Fic: A Girl in Black (3/?)
Title: A Girl in Black (3/?)
Author: mrstater
Fandom: Downton Abbey
Characters & Pairings: Mary Crawley/Richard Carlisle, Rosamund Painswick
Chapter Word Count: 3840
Chapter Summary: Sir Richard's tour of the Daily Telegram gives Mary a glimpse not only into the newspaper business, but into the man behind it.
Author's Notes: Thanks so much to all those who read and reviewed the previous chapter; I'm having entirely too much fun writing this fic, and no small part of that is down to your enthusiasm for it. Though no one can match the boundless enthusiasm of ju_dou, whom I cannot thank enough for her beta services and for volunteering to be official Research Assistant for AGiB; she's unearthed out some sparkling historical gems that will produce great fun in chapters to come. For now, you, along with Mary, will have to settle for vintage newspaper printing presses. You can view the one mentioned in this chapter here. I think that says quite a bit about Sir Richard's manhood, doesn't it? ;)
Previous Chapters |
3. The Tour
"Really, my dear," says Aunt Rosamund. "If you take any more care with your toilette, one might say you were trying to impress Sir Richard."
Mary's gaze flickers briefly to her aunt's reflection in the hall mirror, noting the raised eyebrows and upturned corner of the lips, before returning to continue her assessment of her own face. "One would be wrong."
She opens her little black handbag, takes out the silver compact, and dabs the powder puff lightly over a blemish at her jaw line and a shiny spot on her forehead--it's unseasonably warm for September, a true Indian summer--closing the cosmetic case again with a clap as satisfying as her reflection before she turns to face Rosamund.
"As if I've ever had to try to impress any man," she goes on. "Or would take it as a compliment to impress one like Sir Richard."
Slipping her forearm through the strap of her bag so that it dangles from the crook of her elbow, she steps through the front door of the townhome as the butler scuttles to open it. The tang of his ever-present sweat on the hot day makes her wrinkle her nose, though she might just as likely make the same face in about the man who is the subject of conversation.
"And what sort of man is that?" Rosamund asks.
Mary puts her free hand on the iron railing as she descends the front steps. "Why, one of those self-made men with insufficient taste to distinguish between an earl's daughter and a farmhand's, even if they wore sign posts round their necks to label which was which."
"From what I understand, the Duke of Crowborough's tastes are so refined as not to make that distinction, either."
The words are so sharp that Mary stands speechless on the pavement, feeling as if they slice through her vocal cards as well as reopen the wound dealt to her pride by the Duke's rejection.
"And it isn't a farmhand's daughter Sir Richard courted at the Ritz," Rosamund goes on, stepping around Mary toward the awaiting car.
"Who said a word about courtship? I've met Sir Richard twice."
The chauffeur sweeps open the car door for Rosamund, but she spins on her heel on the pavement to regard her niece. "And are on your way to meet him for the third time. Come, Mary, don't play at being coy. It's a game you won't win against me. Sir Richard Carlisle is a man on the rise. Surely it's crossed your mind that while a knighthood is all very well and good, he has his sights set on a peerage, and an earl's daughter is precisely the leg up he needs? And you--"
If Wood hadn't interrupted, flying out the front door, coattails flapping behind him, Mary would have.
"Lady Mary! Telephone for you!"
That makes Rosamund lift her brows again. "Perhaps the future earl of Grantham has died, after all, and your mama is ringing to tell you to snatch up a newspaper magnate before you find yourself the wife of a farmhand." Her skirt rustles as she turns to ascend the stairs to where her butler waits on the porch, Mary falling into step behind her. "This had better be more important than Cousin Shrimpy calling to catch up again, Wood, as Sir Richard Carlisle's expecting us for luncheon."
"That's just it, m'lady," Wood replies, bobbing back inside the house. "It's Sir Richard's secretary. She's calling to discuss a change of plans."
"His secretary!" Mary catches her aunt's eye as she steps around her into the hall. "A change of plans! I have made quite the impression on him."
She's conscious of Rosamund's scrutinising gaze on her, as well as how seldom she's used the telephone--only a handful of times on visits here; Papa's refusal to modernise Downton is so irritating--as she puts the receiver to her ear and speaks into the mouthpiece.
"Lady Mary Crawley speaking."
"Sir Richard's tied up in an important meeting," his secretary replies without preamble. "Would you and Lady Rosamund would be so good as to meet him in an hour at the Lyons on Fleet Street?"
"I'm afraid we couldn't possibly." Mary catches her reflection in the mirror above the telephone table and realising she has smiled, politely, as she would in a face-to-face conversation. As if to say she is disappointed, but understanding. She lets the smile fall; she feels neither disappointed nor understanding. Or at least will not own to either. "Please give Sir Richard our regrets."
