudden rush of anger feels good as it settles into Mary’s hands and chest. She sees herself in the mirror the way Matthew and her father will see her: steely and proud, unyielding. Chin up, shoulders back, just like Granny taught her. It’s a buoy she’s all too familiar with. When there’s a place inside her full to burst, these are the things she covers it with: next-season jackets and costume jewellery, and a disdainful expression like a knife. It’s harder with Anna on her best day and this is certainly not her best day.
Whatever changes Anna sees in her face, she doesn’t say anything as she walks up behind Mary and gently tugs on the ends of her hair. “You wear that. I’ll wear the silver Chanel.”
Mary doesn’t answer. Chin up. Shoulders back.
--
The Crowborough deal goes off without a hitch. The papers are signed and the deal is done and Matthew’s made them all a great deal of money. Robert sweeps him into his office after everything’s finalized and pours him a glass of scotch.
“To Downton,” he says, holding out his glass in salute.
Matthew clinks his drink against Robert’s. “This was a good day for you.”
Robert gives him a benevolent smile. “It’s a good day for us all.”
Matthew never feels quite so middle class as when Robert talks about Downton as a great moral and social responsibility. It had taken awhile for Matthew to realize: this company is Robert’s life as well as his livelihood, and he looks on it as a parent and a spouse and a child, all three together. Matthew still doesn’t entirely understand; his thoughts must be easily read on his face because Robert props himself on his desk and shakes his head.
“You don’t love it yet,” he says, swirling the liquor in his glass.
Matthew takes a seat in one of the chairs facing the desk. “What do you mean?”
There’s a strange look in Robert’s eye when he says, “This place. Downton. It’s still just a company to you. You don’t love it yet.”
Matthew doesn’t actually have anything to say to that. Truth be told, Downton Industries is really the last place he thought he’d be working, and he never possibly imagined he’d be heir apparent to Robert Crawley. But Robert, for reasons Matthew still hasn’t worked out, had pulled him aside in a meeting six months ago, picked his brain over a long lunch meeting, and nothing has been the same since. He’s never asked for Robert’s reasoning lest the man suddenly come to his senses and send Matthew back downstairs to stale deposition summaries and boilerplate contracts.
Just as the silence is about to get uncomfortable, there’s a knock on Robert’s door. Robert’s senior assistant, Mrs. Hughes, peeks around the frame. “Mr. Carson is here to see you, sir.”
Without quite realizing it, Matthew’s suddenly sitting much straighter in his chair, elbows tucked in and shoulders back. It’s not that he finds Mr. Carson intimidating, exactly, but he’s so perfectly composed all the time. It’s a bit unnerving.
Robert waves Carson in with a smile. “Carson, what can I do for you?”
Carson glances back and forth between Robert and Matthew. “I had a question for you, sir, but if you’d rather I come back--”
“No,” Robert says, shaking his head. “We’re just celebrating about the Crowborough deal, come in.”
Matthew’s never seen Carson be anything but entirely deferential to their boss and now is no exception. Carson walks to precisely the centre of the room and says, in his low, reverberating baritone, “Ms. Smith informed me that the eldest Ms. Crawley is planning to attend the charity ball.”
Matthew suddenly has a very strong desire to be absolutely anywhere else. He’s only been at Downton for six months and already he knows that any conversation revolving around Robert and Mary Crawley is best avoided. The air in the room is very, very still. “Did she?” Robert asks, and the edge to his voice is unmistakable.
For just a moment, Carson’s whole face seems to soften, the strong lines of his jaw easing ever so slightly, but only for a split second. Matthew probably wouldn’t even have noticed if Robert’s features hadn’t done the exact opposite, closing off with not even a moment’s hesitation.
Matthew has never met Mary Crawley. The closest he’s come is seeing the picture hung behind Robert’s desk of a beautiful wife and three beautiful daughters, and even that is years old. He’s seen her in the papers occasionally; while he doesn’t frequent the society pages or the style section, he’s seen her there, photographed at this fashion show and that club premiere. The photo behind Robert’s desk is, for lack of a better word, entirely too picturesque. Sybil’s smile is too small, less brilliant than it is when she’s harassing him about his energy usage or his eating habits. Edith’s eyes don’t have the mischievous glint to them he’s seen whenever she leans down to whisper something in Robert’s ear. He wonders about the ways Mary’s different, what more there is to her besides the tight smile she wears as she sits very primly between her sisters.
