A/N: Hello! I know I told some of you Monday, but I managed to pull it together a bit early, so voila!
Yours Forever: Chapter VII
Henry looked at the two of them: Mary, with her fingers touched to her lips, her eyes averted -Matthew, staring back at Henry with a guilty, almost apologetic expression.
"Henry, I -"
His cousin held up a hand as Matthew offered an explanation. "They're waiting. Come on."
Mary, head down, obediently walked towards her brother, avoiding his eyes, Matthew following in her wake. Miraculously, no one seemed to notice the pair's flustered state as they said their goodbyes for the evening. Matthew shared a secret look with Mary as he turned to leave, feeling a horrible mixture of giddiness and fear. He was secretly pleased to see the same emotions crossing through Mary's dark eyes.
After saying goodbye to Violet, Isobel, and Matthew, the four other Crawleys made their way back inside. Their parents went up almost immediately, claiming exhaustion, while Henry and Mary were left downstairs. A tense silence descended after their parents had gone. Henry's jaw was set, and Mary clasped her hands in front of her, twisting them while her older brother paced back and forth in front of her. She watched him go back and forth until her head hurt and finally opened her mouth to speak, thinking that was what he wanted her to do, but he waved her off.
"I'm tired, we can talk about it in the morning," her brother said in a weary voice, and directed himself up the staircase, leaving Mary at the foot of the stairs, eyebrows wrinkled in worry and lips red against her pale skin from biting them.
Mary stayed up late into the night, alternating between thinking of Matthew and their second kiss, and her brother whose reaction she was still waiting for. Henry had been terse with her, something he never did. Not ever. Oh, he would tease her and playfully pretend to be annoyed with her, but he had never yelled or dismissed her in such a way, and Mary was hurt. She rationalized that she probably deserved it in his eyes, and only hoped that the morning would wake up a better and more understanding version of her brother.
But she need not have waited till the morning. Just as Mary was finally dozing off, wrapped in the warm sheets of her bed, there was a quiet knock on the door. Knowing there was only one person it could be at this time of night, Mary roused herself from bed, donning her dressing gown in the dark, and went to her door.
Henry watched his sister's door open and her curious and tired face peek out from it, one thin-fingered hand resting on the doorframe.
"What is it?" she asked in a gravelly night voice.
"Come on," he said quietly, beckoning her out with one hand and starting down the corridor. Foregoing slippers, Mary snuck out behind him, hurrying to find him going down the staircase. She followed swiftly, her nightgown and dressing gown breezing behind her as she moved, and winced at the cold parquet under her feet.
"Where are we going?" Mary asked softly as he led her through several downstairs rooms, then smiled in recognition as she followed him down a familiar staircase.
"Don't make a mess, Mrs. Patmore will have your head," Mary warned in a normal tone as they entered the kitchen. Henry went about gathering ingredients and soon lit the stove and put a pot on to warm, unwrapping a bar of chocolate he had found and nibbling on a piece before chopping it in half and putting one half in the pot to melt.
"It's been ages since we've done this," Mary mused, and Henry nodded.
"Well, I thought you deserved a peace offering."
His sister raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"
He glanced at her with a smirk. "Don't be coy, you know what I mean. I was a bit short with you this evening."
Grateful that her brother had been the first to bring it up, Mary breathed a sigh of relief. "A bit? You hardly said a word!"
Henry continued making the cocoa while Mary perched on the table set in the middle of the kitchen, swinging her feet idly as he worked.
"I'm sorry, Henry," Mary said finally, fiddling with the corner of the table.
He frowned and dipped a finger into the pot, wrinkling his mouth when it was much too bitter. "Why are you sorry?"
Mary shrugged. "Shouldn't I be? You seemed angry."
Finally satisfied, Henry gestured to the cabinet and Mary got down from the table to find two cups, bringing them to him while he poured the steaming milk into them. Setting down the pot, he presented her with one warm cup. Leaning against the counter, he watched as she resumed her spot and they both sipped at the cocoa tentatively.
"I'm not angry," Henry said at last, smirking when his sister hissed, having burned her tongue.
She put down her cup in surprise. "You're not?"
"Was that the only time?"
Mary shook her head, "No."
Henry's eyebrows shot up, and his eyes darkened, "And that's all that's...I mean, you've only kissed?"
Mary sputtered, her cheeks flaming. "Of course that's all! What else do you think we could have-"
"Never mind," her brother said with relief, wondering if his sister even knew fully what he insinuated.
Mary took another sip of cocoa.
"I just didn't think it would happen so soon," Henry confessed, crossing one foot over the other. He watched Mary's feet swinging lightly, and smiled to himself, "you're just so young, both of you."
His sister sat up straighter, indignant. "I'm not so young!"
Henry chuckled, "Oh, yes you are!" He looked at her there, her cheeks still slightly round from childhood, her hair long down her back and tied back with a red ribbon, her long cotton nightgown and swinging feet.
"Besides," she said, now with a certain note of maturity, "I don't even know what it was."
He gave her a confused look, and she continued: "Oh, I don't understand what Matthew means or what will come of it!"
