Mirror Image

Title: Mirror Image
Author: ExcentrykeMuse
Fandom(s): Twilight Saga / Downton Abbey
Pairing(s): Bella Swan/Matthew Crawley, (past) Bella/Edward, (past) Matthew/Lady Mary
Word Count: 3.5k
Rating: PG

Warning(s): time travel, war, elopement, mourning, gambling
Prompt: for cat b: Always I will ask for any twilight crossover you wish!

The letter came on a Tuesday.  Bella Swan was staying at a respectable hotel and every morning before she went into breakfast, she checked her pigeonhole for notes on the latest poker games and post from France.  That morning she had two notes, one from Mr. Small and another from Mr. Whiting, and a letter from Captain Crawley from France.

She thanked the bellboy, being sure not to let emotion touch her face, and quickly read the two notes.  There was a small game that afternoon at the Four Arms to which she was cordially invited (this from Mr. Small) and then a larger, more elegant event at Lady Evelyn’s where there would be gaming tables.  The note from Mr. Whiting included an invitation from Lady Evelyn herself.  Bella wondered how Mr. Whiting had managed it.

Bella slipped both notes into her reticule and took a deep breath, smoothing out the letter from France.  She bit her lip, a bad habit she had from the twenty-first century, and then went into breakfast.

Setting the letter aside, she allowed the waiter to pour her tea, and went to make up her plate.  It wasn’t until after she finished her meal and was having her second cup of morning coffee that she sliced open her letter with a butter knife.

She smiled to herself at the thought of Captain Matthew Crawley, whom she had met in this very dining hall, before reading his letter.  It was full of war, full of mud, and the horrors of the front lines of what was called the Great War.  Bella had read about World War I in history class back in Forks, Washington, but it was far more effervescent in Matthew’s letters.

My darling, he wrote.  In a week’s time I will have leave and hope to find you still installed at – in London where we might once again dine together.  Might I hope to introduce you to my excellent mother despite the lack of chaperone now that we know each other better?

Bella’s stomach flip-flopped and she shuffled back to the first page, looking at the date.  Six days ago.  Her eyes flicked up to the clock.  It was half past eight in the morning.   Taking a final sip of her tea, she gathered her letter together and went back to the front desk.

“Good morning, Mrs. Swan,” the hotel clerk greeted her with a smile.

Bella gave him a hesitant smile back and looked down at her hands, shifting nervously.  Then, as if gaining courage from the ring on her fourth finger, she looked up and asked, “Have you had a letter from Captain Crawley?  I’ve had correspondence that he expects to be here in a week—and the letter was dated six days ago.  When precisely is his reservation?”

The clerk nodded and opened his reservation book, his eyes flitting down briefly as if he already knew the answer and was just doublechecking.  “Captain Crawley, Mrs. Swan, is arriving tonight by the night train, and has a reservation for two nights.  His usual room.”

Bella didn’t know what his usual room was, but she nodded as if she did.  “Thank you,” she murmured.  She would probably be out at Lady Evelyn’s when he arrived, so she would leave him a note to meet her for breakfast. 

Her stomach tightened at the thought of seeing him again and as she walked back to her modest room in the establishment, her mind running through the last time they had seen each other.

She had arrived in 1917 London after running after Edward Cullen to Italy and being captured by the Volturi.  Lord Marcus had determined that she had “lines”—relationships—to someone other than Edward Cullen and that she had to be sent to the one “whose heart she sang for.”  At least, that’s what she thought he said.  When she arrived in London, she had to find an Italian dictionary and translate his words.

The next morning, she met Captain Matthew Crawley at breakfast, and her heart constricted at his shy smile and his beautiful human blue eyes.  He had been on leave from the Army, on his way back to France, and he asked if he might write to her, and she found that she couldn’t refuse.

Everyone called her “Mrs. Swan” and she was dressed in mourning as if she were a widow.  Bella didn’t want to lie to Captain Crawley—she was just a girl from Forks.

Captain Crawley never asked about her bereavement.  His eyes only lingered on her wedding band once—which had appeared on her hand just as mysteriously as her widow weeds had appeared on her body—and that was only just before he asked if he could write to her.  She wore the band now, months later, only because it secured her place in society.  She didn’t need an escort as a widow.  She could move about invisibly throughout London, unseen and therefore not recognized.  Only Captain Crawley saw her.

Bella didn’t even try to find the Cullens.  She knew that Edward was a human boy living in Chicago, over a year before the Spanish Influenza outbreak.  Carlisle was probably there now.  Although she had won enough money to take a ship to the New World, she found she had no reason to go—no reason to leave her fledgling gambling life in London and her letters with Captain Crawley.