She replaces the earpiece on the receiver and hands the telephone off to Wood, then tugs at the fingers of her gloves to remove them.
"Our regrets?" says Aunt Rosamund.
"He asked us to dine with him at Lyons."
"Did he? In that case I'm not certain our regrets were entirely necessary. Wood," she says, peeling off her own gloves as Mary unpins her hat, "would you please tell Mrs. Duncan we'll require luncheon after all?"
They've just sat down to eat when the muted rattle of the telephone sounds in the hall, followed by Wood's urgent footsteps approaching the dining room.
"Sir Richard Carlisle calling for you, Lady Mary," he says with a bob.
"Really Wood," says Rosamund, setting her teacup down hard enough for it to clink against its saucer. "Lady Mary's taking luncheon."
Wood's beady eyes dart sideways to his mistress as he makes another bow. "Forgive me, m'lady, I told him so, but he's a..." His Adam's apple rolls down his long white neck as he swallows. "...a difficult man to say no to."
Mary pushes back from the table. "I'll take it, Aunt Rosamund."
"This will be a conversation I wish I could hear both sides of," Rosamund says, following suit, but Mary turns to her in the doorway, blocking her aunt's path.
"You won't hear either side. This isn't a party line. I intend to speak with Sir Richard in private."
Rosamund bites into a sandwich with a sour twist of her mouth only a daughter of the Dowager Countess of Grantham could reproduce, but she remains seated while Mary slips out to the hall to answer the phone.
Even though she already knows what the conversation will be--she knew, after all, before she ever exchanged two words with Sir Richard at Agnes Belcher's ball that he is a man who never takes no for an answer--he still takes her slightly by surprise by getting directly down to business before she can utter the entire word hello into the mouthpiece.
"It's Lyons. Isn't it? The food is really quite good--I'm a bit of a regular there, as it's just a few blocks from the office and very convenient in the middle of a hectic day--but Miss Fields says it's not posh enough for you. Is that the problem, Lady Mary?"
"Why, Sir Richard, are you calling me a snob?"
"Is that not an accurate description?"
Mary scuffs the pad of her thumb over the smooth brass base of the stick telephone, deliberating her reply. "I'm not entirely sure you can quite appreciate the quality of invitation I'm accustomed to receiving."
"It's the Ritz or nothing for you, then?"
"Or that I am not accustomed to my company being regarded as lesser importance to those who engage it than work."
"Ah," says Richard in tones that make it far too easy for Mary to imagine him drawing in a breath and puffing his chest slightly as he tilts his chin upward; belatedly, she thinks she should not know him well enough after two--brief--encounters, to produce such a clear mental image of him, but she comforts herself with the thought that she only knows Richard well because there is so little to know. "I see what you mean now by quality. You're not accustomed to receiving invitations from a common working man who has commitments essential to his livelihood."
He's goading her, like a schoolboy poking at a small animal through the bars of its cage with a stick. No doubt he thinks to intimidate her, to put her in her in the place he thinks her kind of people should occupy. But Mary is no caged thing; she may not be the heir to Downton, to the title, but she is, nonetheless, a territorial creature.
"You have yet to show me that such invitations are worth growing accustomed to."
No sooner have the words flown from her lips than she remembers the twist of his mouth and the gleam of his eye across the table at the Ritz, and it occurs to her that perhaps he intended to provoke her fighting instinct.
"That's why I wished to show you around the newspaper."
"Indeed?"
"If you see what my work entails, you may even find it interesting. Or at least understand why I do." The waver of insecurity in his voice. "I'll even send a car so your aunt's chauffeur won't have to put himself out again."
"That won't be necessary, Sir Richard."
"I suppose that means our acquaintance is at an end?"
" It means that it won't be necessary to save Aunt Rosamund's chauffeur being put out. After all, it's his job to be put out by our whims."
She can almost see the indentations beneath his cheekbones as he says, "Then I shall have Miss Fields roll out the red carpet."
~*~
Mary's feet, of course, do not tread upon carpet, red or any other colour, when Sir Richard pushes open the door and stands aside for her and Aunt Rosamund to enter the warehouse at the back of his Fleet Street office building. One thing, however, is rolled out before her: paper.
Miles of paper, it seems, wound around spools and stretched in a zigzag pattern across a frame of metal beams and steaming pipes that must be three storeys high. The rolls, she notes, are unwound by a series of gears and wheels and lord only knows what other mechanical bits that move together with the precision of a finely-tuned clock, at a pace so dizzying that Mary reaches for the railing the metal platform on which they stand overlooking it all to steady herself. But she startles when Sir Richard's voice sounds quite close to her ear as he leans over her shoulder to be heard over the noise of the printing presses--for two of the monstrous machines loom in the cavernous space.
"That, Lady Mary, is the Double Octuple Newspaper Press."
