A wet muddy hellhole

by Ocean of Ashes

This wet muddy hellhole was no place for the beautiful Mary Crawley, even if only in their thoughts and dreams.

It was raining outside and particularly damp and uncomfortable in their dugout when Evelyn returned, shaking the water off his coat.

Matthew looked up idly from where he was sitting at the rough hewn table they had managed to acquire, reading by the light of a small lamp. 'How are the men doing?'

'Wet, miserable, bored. Much like us really. I handed out some extra packets of cigarettes which cheered everyone up a bit.' Matthew nodded. 'And I went back to the command post to see if there were any letters.'

This time Matthew looked a little more interested. 'Was there?'

Evelyn reached inside his jacket and pulled out a slim, lavender coloured envelope. 'There was for you.'

Matthew took it from him and smiled. 'Thank you. Was there any news?'

Evelyn was looking at him oddly, Matthew noticed, with an angry sort of intensity completed at odds with his usually pleasant, placid nature.

'Nothing that you would want to hear. Things aren't going too well at Gallipoli, and there are rumours that the Lusitania has been torpedoed. The news hasn't been confirmed but everyone is talking about it.'

'Really?' Briefly, fleetingly, for that was all he let himself think of it these days, he thought of the sinking of another grand ocean liner and the journey it led him on. Then he brought the shutters in his mind clattering down. He couldn't think of Downton, not here, not any more. It was a world away, one that at times he was convinced he would not see again.

'Yes.' There was that strange look again.

'Evelyn?' he asked, for they had long since dispensed with "Crawley" and "Napier". War did that. 'Are you all right?'

'It isn't Mary's handwriting. The letter. It is a girl, but it isn't Mary.' His tone was definitely accusatory and Matthew was taken aback.

They had met again shortly after Matthew arrived in France. He had been sent to Paris first where he had stayed for three nights in some particularly awful, flearidden digs (though nowhere near as bad as out here) before receiving his orders and finding himself here at Aisne on the front line.

By the time he got here, the battle had already degenerated into a stalemate and apart from the occasional shelling the most interesting thing to have happened in months was a football match on Christmas Day between the two sides. When he first heard it, Matthew had liked the story, but now he couldn't help but think how much harder it would be to kill a man you might have played football with, laughed with, shaken hands with. It gave a humanity to the nameless enemy that didn't sit comfortably with him.

When he reported for duty, Evelyn – Captain Napier – had been the first man he had seen. Before he quite knew what was happening, they were sharing a dugout and that first night, quiet, ominous and cold, they agreed over a bottle of scotch that they would not refer to the only place, people, person, they had in common. This wet, muddy hellhole was no place for the beautiful Mary Crawley, even if only in their thoughts and dreams.

So Matthew was surprised at Evelyn mentioning her name, though he was even more surprised by the violence of the reaction.

'No, it is not from Mary.' He had been looking forward to receiving this letter, but suddenly, at the mention of Mary, it seemed to have lost its appeal.

'Who is it from?'

Matthew sighed. 'Miss Lavinia Swire. I met her in London before I left, and she was…' Beautiful, gentle, kind. Not Mary. 'She offered to write to me while I was out here and I said yes.'

'What about Mary?'

Matthew wasn't sure how much Evelyn knew. 'What do you mean?'

'I thought you were in love with her.'

The pain, kept firmly locked away, began to bubble to the surface again and he felt it rising like bile in his throat. 'What makes you say that?'

'You both gave off the impression of everything being very settled in London last summer. Everyone certainly seemed to think so. I saw you together at the theatre one evening and…'

'And?' Matthew wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer, but he asked the question anyway, like a child who insists upon wobbling a loose tooth.

'I had never seen Mary happier. She shone. And you were looking at her like she was already your wife.'

Matthew knew instantly the night he meant. Violet, no doubt in an effort to get Mary to give him an answer once and for all, had paid for a box at the theatre for them, and packed them off to see a new production of Romeo and Juliet while everyone else went to a ball thrown by someone of so little note that Violet was reluctant to waste one of Sybil's precious evenings at the event at all but no better offer had come along so they had attended.

It had been, without a shadow of a doubt, the best evening of his life. Mary was on her very best form, sparkling, witty, teasing, happy, and he had been delighted to have her on his arm. For the first time everything that would inevitably come to him – Downton, the Earldom, a rich society wife – seemed appealing and he had an enthusiasm for the future that he had not possessed before. Thinking back, he had not noticed Evelyn at the theatre, but then, he had not seen anything that night beyond Mary at his side.

'Well, she wasn't my wife, and she isn't going to be.'

'Why?'

Evelyn was forcing him to think about, confront, things he had not had the courage to before, and Matthew had to push down a growing urge to punch him.

'Because…' After a long pause, he gave the easy answer, even though he was no longer sure it was the right one. 'You know Mary. Why accept a future Earl when a Duke might come along?' He hated the bitterness in his voice, and he hated her for putting it there.

'You don't believe that,' Evelyn replied shrewdly. 'Surely you know her well enough not to believe that.'