When he looks back at Robert and Carson, their voices are hushed and he can’t hear what they’re saying, so the only thing he’s sure of is that they’re suddenly looking quite apprehensively in his direction. It’s Carson’s expression that’s catches him off guard. As head of PR, it’s his job to keep the company’s--and by extension the family’s--image spotless. Matthew can’t imagine that’s an easy task with Mary Crawley waltzing onto the inside pages of The Daily Mail twice a month. But whatever they’re discussing now, Carson’s the one looking sympathetic and Robert’s harder around the edges than Matthew has ever seen him.
With a few more muted words, Carson leaves the room with just a small nod to Matthew on his way out. After a long minute Robert sets his glass down on the desk and takes the seat beside Matthew. He’s never seen Robert so unsure of himself as when he casts his eyes about the room, hands tensing around his knees, and says, “So Mary’s attending the charity ball this weekend.”
“Yes,” Matthew answers, “I heard.”
“You’ve not met, but--” Robert stalls again. Matthew looks over at the picture on the wall and wonders what about Mary Crawley has her father so tightly wound. If the gossip were true--though it hardly ever is--it could be any number of things.
When Robert speaks again his voice is changed; Matthew wonders if this is what he sounds like when he’s explaining something to his daughters. “Mary can be a bit difficult,” he says carefully, “and a bit of a child at times. And she’s sure to have no surplus of kind words for you.”
Matthew shakes his head. “Well, as you said, we’ve not even met.” By the look on Robert’s face and the rumours in the halls of Downton, there’s much more to this story than Matthew knows and he’s none too keen to waltz into the middle of anyone’s family affairs.
Matthew remembers once when he was small and got into trouble. He’d broken one of his mother’s crystal vases and his father yelled so loudly Matthew ran and locked himself in his room. When his father had come to apologize, had sat Matthew down to explain himself, his face had been anxious and drawn, and even though it was decades ago and his father’s long since dead, he’s never forgotten the look on his face. It’s very nearly what Robert looks like now as his eyes wander toward the photo of his family on the wall and he says, “Things between Mary and myself are strained, which you’ve surely heard. I’m under no delusions about the gossip at this company. So you should know that any ill will she bears toward you is certainly directed at me.” Robert leans forward, and in another man Matthew would call it affection but with Robert he’s not so sure. “I’d thought once, with Mary and Patrick, that they might--that the company should go to them, but--” Matthew’s not sure where to look, so he keeps his eyes on the ground. “But Mary left school, and then Patrick was in New York when--” Robert pushes himself out of his chair with an off-balance, lurching step. “Never mind,” he says and Matthew certainly doesn’t press him. “The dinner will be fine,” he says. The confidence creeps back into his voice by small degrees. “I’m sure you’ll make a wonderful impression, same as you’ve done with the rest of us.”
“Thank you,” Matthew says. The clock on Robert’s desk reads 3:00 and Matthew hurries to finish his drink. “Well, I’ve a meeting to get to.” The scotch is still burning down the back of his throat as a beats a hasty retreat to his office.
Matthew spends the meeting thinking about Robert and the strange edge in his voice, about Mary Crawley’s flat smile trapped on the wall in her father’s office. When he gets back to his desk, he hesitates for a reasonable minute before he clicks on his computer and types “Mary Crawley” into the search bar of his web browser. The results that come up are mixed, but third from the top is a spread from a fashion show, complete with pictures and a small blurb underneath. Mary Crawley, daughter of business tycoon Robert Crawley, walks the catwalk for the Napier collection wearing a sapphire evening gown. Her face is unsmiling and her features schooled into what he imagines is a perfect catwalk look, but it doesn’t sit much more naturally on her face than the smile in the photo on Robert’s wall. Both look like window dressing; neither reaches her eyes. Matthew spends longer than he’d like to admit staring at the photo and wondering exactly how painful the charity dinner is going to be, and whether or not the tight knot that’s settled into the pit of his stomach is dread or something else, something warmer and harder to name.
--
Evelyn likes to think he’s “of the people” or “part of the masses,” but the space he rents as his studio is still in the poshest part of the city and his dresses cost the average person’s weekly wages. Mary likes to remind him of that as often as possible but Evelyn never says anything in response besides, “It’s the thought that counts, dear.”
