#heartbreaking...

Lady Mary lost her husband shortly after the first world war, when to be a young widow was at least nothing out of the ordinary. When Dineen died, Dockery was only 33, and I wonder if the aberrant sense of isolation made her loss even harder to bear. Can anyone in her life fully understand? “I wouldn’t expect them to. I spent more time in hospitals that year than some people do in a lifetime. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone or expect them to know.” After losing Dineen, she adds quietly, “You see things differently.”

I ask if she describes herself as a widow. “Oh, I refer to myself as a widow, yes. We were engaged, and married at heart, and so I do consider myself a widow. It’s why I related to Alice so much.” She pauses, looking faintly surprised at herself. “That’s the first time I’ve said that, and it’s a bit of a relief to say so. But of course. She was a young widow, and I connected with her.”

Dockery’s priority in the immediate future, however, is to take a break – she can’t remember the last time she had one. Other than the weeks she took off immediately after her fiance’s death, “I’ve not really stopped working in years.” Her taut body language suggests someone who has been surviving on the last drops of her reserves for so long that she can barely remember how to relax or have fun, or what either would feel like. Her vague suggestions – “I don’t know, maybe go travelling?” or “I quite like a road trip” – don’t sound like actual plans.

“It’s just important for me to take the right time off. There was this feeling after John died of, what do I do now?” She looks suddenly hollow. “What am I doing with my life? And so work was the next step. I just had to work. To throw myself into the next job was the only option for me.”

Dockery has been so busy that it’s easy to forget it has been barely two years since Dineen died. “Someone said to me recently,” she reflects, “that when a baby is born, they’re considered brand new up to the age of six. But after two or three years, we seem to think a death is no longer recent.” She pauses, her silence marvelling at the glib misapprehension that grief could ever be temporary or finite. “It’s like losing a limb, isn’t it? It will always be a part of you.”

She adds quietly, “I know people who’ve had losses and they took time out immediately, but I don’t think I’d have been able to do that. My decision was to keep going. And that’s what we all did.”

What else would she have done?

She casts an inscrutable glance.

“Grieve.”