She stiffens at a light brush against her back. Though she tells herself it must be her aunt's handbag as she drawers nearer to their host to hear him, a glance over her shoulder reveals Rosamund to be withholding herself at a polite distance. Which can only mean that Sir Richard's hand is at the small of her back.
The platform is narrow for three people, and Mary's hip presses into the rail as it is, so she cannot move away from him. Her only recourse is to look up at Sir Richard sharply, but naturally, he takes this as a sign of her interest and flashes her a grin before reverting his attention to the machines that print his newspapers.
"If we stood here for an hour, we'd see ninety-six thousand newspapers printed--on each press."
"Surely you don't expect us to stand here as long as that, Sir Richard?" Mary says, taking command of her faculties. "I can only imagine that when you've seen one newspaper printed, you've seen them all?"
The dig is too perfect to resist, but to her dismay, it doesn't appear to have struck a nerve at all. He shifts his position at her side, but only slightly, his hand never leaving where it continues to rest lightly on her back as he angles his body familiarly toward hers, adopting a casual stance leant against the rail. The corners of his eyes, she notes, crinkle with amusement as he regards her; Aunt Rosamund's words rush to the front of her mind from the previous day, about men in his world taking insults as flirtation.
"I take it you've not yet developed an appreciation for why I find this job so interesting?" he asks.
"I have," Aunt Rosamund answers.
They both turn to look back at her, Sir Richard's hand falling from Mary's back as if he has just remembered their chaperone. Though it's steaming in the warehouse and she's dressed in her grey autumn suit, she shivers at the noticeable lack of warmth at her back.
"Is this the Evening Telegram being printed, Sir Richard?" Rosamund asks, loudly, stepping nearer to them, and he bends closer to listen just as he did before with Mary.
"It is, Lady Rosamund."
"It's just gone one o'clock. With two presses working at ninety-six thousand papers an hour, and the Telegram being delivered at six, why, your circulation must be--"
"Over a million," he finishes for her. "And growing--thanks to the Marconi scandal."
"How gallant of you to spare a lady the arduousness of working out a sum for herself," says Mary.
To her surprise, that knocks the smile from his face; he looks at her again, eyebrows raised on a furrowed forehead. "Before you accuse me of demeaning the female intelligence, you might consider that in addition to the Telegram, I publish a number of suffragist magazines."
She is well aware; Sybil takes Lady Fair, which Papa thinks is just a fashion and society journal, and Mary reads it herself, on occasion--those occasions being more frequent since this business about the entail has come to the centre of attention at home.
"I am afraid I cannot admire that claim, Sir Richard, when I don't know whether you publish them because you support suffrage, or to appeal to the young female readership."
The lines of his brow ease with his chuckle; the low sound is lost beneath the mechanical whir and clatter of the printing presses, but Mary feels the rumble of it as he shoulder brushes hers.
"It's true, I'll publish anything people are willing to pay for," he admits, unabashedly. "But in the case of suffrage, this is one instance in which the views of the publisher match the views expressed in the material." He gives her an appraising look. "Though you ought to know that already. Or have you forgotten our conversation at Agnes Belcher's engagement ball?"
"It's entirely possible," Mary replies. "That was last May, after all. I've discussed a great many subjects with a great many people since then."
"But surely not many who share my bold and modern values?"
"Indeed. I find it difficult to imagine that I would discuss a controversial topic in such a genteel setting as a ball."
"Or even such a setting as this," Aunt Rosamund says. "Sir Richard, is it safe to go down for a closer look at how these Double Octuples work? I've long been intrigued by machinery--a lingering influence from my late husband, I suppose--but none so much as these presses of yours."
"Quite safe, Lady Rosamund." He gestures for her to lead the way down the wrought iron spiral staircase--but his eyes are on Mary, and his hand curls about her elbow as she starts the precarious descent. His breath brushes her cheek as he leans close to say in tones she--and only she--can hear, "Didn't you attend that genteel ball while in mourning?"
"I did, Sir Richard. Or have you forgotten that I turned down your invitation to dance with you?"
The muscle that ripples beneath his cheekbone as he clenches his jaw speaks plainly that he has not. No more than Mary has forgotten the discussion to which he refers. On the ground floor, Sir Richard practically shouts at Rosamund over the presses and their overall-clad operators as he explains how they work, but Mary hears only the whisper of his words snaking through her mind like the steam from the machines about the warehouse: I know most laws don't favour your sex any more than they favour those not born rich. We're not so very different, you and I…
She'd scoffed at him then and wants to do again now, but as she watches him explain the printing process to her aunt, she finds herself equally fascinated, drawn in not by the words as Rosamund is, but by the manner in which he speaks them. He talks easily, expertly, about the mechanics of newspaper publishing, as if it is an extension of himself, though not, Mary must grant, in that arrogant way in which he does talk about himself, as she noted during the previous day's tea. Oh, he bandies about newspaper jargon freely enough, yet he does so without alienating those listening to him, pausing to define the terminology, carefully, and concisely, ensuring that his guests--or pupils, more likely, and he their tutor--understand what he means. At least, this appears to be the case with Aunt Rosamund, who gives him her rapt attention and asks questions that prove her engagement; Mary, however, comes a way not so much with an understanding of how newspaper press operates, but of how a newspaper magnate does.
