The youngest sister…Matthew tried to remember the name his mother had told him. Sybil. She was talking with friends about who had joined up and who was accompanying whom to London to see them off at the train station after tea at Gunther's. Growing frustrated with once again being reminded that he was going nowhere, Matthew decided to take a walk.
Grumbling under his breath that Lady Mary and her sisters made the war sound such a lark. Just like a weekend in the country and then to town. Tea first, death later. Priorities don't you know.
So English. So very much the reasons they found themselves neck deep in the mud of France. Loyalty. Duty. King and country. Matthew could caustically criticize those charming but outmoded principles that got people killed every day and at the very same time feel the pull to do his part. Not for excitement. Or fear of being called a coward or worse. But to rid himself of notion that he was useless. Even at the hospital he was sized up and found wanting.
Even among the detritus of this war he was deemed less.
He tried not to wallow in such self-indulgent pity. It wasn't the time for it. And despite the pervading sense of sadness that existed at St. Dunstan's he felt he was doing good work. The doctors, nurses, and therapists operated under principle of returning the soldiers to a functioning life.
Whether society would accept them back or not was not talked about. No reason to depress the rehabilitees.
Matthew knew the answer though. He heard it at this garden party. Mary's whinging about having to take care of the blind man. The dismissal of him as a person with feelings. They talked about him in the third person as if he wasn't there.
And the strangest thing to Matthew was that he was to accommodate them by putting the family at ease by not being insulted by any of their behaviours. As if just being allowed in their presence was reward enough for him.
There was no point in taking offense.
So when the introductions were over and he was left on his own, Matthew struck out for himself. He heard the gravel under his feet so he knew he was on a well-trodden lane. His cane out in front to feel out obstructions Matthew walked on. He believed it was a footpath around the house rather than a drive for cars.
The crunch of his feet, warblers and chaffinches in the trees the only accompanying sounds.
His cane was stopped by an impediment. Matthew reached his hand out and felt some kind of masonry. A roughhewn surface meant it was a wall of some kind. Probably a low garden divider.
It was a quiet spot.
Matthew sat down.
The chatter of the crowd gave way to silence. Matthew hadn't realized how much the long days at St. Dunstan's had taken out of him. He had been run off his feet. He felt down the wall a bit and realized there was a large upright stone projection. He leaned his back against it and fell asleep.
The next thing he knew he felt a light tap on his shoulder.
"Hmmm…" Matthew blinked. He rubbed his eyes. All habits from when he could see. He opened them, seeing only the usual opaque hues of light and shade.
"There you are." Mary's voice was exultant. "You've had us looking everywhere."
"Me?" Matthew's face scrunched in confusion. "Why?"
She explained as if he was a child. "You wander away without telling anyone. Your mother was ready to leave and you were nowhere to be found. Papa thought you must be lost so a search party was organized."
Trying to ignore the condescending tone, Matthew's eyebrow went up. "And you went to look for me?" He sounded incredulous.
"No." Mary admitted. "I was returning to the house. But I did find you."
"I hate to mar your moment of triumph," Matthew rejoined evenly, "but I wasn't lost. I did fall asleep for which I apologize."
"How can you possibly know where you are?" Mary demanded. "You've never even been to Downton before."
"Don't you know?" Matthew scoffed. "Blind people are clairvoyant. I sensed my way here." And he put his arms out and wriggled his fingers around in the air like a music hall conjurer.
"You don't have to be rude." Mary bit back.
"And you don't have to assume I can't find my way down a simple gravel path." Matthew put his hands down. He swiveled his legs over the edge of the wall into a sitting position.
Mary sighed. "I suppose you're right." This man put her on edge. She wasn't used to dealing with someone, a man especially, whom she couldn't dazzle with her visual charms.
Matthew took his handkerchief out of his pocket. Spread it out and placed it beside him on the stone wall.
"Sit?" He offered.
"I really shouldn't be alone…" Mary looked around to see if anyone followed her.
"Even with a harmless blind man?" Matthew's sarcasm apparent again.
"Are you always so prickly?"
"Are you always so haughty?"
Mary exhaled in frustration.
