As promised, here's the second part of Not without a fight. Mary and Richard take a little break from hunting for a wayward yank and have an overdue conversation.
Enjoy!
Chapter Two
For the fourth time that morning, Richard's efforts remained fruitless, as he pressed the gorilla-like guard at the entrance of a semi-clandestine casino - the kind that was tolerated by the police as long as not it did not cause too much trouble - to confirm that, indeed, Yankee Pete, as he was nicknamed in the area, was nowhere to be seen, and especially not in this building. From inside, the excited shouts, the enraged swearwords and the triumphant exclamations covered the barks and cries of agony, casting a veil of hypocrisy of the dog fights that had made building famous.
As long the peelers only heard human voices and not dog barks during their patrols, the institution would live on, in a model of conciliation to preserve some social peace.
Defeated, and anxious to get out of the street as soon as possible - even if he tried not let it appear in his demeanour, he was as ill-at-ease as Mary, if her a pale face and pinched lips were any indication - Richard gave the customary bills to the bouncer for his troubles and took his companion's arm, leading her back to Commercial Road, far from the back alleys in which they had spent most of the morning.
"I'm starving, and you look like you could do with sitting down for a bit. I know a good restaurant nearby."
Mary nodded. Her feet ached from walking up and down the cobbled and poorly paved or even unpaved streets for the past several hours.
"I could do with tea," she said. On second thought, recalling the sounds and smells and sights that had assaulted her senses at their last stop, she amended, "Or something rather stronger."
She knew this part of town could not possibly contain the sort of restaurant to please Richard's expensive tastes, but she took a degree of comfort from knowing there was actually a place here that he deemed good. When she saw a shabby but otherwise respectable and perfectly English pub on the corner, she nevertheless relaxed her fingers in the crook of his arm as relief washed over her.
Not only did Richard know the pub, inside he was acquainted with the staff, too; on their way through the establishment, the publican asked if he'd forgotten what day it was, or if he always wined and dined the ladies so extravagantly? Richard was not so amused by this as the barkeep himself, wearing much the same expression he'd worn at the Jade Palace as they seated themselves at a corner table.
Off her feet, with a little food in her stomach-filling, if not exactly satisfying, the chicken having been roasted within an inch of its life-and sipping a glass of not terrible wine, Mary's spirits were soon restored enough to voice a thought which had been on her mind since their second destination.
"While I'm certainly glad you know your way around Limehouse, I must wonder how often you're forced to do this sort of thing."
"Too often to my taste…" Richard sighed as he cut energetically into his steak. "I've met Pete before the war and brought him to London. Back in America, nobody wanted to employ him, and I jumped on the occasion. It was too good to be true, truly. Such a genius, and nobody wanted him, on the East Coast, on the West Coast, even in bloody Montana."
He interrupted the reminiscences long enough to take a bite, and struggle with the far too well-cooked meat. A long gulp of cider helped with that.
"Long story short, I soon realized why the Baton-Rouge lads I've stolen him from literally rubbed their hands when Pete gave in his resignation."
Another bite, another struggle, another gulp. Fortunately, the cider was as he remembered it, like the potatoes, that it is to say excellent.
"I suppose it escaped your attention I had to do this sort of thing once during our engagement. In the summer of of 1919 to be more exact. You know, when I had to decline your Aunt's invitation and all of you decided that I was definitely unsuitable if I did not know how hierarchize my priorities."
"If you mean Susan Flintshire, she's my father's cousin, not my aunt," Mary replied with an arch of her doubt he thought her high and mighty-and she couldn't deny part of her meant to be-but he wasn't exactly being fair with his chastisement, either.
So far, since she called him about Green's suspicious death last summer, they had avoided discussion of their own past relationship. That they were both the victims of more recent marital griefs, and both faced with the unexpected burden of parenting alone, had made them more sympathetic to each other-or, more cynically, placed them on a level playing field. Still, given their tempestuous engagement, she supposed it was inevitable that their past would surface again at some point. Mary couldn't deny that today's view of Richard's world-his "tough world" as she once described it to Granny without ever having glimpsed anything like she'd witnessed today in the Limehouse district-had turned her thoughts to certain chapters of their story she had never given proper consideration.