"What does Matthew think will come of it?"
Mary shook her head and flipped her hands up for emphasis. "I don't know! Certainly not marriage!"
"What's wrong with that?" Henry asked her.
Mary laughed, "We would kill each other! I'm not sure I want to marry anyone, much less Matthew!"
Finishing the last sip of his cocoa, Henry moved forward to take her cup and went to the sink to begin to wash them, smirking at the fact that Mary had not, and would probably never would wash dishes in her life.
"You don't have to marry anyone if you don't want to," he said as he finished, and wiped his hands on his pajama bottoms, earning a smirk from his sister.
She raised her eyebrows. "I see! And would Mamma and Papa agree with you?"
They walked back upstairs in relative silence, reminiscing about the other times they had gone to the kitchens in the middle of the night to make cocoa. It was always when one needed to apologize to the other, and it never failed to restore their friendship.
"I'm not a boy, I have no position here," Mary said as they walked up the staircase. "You have your duty, I suppose, and I have mine."
Henry looked at her curiously, with a respectful eye as she pulled her hair over one shoulder. "You get Downton by birth, and I was born to marry and run another family's household. That's how it works."
"If that's how you see it." Henry put a hand on her shoulders and rubbed a comforting arc over them.
Mary looked at him with a small, weary smile. "There's no 'seeing' about it."
"If you say so."
As they reached her bedroom she turned to him and sighed deeply. "Goodnight, Henry."
"Goodnight. Oh, you've got some-" he pointed to her chest, and as she looked down he flicked his finger under her nose. She laughed in tired amusement at his age-old trick. "Now, cheer up. Tomorrow's a new day."
The next day was a new one, and Mary awoke with a much clearer head. She saw Matthew several times before he made to leave again for school, and with Henry's implied blessing did not feel guilty for remembering their kisses and thinking of the meaning behind them, of which she was not yet certain. With the knowledge that they had begun to bear their hearts to one another, Mary and Matthew became awkward together. Only Henry knew the real reason for their strange behaviour, and their parents watched on in amusement as Matthew uncomfortably asked Mary if she would like to walk down to the fair with him, or when Mary spilled her glass of wine at dinner when Peter Cross' name was mentioned.
Soon the day came when Henry and Matthew packed to return to school, and, for the first time since she was a small child, Mary came down and accompanied them to the station to see them off. This time was different. In May she had said goodbye to her beloved governess of ten years, and now she would be sending them off and returning to an empty house with not even an ongoing education to keep her occupied. Of course, she would continue to learn. She had promised that to the boys.
Their parents had stayed at the house while Mary was driven to the station with her brother and cousin. She had always wondered why people had romantic notions of trains and stations. To her they were merely places where she was left behind while others moved on, and so she did not smile at the couple embracing further down the platform, their child clinging to the mother's skirts, or the father sending his own son off to school.
"Come on, give me a proper goodbye!" Henry pressed as his trunk was loaded into the train along with Matthew's. Mary smiled and embraced him fondly, then leaned up to kiss his cheek and shake a finger at him, warning him to keep out of trouble. He gave a pointed look to her, placed a kiss on her forehead, and glanced at Matthew before he went to board the train, leaving the two of them there.
Matthew smiled down at her, as she was still smaller than him, and she smirked.
"What?"
"You hate saying goodbye."
She nodded. "I know."
Henry stuck his head out of a compartment further down and waved. "Hurry up, Matthew!"
Mary shook her head when Matthew opened his mouth. "Don't be silly about it, it's only till Christmas!"
"I wasn't going to be silly about it," Matthew said in a low voice. He leaned down and pressed a quick kiss to her cheek, close to her mouth, and when he stepped back Mary's dark eyes had softened. She held out a gloved hand and patted his arm gently.
"I'll see you at Christmas," she said, clearing her throat.
He smiled and turned at the station master's whistle, boarding the train and disappearing from her view. Mary was surprised to suddenly feel very alone, more alone than before, yet she held her head high, pursed her lips slightly, and turned to leave the station, hearing the train grumble to life behind her. But she would not watch it go. She hated watching things leave while she stayed in the same place.
Mary refused to let herself become pathetic in their absence, and threw herself into her self-taught studies, reviewing geography and even attempting to teach herself Danish. She acquired new music, and learned each piece patiently until she had mastered it. And she even managed to sit and be pleasant to the men her mother invited to dine with them over the course of the next few months, for she thought often of what she had told Henry.
She could barely contemplate what Matthew was to her now. Not a cousin. Not a friend. Not a lover. All three? None? The question kept her up at night, and she became even more confused when she found the attention of other men flattering. She went to a ball and flirted and was flirted shamelessly with. In these moments she forgot about Matthew, and later she tortured herself for it. But why was she guilty? Did she owe him her heart already? What understanding did they have? She thought of writing to him, but didn't. Yet when the day came for them to return from school she was filled with a terrible nervous sensation in her gut, and couldn't make herself go to the station to greet them, even though she was much better at hellos.