Some nights she dreamt of Captain Crawley.  Some nights he was in the muds of France and it was as if she was viewing him from some secret place in the trenches.  Some nights they were together in her room in Forks.  Bella was just as she was, a teenager from twenty-first century America, but Captain Crawley was always in uniform, out of place but no less welcome.  Some nights they were walking around London together and he would hold her hand although no one held hands in 1917 London—it was not the done thing.

Still, Bella dreamt of it.

That day she went about her day as if it were any other day.  She went to the small polite game Mr. Small had invited her to, won a little money, and then went home to take a nap.  In the evening she dressed more elegantly, though still in widow’s weeds, and went to Lady Evelyn’s.  She left a message in Captain Crawley’s pigeonhole to meet her for breakfast, inquiring only if his train had arrived yet (which it had not), before going out again.

She went to sleep that night, her head slightly sore from wearing feathers, the vision of Captain Crawley behind her eyes.

When she woke up she breathed out his name: “Matthew.”

Bella was quick to rise.  She splashed water on her face, put on her forward-facing corset, and then dressed completely in black.  Fashion dictated that she wear her hair upon her head and so she pinned it in place, looking only in the mirror to make certain she was neat.

At half seven, she grabbed her reticule and took the main stairs down to the dining room where she stood in the door and looked, waiting to see if Captain Crawley was already there.

He was drinking from a cup of tea, but immediately stood up upon seeing her, dressed in his military uniform.  He smiled, that kind, shy smile of his, and she walked up to him with a smile of her own.

“Captain Crawley,” she breathed, “I’m glad to see you well and whole.”

“By the grace of God,” he answered solemnly before he came up behind her and pulled her chair out for her.  “How are you, Mrs. Swan?”

“Quite well, thank you,” she murmured.  She flicked her large brown eyes open.  “Happy to see you again. Your letter yesterday morning was a wonderful surprise.”

He looked quite relieved at her words.  “Then you will consider allowing me to introduce you to my mother?”

Bella picked up the teapot in the middle of the table and allowed herself to think as she poured herself a cup and made it up with milk.  “Mrs. Crawley is in Yorkshire, is she not?”

“She is,” Captain Crawley agreed.

“I’ve never been,” Bella remarked, off hand.  Her mind turned toward Edward and meeting Esme Cullen.  “Meeting mothers is always a large step—”  She left her statement hanging.

He blushed slightly.  “I’ve gotten ahead of myself,” he apologized.  “I should like very much, Mrs. Swan, to introduce you as my future wife to my mother and wider family.”

Bella was startled into almost dropping her teacup.  She just stared at Captain Crawley.  “Are you asking me—?” she inquired, her voice low and hushed. 

“Yes, Mrs. Swan—Isabella—”

She looked up again at her name.  She signed all of her letters Bella Swan, but he still addressed her as Isabella in his letters, insisting on her full name.  In one of his letters he wrote her that “nothing else would be proper.”

Bella set her cup down. “How do you suppose I live, Captain Crawley?”

He looked confused.  “I don’t suppose I rightly—”

“Edward,” she said, using Edward’s name because he was her ex and what else would she call her supposed husband? “—left me with nothing.  I play cards.  I know you’re connected to a title somehow, and I doubt he’d like a degenerate gambler in the family.”  Bella didn’t like saying such things about herself, but she understood early twentieth century life enough to know that she wasn’t respectable and that Captain Crawley, as a Captain, had connections, and was eminently respectable.

She looked away, not wishing to see rejection on Captain Crawley’s face.

“That’s Edward Swan’s fault,” Captain Crawley said firmly, causing Bella to look back toward him, “not yours.  He didn’t take care of you properly.”

Bella briefly thought of Edward and his large displays of wealth and how he would have liked nothing better than to take care of her, and she couldn’t help but laugh a little to herself.  “Sorry,” she murmured as she covered her mouth with her hand.  “My life is not what I thought it would be,” Bella admitted.

“You never have to worry again,” he promised her solemnly.  “Isabella, say you’ll be my wife.  We can be married by special license this week and I can take you home to Downton, away from all of this.  You never have to—gamble—” he said the word with such derision—“for money again.”

A shotgun wedding.  Bella had never contemplated marriage until a wedding band appeared on her finger, and now she was contemplating a shotgun wedding to a man she had known for just a single meal before this very day.

He reached a hand out over the table and she carefully took it.  “Marry me, Isabella.”

“Bella,” she tried.

“Isabella is a lovely name,” he told her.  “It fits you so completely.”

