A/N: Here we are, here we are, here we are again!
Once again I'm bowled over by the variety and sincerity of your responses, thank you so much. I really am finding it utterly fascinating to see how people are responding so differently to this fic. I have so many people to thank for listening to me witter on about this chapter, and for showing an interest in it, so I'm sending you all a great big hug and cookie (you'll be needing it). And especially to EOlivet for her insight, enthusiasm and polish!
I'd say "enjoy", but... here we go!
Chapter Eight
Matthew stilled, his breath trapped in his chest as her anguished exclamation rang around the room, which seemed to close stiflingly in on him, on them.
"What?" His voice wavered, small and yet deafening in the sudden, still quiet. "I… who? Who was here, Mary?"
Her breath hitched in a loud sob, and she whispered bitterly against her knees, unable to look at Matthew's face and see the doubt and hurt beginning to creep into his expression.
"You must – know who," she wrought out. "The – he – Kemal."
"Pamuk?" Matthew asked, trying to understand, failing, the blood in his veins chilling. "You mean – he was here, at the house, I don't – understand…" Why was she thinking of that now, of all times, when they'd just… when they were like this… He thought they'd been making things better, forgetting all that, driving it away.
"No!" she shook her head desperately. She felt somehow as though she were splintering and breaking apart, out of control, knowing that her words must crush him and destroy everything between them and yet utterly unable to bear his ignorance, his innocence. She fisted her fingers into the bedsheets as if it would be some sign, some clue, some allowance to her not having to say the terrible words. "I'm so – sorry, Matthew –"
He swallowed heavily, finding his throat suddenly dry and tight. As every indication from her screamed at a possibility that he couldn't, couldn't think about – his mind repelled the idea, tried to silence it but now the seed was there it was impossible to shake – he became terribly aware of his nakedness, and Mary's beside him. Trembling, he pulled the sheets to cover his lower body then reached out to touch her arm, wincing as she flinched away from him.
"You can't – Mary, tell me you don't mean –" His voice shook, pleading with her, desperately seeking the slightest sign of denial, that he was wrong, mistaken, he had to be, she couldn't… He felt sick. He could hardly breathe, the sight of her distraught sobbing sending withering chills down his spine. "God, please, not – here, not like – this…"
As his voice trailed off to a desperate, whispered plea… Mary could only nod helplessly, and watch, and weep, as Matthew's hand clamped over his mouth and he seemed to withdraw impossibly into himself, leaning over as his other hand sought purchase to steady himself.
It hurt. It hurt, so much, as Matthew tried to cling desperately to any shred of disbelief he could muster, but when Mary could not say that he was wrong… he felt it shrink and burn away into his gut, replaced with cold, hard reality. He shuddered, hot tears stinging the back of his eyes, lips and voice trembling as he looked at Mary through eyes narrowed in anguish. "You mean…" he whispered. "Oh God, Mary, everything – everything we've – you've – with him? In this – in this bed?" he gasped.
Again, the only response she could bear to muster was a small, helpless nod before wracking sobs of regret and disgust with herself overcame her. Unable to face the pain in Matthew's eyes as he hunched over on his knees, she buried her face in her arms.
Matthew pressed his face into his hands, trying to blot out the images that pounded relentlessly into his mind. Her… Him… Together, doing what they'd – God, the way he'd touched her, the way he'd – kissed her, there, loved her… Loved her. When only hours before, in the darkness, in the night-time, here and in her beautiful, naked arms the Turk had… A hot wave of nausea churned through his gut and he gasped for breath, before scrambling off and away from the bed (away from the wrenching thought of them), clutching the eiderdown around his middle as he couldn't bear for her to see him, not now.
"I'm – sorry," Mary whispered again, only desperate, useless apologies. "I'd never – never meant to –"
She drew in a sharp breath as Matthew whirled to face her. There was one – one chance he could cling to, still, sparked by her words though it made his heart clench in anger to think of it.
"Did he… force you?"