Matthew felt the swish of air against his skin as she sat down. The feel of her linen gown as it tickled his hand. The whiff of her scent that had knocked him for a loop earlier.
"So how do you do it then?" Mary asked in a more tactful voice.
"You have to trust your other senses."
"What do you mean?"
"Close your eyes." Matthew requested. He waited a few seconds.
"Are they closed?" He inquired skeptically. "I can't tell you know."
"They're closed." Mary gave a hint of a laugh.
"Take your hands and feel my face."
She hesitated.
"Think of it as an act of charity. Humour me." His mouth curved slightly at the edge. "I won't bite."
Mary heaved a self-conscious outbreath and put out her hands.
"You'll have to take your gloves off." Matthew could feel the cloth against his skin.
He could hear her tug at the gloves. Then her gentle fingertips probed his cheeks. His nose. His eyes. His brow.
She avoided his mouth.
Soft. Warm on his skin. He hadn't realized he was cold sitting so long in one place.
He felt his face flame. Betrayed by his own body, he winced that now she'd know how her touch made him shiver. Matthew hardly ever let his mind wander to the soft touch of a woman's hand. Such enjoyments were never to be his. He had locked away all thoughts of love or matrimony.
It hurt too much.
Mary pulled away, seemingly unaware however of the effect she had on the man beside her.
"Do mine." She demanded excitedly. "My eyes are closed."
Matthew chuckled. "You don't have to do that."
"Just go ahead." Her voice entreated in that plummy voice that was meant to keep the distance between them.
"Yes ma'am." He muttered acerbically under his breath. But his touch was tender. It was true that his sense of touch had become more acute after he lost his vision. It became his eyesight. Learning how to distinguish objects through touch. He felt the world around him. And the more he trusted it the more independent he became.
He couldn't keep his hands from shaking when he touched Mary's face. Her high cheekbones. Slim neck. He imagined her skin alabaster white. He pushed a few strands of her hair behind her left ear.
Matthew dared to rub his thumb delicately against her lips. He felt a wisp of hot breath against his skin.
Crossing an unspoken boundary.
She instinctually pulled away.
The moment lost.
"Sorry." Matthew retreated back with embarrassment. "That was presumptuous." Was she repulsed by his touch?
Mary stood up. "I'll take you back." Her tone clipped and more distant than ever. "Do you need me to guide you?"
"No." He responded taciturnly. "I can find my own way."
But she walked ahead of him anyway down the gravel path and said upon returning to the large group on the lawn, "Here he is" as if he was a lost puppy. As if he meant nothing more than act of kindness by a lady bountiful.
"Hallelujah…" Matthew could hear the earl of Grantham say. "We were about to ring the police."
Matthew started to say again he was not lost when another voice approached, "Maybe Cousin Matthew would come again? We could visit some of the village's points of historic interest. There's some lovely medieval architecture around here. Mary and I might show you a few of the nearer ones."
"That's very kind." Matthew responded, unsure of the speaker's identity.
"Oh Edith." Mary's voice dripped with disdain, "He'd hardly get any enjoyment out of that given his affliction."
Matthew flinched at her words.
"And besides I'm too busy living a life. Patrick will be back on leave soon and he's promised me a trip to see Chu Chin Chow."
A male voice interrupted. "I've got tickets for Saturday, Lady Mary. I'm escorting my mother but I'm sure she wouldn't mind the company."
"Lord Gillingham," Mary's voice turned honied. "I'd love that. I ache to hear my heels clicking the cobblestones of London. It's been so long what with the season being curtailed."
Oh yes, Matthew thought, back again to this inconvenient war getting in the way of all your social engagements.
He heard Lady Grantham call the other sister away presumably on some kind of pretense to get her away from the distant cousin to whom it might be a bad idea to be around too long.
Feeling more than ever an unwanted appendage at this so-called family gathering Matthew wanted to leave. But he could not go until his mother agreed. He twisted around on his heels and continued to walk away, feeling with his cane for the chairs that had been placed along the perimeter.
"Matthew." He heard Isobel call. "Over here."
"We need to catch the train back to Manchester." He said, pulling out his braille pocket watch. "I want to return to London this evening."