Sir Richard Carlisle is proud of his work, certainly--because he loves it. That much is evident in the way he looks on the two presses as they churn out twenty-seven newspapers a second as if they are his children, his eyes shining and the harsh lines of his face eased, and the caressing tone in his voice as he pronounces such words as linotype, matrices, and casting and distribution mechanisms. The newspapers aren't merely his livelihood, they're his life's work, deemed important not only by himself, but by those who have rewarded him for it with a knighthood, and perhaps someday a peerage. And while Mary has not been of a disposition to consider them real, proper titles, in this moment she cannot help but look around the noisy, steamy, inky warehouse and think that it must seem every bit as much a legacy to Sir Richard as tranquil, graceful Downton is to Papa.
Preferring to hear about how newspapers are made than to think about Papa and the estate he won't fight to give his own child, Mary redirects her attention to Sir Richard. Catching her eye, he smiles.
"If we stay here any longer, Lady Mary really will see ninety-six thousand papers printed." The fingertips of one hand brush her back again as he gestures with the other to the set of stairs they descended into the warehouse, the door at the top which leads back to the main office building. "Shall I show you around the offices? And if you have time," he says as Aunt Rosamund leads the way to the stairs, picking a path around a crew of workmen rolling in a spool of white paper that must be larger than a bale of hay, "I've taken the liberty of ordering tea to mine."
Mary pauses with her hand on the stair rail and looks back over her shoulder at him, eyebrows lifted. "From Lyon's?"
Though Sir Richard's hand remains at her back, his fingers curl in on themselves. He squints just the slightest bit, clearly put out. And is that the hint of colour on his cheeks? "From my own cook at home. Or does that meet your exacting standards?"
It's rather soon after luncheon for tea, and the housemaid brought in to serve them is hardly necessary, and the flowers bring to mind any number of disparaging remarks Granny has muttered under her breath about Mama's arrangements for parties at home. However, Mary can find no fault with the sandwiches and cake--what she musters appetite for, anyway. Nor can she bring herself to sneer at the china which looks unused enough to have been purchased from Harrods that very morning, for wondering whether Sir Richard ever takes his tea in his own home, with friends or family.
She realises, then, to what effort he's gone--or, more correctly, to what effort he's had other people go--to do things properly for her, and she wonders how many of her quality invitations have been made with such an earnest desire to please. Sir Richard's chest puffs beneath his waistcoat when she asks, over a second slice of Victoria sponge that would have Mrs Patmore spitting with jealousy, "Are you sure you didn't have this sent over from the Ritz?"
"The view from your office is quite breathtaking," says Aunt Rosamund. "One understands why you might be reluctant to leave it."
Between the two slices of cake and the compliment she paid it and the cutting remarks she did not make about the flowers, Mary has had all the sweetness she can stomach.
"Yes, it must be nice always to sit five storeys up, looking down on everyone, regardless of class and rank."
Sir Richard's expression is unreadable as he chews and swallows a sandwich, washing it down with a drink that drains his teacup, his eyes never leaving Mary's face. He pushes back from the table and, standing, beckons for her to join him at the tall windows set in the brownstone wall behind his desk, which overlook Fleet Street and the towering facade of St. Paul's.
"Do you see that newsboy there on the corner?" He points to a speck of a person on the pavement below, indistinguishable from the other passersby but for the stack of newspapers under his arm.
"One of your minions?"
"That was me, once upon a time. My father was one of the linotype operators for The Scotsman, and I..." He smiles faintly, his eyes grey and faraway. "Why, I was the best newsboy in Edinburgh."
"Why does that not surprise me?"
"You see," he says, gesturing with his hands as he begins to walk about the room--a man, Mary is beginning to realise, who can never keep still, or in one place, for long--"I was the only one who ever read the papers. Not just the headlines, but every article on every page, so I knew just what it was I had to sell--and then I said whatever was necessary to sell even the dullest of newspapers. Eventually Mr Cooper, the editor at the time, realised I was better at writing headlines than his journalists, so he pulled me off the streets and gave me my first desk job. It wasn't long before I was editor of The Scotsman in all but name, and the rest, as they say..."
His circuit of the room has brought him back to the window beside Mary, his fingers resting scarcely an inch from hers on the stone ledge.
"So you like a view of your newsboys to keep you humble?" she says.
Sir Richard's mouth twitches at the corners. "More to remind me of how far I've come, and may yet go."