She speared a potato with her fork, though she did not lift it from her plate, as she went back to the summer to which he referred in her mind. Their wedding had been put off-again-out of respect to Lavinia, yet somehow this had not stopped Cousin Susan from inviting the family, including Richard, for their first summer at Duneagle since 1914. He, of course, had remarked on the hypocrisy of this, which had vaguely irritated her, a feeling which heightened to being incensed when Susan in turn remarked on his lack of breeding. To his face, Mary accused him of working too much; in her heart, she resented him for abandoning her when he'd been so supportive in the wake of Matthew's rejection.
Worse, she'd resented him for not being Matthew. For of course Matthew would never do anything as rude as turn down a holiday invitation.
"As a matter of fact," she said, in a more subdued tone, "I wasn't thinking of Mr. Inzaghi at all. I wondered...Are these the sort of people and places you dealt with to keep the Bates trial out of the papers?"
Clearly, from the arching of his eyebrows, he had not expected this at all. She laid down her fork, and twisted her hands together in her lap as she added, "To keep my secret?"
At that, her gaze dropped, too, even as she reached for her wine.
Richard had been on the verge of uttering a snarky reply about the particular rules the Crawleys used on the concept of family, pulling the "closely related card" when it suited them, then "loosely related card" when the first one was not convenient anymore, when Mary surprised him by bringing up a topic he thought dead and buried, for good.
With threats, bribes, calling in favours, yes I stopped it.
He shook his head sadly, unable to believe after all this time the naivety of these self-important people
What did she imagine? What did the Crawleys imagine?
"I did what I had to do, that's the job. The late Vera Bates was too obsessed by her desire for vengeance to clearly see the proper damage she could inflict, which was good," he explained patiently, paradoxically glad they could have this conversation at last. Of course, it was a good four years too late, but it did not matter really. "As for Bates himself it was a bit trickier, but nothing is impossible when one of your old schoolmates is a high-up in Scotland Yard."
The steak had more in common with the sole of an old shoe than with proper meat, he decided, giving up his useless struggle when his fork almost bent double as he tried to cut off another bite.
In spite of the grim conversation, Mary found herself smiling a little at Richard's battle with his steak. It must have been truly dreadful for him to give up on it.
Growing serious, again, she took another drink and said, "We never thanked you properly for any of it." Only a shouted mention of gratitude in the midst of their final quarrell. Nothing after Matthew attacked him. "And certainly not for not publishing."
Though it had occurred to her since she learned he had a son that he'd had new drama to deal with close after their engagement came to an end, to preoccupy him for that which had filled the past three years. Still, she wondered...
"Did you ever really mean to?"
The long awaited question. The one that never came when it should have…
"Honestly, Mary, do you really think I would have reached my current status if my blackmail schemings had been ones that could be easily defeated by just a negative answer, a pathetic brawl and a pair of furrowed, angry brows?"
Mary closed her eyes. I really loved you. More than you knew.
"You wouldn't have. I should have known better."
"And I should have been a bit more rational," Richard admitted before finishing off the mashed potatoes. Contrary to the steak, they were to die for, with a rather unhealthy amount of butter and cream, an honest fare for the dock workers who frequented the place.
Pensively, he leaned against his chair and lit a cigarette.
"Maybe it's time we have this conversation, now that I'm clear headed," he began, scratching his beard.
Mary could only nod in encouragement. It was high time they had this conversation, even if it was too late to change anything.
"As far as I remember our past conversations," he went on, "I can only think of one occurrence in which you could have been justified to think I was blackmailing you in anything when I brought Lavinia back."
That had been his lowest moment, the one thing he wished he could make up for. He had been absolutely despicable that evening.
"Yes," Mary said, "you saying I'd given you the power to destroy me rather left that impression."
The tremble she'd somehow managed to keep out of her voice shuddered down her spine as she sat rigid at the table. Even now she did not like to think of that night, the edge of the moulding pressed into her back and Richard looming over her, making her feel as trapped as she had since Pamuk's dead weight pinned her to the bed.
"I'd spent half a day stuck in a car with the dear girl," said Richard, "forced to hear about her doubts and uncertainties. I was tired to the bones, and let's not forget very frustrated… To your family, it was perfectly acceptable for you to spend time with your cousin, while to me, you were spending time with the man they all wanted you to marry, who you wanted to marry even if he did not at the time."
He had to control himself not to hiss the last words.
"In other words, I don't take well to being jerked around, I never have, for as long as I can remember, especially when I'm tired… Moreover, I'm usually a rational man, most of the time. Some might even say I'm too much of a cynic." He was rambling now. "Let's say you can brag about being the only person who had been able to make me lose my perspective. Anyway, I suppose I never apologized for this…"
For a second, Richard's stare remained fixed on the burning end of his cigarette.