"What's happened?" She inquired of her son. "Where did you go? I'm not sure we should leave without telling anyone."
"Doesn't matter Mother." Matthew set his jaw in a frown. "I think they're done with the poor relations for now. We've done our part and bought the charity tickets and now I think we've been dismissed. We can walk to the train station."
As Matthew walked away Isobel took the time to tell Cora they were leaving. Cora summoned the chauffeur to meet them out front.
Matthew reluctantly got inside the to take them back to the station.
"I don't want any charity from them." He proclaimed upon taking his seat. "I mean the thing is, just for a moment, I thought…." Matthew pushed his hair over his head and put on his hat. "Never mind what I thought. I was wrong."
"I had hoped you would make some friends." Isobel settled on the seat next to her son.
"You're clearly barking up the wrong tree and will be in for a big disappointment." He spat out.
"I wouldn't mind if I never saw any of them again."
Isobel did not respond. Clearly something happened he did not want to disclose. She let him vent.
Matthew was silent all the way back to Manchester.
At the station he had to switch trains to London. Isobel put her hands on his shoulders so he could find her face and cheek. He kissed her good-bye.
"Do you have everything you need?" She asked. "Don't let them work you too hard."
"I'm fine, Mother." He tried to reassure her though it sounded hollow even to his own ears. "I just need to get back to work."
XX
Matthew sank down on the first-class passenger seat. He was worn out by the day's events. It was always a bit of an act he played in front of others. This time however was the unexpected frisson he felt around Mary.
Haughty Mary.
Patronizing.
Snobbish.
He didn't know where he was around her. One minute they were getting along. The next she was dismissing him like a child.
He liked their sparring. She didn't give in like so many others did. At times he believed she forgot he was blind.
He didn't understand her at all.
She was so very beautiful. One didn't have to see to realize that. He had taken a liberty with the touch of her lips. But for reasons he could even justify to himself he believed at the time she had liked it. The hot breath on his skin as she slowly exhaled.
Their bodies froze just for a split second. Time seemed to stop. He had learned to trust his senses and he believed that intimate moment was shared between the two of them.
But whether Mary truly felt repulsed by his impudence or she refused to acknowledge any feelings for a defective man who'd be nothing but a burden to her he had no idea.
And frankly he didn't want a second chance to find out. For in the end nothing would come of it.
Mary would want nothing to do with him.
He had only one other experience with which to base this assumption. But it was so painful he lumped it in together. When he was at college he had been invited to a rather bohemian party with some of his roommates who thought he needed to get out of the library and into life.
The party had been loud. Gramophones playing the latest music hall hits. People dancing. He felt the floorboards move. He sat down with a drink but really didn't mix at all. A young woman, Kate Laidlaw, sat down beside him and asked why he didn't dance. He had said he didn't feel much up to it. She had a pretty Scots lilt. They ended up chatting a long time. Kate was at Newnham College reading Classics and he impressed her with a recitation from the Iliad in Greek. Over the course of the evening they grew closer. A few drinks more and she was lying beside him near a fireplace. She had lain her arm across his chest. He dared to kiss her cheek. Very soon later they were madly kissing.
Matthew hadn't even remembered he had not divulged he was blind. The heady feelings of lust had taken over his brain.
The moment all came to ruin when her friend popped through the door to tell Kate to come back to the real party.
Matthew had been disoriented and fell down upon trying to help her up. He had no idea if she had reached out with her arms so instead he flailed around trying to stand.
Her friend got restless, saying cruelly "Come on Kate. Let Blind Billy there find his own way back. He can't dance anyway. Fred only brought him out of charity."
Matthew heard her stamp an angry foot as she waited for Kate.
Kate had walked away from Matthew without another word. They slammed the door behind them. He was so humiliated he crept out the back of the house and sat down on the stoop until his erstwhile friend finally showed up to help him back to their rooms at Caius.
He never told anyone about it. But he never allowed himself to be alone with a woman again. And this experience with Mary showed him why. He was treated as a person without feelings. And his own inexperience gave him nothing to fall back on except painful mortification.
Matthew rubbed his chin as he considered the events of the afternoon. He would have bet anything that he was not wrong about Mary's feelings. He'd most probably never find out as right how he was better off on his own.