She spins a dress on one of the dolls and watches the fabric swirl out and settle back in, out and in as she moves it round and round. It’s not quite grey but barely silver and it’s more beautiful than any of Evelyn’s sketches. It makes the light dance. “Careful,” Evelyn says, pulling her away by the hand, “there’ll be plenty of time for twirling once you’re in the damn thing.”
“It’s for me?” She can’t help but bounce up on her toes a bit and slide her arm through his. “You don’t want someone taller?”
Evelyn rattles off a bunch of words about the draping of the fabric and the proportions of the design but Mary’s too busy looking back across the room at the dress, its fabric still swaying ever so slightly on the doll. Evelyn catches her staring and lifts her chin with a finger. “Not yet,” he says. “Have a look at these first.”
He steers her toward a table spread with sketches and swatches and bits of jewellery all around, pats her on the shoulder and says, “Have at it.” She shrugs out of her jacket, settles down on the stool and picks up the first sketch.
It had happened mostly by accident, their friendship. They’d been sat next to each other in class during their second year, something horribly boring and tedious like “British Economic History since 1870,” and he’d spent the first month making her laugh behind her hands while the professor lectured on in his insufferable drone. She’d known him a year before he’d shown her his sketches and designs, and it had taken two bottles of wine before he’d confessed he wasn’t studying finance with the family business in mind, thank you very much, but he wanted to know how to run his own company. She’d called him mad back then. She calls him mad now for entirely different reasons, but there have been enough nights spent stumbling toward the other’s couch after a long night on the town that the affection there is understood.
It had been Evelyn who’d introduced her to Kemal back at university. She’d been smitten instantly--with his dark hair and dark eyes, his olive skin and sly smile. He first kissed her the night she decided not to sit her last set of exams, not to go back to school at all, and the steady thrum of her blood when he touched her, equal parts rage and lust and a few different flavours of rebellion, has never gone away.
It’s not what she’s meant to be thinking about while she thumbs through the pages of Evelyn’s sketches and runs the bits of silk and chiffon between her fingers, but she can’t help but imagine her body in the gowns and jackets he’s designed, the way they’d pull across her hips and shoulders and set Kemal’s teeth on edge. When Evelyn comes back, pins held tight between his lips, she slides a few of the sketches forward and says, “These. The jacket there’s a bit matronly, and the lines on that gown won’t flatter anyone with a figure.”
“Like you’d know anything about that.” He knocks her shoulder with his. “What about the fabric? The patterned bits?”
They spend the next hour going over the designs and materials, finalizing accessories for his show next month. When he finally pushes back from the table and waves her toward the silver gown, now sitting still on its doll, she all but runs across the room to be fitted.
It’s tight in the bodice and loose below her natural waist, piles of fabric and amazing beadwork and a colour that makes her look like she glows, like she’s got lights pressed up beneath her skin and at the sharp edges of her bones. Evelyn leans back against the mirror and looks her up and down. “I knew it’d suit you,” he says, stepping forward to lift the hair off her neck. She raises her chin and pulls her shoulders back, adopts the studied catwalk look she’d worked so hard to get right.
“You’d think it’d come naturally,” Anna had said at her first show, surprised at Mary’s nerves. Of course everyone would think she loved the attention, the lights, every eye pinned on her as she walked up and down the catwalk. She’s got better at putting on the face since then, and truth be told, she loves helping Evelyn, even with something as superficial as this.
“I meant to ask,” he says, fiddling with a seam beneath her left shoulder, “I left something at Kemal’s awhile ago and he’s nowhere to be found for weeks now. Can you get it back for me?”
“You can’t get it?” She jerks away from a pin pressed too close to her skin.
Evelyn’s reflection scowls. “You know that doorman. Bit of a prick. Won’t let me up.”
Mary meets his eyes in the mirror. “Why did you try to use the front door?” Kemal had long ago showed her all the secret ways up to his flat, back stairwells and service lifts, all best used when avoiding unwanted attention. They’ve used them more than a few times, if only for the fun of it. “What do you need? I can go round tonight.”
“He borrowed a jacket of mine, black overcoat.”
“And you don’t have another one you could wear instead?”