Read Chapter 4
Author: mrstater
Fandom: Downton Abbey
Characters & Pairings: Mary Crawley/Richard Carlisle, Rosamund Painswick
Chapter Word Count: 3840
Chapter Summary: Sir Richard's tour of the Daily Telegram gives Mary a glimpse not only into the newspaper business, but into the man behind it.
Author's Notes: Thanks so much to all those who read and reviewed the previous chapter; I'm having entirely too much fun writing this fic, and no small part of that is down to your enthusiasm for it. Though no one can match the boundless enthusiasm of ju_dou, whom I cannot thank enough for her beta services and for volunteering to be official Research Assistant for AGiB; she's unearthed out some sparkling historical gems that will produce great fun in chapters to come. For now, you, along with Mary, will have to settle for vintage newspaper printing presses. You can view the one mentioned in this chapter here. I think that says quite a bit about Sir Richard's manhood, doesn't it? ;)
Previous Chapters |
3. The Tour
"Really, my dear," says Aunt Rosamund. "If you take any more care with your toilette, one might say you were trying to impress Sir Richard."
Mary's gaze flickers briefly to her aunt's reflection in the hall mirror, noting the raised eyebrows and upturned corner of the lips, before returning to continue her assessment of her own face. "One would be wrong."
She opens her little black handbag, takes out the silver compact, and dabs the powder puff lightly over a blemish at her jaw line and a shiny spot on her forehead--it's unseasonably warm for September, a true Indian summer--closing the cosmetic case again with a clap as satisfying as her reflection before she turns to face Rosamund.
"As if I've ever had to try to impress any man," she goes on. "Or would take it as a compliment to impress one like Sir Richard."
Slipping her forearm through the strap of her bag so that it dangles from the crook of her elbow, she steps through the front door of the townhome as the butler scuttles to open it. The tang of his ever-present sweat on the hot day makes her wrinkle her nose, though she might just as likely make the same face in about the man who is the subject of conversation.
"And what sort of man is that?" Rosamund asks.
Mary puts her free hand on the iron railing as she descends the front steps. "Why, one of those self-made men with insufficient taste to distinguish between an earl's daughter and a farmhand's, even if they wore sign posts round their necks to label which was which."
"From what I understand, the Duke of Crowborough's tastes are so refined as not to make that distinction, either."
The words are so sharp that Mary stands speechless on the pavement, feeling as if they slice through her vocal cards as well as reopen the wound dealt to her pride by the Duke's rejection.
"And it isn't a farmhand's daughter Sir Richard courted at the Ritz," Rosamund goes on, stepping around Mary toward the awaiting car.
"Who said a word about courtship? I've met Sir Richard twice."
The chauffeur sweeps open the car door for Rosamund, but she spins on her heel on the pavement to regard her niece. "And are on your way to meet him for the third time. Come, Mary, don't play at being coy. It's a game you won't win against me. Sir Richard Carlisle is a man on the rise. Surely it's crossed your mind that while a knighthood is all very well and good, he has his sights set on a peerage, and an earl's daughter is precisely the leg up he needs? And you--"
If Wood hadn't interrupted, flying out the front door, coattails flapping behind him, Mary would have.
"Lady Mary! Telephone for you!"
That makes Rosamund lift her brows again. "Perhaps the future earl of Grantham has died, after all, and your mama is ringing to tell you to snatch up a newspaper magnate before you find yourself the wife of a farmhand." Her skirt rustles as she turns to ascend the stairs to where her butler waits on the porch, Mary falling into step behind her. "This had better be more important than Cousin Shrimpy calling to catch up again, Wood, as Sir Richard Carlisle's expecting us for luncheon."
"That's just it, m'lady," Wood replies, bobbing back inside the house. "It's Sir Richard's secretary. She's calling to discuss a change of plans."
"His secretary!" Mary catches her aunt's eye as she steps around her into the hall. "A change of plans! I have made quite the impression on him."
She's conscious of Rosamund's scrutinising gaze on her, as well as how seldom she's used the telephone--only a handful of times on visits here; Papa's refusal to modernise Downton is so irritating--as she puts the receiver to her ear and speaks into the mouthpiece.
"Lady Mary Crawley speaking."
"Sir Richard's tied up in an important meeting," his secretary replies without preamble. "Would you and Lady Rosamund would be so good as to meet him in an hour at the Lyons on Fleet Street?"
"I'm afraid we couldn't possibly." Mary catches her reflection in the mirror above the telephone table and realising she has smiled, politely, as she would in a face-to-face conversation. As if to say she is disappointed, but understanding. She lets the smile fall; she feels neither disappointed nor understanding. Or at least will not own to either. "Please give Sir Richard our regrets."
She replaces the earpiece on the receiver and hands the telephone off to Wood, then tugs at the fingers of her gloves to remove them.