Looking into his wild, distraught, reddened eyes, Mary felt something slam shut within her heart as she realised that here was truly the point from which there was no coming back. She saw him, and knew that he could forgive her if… If…
But she had not let herself be forced. She could never have done. For a moment she wished, she tried, to make the simple (it would be so, so easy…) affirmation pass her lips, but – it wouldn't be right, she had led him on enough already and hurt him with her games and –
"No…" It broke from her in a sob, as Matthew reeled physically back from the sheer force of everything that 'no' meant. She reached out a hand towards him; a futile gesture, she felt a gulf crash open and a wall throw up instantly between them, irrevocable, impassable. She had lost him, she saw it in his tearful, anguished expression but still she tried, tried to claw back the distance, her voice broken and pleading. "But I – felt nothing for him, I never intended –"
"For God's sake that doesn't make it alright!" Matthew struggled to restrain the bitterness coursing through him, the pain, the – disgust, it was crippling him… Her excuses only made his heart twist more. "Don't insult me more by pretending that; something like this doesn't just – happen, Mary! My God, I –"
"Doesn't it?" she flung back desperately at him, wishing only that he could understand, that she could explain, and riling in helpless retaliation to his outburst. They couldn't control these things, no matter what he thought, no matter how much anyone might wish to – she hadn't been able to! "What about the first time we were – together, Matthew, had you intended that?"
Her eyes widened as she saw him jaw drop and then clench, his limbs visibly trembling in distress, the full cruelty (however unintended, for truly she hadn't meant to liken them like that) of her words hammering home like a blow.
Pain wracked through Matthew like fire and he turned away, unable to see her, unable to think, pressing a hand over his mouth to hold back the shuddering sob that wrenched from the pit of his stomach. To throw their relationship into that light, to have given herself to another (in this very room, that very bed), their limbs entangled and hot and damp from sweat and kisses and… then she had taken the same from him, had led him to think… to believe…
"…how could you?" he gasped wretchedly. And then the very thought overwhelmed him with such a sick feeling of horror, of betrayal, of shame and revulsion that he scrambled to Mary's vanity and vomited pitifully into the washbowl there, shoulders heaving with his ragged breaths.
Mary stared at him in a transfixed sort of horror before her vision blurred with her own tears and she could not bear to see him so distressed any longer. But then she could only hear his sharp, gasping sobs and painful retching and it was all her fault, she'd broken him, broken herself, broken them with her stupidity and weakness… and darling, darling Matthew didn't deserve any of it.
"I'm so, so sorry Matthew," she wept again, lifting her head to see his resting weakly on his arm across the dresser, his upper body trembling, and her heart ached fiercely with regret and sorrow and love, and… Love, she loved him so much and her heart was breaking… "Please, I know I've been – terribly stupid and I've hurt you but I wanted to make it right, Matthew, you have to know I – love you –"
His head snapped up and he stared at her through pained, narrow eyes that filled with such piercing anguish that Mary drew in a sharp breath.
"How… dare you insult me with that, now, you… God, Mary." He felt it like a blow to his gut, the words that he'd whispered to her in adoration and all sincerity only minutes (it felt like a lifetime longer) ago whipping back from her lips to slap him in the face. "For pity's sake, you must… give me a moment… please," he rasped.
She pressed her lips together, not daring to allow herself to speak as she would surely only make it worse (if that were even possible now), and blinked up at the canopy of the bed to escape his condemning gaze. Silent tears traced a path down her cheeks as she lowered her head once more to her knees, gradually hearing the quiet sounds of him moving, dressing, breathing… closing himself away from her. As he deservedly should, she thought bitterly.
When she heard his voice, faint and weak, again and dared to look up, he was re-clothed and standing by the door. She had lost him; something in his manner and his eyes now was like a stranger, and the notion cut her more deeply than she had thought possible.
"I need to get out," he said simply, not looking at her.
Mary nodded and, realising that his face was turned away from her for more than the reason she believed (and knew to be true, that he was too disgusted to look at her, how could he not be?), slowly uncurled herself from the bedlinen and pulled on her clothes, forgoing the bother of her corset for now. Anna would understand whatever excuse she gave.
Glancing at the clock, she thanked the heavens for at least one scrap of fortune, pitiful recompense though that was.
"There's half an hour before the dressing gong," she told him, sounding limp and defeated. "The servants will be busy and my family won't bother moving until it does, now, so…"
Matthew nodded. She slipped past him to the door and said, "I'll tell you that it's clear."
He waited as she went to the corner of the gallery, looking along each corridor, over to the other side and down below into the hall. He watched her impassively, feeling a numbing sensation spread throughout his body. He couldn't think, couldn't hurt anymore. The wound had seared and he could hardly feel anything at all.
