She had already left most of the hallway behind her and reached the grand wooden staircase when the door she had just closed opened and clicked shut again. A second later, she heard her father shout after her: "Mary, wait! Can I keep you for a few more minutes until you go back to doing whatever you were about to do?"
"Well, yes, certainly. I am sorry, I thought everything was settled and wanted to give Mama and you the chance to rest again," Mary said apologetically when her father caught up with her.
Slightly out of breath from the jog down the hallway he had just demonstrated, he came to stand next to her as she waited up for him at the top of the stairs. "No, that is perfectly alright. She's resting now. I would not have mentioned this in there either way," he replied rather sheepishly and conspiratorially, alluding to what he held in his left hand by raising it ever so slightly.
It was only then that Mary caught sight of the file held securely in his hand. It was the same one he had been looking through when she had walked into her mother's bedroom earlier, she realised. She had assumed it had something to do with the estate after catching quick glimpses of a technical drawing on one of the pages in his hands. It only occurred to her then, as they were both standing out in the hallway, that this was quite strange since her father did not have anything to do with the running of the estate any longer, not since his ulcer had burst, so why should he be looking at such projects?
"Why don't we go to the library for this, then? If this is truly so clandestine?" Mary asked, her voice dripping with intrigue, as she began to descend the stairs with her father and his secret plans in tow.
"Now, what are those, Papa? I saw you studying them when I came in upstairs."
Mary was pointing at the file her father had just put on the table in the library. He was busy opening it, taking out several technical drawings and plans, and spreading out the many pages in front of them on the table.
"Could you take a look at these?" he asked as he turned to her. "It needn't be right now necessarily, but soon would be good."
While Mary's gaze quickly scanned the pages, her brows furrowed in confusion. "What are these plans for, Papa?"
Robert stood tall next to her, his eyes sweeping over the pages, as he heaved a deep breath. Of course, he should probably explain what this was all about. Suddenly, as he was about to relay his plans to someone else for the first time, he found he was quite nervous and could not keep the fingers of his left hand from drumming on the table as they stood there. What if this idea of his was completely ridiculous? Mary would be the first person to tell him, she was quite blunt most of the time.
"You see, your uncle gave me quite a lot of money when we were in America. He said I should use it to make your Mama happy, and I intend to do just that. With her birthday coming up in three months, I wanted to do something special. And I also want to use that occasion to celebrate our anniversary belatedly. This past year has shown me that I should not take anything for granted and that I should do things while I still can. And I feel like I have been given another chance with your Mama and her expected recovery. Spending that day in that hospital room was not something I ever thought would happen. And it is not what I wanted for the occasion of our 39th anniversary."
"Of course not. Even though she loved the photograph you gave her. It meant such a great deal to her. That was the first thing she told me when I came to visit."
"I hoped it would. But still, that was not my plan. What I ultimately came up with was all part of a bigger plan, and it started with asking local builders to come up with a few different designs."
Robert vaguely gestured to the pages on the table. Mary had been right, she had seen technical drawings in the folder her father had been looking through when she went upstairs, but she still had no idea what they were for and it puzzled her.
"Designs for what exactly? I do not quite see how all these pieces of information fit together yet."
"I asked some companies to make up plans for another folly or pavilion of sorts, to build near the rose gardens your Mama so loves. I want her to have a space to go to that's hers, that was made specifically for her and not built for someone who lived here centuries ago," he explained, now looking at Mary who had been eyeing him curiously once again. "These are the preliminary plans I got back so far. Do you think one of these could be to your mother's taste?"
"You've known her for longer than I have, Papa. The question is, do you think there is one among these?"
Robert hesitated. He had a rough idea of which of the options his wife could like, but he knew he was lacking that female instinct. This was a big decision he needed to make, it needed to be perfect if they were to have it built in the gardens. It needed to be perfect for her.
"Not for much longer, though," he stated with a low chuckle, looking at her out of the corner of his eye before returning his look to the plans spread out in front of them. "I need this to be perfect, Mary. And I do not trust myself enough to decide on the right one fully on my own."
Mary's eyes wandered over the different pages filled with drawings and descriptions in meticulous penmanship. Out of the very different outlines, there were two she thought her mother would particularly enjoy.
"For me, it has to be either this one or that over there."
She pointed first at a sketch of a smaller and quite simple pavilion, as Robert found. He had brushed it off as being too nondescript in his earlier sifting through the plans. But then when Mary pointed it out, he looked closer and read through the ideas written in ink next to the drawing he had dismissively discarded before.
It was supposed to be an aerial open building with intricate details chiselled into the light sandstone the builders wanted to use. The light was supposed to flood in through the archways and the open roof, which was really just a stone or metal grid for flowers to cling to. The builders suggested planting a plethora of them nearby, especially roses and vines or other climbing plants. Those would hopefully soon cover the gridded cupola and create a dome of leaves that would provide shade during the warm summer months.