Evelyn pouts at her, an oft-used expression in their friendship. “I like that one. I tailored it especially.”
Mary rolls her eyes. “Fine.”
Evelyn goes back to checking the seams and the lay of the fabric and it’s a long minute before he says, quietly enough that she could ignore it if she wanted--and that bit of kindness is why they’ve stayed friends so long--“Have you heard from him lately?”
He must know she hears him, if only by the sudden tension in her shoulders and chest. She opens her mouth to speak but shuts it just as soon. It’s no yearning heartache that stops the words in her throat but the words stop nonetheless. Evelyn lets the silence sit and when he finally steps back, the smile he gives her is best called kind. “Alright then,” he says. “Let’s see.”
Mary spins. The light dances.
--
The ballroom is decorated in silver; the centrepieces are blue. Matthew’s suit too tight in the shoulders and his hands tingle slightly when he first glances around the room. Beside him, his mother stares openly at the decorations, the baubles and streamers and lights hung from every corner and engulfing the room in an almost over-bright shine. He can’t help but feel out of place, even as he smiles at his mother’s apparent delight. There’s a flurry of people around all the tables and a band in front playing old standards. “Matthew?” His mother’s voice shakes him to action and he pushes them forward through the crowd to find their table.
Matthew recognizes only a few faces: Mr. Carson in the corner talking to a blonde woman--Ms. Smith, he’s fairly certain; someone whose name he ought to know from board meetings; someone he’s fairly sure won a BAFTA last year. They’re almost to their table when a figure clad in scarlet steps in front of them, the expression on her face as joyous as ever.
Matthew pulls his features tight into what he hopes is a smile. “Mrs. Crawley, the ballroom looks wonderful.” His voice doesn’t waver and he’s unreasonably proud. “You and Mrs. Crawley have outdone yourselves.” It seems a benign enough compliment, but judging by the expression on her face, Violet Crawley can find something to take issue with. Violet Crawley can take issue with everything, it seems.
If Robert sometimes makes him feel especially middle class, Violet makes him feel like a chimney sweep from Solihull. He only sees her at the bi-monthly board meetings, but her regard for him has been plain as day since the beginning. It’s not that her comments toward him are catty, exactly, but he’s often found himself at odds with his surroundings; he hadn’t fitted in at his posh public school, he hadn’t been like the other wealthy students at Cambridge. No one ever rushed to befriend the student on scholarship, with his jackets that came just a bit short at the wrists and were entirely too threadbare at the elbows. No one that wealthy is ever just rude, he’d learned quickly, but there’s a special tone of voice they take when talking to someone like him. Violet Crawley puts them all to shame.
“Thank you,” she says, managing to look down her nose at him even as he towers over her. “It’s so wonderful you could attend.”
He feels his mother getting anxious beside him and puts his hand on her back as he says, “Mrs. Crawley, this is my mother, erm.” Violet might as well be ten feet tall. “Also Mrs. Crawley.”
His mother extends a hand that Violet takes with a shockingly small amount of disdain, but the handshake is short-lived nonetheless. “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Isobel says. “Crawley and Crawley, that’s quite a coincidence. Do you suppose we’re related somewhere down the line?”
Violet has the good grace not to sneer. “Oh, wouldn’t that just be charming?”
“I think it would be delightful.” Cora Crawley appears behind Matthew, one hand already outstretched toward Isobel. “Mrs. Crawley, it’s a pleasure to meet you.” Cora clasps both hands around Isobel’s and Matthew can’t help but feel grateful, even as Violet narrows her eyes at her daughter-in-law. “Matthew always speaks so dearly of you.”
Isobel smiles warmly. “That’s wonderful to hear, Mrs. Crawley.”
“Mrs. Crawley, Mrs. Crawley, Mrs. Crawley.” Matthew smiles as Sybil leans around her mother, hair piled onto her head and long earrings dangling down toward her shoulders. Her dress is a deep purple and she looks entirely unlike the girl who pops into his office once a week with cheap Italian take-away and a folder full of charity information. He smiles, even as Violet’s eyes go wide at her grand-daughter’s choice of attire. If Sybil notices, she doesn’t show it, just squeezes in next to Matthew and says, “That’s entirely too many Mrs. Crawleys to be getting on with, don’t you think?”