"What about when I told you about Pamuk? When you said I was entitled to be in your debt?"
"I'm afraid we misunderstood each other deeply, which maybe led you to believe I was blackmailing you," he replied without hesitation. "Frankly, I only meant that you didn't need to pay for anything…" Five years later, the notion of Mary wanting to pay him for his help still burnt a little. "I helped you because we were engaged, just like that. There aren't many people who can walk into my office, or ask me on the phone to look for a wayward valet or cover a scandal, you know…"
How on earth had not she realized the place she occupied in his life then? Had she been voluntarily blind, obsessed as she was with her cousin? Had she been so used to asking and being obeyed that she never thought of the implications of his own will to help her?
Richard raised his cigarette in a silencing gesture. He did not need much time now.
"And I suppose you believed my threats after you broke off the engagement?"
Mary nodded.
"How was I supposed to react? You just announced you were breaking off the engagement. "
If you go, I'll burn your precious bookshelves down!
If you go, I'll kill myself!
If you go, I'll my brother, you'll never walk again!
If you go, I'll go to the police and tell them about your little arrangement with your friend in the force!
How many times over the years had he been on the receiving of such ridiculous threats? He never had understood the raw despair behind the senseless words, until he had been the one uttering them, one night of January 1920.
"You should know better than anybody, rejection is quite the bitter pill, isn't it?"
The cigarette had burned out. He crushed it into the ashtray, and lit another, feeling strangely relieved.
Mary felt ill; a glance down at the darkened bits of chicken skin she'd eaten around reminded her it was not due to anything she'd eaten, though that might have been a preferable alternative to looking reality in the face and confronting, at long last, what a fool she'd been-again.
"But don't you see?" shesaid, her voice more pinched, less steady, than she would have liked. "That's exactly why I didn't accept Matthew in the first place. I couldn't marry him dishonestly, but if he knew the truth I was sure he would reject me."
She looked down again at her hands in her lap, as she had that day in Richard's office.
I could never despise you...You don't need my forgiveness because there is nothing to forgive.
Matthew's words emboldened her to go on. To brave the storm-which was mainly inside her-and at last say what should have been said, four years ago.
"Richard, you know the value placed on women like me entering marriage with our virtue in tact. Even you expected it of me-I saw your face when I told you. It may not have been a deal-breaker, but even you couldn't conceal your disappointment."
His cigarette smoke swirled across the table toward her. Why should he be disappointed, if he felt nothing?
"And then you talked about what our marriage would mean to you socially...the noble blood your children would carry...Of course I offered to repay you. Every bit of it sounded like a transaction. A series of services rendered and payments received."
Looking up at him, the tendrils of smoke still hovered faintly in the space between them like the threads of a spider's web. She could see etched plainly on the lines of his face how abhorrent the idea was to him. Though she regretted hurting him again with her lack of understanding, the relief she felt to at last give voice to all these things was undeniable.
"For what it's worth," she went on with a sigh, "it wasn't only you. From the moment I asked Mama to help me move Kemal Pamuk's body from my bed, she made it abundantly clear how indebted I would be to any man who would marry me under the circumstances."
"And, again, how was I supposed to react? With misty eyes and quivering lips? Or with the stiff-upper lip like your lot ?" he exclaimed, more forcefully than he would have expected. Most of the old wounds had healed, but some were still a bit itchy, it seemed. "Come on Mary, you'd just confirmed my worst suspicions, that I was barely a spare wheel, in more than one sense!"
Another cigarette butt crushed in the ashtray.
"Rambling self-important idiocy was the only way I had left to keep my own dignity intact and not start to question your motives on our first encounter at Cliveden. Did you let me approach you because you was interested in me or in my assets? Why did you invite me to Downton at all, given how clear I had been on my intentions during your last visit to London?"
No cider left, nothing to alleviate the sudden dryness in this throat.
"And do you really believe I was talking of my opinion on the matter of noble blood and other things? For goodness' sake, Mary, I was talking of your peers, of your family, the ones I would have had to endure for the duration of your marriage, the ones who wouldn't have missed a chance to repeat again and again how you were too good for me!"
Richard lit another cigarette, which did nothing for his throat, but the process of lighting it gave something to do to his now restless hands.
"Were you present when I said your confession made me glad because it put us on equal stand or was the woman in red a stand-in for you? How clearer could have been? Wasn't the simple use of the expression equal enough to convey the meaning I didn't give a fig about your pseudo scandal?"