At least that's what he told himself.
Just then the compartment door opened. A voice interrupting his thoughts, "Excuse me. Is this seat taken?"
"No." Matthew sat up straighter and removed his cane from the empty seat beside him. He hoped it would not result in another white feather incident as he was out of his hospital blues.
"Thank you. I just barely made it and my father's waiting for me at St. Pancras."
She had such a friendly voice.
"Matthew Crawley." He tipped his hat and reached out his hand.
"Lavinia Swire. How do you do?" She took his hand and shook it. "Where are you headed?"
Matthew decided to be up front. "St. Dunstan's Hostel for Blind Soldiers and Sailors. I work there."
"How interesting. Were you wounded in the war?"
"No. I've been blind since 13 from a pituitary tumor that impinges on my optic nerve." Matthew had never really told immediate acquaintances the origins of his blindness. "I'm unable to join up."
The bitterness must have shown in his answer as she replied, "It's very good though that you've found such a useful way to serve. I wish I had some kind of skill to lend to the war effort. I find just going to these charity functions tedious indeed."
Matthew gave her a broad smile. No one had ever couched a response like that before. That he was actually of some benefit. "I'm sure you make them feel quite happy before being sent to the front lines."
"Even so it's not what I'd like to do. But my father is ill and I can't leave him alone to become an ambulance driver." Lavinia rejoined. "I know of some girls who are doing just that."
"I'm sure you're doing the best you can." Matthew politely replied. Another thing he'd never do. Drive automobiles or ambulances.
"Would you take tea with me and my father tomorrow?" Lavinia asked. "I could give you our address. I'm sure he'd like to meet you."
Matthew was startled. "Of…Of course…" He stammered. "I'd love to."
But all the way back to London he fidgeted with his cane, twirling it around in his hand. What was he doing? This could only lead to tears.
No one wanted him except out of charity.
XX
Mary restlessly walked around the gardens at the back of Downton. The party had finally come to a close and everyone had left. The servants were clearing away the tables and pulling down the tents.
Sybil and Edith had gone inside with their mother to change for dinner.
She was alone with her thoughts. And it was unsettling.
That man had no right to take such liberties with her. She should have slapped him possibly. Certainly have told him he was no gentleman. But then what would you expect from a blind man?
Her sharpened wit would have wounded him deeply.
And he would have deserved it. Had she been insulted by his action.
But was she?
Her emotions were all in a twist. He was such an enigma. Unlike any young man she had ever encountered before. She couldn't flit her eyes and smile and win him over. When he had offered to show her how he used touch to sense his surroundings she thought she'd found a way to begin to understand him.
Her exploration of what she already knew to be his handsome face with just her fingertips was exhilarating. Daring and outside proscribed accepted behaviour. No chaperone in sight. But when his blue eyes, that had been dull and unexpressive, flashed to life and dazzled her with an intense stare of cerulean blue when he suggested the examination, she could not say no.
And then caught in the moment, she returned the favour and asked him to do the same to her.
His touch was gentle yet searching. Penetrating her defenses without even knowing it. He expertly guided his fingertips around her facial features. She had cheated a bit and opened her eyes knowing he'd never know. His face was at first serious and then it softened. His mouth fell open, his fingers trembled as he approached her lips.
And then he touched them. And she felt the world fall at her feet. For just that moment, they were the only two people on earth.
So startled by the whirlwind of emotions that swelled in her body, she withdrew from him. He had been as frightened as she, Mary noticed.
Neither knew what to do.
So they fell back on convention.
And she returned to her old self. This was impossible. She was wrong. She just felt sorry for him was all. And it got confused into something else.
Mary made a confident turn back to the house. As soon as she could get to London things would be better. Lt. Commander Foyle had promised a trip to the theater. Patrick would understand. And besides his mother was attending as well. All proper and above board.
Back to what she knew. That was the answer to get Matthew Crawley out of her brain for good.
XX
It's taking me a while to put this story in any kind of chronology in my head. It's going to get complicated very quickly for Mary and Matthew with some twists and turns along the way. I hope you like the story and review it. It's my favorite thing in the world.