His mother smiles and Matthew’s glad that Sybil’s here to diffuse the tension; he’s more than a little bit grateful when Sybil slides over and winds her arm around Isobel’s and says, “We’ll have to think of nicknames. Let’s find your table.” Matthew’s left staring after them, eyes darting between Cora’s and Violet’s. The former are warm if put-upon, the latter are edging toward hostile. He’s been around the both of them enough to know when to take his leave and he bows out gracefully before trailing after Sybil and his mother.
They’re all sat at a table in the corner, far enough away from the band that they won’t have to shout all night. He lets Sybil entertain his mother, only butting in to defend himself against the most embarrassing of childhood anecdotes. Sybil laughs so loudly at the story of Matthew and his punk rock phase that more than a few heads turn in their direction, but the sight of her and Isobel doubled over is enough that he doesn’t mind.
Just as he feels himself starting to relax, he hears a voice behind him. “Papa’s looking for you.” When he turns around, he finds Edith Crawley staring at them, her mouth pinched and her eyes narrowed. To say that Edith and Sybil differ in their demeanor and appearance would certainly be an understatement. It’s not that he dislikes Edith--as part of human resources they don’t interact too regularly, but she’s always seemed nice enough, if somewhat short-tempered and entirely too preoccupied by her father’s opinions. Still, he smiles at her and nods a hello.
Sybil’s smile never falters. “Where is Papa?”
“Over there talking to Carson and Mr. Bates.” Edith gestures across the room to where the three men stand huddled.
Their expressions are hard-set and Matthew perks up. “Is anything the matter?”
For a moment, Edith looks at him in a way she almost certainly learned from Violet. “He didn’t ask for you,” she says. She heads off after a pointed look at her younger sister, who smiles apologetically and then follows.
He and Isobel watch Sybil as she crosses the room and if anything’s the matter with Robert, he looks amiable enough when his daughters slide in beside him. “Sybil’s a charming girl,” Isobel says.
“Yes,” Matthew replies, “she is.” They watch more and more people file into their seats, all elegantly dressed and looking as if they belong right at home at five-thousand-pound-a-plate galas. The company footed the bill for the employees who were invited, thankfully; even though Matthew makes quite a bit more than when he did all his own filing, and even though the money’s going for a good cause, it’s enough to make his thoroughly middle class heart beat a bit too fast.
He’s busy calculating how many classrooms in Chiswick could’ve been sponsored on the money that was spent on centrepieces when his mother leans over. “Matthew, might you get us some drinks? White wine, if you don’t mind.”
“Certainly,” he says, and it only takes him a minute to squeeze past the assembled toffs before he’s at the bar. White wine for his mother, whiskey and soda for himself. The bartender turns away for glasses when he feels someone squeeze in by his elbow.
“I always feel a bit stuffed at these things,” Molesley says, signaling the bartender for another whiskey and soda. He pulls at his bowtie and looks around anxiously. “If you don’t mind me saying.”
Matthew huffs out a laugh and takes a too-large sip of his drink. “Not at all. I’m feeling a bit stuffed myself, now you mention it.”
He didn’t always get on quite so well with Molesley. It took Matthew the better part of a month to remember there was an office outside his, with someone there to answer the phone and make his appointments and do his filing and type up his reports. Truth be told, it had made Matthew uncomfortable at first, but after the initial gaffes and sputters, they’d got through it well enough. If nothing else, Molesley didn’t make him feel like he was better suited to a corner cubicle miles below the executive floor. It’s enough like having a friend that Matthew leans over and says, “Violet Crawley intercepted me earlier. I think if she had her way I’d be serving dinner instead of eating it.”
Molesley smiles. He’d worked his way up from the mail room himself, so the understanding look he gives Matthew isn’t faked. “Eh, never mind the old lady. It’s Robert you should concern yourself with.” Molesley gestures across the room to where Robert stands between Edith and Sybil, fatherly exasperation on his face. “And if you don’t mind me saying, the favour of one of them Crawley girls wouldn’t hurt too much either.”
Matthew laughs into his drink. “Oh, certainly. I’ll just get off with the boss’s daughter and then he’ll have to keep me around.”
“Well, that’s certainly one way to go about securing your new position.” It’s not Molesley who answers, and before he even turns around Matthew’s sure he knows who the voice belongs to. He tells himself the feeling that settles into his hands as he turns around is something other than fear.