She breathed through her nose but let it pass.  She wasn’t going to win this battle with a man a hundred years old.  Names were different then than they were now.  Or was it the other way around?

Her mind flitted to Lord Marcus and the lines, and she thought surely her line had brought her here, to this man.  This must be fate.  “I will marry you,” she whispered, “as long as I don’t have to wear white.”

He laughed happily at that.  “Surely you can come partially out of mourning and wear mauve,” he suggested.

Bella had no idea how long she was even supposed to be in mourning.  “Surely I can,” she decided, not really caring for the black.

After breakfast, Captain Crawley went to go get the special license, and Bella went to go get a dress.  She had gotten a few a month earlier and went to the same modiste.  “I need it by tomorrow,” she said, “mauve, for my wedding.”

The woman looked at her with a calculating eye, probably deciding how much she could charge Bella, but in the end Bella got her dress.

They were married in a small church with Mr. Small and a soldier named William Mason as their witnesses.  Bella had taken off her wedding band that morning, only to have a new one put in its place, this one engraved with Captain Crawley’s name on the inside.  When Captain Crawley—Matthew—kissed her, Bella felt the warmth of his breath against her skin and sighed.

In the afternoon they walked in Hyde Park, her hand in the crook of his arm, as he told her about his family.

“Lady Mary is who you wanted to marry initially then,” she murmured.  “She’s your Edward.”

“Yes,” he agreed, pulling her closer, “but we never married.”

“Edward was so young—” she confessed, thinking how he was forever trapped in his seventeen-year-old body.  “He would barely kiss me.  He was always afraid of his passion for me.  He—”  She swallowed and looked in the distance.  “Matthew, we never—”

He looked at her with his beautiful blue eyes in confusion and then realization slowly crept into them.  “Are you saying, Isabella, that your marriage was never consummated?”

She deflated in relief.  “That’s exactly what I’m saying,” she confessed.

“How could Mr. Swan be so cruel?” he asked her in bewilderment.

Bella grimaced.  “We were such a short time married,” she tried to explain away.  The fact was, she and Edward had been barely together at all.

“My poor darling,” he murmured, kissing her gloved hand. 

He sent a telegram to Crawley House later that afternoon and a second to his cousin at Downton Abbey.  Bella had no one to send a telegram to.  She had no one in this place, in this world—no one except Matthew Crawley.

Next, they went to the bank and transferred Bella’s considerable funds to Matthew’s account as she was now married and not permitted to keep her own property.  “You earned all that by gambling?” he asked her when they were back out on the street.

She shrugged.  “It’s been months,” she admitted.

He moved into her room that night since he only had a spare uniform and she had wardrobes full of multiple dresses.  That night he carefully removed the mauve dress from her and she let down her hair, and she learned a sweetness Bella didn’t know men were capable of.

The next morning they walked down to breakfast together, Bella’s trunks packed and brought down, ready to be sent to the train.

“Have you written everyone you need to?” Matthew asked her solicitously.

“I’ll write a few notes from Yorkshire,” she told him, taking a sip of her tea.  “Mr. Small knows.  He’ll tell everyone who needs to know immediately.  Who was that young man yesterday?”

Matthew put down his cup.  “My aide de camp on the field. He’s from Downton.  It’s good to have him.  He went up yesterday and undoubtedly told everyone.”

She shrugged.  “You sent those telegrams.”

“It will be interesting to see what—or who—got there first,” he admitted wryly.  “My mother will be so pleased to meet you.  My letters have been full of you these past five months.”

“But will Lord and Lady Grantham?” she asked carefully, knowing their daughter had at one time set her sights on the heir to the title. 

“Cousin Robert will see how happy I am,” he told her kindly, “and he will surely welcome you.  He married an American.  He will surely understand the inclination.”

Bella tried not to roll her eyes.  Lady Grantham was an American of wealth and position.  Bella was an American with—well, with thirty-five thousand pounds, but all from gambling.

Steam trains were a new experience for Bella.  She sat at the window the entire trip, watching the scenery go by, occasionally looking over at Matthew and sharing a smile when he looked up from his book.  When they finally arrived at the station, he escorted her from the train, and someone was there to meet them there with a car.  Her two trunks were placed on the back of the motor and then they were driving up through the village.

“Welcome home, my darling,” Matthew murmured in her ear when they arrived at what it appeared was their house.  He got out of the motor first and helped her down.  She looked up and took in the house, smiling to herself.  It was much better than a hotel.

The front door opened and an older woman came out.  “Matthew!” she called, coming up to him and wrapping him in a hug.  “Matthew, you’re home!”

“Mother,” he greeted.  “I hope you haven’t been standing at the window too long.”