"Our regrets?" says Aunt Rosamund.
"He asked us to dine with him at Lyons."
"Did he? In that case I'm not certain our regrets were entirely necessary. Wood," she says, peeling off her own gloves as Mary unpins her hat, "would you please tell Mrs. Duncan we'll require luncheon after all?"
They've just sat down to eat when the muted rattle of the telephone sounds in the hall, followed by Wood's urgent footsteps approaching the dining room.
"Sir Richard Carlisle calling for you, Lady Mary," he says with a bob.
"Really Wood," says Rosamund, setting her teacup down hard enough for it to clink against its saucer. "Lady Mary's taking luncheon."
Wood's beady eyes dart sideways to his mistress as he makes another bow. "Forgive me, m'lady, I told him so, but he's a..." His Adam's apple rolls down his long white neck as he swallows. "...a difficult man to say no to."
Mary pushes back from the table. "I'll take it, Aunt Rosamund."
"This will be a conversation I wish I could hear both sides of," Rosamund says, following suit, but Mary turns to her in the doorway, blocking her aunt's path.
"You won't hear either side. This isn't a party line. I intend to speak with Sir Richard in private."
Rosamund bites into a sandwich with a sour twist of her mouth only a daughter of the Dowager Countess of Grantham could reproduce, but she remains seated while Mary slips out to the hall to answer the phone.
Even though she already knows what the conversation will be--she knew, after all, before she ever exchanged two words with Sir Richard at Agnes Belcher's ball that he is a man who never takes no for an answer--he still takes her slightly by surprise by getting directly down to business before she can utter the entire word hello into the mouthpiece.
"It's Lyons. Isn't it? The food is really quite good--I'm a bit of a regular there, as it's just a few blocks from the office and very convenient in the middle of a hectic day--but Miss Fields says it's not posh enough for you. Is that the problem, Lady Mary?"
"Why, Sir Richard, are you calling me a snob?"
"Is that not an accurate description?"
Mary scuffs the pad of her thumb over the smooth brass base of the stick telephone, deliberating her reply. "I'm not entirely sure you can quite appreciate the quality of invitation I'm accustomed to receiving."
"It's the Ritz or nothing for you, then?"
"Or that I am not accustomed to my company being regarded as lesser importance to those who engage it than work."
"Ah," says Richard in tones that make it far too easy for Mary to imagine him drawing in a breath and puffing his chest slightly as he tilts his chin upward; belatedly, she thinks she should not know him well enough after two--brief--encounters, to produce such a clear mental image of him, but she comforts herself with the thought that she only knows Richard well because there is so little to know. "I see what you mean now by quality. You're not accustomed to receiving invitations from a common working man who has commitments essential to his livelihood."
He's goading her, like a schoolboy poking at a small animal through the bars of its cage with a stick. No doubt he thinks to intimidate her, to put her in her in the place he thinks her kind of people should occupy. But Mary is no caged thing; she may not be the heir to Downton, to the title, but she is, nonetheless, a territorial creature.
"You have yet to show me that such invitations are worth growing accustomed to."
No sooner have the words flown from her lips than she remembers the twist of his mouth and the gleam of his eye across the table at the Ritz, and it occurs to her that perhaps he intended to provoke her fighting instinct.
"That's why I wished to show you around the newspaper."
"Indeed?"
"If you see what my work entails, you may even find it interesting. Or at least understand why I do." The waver of insecurity in his voice. "I'll even send a car so your aunt's chauffeur won't have to put himself out again."
"That won't be necessary, Sir Richard."
"I suppose that means our acquaintance is at an end?"
" It means that it won't be necessary to save Aunt Rosamund's chauffeur being put out. After all, it's his job to be put out by our whims."
She can almost see the indentations beneath his cheekbones as he says, "Then I shall have Miss Fields roll out the red carpet."
~*~
Mary's feet, of course, do not tread upon carpet, red or any other colour, when Sir Richard pushes open the door and stands aside for her and Aunt Rosamund to enter the warehouse at the back of his Fleet Street office building. One thing, however, is rolled out before her: paper.
Miles of paper, it seems, wound around spools and stretched in a zigzag pattern across a frame of metal beams and steaming pipes that must be three storeys high. The rolls, she notes, are unwound by a series of gears and wheels and lord only knows what other mechanical bits that move together with the precision of a finely-tuned clock, at a pace so dizzying that Mary reaches for the railing the metal platform on which they stand overlooking it all to steady herself. But she startles when Sir Richard's voice sounds quite close to her ear as he leans over her shoulder to be heard over the noise of the printing presses--for two of the monstrous machines loom in the cavernous space.
"That, Lady Mary, is the Double Octuple Newspaper Press."