Matthew smiled at Mary as he and his mother walked into the front hall of Downton on Christmas Eve. She was clutching a book under her arm and returned a careful, small smile to him. He frowned. It wasn't quite the welcome he had been expecting. She quite nearly shunned him in welcoming her brother, walking with Henry and laughing at jokes he had reserved for her as they went in to dinner.
Matthew was placed next to Cora and Henry at the table, and barely had a word from Mary as she spoke to her grandmother throughout almost the entire meal.
When they finally went through later in the evening he sought Mary out, almost affronted by her clear avoidance of him.
"Play something, Mary!" Henry commanded from his place next to his father, and Matthew, who had been on his way to where she sat, sighed as she readily agreed, fairly jolting out of her seat and to the grand piano in the music room beside them. Within moments, the practiced, careful notes of Mary's playing drifted through to them, and Henry turned to his parents to comment on her further improvement.
"Yes, she's become quite the musician in the past few months. We haven't seen much of her," Robert said thoughtfully.
"I've never seen her quite so melancholy," Cora said in agreement, and Violet looked up to Matthew.
"Perhaps she missed Matthew and Henry," she said innocently, "it's always hard for her when the boys leave in September."
Matthew shared a look with Henry, who gave the smallest nudge of his head in the direction of the music room, and Matthew set down his glass. Walking carefully away, knowing he would not be missed, he entered the music room and saw her playing. He had never really seen Mary play before, only listened to it with Henry from upstairs, and so he was surprised at the ease and fluidity with which she approached the instrument.
She looked up when he entered, but looked down at her fingers as they flitted through a complicated passage. Matthew watched them, too, watched how they skipped up and down the delicate black and white keys, traveling at different speeds and dancing in a way that was so perfectly Mary that he almost smiled to himself.
She finished the piece and sat up straight on the bench, her hands braced beside her. "How was your journey?"
Matthew chuckled, and she looked at him, offended. "Mary, that's like asking someone about the weather. We're past all the pleasantries now, I think."
She shrugged. "You're right. What should we talk about, then, if you're so against normal topics of conversation?"
Matthew ran a hand through his hair and chuckled a little. "God, you're so stubborn. Why are you being like this, Mary?"
She smiled. "I don't know what you're talking about!"
"Don't play games with me, Mary, I don't deserve it. Not from you," Matthew said softly, leaning against a bookshelf and watching as she turned on the bench to face him. "What's wrong? What did I do?"
Mary looked at him and pursed her lips with a desperate expression.
"When I left in September you were yourself. Now you're...cold!" he realized with a lurch. "You were never like that before with me."
Mary slumped her shoulders and sighed. "I'm sorry! I don't know what's wrong!" she nodded suddenly in resignation. "Well yes, I know what's wrong."
"What is it, then?" Matthew asked with frustration.
She fiddled with her fingernails while looking at a spot behind him. After a moment, she met his eyes again.
"I don't...know what this is. What we are."
He tilted his head in confusion. "'What we are'? What does that mean?"
She stood in frustration and clenched her hands by her sides in fists. "We haven't said anything to anyone! There is no...understanding between us. Just this-" she gestured between them, "just us, here. And I don't know what to do!"
"Do you think I know any better than you do, Mary?" he exclaimed, then lowered his voice as he realized the rest of the family was still in the neighbouring room. "Sometimes I think I know you better than anyone and others I'm not sure if I know you at all!"
She paced. "What do you want, Matthew? Do you want to marry me? Is that what this is all leading up to?"
He opened his mouth in shock, and she stared at him piercingly as he hesitated. "Is that...Is that what you want?" he asked.
She shook her head. "No!" She flung her arms against her sides, feeling tears creep up. "God, I don't know!"
"We're far too young to be thinking about all of that," Matthew said in a quiet voice.
She laughed bitterly. "Not really! I'm not getting any younger, Matthew, and I'm not a man. I can't wait until I want to marry, I have to wait for someone to want me."
"Mary," he said as she paced. He took a step closer to her. "Mary, calm down."
She brushed him away. "Don't!"
He ignored her and moved to where she walked, gently holding a hand forward. Mary glanced at it, and without a moment's hesitation took it and was pulled into his chest. She was comforted instantly by being more or less in his arms, and looked up at him with her still stubbornly angry expression. "So, what are we to each other?"
"I don't know," Matthew said, a thumb on her cheek. He swallowed as she fixed him with her bourbon stare, and he saw her change in front of him. Gone forever was the girl Mary, the one who he had taught mathematics and swung up in the air on a summer beach. Now, a swan morphed in front of him, the woman Mary. And no matter how much he fought it, she could see it build in his eyes. In his eyes she saw she was only his: her infuriatingly complex mind, all her imperfections, her evening primrose-coloured soul, and her knowing eyes looking at the world with wings spread wide. "I don't know," he confessed again, "but I think I'm falling in love with you."
A/N: Oh man, got a little sickening there at the end, didn't it? Oh well. Thank you SO MUCH for your responses to chapter 6! I'd love to know what you thought of this chapter as well if you have a minute to spare!