“Not at all, not at all!” she disagreed, pulling back and taking him in.  “You’re looking a little thin.”  She hummed and Matthew laughed.  Then, as if remembering herself, she looked up and over, her eyes catching Bella.  “You must be my new daughter-in-law, Isabella.”  She smiled at Bella widely.

“Mrs. Crawley,” she greeted, coming forward.

“None of this ‘Mrs. Crawley’ nonsense.  I’m ‘Isobel.’”  She looked Bella over with a critical eye and nodded.  “You’re younger than I thought you’d be.”

Bella wasn’t exactly certain what to say.  “I’m eighteen—” she apologized.

Isobel looked over at her son, an incredulous look on her face, then turned back to Bella.  “You were a widow?  At eighteen?  You poor girl!  Let’s get you inside.”

The inside was warm and cozy with a fire roaring away in the grate.  Bella looked around appreciatively of what was now her home.  Tea was soon presented and she was warmed up in a chair before the fire.

Isobel looked at her quite openly over her cup.  “How did your husband die leaving you a widow so young?” she asked.

“Mother!” Matthew admonished, looking embarrassed for Bella.

“No, it’s all right,” Bella assured, having never told the lie.  She put her own cup down.  “We were on our honeymoon in Italy when he caught ill.  The local doctors could not diagnose him and within a day he was gone.”  She shrugged.  “I was a widow less than a month into our marriage.”

Isobel looked stricken.  “My dear, to have endured loss so young…”

Bella tried to smile, thinking of when Edward had left her for dead on the forest floor.  “I hardly think on it now, to be honest,” she admitted.  “Perhaps it’s cold hearted of me, but Edward and I in retrospect were not the best suited.”

She looked over to Matthew who was looking back over at her softly.

Isobel obviously wasn’t entirely certain how to respond.  She set down her cup.  “An invitation has come from the Big House.”

Bella glanced at her.  “Downton?” she inquired.

“Darling,” Matthew asked, “could I prevail upon you to wear the mauve?”

“My wedding dress?” she confirmed.

He nodded.  “We’ll get you more, of course.  But I don’t want to present my bride as a widow.”

“No, I have a new lease on life,” she agreed with a small smile for him. 

After tea, she was shown up to the master bedroom, where the housemaid had unpacked for her.  Her mauve had been placed on the bed and she carefully changed back into her wedding dress, foregoing the half veil she had worn, choosing instead a neat hairstyle.

Matthew stayed in his uniform for dinner, and they looked very much as they did the day before at their wedding.  The motor came and took the three of them up to the Big House, which Bella found a little awe inspiring.

At first she didn’t realize that “Mrs. Crawley” referred to her and she looked around, quite startled.  “I do beg pardon,” she murmured, looking at the assembled Crawleys.

Her eyes flitted from one to the next, from Lord Grantham, to his beautiful Countess with dark hair, from one daughter to the next.   The youngest had dark hair and dark eyes like Bella, the middle one was strawberry blonde.  She hadn’t seen Lady Mary yet.

“Come, darling,” Matthew urged as he placed his hand at the small of her back and began to lead her into the dining room.

There was a rush from the stairs and Bella turned to see a young woman, dressed in blue silks, who looked like her mirror image.  The woman looked up and her dark eyes stilled on Bella and Bella nearly started when she recognized the same smooth forehead, the exact same chin, the exact nose, the high cheekbones.  The young woman’s hair was the same dark brown and swept up in an elaborate style.  She was tall, like Bella, graceful, though, and just as thin.

“Ah, Cousin Mary,” Matthew greeted and Bella had a sinking feeling in her stomach.

Matthew had married her because she was Lady Mary’s copy.  One was the twin of the other.  They were exact and could trade places if they only did their hair differently and swapped dresses.

All throughout dinner Bella picked at her food and remained silent, catching glances between Matthew and Lady Mary.  She noticed that Lady Mary was equally looking at her and Matthew, just as confused.

When the ladies left the gentlemen to their port, Bella carefully adjusted her gloves and followed the other women out.  Isobel Crawley, her mother-in-law, came up to her and put a hand on her arm.  “The resemblance is startling,” she agreed, clearly reading Bella’s thoughts.

“What could he have been thinking?” Bella whispered desperately as they came into the drawing room.

Isobel Crawley paused and Bella turned to her.  The older woman was looking out at the Crawley women and she sighed.  “He couldn’t have her—so he married the next best thing.”

And with a sinking feeling, Bella wondered if she was speaking the truth and if all of Lord Marcus’s predictions had been nothing but lies to comfort her in her punishment and exile.

The End