Richard motioned the bartender for another pint of cider. He would need the refreshment before resuming the hunt for the wayward Yank.
"What enraged me though was the realization that you would never have confided in me on this topic, and probably many others, had Vera Bates never tried to get back at her husband."
Having finished her wine, Mary requested a cider, too. She looked at Richard sadly across the table until the barmaid had brought the pints and gone away again. There was nothing she could say to that in her own defence, or her family's. She was guilty as charged-of the last accusation, at least-shameful as it was.
She wrapped her fingers around her mug, drawing it to the edge of the table, but did not raise it to drink.
Not till she'd boarded the train to London that day when she had no choice but to tell him her filthy scandal had she given any thought to why it never occurred to her to do so before then, when it had seemed so imperative that she only accept Matthew with no secrets between them. Of Matthew's virtue there had been no question-I'm Tess of the D'ubervilles and you're Angel Clare!-and she believed him deserving of nothing less from the woman he married, or at least the opportunity to make an informed decision about whether he could go through with marriage to a fallen woman. She supposed, then, that her equal certainty that Richard was governed by a looser set of morals, made him a suitable mate for such as she. Richard was not the only one who'd thought of them as equals.
The irony and the cider burned as she swallowed.
"I had no idea you loved me," she said, hoarsely. "And I loved Matthew."
His had been the only love she wanted, the only person she cared to deem her worthy.
"What was it Lavinia said to you? If we could have just admitted it…"
At first, Richard did not quite understand what she was alluding to. Why on earth did she invite Lavinia in this conversation?
I wish I could do the noble thing and step aside. Honestly.
The girl's plaintive intonation came back to his memory, as grating now as it was before.
But I can't, sir Richard. I can't, I love him too much.
Now he remembered perfectly. Mary and he had had a huge fight about Christmas festivities - she had refused to travel north with him to visit his family and get to know them properly, preferring to stay at Downton, with her family, who had suffered so much during the war. On his way back to London in the first week of January, he had stopped by Downton, keen to make amends, an invitation to the Spanish Ambassador haras in his pocket. He hated horses and everything that surrounded them with a passion, but an aficionada like Mary should enjoy the attention. Naturally, the invitation had been considered outlandish, coming too soon after the end of the war.
Naturally, following Crawley's progress was so much more important.
Lavinia had spent Christmas at Downton, as her status as fiancée of the future heir supposed, along with her father. However, this confirmation of her new position in the family had done little to raise her spirits. Jonathan Swire had traveled back to London after Boxing Day - he had work to do, apparently, and Lavinia had stayed by her fiancé's side, her constant devotion always praised in words, but less and less in deeds.
Sorry, Lavinia, but I'm not as dignified as you are. I just want Mary's happiness, and I sincerely don't think she can achieve that with such a selfish brat as Captain Crawley. But I digress, and you're right, a little honesty would be good for everybody. You have to recognize it isn't this family's forte, though.
With that he had drained his champagne in one gulp, ignoring Carson's disapproving glare, and invited Mary to dance to the American tunes Cora's phonograph played in the drawing room where the family was gathered after diner and prepared for the upcoming Servants' Ball. He even remembered noting Crawley's frown of hurt and displeasure as they danced away, joining the Earl and his wife not without a small amount of petty satisfaction. For a second he almost felt sorry for the poor girl who had walked back to now very bored fiancé.
What a shame. What a waste of time.
"That a little honesty and determination on your part would have been a good everything for all parties involved," he replied, chasing away the memories. "Honestly, Mary, I know your world doesn't operate by the same standards as mine, but I find that your and Crawley's hypocrisy and cowardice far more damaging, as far as what it tells about your character, than whatever happened with Pamuk, which obviously wasn't your fault."
He drained the end of his pint like he had drained his glass of champagne back then.
"You two wanted so much to be the hero and heroine of your damn tragic fairytale that you forgot that there were real people around you, who suffered, who suffocated from the flu knowing their future husband didn't love them back, who watched you letting yourself get hurt again and again, utterly powerless. You persuaded yourselves that you could kill someone with an illicit kiss, and you forgot how lucky you've been, especially you."
"Well, it would appear my luck's run out at last, wouldn't it?" she replied, her words as stiff as her spine and shoulders as she straightened in her chair, placing her cup on the table. "Though I'm not sure I would ever have described my life as lucky in any regard. Not since 1912."
Patrick drowned on the Titanic, Pamuk dead in her bed, Matthew…
"Always focusing on the half empty glass, aren't you?"