'I don't know what I believe anymore. I asked her to marry me, and she kept me waiting, and waiting and waiting. I find it hard to believe she would have done that if she had loved me.' He tried to ignore the voice of his conscience that was telling him otherwise. If he let it creep into his mind, he could remember the way Mary had looked at him, smiled at him, kissed him. It had been real. He had felt it in the way her hand fitted inside his, the way her lips moved under his, the way her eyes connected with his as if she was looking into his soul. She had loved him. He was pretty sure that made it worse.

'Well, I believe you still love her. You wouldn't be so angry with her if you didn't.'

'How can you be so sure? If I'm not sure, how can you be?'

Evelyn chuckled ironically. 'How do you think I know, Matthew? Mary is a captivating girl.'

Matthew frowned. 'You love her?'

'A little, yes. Enough to recognise it in you. But I don't love her like you do.'

Matthew groaned, and let his head fall into his hands. 'I do love her. I always will. But it isn't as simple as that. What she's done, the way she has treated me, has broken my heart and I honestly don't think I will ever be able to forgive her for that. But at the same time, I simply cannot imagine not loving her either.

'And where that leaves me with Downton and the estate in the future, I just don't know. How can I bring a girl who isn't Mary there as my wife? Mary is meant to be the Countess of Grantham, I've always believed that the entail was ridiculous. Even after everything, I'm not sure I could do that to her.

'But I want to get married. I want to share my life with someone. I would love so much to be a father. And I don't know how to do all those things with someone who isn't Mary. But I don't know how to do them with Mary now either.'

Evelyn was sitting next to him now, and clapped him on the shoulder. The whiskey bottle was out again, and Matthew watched as the other man poured them each a generous measure into two beaten old pewter tankards. It felt like fire in his stomach and it was the first time he had felt warm since he had been in France.

'I'm sorry Matthew.'

'Don't be.'

'If you could go back and change anything, would you?'

Matthew thought about it. He would not for all the world wish he had not met Mary. He would rather she sliced open his chest and cut his heart out with a knife than never have touched it at all. He would not change the moments they had shared together. He would not even go back and change how hard it had been at first, because that had made what came after seem so much better. As he carefully picked his way through the minefield of memories, the only thing he found himself wishing to change was the way her face had crumpled at the garden party as he had rejected her. Just that, and their brittle, perfunctory goodbye.

'Only the ending,' he admitted.

'Well then.'

Suddenly, out of nowhere, the scream of a shell rent through the stale air and Matthew felt the world turn upside down. For seconds, minutes, days, everything around him seemed to be flying through the air and he was thrown off his feet. All his breath left his lungs as he hit the floor and the force of the explosion burst his eardrums.

Slowly, everything began to settle and after a minute or two, Matthew began to recover his senses. His head felt like it was splitting in two and his ankle was twisted beneath him. It was the pain more than anything that convinced him he wasn't dead. That, and the taste of soil and blood in his mouth.

'Evelyn?' he croaked, then realised his ears were still too muffled to hear any answer.

Carefully, he sat up and looked around. He couldn't immediately see Evelyn in the almost darkness, but there was soil everywhere, and the timber trusses that supported the walls had been blown away, as had their bunks. The shell hadn't been a direct hit but it must have fallen somewhere nearby. Matthew hoped everyone else in the line was all right.

Once he picked away some of the debris from where they lay on him, he gingerly tried to clamber to his feet but let out a groan of agony when he put weight on his leg. Immediately, his ankle gave out again and he fell back down, biting his lip to try to keep the scream inside of him. Lying still for a moment, he breathed deeply to try to control the pain. Something was definitely broken.

'Evelyn?' he tried again, and there was still no response, but he saw some of the timbers in the corner move slightly, as if there was someone underneath them. Slowly, and horribly painfully, he dragged himself on his elbows through the wreckage of what had been their safe haven until he saw a bloodied hand sticking out from under what had been the tabletop.

He grabbed it, and squeezed the fingers hard until he felt a twitch of a response. 'Evelyn, can you hear me?' Another barely discernable movement. 'Hold on, I'll get you out.' With his spare hand, Matthew frantically began tugging away at the pieces of wood where he thought Evelyn's head must be. When he saw what he uncovered though, his first instinct was to be sick.

Evelyn had a horrific gash that somehow extended from the middle of his forehead around and down to skirt the outer corner of his left eye and disappear deep into his hairline above where his ear had been. It was a messy, uneven wound with ragged, torn edges and flesh missing. Lurking behind the pumping blood, Matthew could see the white bone of his skull shining through. With an awful clarity, he knew Evelyn was going to die.

'I must look bad,' Evelyn whispered with what was left of his face twisted into a grim smile.

'Not at all,' Matthew lied, though he knew the quaver in his voice gave him away. 'A bit of a scratch, that's all. The medics will soon have it cleaned up.'

'Are you all right?'

'Broken ankle I think.'

'Good. They'll send you home for that.'