She stiffens at a light brush against her back. Though she tells herself it must be her aunt's handbag as she drawers nearer to their host to hear him, a glance over her shoulder reveals Rosamund to be withholding herself at a polite distance. Which can only mean that Sir Richard's hand is at the small of her back.
The platform is narrow for three people, and Mary's hip presses into the rail as it is, so she cannot move away from him. Her only recourse is to look up at Sir Richard sharply, but naturally, he takes this as a sign of her interest and flashes her a grin before reverting his attention to the machines that print his newspapers.
"If we stood here for an hour, we'd see ninety-six thousand newspapers printed--on each press."
"Surely you don't expect us to stand here as long as that, Sir Richard?" Mary says, taking command of her faculties. "I can only imagine that when you've seen one newspaper printed, you've seen them all?"
The dig is too perfect to resist, but to her dismay, it doesn't appear to have struck a nerve at all. He shifts his position at her side, but only slightly, his hand never leaving where it continues to rest lightly on her back as he angles his body familiarly toward hers, adopting a casual stance leant against the rail. The corners of his eyes, she notes, crinkle with amusement as he regards her; Aunt Rosamund's words rush to the front of her mind from the previous day, about men in his world taking insults as flirtation.
"I take it you've not yet developed an appreciation for why I find this job so interesting?" he asks.
"I have," Aunt Rosamund answers.
They both turn to look back at her, Sir Richard's hand falling from Mary's back as if he has just remembered their chaperone. Though it's steaming in the warehouse and she's dressed in her grey autumn suit, she shivers at the noticeable lack of warmth at her back.
"Is this the Evening Telegram being printed, Sir Richard?" Rosamund asks, loudly, stepping nearer to them, and he bends closer to listen just as he did before with Mary.
"It is, Lady Rosamund."
"It's just gone one o'clock. With two presses working at ninety-six thousand papers an hour, and the Telegram being delivered at six, why, your circulation must be--"
"Over a million," he finishes for her. "And growing--thanks to the Marconi scandal."
"How gallant of you to spare a lady the arduousness of working out a sum for herself," says Mary.
To her surprise, that knocks the smile from his face; he looks at her again, eyebrows raised on a furrowed forehead. "Before you accuse me of demeaning the female intelligence, you might consider that in addition to the Telegram, I publish a number of suffragist magazines."
She is well aware; Sybil takes Lady Fair, which Papa thinks is just a fashion and society journal, and Mary reads it herself, on occasion--those occasions being more frequent since this business about the entail has come to the centre of attention at home.
"I am afraid I cannot admire that claim, Sir Richard, when I don't know whether you publish them because you support suffrage, or to appeal to the young female readership."
The lines of his brow ease with his chuckle; the low sound is lost beneath the mechanical whir and clatter of the printing presses, but Mary feels the rumble of it as he shoulder brushes hers.
"It's true, I'll publish anything people are willing to pay for," he admits, unabashedly. "But in the case of suffrage, this is one instance in which the views of the publisher match the views expressed in the material." He gives her an appraising look. "Though you ought to know that already. Or have you forgotten our conversation at Agnes Belcher's engagement ball?"
"It's entirely possible," Mary replies. "That was last May, after all. I've discussed a great many subjects with a great many people since then."
"But surely not many who share my bold and modern values?"
"Indeed. I find it difficult to imagine that I would discuss a controversial topic in such a genteel setting as a ball."
"Or even such a setting as this," Aunt Rosamund says. "Sir Richard, is it safe to go down for a closer look at how these Double Octuples work? I've long been intrigued by machinery--a lingering influence from my late husband, I suppose--but none so much as these presses of yours."
"Quite safe, Lady Rosamund." He gestures for her to lead the way down the wrought iron spiral staircase--but his eyes are on Mary, and his hand curls about her elbow as she starts the precarious descent. His breath brushes her cheek as he leans close to say in tones she--and only she--can hear, "Didn't you attend that genteel ball while in mourning?"
"I did, Sir Richard. Or have you forgotten that I turned down your invitation to dance with you?"
The muscle that ripples beneath his cheekbone as he clenches his jaw speaks plainly that he has not. No more than Mary has forgotten the discussion to which he refers. On the ground floor, Sir Richard practically shouts at Rosamund over the presses and their overall-clad operators as he explains how they work, but Mary hears only the whisper of his words snaking through her mind like the steam from the machines about the warehouse: I know most laws don't favour your sex any more than they favour those not born rich. We're not so very different, you and I…
She'd scoffed at him then and wants to do again now, but as she watches him explain the printing process to her aunt, she finds herself equally fascinated, drawn in not by the words as Rosamund is, but by the manner in which he speaks them. He talks easily, expertly, about the mechanics of newspaper publishing, as if it is an extension of himself, though not, Mary must grant, in that arrogant way in which he does talk about himself, as she noted during the previous day's tea. Oh, he bandies about newspaper jargon freely enough, yet he does so without alienating those listening to him, pausing to define the terminology, carefully, and concisely, ensuring that his guests--or pupils, more likely, and he their tutor--understand what he means. At least, this appears to be the case with Aunt Rosamund, who gives him her rapt attention and asks questions that prove her engagement; Mary, however, comes a way not so much with an understanding of how newspaper press operates, but of how a newspaper magnate does.