Mary Crawley is both more and less beautiful than the pictures in the paper. She’s thinner than the photo in Robert’s office, her hair longer and her smile cooler. She’s dressed in a blue gown, sheer against her shoulders and cutting low on her chest. Her hair is gathered behind one ear, and when she steps toward him the fabric catches the light across her collarbone. To say she’s beautiful would be a ridiculously short sell, and it’s more than a few silent seconds before Matthew realizes he’s been staring, mouth half-open and eyes undoubtedly wide as saucers.
She steps between Matthew and Molesley and signals to the bartender. “Champagne,” she says, and Matthew gets no more than a sympathetic frown from Molesley before the older man heads quickly in the opposite direction.
There’s no avoiding it for Matthew. He stands awkwardly while the bartender pours Mary’s drink but once she turns back around, he steps forward. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean what I said, I was only joking.”
Mary gives him a long look up and down; he shifts uncomfortably on his feet, and when she speaks he can’t quite hold her gaze. “Sorry to tell you, but Sybil’s taken.” Mary takes a step toward him. “I know you two have been spending quite a lot of time together.”
Matthew nods and puts on what he hopes is a winning smile. “Yes, she’s been helping--”
“There’s always Edith,” Mary interrupts, “but I’m not sure you’re quite up for that challenge.” She looks him up and down again, lips purses and eyebrow raised. It’s like being in school, shuffled off to mingle with the girls of St. This or St. That. There’s a hollow pit where his stomach should be. “And then there’s me of course. And everyone knows I’m a sure thing.”
It’s like all the air is sucked out of the room. Matthew wouldn’t be surprised if he looked away to find everyone else staring at them, or everyone else making quickly for the exits to avoid witnessing the scene. But he can’t look away, not when she’s leaning toward him and pressing a hand against his chest, tugging lightly at his tie as she raises her lips to his ear. “Dear Matthew,” she says, “don’t believe everything you read.”
When she pulls back, there’s a gleam in her eyes that he’d almost call soft, but it sharpens in an instant when she looks over his shoulder and across the room. She straightens, lifts her chin, and all the sound comes flooding back in his ears, people jostling past them on their way to the bar. “Oh look, we’re being summoned.” She pushes past him and sets off across the room, and once he takes his eyes from the swing of her shoulders as she slides in and out of the crowd, he sees Robert and Cora at the table with his mother, glances cast warily in his direction. He drains the whiskey and soda in one gulp, grabs his mother’s wine, and heads toward them.
The first thing he hears when he gets to the table is his mother’s laughter. Cora’s got one hand over her husband’s and Robert’s smile is as tight as a drum. “Yes,” Mary says, twisting to look at Matthew over her shoulder, “Matthew was just telling me about his plans for his future at Downton.” The panic that flares up in Matthew’s chest is quelled when Mary smiles brightly and says, “Everything with Crowborough? Quite a triumph.”
He tries not to let his relief show. There’s still a warm spot on his chest where her hand had been, or maybe that’s just his imagination. “Yes, that was quite a coup for us.” He tries to catch Robert’s eye but it’s Cora who smiles up at him, fingers ever tighter around her husband’s hand.
Mary gestures to Sybil as she takes a seat beside Isobel. “Sybil’s been telling me about your charity work, Matthew. What a wonderful idea, getting her involved. Papa’s always made sure we know that family is an important part of the business.”
Matthew’s wise enough to keep his mouth shut, but he sees the marks of Cora’s fingernails on the back of Robert’s hand. Beside Sybil, Edith leans forward and asks, loud enough for her parents to hear, “Where’s Kemal tonight? Surely you’d rather be with him instead of here with us.”
Mary takes a sip of champagne and looks at her sister with a syrupy smile, slick and sweet enough to trap a hundred flies. ““He has better thing to do than come here with me.” Sybil opens her mouth, eyebrows turned down questioningly, but Mary silences here with a look and continues, “I’ll be meeting him later. Would you like to come? I’m sure he could show you a good time.” There’s a bite to her words that twists Edith’s coy smile into a frown, and just as the younger woman is about to respond, Robert’s voice hisses out across the table.