There was a part of Matthew, large enough to make him acutely ashamed, that was relieved. It would be a good six months before he was fit for active duty again. Six months where he could fall asleep knowing he would wake up the following morning. Six months where he would actually want to wake up the following morning.

'I should think you'll be getting a little holiday as well for that graze. A jaunt in a recuperation hospital will do us the world of good. We'll come back to the Front new men, striking fear into the hearts of the Boche.' His voice echoed ridiculously and inappropriately chipper in his ears.

'Don't Matthew. I can see it in your face.'

Against his will, Matthew felt tears spring to his eyes. He had buried plenty of men out here already that he thought of as friends and written letters of condolence to mothers of seventeen year old farmhands and factory boys that had been ripped to pieces by German artillery fire without crying, but now, the prospect of losing Evelyn left him bereft. They had been each others' connections to a different world, a different time, something never referred to but always in the back of their minds as something worth fighting for, living for.

'I…' A sob choked in his throat.

'It's all right. Honestly. I would have liked to have come out of this war alive, but there are plenty who have died worse deaths than this. I have a friend at my side and the taste of whiskey still on my tongue. What more could a man want for than that?'

'Don't say that.' Matthew held Evelyn's hand with both of his now, hoping that the strength of the contact would be enough to keep him alive. 'I'll get you out of here. Help will be here soon.'

'Not soon enough for me. I am rather fond of the idea of Heaven actually. I like to think it is like a cold, frosty morning out with the York and Ainsty. Everything will be fresh and beautiful and sparkling white, and I shall feel the wind on my face as I gallop onwards.'

He fell quiet and Matthew looked down at him in horror. 'Evelyn?'

'I'm still here,' he replied, though his voice was getting weaker. 'May I ask a favour of you Matthew?'

'Anything,' he said emphatically.

'Go and see my father. I don't really care what you tell him, just… please make it easier for him. Say whatever you think he wants to hear.'

'Yes, of course I will. I would have done anyway, you know.'

'I do know. You have been a good friend, the best. It has been an honour and a privilege to have known you.'

'And you, Evelyn. I don't know how I would have…'

'Nonsense. You Crawleys are made of stern stuff.' He stopped again, and Matthew felt tendrils of ice begin to creep around his heart.

'Evelyn?' His weakened breaths were rattling now, and Matthew knew his friend had very little time left.

After a long silence, when he managed to speak again, his voice was no more than a whisper, and Matthew had to lean close to hear him. 'I think I know why Mary wouldn't marry you.'

'Ssh,' Matthew soothed him. 'Don't worry about any of that now.' Mary had never seemed further away than she did at that moment.

'No, this is important. It ought to be her telling you this, but if she won't, I will. Better you hear the truth of it from me than gossipmongering from someone else.'

Matthew knew if he was able to feel anything anymore, his curiosity would be piqued, but every emotion, thought, nerve ending seemed to have shut down. But Evelyn's clear eyes looked earnest, and he realised that it was important to him to get the words out.

'What is it?'

'You remember when I came to Downton I brought Pamuk with me?' Matthew nodded. 'God, I've lived to regret that. I knew he was a lecher of course, but I never really thought the worse of him for it, only that it wasn't the way I went about things. I never thought… his host's daughter…'

Slowly, random pieces of a jigsaw began to shift into place and Matthew felt the bile rise in his throat again as realisation began to dawn on him.

'He seduced Mary, then died in her bedchamber. She must have been terrified, horrified. And now Edith has let the secret loose in London.'

Matthew felt like he had been hit by the force of the explosion all over again. His beautiful, perfect Mary, sullied, spoiled. The thought of another man's hands running over, caressing, that alabaster skin made rage boil in his veins, as did the thought that she had let them. Had she invited, even welcomed, Pamuk's advances? Had she whispered an invite to him in the drawing room that evening? His mind flooded with tortuous images, and he wondered if she had kissed the Turk with the same love and passion as she had kissed him.

He needed to know. Already he could feel himself being driven crazy by the half-knowledge and the uncertainty that it brought. He would have to ask her. Only she knew what truly happened that night. He didn't know what he wanted her to tell him, but as he lay sprawled in a muddy pit in a a French field, the stench of blood and death in his nostrils and watching as his friend's life slipping away before his eyes, he had an overwhelming sense that it didn't matter.

He loved her. He wanted to hate her for Pamuk, just like he wanted to hate her for breaking his heart, but he knew he couldn't. Evelyn was right, she must have been so scared. One foolish decision that was going to haunt her for the rest of her life. And damn her. Stupid, silly girl. Her love had been real all along. Too proud to tell him, and too good to marry him without doing so. He really had thought it had been about the inheritance. They were stubborn, proud fools the pair of them.

He felt Evelyn's eyes on him as he processed what he had just been told. In the midst of such cataclysmic horror, one indiscretion didn't seem on the same scale.

He squeezed his friend's hand again. 'Thank you for telling me.'

'In return, promise me…' His chest heaved with the effort of speaking, and his eyelids began to flutter. 'Promise me you'll forgive her.'

As far as promises made to dying men went, it could not have been an easier one for him.

'I promise.'