Sir Richard Carlisle is proud of his work, certainly--because he loves it. That much is evident in the way he looks on the two presses as they churn out twenty-seven newspapers a second as if they are his children, his eyes shining and the harsh lines of his face eased, and the caressing tone in his voice as he pronounces such words as linotype, matrices, and casting and distribution mechanisms. The newspapers aren't merely his livelihood, they're his life's work, deemed important not only by himself, but by those who have rewarded him for it with a knighthood, and perhaps someday a peerage. And while Mary has not been of a disposition to consider them real, proper titles, in this moment she cannot help but look around the noisy, steamy, inky warehouse and think that it must seem every bit as much a legacy to Sir Richard as tranquil, graceful Downton is to Papa.
Preferring to hear about how newspapers are made than to think about Papa and the estate he won't fight to give his own child, Mary redirects her attention to Sir Richard. Catching her eye, he smiles.
"If we stay here any longer, Lady Mary really will see ninety-six thousand papers printed." The fingertips of one hand brush her back again as he gestures with the other to the set of stairs they descended into the warehouse, the door at the top which leads back to the main office building. "Shall I show you around the offices? And if you have time," he says as Aunt Rosamund leads the way to the stairs, picking a path around a crew of workmen rolling in a spool of white paper that must be larger than a bale of hay, "I've taken the liberty of ordering tea to mine."
Mary pauses with her hand on the stair rail and looks back over her shoulder at him, eyebrows lifted. "From Lyon's?"
Though Sir Richard's hand remains at her back, his fingers curl in on themselves. He squints just the slightest bit, clearly put out. And is that the hint of colour on his cheeks? "From my own cook at home. Or does that meet your exacting standards?"
It's rather soon after luncheon for tea, and the housemaid brought in to serve them is hardly necessary, and the flowers bring to mind any number of disparaging remarks Granny has muttered under her breath about Mama's arrangements for parties at home. However, Mary can find no fault with the sandwiches and cake--what she musters appetite for, anyway. Nor can she bring herself to sneer at the china which looks unused enough to have been purchased from Harrods that very morning, for wondering whether Sir Richard ever takes his tea in his own home, with friends or family.
She realises, then, to what effort he's gone--or, more correctly, to what effort he's had other people go--to do things properly for her, and she wonders how many of her quality invitations have been made with such an earnest desire to please. Sir Richard's chest puffs beneath his waistcoat when she asks, over a second slice of Victoria sponge that would have Mrs Patmore spitting with jealousy, "Are you sure you didn't have this sent over from the Ritz?"
"The view from your office is quite breathtaking," says Aunt Rosamund. "One understands why you might be reluctant to leave it."
Between the two slices of cake and the compliment she paid it and the cutting remarks she did not make about the flowers, Mary has had all the sweetness she can stomach.
"Yes, it must be nice always to sit five storeys up, looking down on everyone, regardless of class and rank."
Sir Richard's expression is unreadable as he chews and swallows a sandwich, washing it down with a drink that drains his teacup, his eyes never leaving Mary's face. He pushes back from the table and, standing, beckons for her to join him at the tall windows set in the brownstone wall behind his desk, which overlook Fleet Street and the towering facade of St. Paul's.
"Do you see that newsboy there on the corner?" He points to a speck of a person on the pavement below, indistinguishable from the other passersby but for the stack of newspapers under his arm.
"One of your minions?"
"That was me, once upon a time. My father was one of the linotype operators for The Scotsman, and I..." He smiles faintly, his eyes grey and faraway. "Why, I was the best newsboy in Edinburgh."
"Why does that not surprise me?"
"You see," he says, gesturing with his hands as he begins to walk about the room--a man, Mary is beginning to realise, who can never keep still, or in one place, for long--"I was the only one who ever read the papers. Not just the headlines, but every article on every page, so I knew just what it was I had to sell--and then I said whatever was necessary to sell even the dullest of newspapers. Eventually Mr Cooper, the editor at the time, realised I was better at writing headlines than his journalists, so he pulled me off the streets and gave me my first desk job. It wasn't long before I was editor of The Scotsman in all but name, and the rest, as they say..."
His circuit of the room has brought him back to the window beside Mary, his fingers resting scarcely an inch from hers on the stone ledge.
"So you like a view of your newsboys to keep you humble?" she says.
Sir Richard's mouth twitches at the corners. "More to remind me of how far I've come, and may yet go."
Read Chapter 4