* The aspirate *

It was a tremendous relief, in the end, to have her secret out in the open after so long. It was a wonder she'd managed to keep it as long as she had, Gwen admitted to herself. And Anna seemed genuinely admiring, even if the others had all followed Miss O'Brien's lead.

Anna had stood up for her in the face of united disapproval, and comforted her when she'd broken down in tears at the hopelessness of the whole thing. But what made Gwen feel better now, a week later, was the way her friend actually seemed impressed by what she'd achieved.

"So you can really do shorthand?" Anna said again, leafing through the sheets Gwen had showed her. "You could sit down there at table tonight and write down everything everyone said?"

"Not quite." Gwen flushed. "I'm pretty good, but I'm not that good yet. I mean, I can do the exercises, but it's not the same when you have to keep up with real people."

Anna seized on that, eyes dancing. "Oh, so you've tried?"

"Just a bit." She could feel herself going pinker than ever. Mr. Carson did like the sound of his own voice, there was no denying it, and those long speeches of his were the nearest she was going to get to dictation...

"Well, I've always said Miss O'Brien and Thomas should have been on the boards as a double act." Mr. Bates had mentioned double acts at breakfast-time, and he and Anna had exchanged a brief smile then; an echo of that same fleeting twinkle warmed Anna's eyes now. But whatever the joke, she didn't share it. "You ought to try writing down a few of their lines, Gwen, give us all a laugh in the long winter evenings. More fun than taking dictation from old Carson, anyway."

"I never—"

"No, but it wasn't hard to guess." Anna laughed, but put an arm round her shoulders in reassurance. "You know I won't tell... I just wish there was some way I could really help, that's all."

"Just not having to hide makes so much difference," Gwen said, and meant it with all her heart. But it was between that moment and the next that the idea came to her.

She caught up the final instalments of her shorthand course from where they lay on the bed, and pulled out a page at random, holding it out to Anna. "If you could just do real dictation for me... these model letters here, look. So I can practice doing it slowly. And then we can try and get it faster, and faster. All I need is for you to read it out loud—"

In her anxiety she was starting to gabble, and Anna stopped the flow of words with a gentle hand.

"Of course I will."

Gwen looked at her, and dissolved quite unexpectedly into tears.

"Sorry—" She fished for a handkerchief, and snuffled into it, feeling a complete fool. "Sorry — it's just — you've been so kind. And Lady Sybil too... she said she'd give me a reference to say I was a hard worker and honest, and never a word about being only a housemaid..."

"And that's no more than your due, " Anna said stoutly as Gwen looked up. "A housemaid works harder than most, and I've never seen you shirk, Gwen Dawson — so don't let them tell you different. Not that it isn't kind of Lady Sybil to go out of her way to help, mind."

She sat down on the edge of her own bed, and patted a place for Gwen to sit beside her. "But then she's been sweet-natured that way since she was a child. Softhearted, but stubborn as Old Nick when it comes to what she thinks is right — I'll never forget those kittens in the cupboard—"

Gwen blew her nose again, intrigued despite her tears. "Kittens?" she prompted as Anna paused.

"Well, it was back when big Beattie was head housemaid, so Lady Sybil couldn't have been more than twelve. One of the stable cats got into the house, the artful creature, and hid away her kittens in the linen-cupboard so Lynch couldn't drown them. It was a week before Beattie found them, all snugged up in the best tablecloth — and two Dukes and a Marquess to dinner that night. I'll never forget the scene. Beattie in hysterics, and her Ladyship beside herself, and the old dowager laying down the law—"

She chuckled. "The mother cat was swearing fit to raise the dead, and Sybil was plain furious. She'd been feeding them, of course."

The mental image of gentle Lady Sybil as an indignant twelve-year-old had Gwen giggling too. "So what happened?"

"She wanted to keep them, of course, but old Violet put her foot down, and anyhow his Lordship's dog wouldn't have stood for cats around the place. But the child wouldn't have them drowned, and she got her way. Back out to the stables they went, and off to new homes on the farms when they were old enough... and that's Lady Sybil for you. Always one for the waifs and strays."

"Meaning me, I suppose," Gwen said, and Anna gave her a sharp look.

"Don't take Lady Sybil lightly, Gwen. She won't give up once she's on your side."

"Yes, but—" Her hands tightened around the balled-up handkerchief in her lap. "I'm not ready for this. I'm not qualified. I don't have my certificate — I can't do dictation—"

"Then we can work on that right now and go for the certificate later," Anna said firmly, glancing down at the sheet of exercises Gwen had given her. "Come on then. By the looks of it, this'll send us both right off to sleep after a hard day's work..."

Gwen, scrambling for pen and paper, grinned. "Try that bottom one," she suggested, and heard Anna, skimming the page, choke with laughter.

"I'd give a good deal to know who comes up with this stuff of yours... Right. Are you ready?" She took a deep breath and began to dictate, carefully keeping a straight face.