“Enough,” he says. Mary doesn’t flinch; Cora does. Robert casts his eyes around the room and slips his hand from his wife’s. He pushes his chair back too roughly and if Matthew knew him better, he could maybe read the lines of his face--it’s more than anger that sets his jaw and narrows his eyes. If Mary knows him well enough to decipher the sad snarl of his lips, she doesn’t show it. Robert tugs at his vest and straightens his jacket. “You shouldn’t have come,” he says, almost underneath his breath. “Cora, we’ve other people to see.” He holds out an arm for her, expectant.
Mary looks at Robert; Cora looks at Mary. There’s a whole room around them of laughing, happy people and it fades just at the edges of this table, at the inflexible bend of Robert’s elbow and the concrete contours of Mary’s smile. Cora looks for a moment as if she might speak but a man appears at Robert’s shoulder and whatever Cora might’ve said, she’s silent now.
“Anthony,” Robert says, turning to extend a hand. Anthony Strallan smiles at Robert and then at everyone else, oblivious to the tension he’s interrupted. Matthew notices for the first time just how tightly Mary’s fingers grip the chair in front of her, how much tension there is in the lines around Cora’s mouth. It’s obvious that this isn’t the first time this scene has been played out and he wonders how many times Cora’s had to play peacemaker, how successful she’s been in the past. He wonders whether this was a step forward or backward in whatever is so obviously broken between her husband and her daughter. He gives his own mother a smile in sympathy and thanks and by the time he turns back to glance at Mary, she’s smiling sweetly again, the corners of her eyes turning down.
Anthony Strallan lifts a hand toward Sybil and smiles amiably. “I hear you’re helping out at the office now,” he says. “Your grandmother was telling me.”
Sybil’s as sweet as ever when she answer, “Just sitting in, mostly. Working on a bit of charity business with Matthew.”
“She’s doing brilliantly,” Matthew says. “Always keeping me on my toes.” The smile Sybil gives him is almost conspiratorial. Matthew pretends not to notice the way Mary’s back straightens in response.
Strallan doesn’t seem to notice a thing. “It’s always the mark of a true entrepreneur,” he says, “giving back to one’s community. I worry your generation might not know that.” His tone is even stuffier than Robert’s. Matthew’s about to make the same bland response he’s given a hundred times but Mary who beats him to it.
“I couldn’t agree more,” she says. Mary, who in the space of five minutes talks so sweetly and earnestly about social responsibility and giving that Anthony Strallan nods his head and smiles the whole time. Mary, who in the space of those same five minutes has secured herself a spot on Sybil and Matthew’s unofficial charity committee. Mary, who posits the idea in front of Anthony Strallan and gives her father no choice but to grit his teeth and say, “Of course, Mary, that’s a wonderful idea." It’s more impressive than any haggling Matthew’s ever seen between CEOs of top-market companies and he’s reminded all in a rush that she’s Violet’s granddaughter, Robert’s daughter, and a force entirely her own. By the time she’s finished talking, Strallan’s smile is so wide it doesn’t fade the entire time he walks back to his table, Cora and Robert on either side.
Isobel has the forethought to excuse herself after Robert and Cora. Edith is quick behind her, pushing out of her chair in a rush. Matthew’s eyes trail behind her until she disappears into the crowd.
It’s Sybil who breaks the enveloping quiet that falls between them. She looks uncertainly at Mary, fingers running along the stem of her wine glass. “I thought Kemal was away.”
Mary turns sharply, glances first at Matthew and then at Sybil. “Papa doesn’t know that,” Mary says. Her words are pointed, her mouth a sour pinch of lipstick and anger. “Let him think what he likes.” She slumps inward just a bit, only for a moment, and Matthew has the urge to apologize. It comes unbidden and sticks in his throat. Just as the words push up past his lips, Mary looks over at him and says, “I thought you’d look more like Patrick.”
Matthew has no response. He wants to apologize, to explain himself, to ask the hundred questions circling around in his head--but he says nothing instead. Everything will be wrong.
Mary takes a step away and draws her shoulders back. “You’re right you know,” she says. Her face is a mask. “This is all a complete joke.”
He watches her as she crosses the room, keeps his eyes on the stiff set of her shoulders as she weaves through the crowd and out the main door. The knot in his chest is equal parts ice and fire, and he stares after her long after she’s gone.
----
Chapter 2: One & One Make One