Richard could not help but chuckle at Mary's sense of dramatics. Of course, he would never admit it aloud, but he had liked this special flaw of hers, because it used to make him curious. How such an apparently well-grounded and strong woman could be so naive and blind to everything that was not her inner circle?
"Let's see… Not catching the flu yourself while you did exactly everything that was particularly ill-advised in time of an epidemics," he began to count on his fingers, mimicking the attitude of a schoolboy.
"Your mother getting better after all, when the whole family was at Lavinia's side-or was it at Matthew's? Do I have to remind you that only O'Brien was with her for most of the night, when you were busy consoling your cousin? Speaking of that… Without this footman's sacrifice, the use of his legs would have been the least of Captain Crawley's problems. Somehow, I doubt that a simple soldier, not raised under the Grantham's influence, would have done the same as this young man. What was his name again ? Even without this footman, don't you see that many women who missed their chance before the war hadn't been granted a second chance? Your desire of suitors might blind you to that fact, but far too many men died without even firing their first shot at the enemy, whoever this enemy was. Your cousin, your husband, was one of the lucky ones, even in his chair…"
As if to soften the blow, Richard let a small smile form on his lips and his hand covered Mary's fingers which were tightened around her pint. Long ago, such a gesture would have taken his breath away. Now, he did feel very different from when he comforted his sister or cousins when they suddenly thought of their lost ones.
An itchy scar is still a healed wound.
"Of course, you went through terrible, terrible times these past two years. However, you won't be able to be happy again if you keep on doing this, Mary. You have to count your blessings, because, if not, you'll never even be content. Naturally, at some point or another, you'll feel like drunk in your own happiness, but it'll be an illusion. It won't be the real deal."
Richard stood up and put his trenchcoat on. It was high time to search for his friend again.
"If only Pete understood this simple fact, I wouldn't have to do this sort of things so often."
Over the course of their discussion, Mary had all but forgotten Richard's errant caricaturist. It hit her suddenly, the irony that helping Richard track down a man who'd been betrayed by a lover was her chosen diversion from a Valentine's Day debacle with her suitors. Quickly she stood, hoping Richard was not aware of this, as it would no doubt only fuel his opinion of her as being spoiled and self-centered.
Yet as he plucked her coat from the rack and held it for her, she had no impression that he was thinking anything of the sort. He'd lectured her, yes, but without malice. His touch on her hand had been gentle, reassuring, even, as was the brush of his fingertips as she slipped her arms into the sleeves of her coat and he adjusted it on her shoulders. This was the Richard she'd glimpsed after Lavinia's funeral. How had she been so blind to his feelings?
She turned her head to look back slightly over her shoulder at him. "Are you content, Richard?"
He'd been hurt terribly, too, over the last two years. The wisdom he offered was gleaned from his own experience.
"Yes, I am," he answered without hesitation as he pushed the door open, bracing himself for the February humidity and cold, the kind of one which chilled you to do bones and made you question the rationality of a day spent outside instead of sitting by a roaring fire. "Why shouldn't I be ? I've a beautiful son, I'm financially secure enough to ensure that he won't lack of anything and will be able to build his life as he wishes - as long he doesn't turn into another of those lazy heirs who dilapid their fathers' hard-won money. My father seems indestructible for now. I've been successful doing what I liked, the way I liked, and my efforts have been rewarded by current social position. I can hope to regain my footing on a professional level in a very near future, if I ever lost it. Again, what more can I ask?"
He casually offered his arm to Mary and steered her toward their next destination.
"Of course, everything's not perfect, but life isn't perfect either. I'm not even discarding the idea of getting back on the saddle at one point of my life, it's just that I'm perfectly content with being off the market at the moment. I've my son, my family, my friends, crazy as they are, it's more than enough."
"If we were still at the pub, I'd drink to being off the market." When Richard looked down at her from beneath a quirked eyebrow, she amended with a shake of her head, "For today."
Tony and Charles were lovely, both, but while she did like the promise that romance was not forever lost to her, what she wanted at the moment was friendship with no expectation. She'd found that, most surprisingly, in Richard. And he was right. Her family had withstood devastating losses, but how many families had weathered the war and the Spanish flu? How many people her age still had both parents, much less grandparents? She had her son-and Downton. What right had she to ask for more? It was already more than she deserved.
"You know what might help me be a little more content?" She squeezed Richard's arm, and he looked down at her again. "Knowing where we're going before we get there."