Robert could, for some strange reason, picture that scene only too well; his wife sitting in the cool shadows that the stone and flowers granted as the sun of another warm British summer beamed down, a book in hand and a slight breeze blowing through her hair that was beginning to escape out of its up-do. Yes, this idea would complement the other buildings already on the estate, the planner used similar older and quite traditional structures to what Robert had been used to seeing ever since he had been a young boy rounding the estate with his father. It would fit in almost seamlessly.
Slowly and reverently, he nodded and his gaze followed his daughter's finger that was pointing to the second plan she had singled out.
This one was the polar opposite of the one before. It was a solid round build, made predominantly out of red brick with only accents of sandstone, according to the instructions written next to it. The doorway would be surrounded by sandstone, and there was to be a second, smaller floor, crowned with a dome. Several quite differently shaped small windows were sketched next to the cupola, all of them suggestions of what could fit in well to let in more light.
This was not at all the sort of traditional build he would have ever considered fitting in well with the architecture of the gardens and the house, and he was quite surprised to find Mary single this one out of all the options. This was, again, nothing like the ones he had thought about earlier.
However, the longer he looked at it, the more he understood her, or so he thought. This was not conventional. It was certainly not what his mother would have chosen, he was sure of that. But his mother would also never have chosen Cora to be his wife had it been up to her.
Cora was never the traditional choice, the conventional, the expected. And yet she had been the choice that made him the happiest; she had been the best possible partner for him through all these years, the perfect fit. She was the breath of fresh air Downton had needed, that he had needed. She had turned his sometimes quite dreary life into this exciting adventure that had its ups and downs, and they managed them together.
"Well, which one do you think it is?" he asked, entirely undecided on which plan to select now that he saw the good points in both, his own preferred choices long forgotten and discarded.
Mary's gaze wandered between the two she had just pointed to, her expression exemplified how deeply lost in her thoughts she was.
"Both have their merits, and I think she would love either of these," she said slowly and very carefully.
"But?"
"But I do have another idea, a different one."
Mary went to his desk and came back with a pen and an empty sheet of paper she had found lying around on the desktop. Moving the plans and sketches out of the way that had already been discarded and reaching for the two she had singled out, she started to put her idea on the paper as her father could only look at her curiously. "Where are the builders for these based?" Mary asked while still concentrating on the paper in front of her.
"I think this one was from Ripon, and the other company is based in Thirsk."
Still jotting down notes and working on a very rough sketch, Mary said: "What if you asked the two builders to work together on another design, one that captures the essence of both of these? Maybe it could be a half-solid build made out of brick with these accents of sandstone, and the other half would consist of these beautifully carved archways that let in more light. And you could ask them to carve the windows in the same intricate manner up in the dome?"
Mary showed him her quick sketch then, and it was a very rough one, but he could see her vision. It was a very appealing one, he had to admit. And it seemed like something Cora would choose.
"Ask them to combine their plans, have them incorporate the parts of each one you enjoy the most, and see if they are up for it. A combination of these two plans would bring together the traditional and the unconventional, the old and the new. And I think it would be exactly what Mama would like."
"You are right, I will ask them to come here tomorrow and mull these over with them. Could you join us, then, and help this old fool here describe what it is we want?" he asked, his tone playful as he motioned towards himself. He knew he would not be able to do this plan of hers justice if he were left alone with the builders.
"Not tomorrow, Papa. We will not be here."
"Why?"
"Murray asked us to come to London, he telephoned earlier today. I suspect it is about the business."
Just by the way she articulated the last words, he knew that this was about Henry. She had not mentioned the divorce, not since he had taken her to Murray's office in January after she had told him of her conversation with her husband. None of them had.
"Alright, then the day after tomorrow? Sometime after tea?"
"Yes, that is better. And we could visit Rosamund tomorrow, there should be enough time if we take the early train down south."
Before her father could reply, she looked at the clock standing close by and realised that she was already running quite late for her next appointment.
Already beginning to make her way out, she hurriedly said: "I am very sorry, Papa. But I do have to leave you alone with this for now, I have a meeting with a few of our farmers."
"That's alright," he sighed, looking after her. He did feel quite useless and guilty, having to watch his daughter go out and do what was supposed to be his job. He had not met with any of the farmers in years, not since Mary and Tom had taken over for him following his burst ulcer.
Right when Mary had reached the door, he all but nervously shouted after her: "But don't tell your Mama. Better yet, don't tell anyone. This is to be a surprise!"
"I know, Papa!" she replied, the wide smile gracing her features audible in her tone as she walked on, leaving her father proud in her wake.