"Dear Mr. Scott — Since I wrote to you last I have heard that you were injured in a railway accident. Is this true? I trust not. If it is, you are not likely to be improved by my letter..."

* Suffixes and terminations *

It was a fine thing when the first sunny days started to dawn after a long grey winter, Gwen thought — but not so fine when it came to cleaning. There was something about the new-minted sunshine of spring that seemed to show up every grain of dust or smear on polished wood, and the light that streamed through the windows of the drawing-room was enough to reveal months of grime clinging to the panes. She'd spent most of the day washing and scouring the marks of those raindrops clean, with a bowl of vinegar in one hand and a pad of newspaper in the other, and if she never saw another pane of glass in her life it wouldn't be too soon...

But a general scrape of chairs around the table heralded Mr. Carson's approaching tread, and she came automatically to her feet with Anna and the others. There was an opened telegram in the butler's hand with the rest of the evening post, and she knew a momentary jolt of panic at the thought of some fresh disaster; followed by a pang at just how little now any of them ever remembered that tragedy that had once loomed so large. Downton hadn't crumbled, after all. The new Mr. Crawley was a mite strange in his ways, but he meant well enough. And the telegram was nothing more than a message sent up from London to let the household know of his Lordship's impending return.

"—And a packet for you, Gwen."

For a moment — as the distribution of post reached its close — Mr. Carson's words almost failed to register. Looking up hastily, she saw the great man's eyebrows drawing down, and was barely in time to accept the offered envelope before he was forced to the unheard-of expedient of having to repeat himself.

"It'll be the usual, I dare say." Miss O'Brien spared a brief upwards glance from the flounce she was darning, the bright contempt of her eyes as dismissive as ever. "More teach-yourself tricks..."

"It's not." Thomas, on the other side of the table, had glimpsed the fancy heading on the single sheet as Gwen slit the envelope. The heavy embossed portrait stared up at her from between its wings of decorated text — old Sir Isaac himself — and with a clench of excitement she caught sight of her own name. This is to certify that Gwen Dawson —

"Maybe it's an invitation to sell soap from Lady Leverhulme," Thomas was suggesting with idle malice, and Gwen — who'd thought herself long since inured to his ideas of amusement — felt fury suddenly prickle along her spine.

She'd worked for this. She'd worked harder than any of them in every free moment she had, and she was not going to let those two steal away her achievement with their twisted little games.

"It's my Theory Certificate." She slapped the evidence of her year's learning down in the centre of the table, her chin held high, and took a secret pride in seeing them all jump. Heads turned, all the way up to Mrs Hughes herself. "It's proof of my shorthand — as good as you'd get from any college in the land."

She'd sat for two hours in Lord Grantham's library to gain this, with Lord Grantham's own daughter to watch her and attest that it was all her own unaided effort. Asking Lady Sybil to help her sit the test had taken almost more courage than she'd known she had in her, but the Crawley name on the application form had to be worth something, surely... And Lady Sybil had seemed almost more eager for her to go through with it than Gwen herself.

She'd produced that day's newspaper, and between them they'd chosen a column for Gwen to copy out. Then she'd sat patiently watching for the whole two hours as Gwen struggled with contractions and vocalisations and sheet after sheet of paper was filled. William had tried to come in halfway through with a laden tea-tray for Sybil's benefit, and been sent packing with a flea in his ear he didn't at all understand — Gwen could giggle over it now in retrospect, but she'd been mortified — but in the end, the specimen had been duly completed, and the original matter clipped from the paper and neatly attached.

They'd both signed the form, and Gwen had added her own name and address a second time in Phonography as required, subscribing herself proudly in the section provided as 'self-taught'. Lady Sybil, despite Gwen's protests, had insisted on taking the application down to the post herself and on paying for the two-shilling postal order. She'd been trying to catch Gwen's eye ever since, hoping for news.

Gwen had been sure, almost certain sure, that she would pass... but to be almost certain was one thing. To know it for real — with this sudden leaping blaze of pride at the back of her throat — was something else.

She'd done it. She'd proved herself, and she'd never be only a skivvy again.

"So will you be leaving us now, Gwen?" Mrs Hughes' quiet voice carried across the general hubbub in concern: she hadn't believed it either until now, Gwen could see, and the knowledge hurt a little. She'd always trusted the housekeeper's judgement. Well, there was a world out there that none of them knew.

Lady Sybil had found her one advertisement for a post already. There'd be more. Beyond the great houses in their sleepy estates, escape beckoned for the first time: bright lights and hard work and a future within her grasp.

"I'll let you have my notice as soon as I've got a place, Mrs. Hughes," she said firmly, and heard the renewed buzz around her at the daring of it. She didn't care.

Gwen Dawson sat among the rest of them with her head held high, looking neither to left nor to right, and let herself dream of a road ahead that led out of Downton Abbey.