Resilient wasn't a word Matthew would use to describe himself. But as he stood in the fog at the beginning of the first drive, he realized it could be a possibility.
When the guns started blasting around him, he took a deep breath to steel himself before taking aim and shooting.
The last time he had held a gun to shoot he was cold, wet, tired and terrified. Blazing over the top of a trench into a wall of death, not letting himself think about his mother, Lavinia…or Mary.
Mary, who currently was standing next to him, silently observing the action and trying to avoid her fiancé. He wondered if she would participate if it were acceptable for her to do so.
Matthew thought about asking her but before he could a shot rang out close by causing him to jolt.
"You don't have to do this you know," she said quietly, "After all this will be your land one day and if you don't wish to hunt, who can stop you?"
Matthew gave her a wan smile, "I thought your sort of people view hunting as a must-do and those who do not participate in hunting sports are mad?" He took the opportunity of the conversation break to lower his gun. He wished he could just drop it and leave it forgotten in the grass.
"I can't believe you remember that," Mary came closer now, smiling a secret warm smile he liked to think was just for him to receive.
"I remember a lot of things," more gunfire, "too many things," he stared up at the sky watching a pheasant's frantic flight.
It looked like she wanted to pat his arm in comfort. Her hand was reaching out to him but then she thought the better of it. She took a step back, "I'm getting cold feet already..."
"Carlisle isn't as bad all that is he?" Matthew quipped, interrupting her sentence.
She looked startled by his gibe then started to laugh, "I won't tell if you don't."
Resilient was a word Matthew would use to describe himself. After all he was standing after being declared a crippled, surrounded by guns being fired after surviving a war and beside him was the woman he loved, who was engaged to another man.
Matthew looked down at the gun on his arm and then started to reload it.
"Why don't you have a loader?" Mary asked, "Barnard would have found you one."