When she finally beckoned, he retraced his journey from only a short hour or so earlier, just as quickly, his heart thudding in his chest just as fiercely and yet he felt like a different man.
"Goodbye Mary," he whispered coldly as he passed her, without slowing, without looking at her. And as he descended the stairs then crossed the hallway he did not look back, or up, and so did not see her face crumple in despair before her hands came up to hide it.
The cold of the winter's night hit him like a blow as he stepped outside, and he welcomed it. He walked, quicker, away from that place, away from her, away from everything it held, until he was almost running through the grounds to escape it and the pain. But crushing weight fell upon his chest, he could not escape the image of her (and him) soldered into his mind's eye, until at last his wretched sobs were hindering his breath too sharply and he was forced to stop… where he wilted against a tree, sinking down with his head in his hands, the full agony of despair bearing down on him as he wept bitterly for his stupidity and loss.
Mary couldn't have said what drew her there, to that room. Her every attempt at closing the wound had failed, and she wondered if it ever would. She sat, despondently, staring at the bed… The bed she had helped carry him to, the bed he should never have left at all. In some odd way, she found herself almost envious of him – that he was spared all this, the pain, the consequence, the injury he had dealt to others. Now instead it lay squarely upon her shoulders, and had wounded Matthew, and… she could not begin to think how to deal with it.
Staring at the bed did not help.
Carson startled her when he came in, to see that everything was as it should be. Suddenly craving a moment's company after an evening sinking in silent misery since Matthew had left, Mary got up and paced a little (action was better than inaction, always, she thought).
"Life can be terribly unfair, can't it," she reflected miserably.
Carson sighed. "It certainly can."
She sniffed. "Everything seems so golden one minute, then turns to ashes the next…" They had been together. They had been happy. It had been perfect, everything was perfect, in his arms and then… it had vanished like mist in the sun. "Can I ask you a question, Carson?"
When he nodded, she carried on with an elegant little shrug. "Have you ever felt your life was somehow slipping away – and there was nothing you could do to stop it?"
Of course he couldn't give her an answer. There was no answer to her troubles, there could be none. Only for Matthew to forgive her, only… how could he possibly? But dear Carson, without knowing a thing about it, he tried.
"I… think everyone feels that, at one time or another." He tried to smile sympathetically, and Mary shook her head as she tried to return it.
"The odd thing is I feel… for the first time, really, I understand what it is to be happy." Her lips trembled, and she began to shiver again, as the memory of Matthew's body entirely entwined with hers and his darling voice whispering his adoration against her ear made her chest tighten against the swell of emotion she felt. And as the memory broke down, degrading into his tear-stained, disbelieving, devastated face, her own voice broke with it as her throat choked with tears. "It's just that I know I won't be."
Emptiness consumed her, and as the days went by with no word from Matthew at all (her mother had bumped into his in the village, and he was ever so busy with work, so they said) she began to feel herself change. She hardened, and softened… Somehow both. Hardened her own feelings, she had to; softened her coolness to others (even Edith, if only a little). For she understood, now, how low a person could sink, and how it hurt, and there was enough in her life now to make her sad for her to cause any more sadness.
She ignored it at first, when her body would not behave as it should. Why should it? She had ruined it. Food was difficult to palette, tasting ashen in her mouth. Mary had never been one to believe in divine retribution but she wondered if this was it. She barely felt like the same person any more.
When Christmas came a few weeks later, and she'd not seen Matthew even once, she hardly knew whether to be relieved or disappointed. Of course she hadn't sought him out, what could she say to him? If he had come for dinner, how would she have faced him, after… everything? Her father had seen him once or twice, she knew that – but said nothing of how he was. If he was changed as she was, low, irritable, defeated. While she allowed herself to wallow (she had no energy to devote to productive, distracting pursuits), Matthew, she gathered, had thrown himself into his work and the estate, always at the cottages if he was anywhere besides his office, or somewhere, anywhere other than at the house. How she envied his occupation, his having somewhere to go every day!
They'd invited him for Christmas, of course, and Isobel. But according to her father he'd already commitments in Manchester, old friends, family, people he'd want to spend his time with rather than them (her). Christmas was supposed to be a happy time, wasn't it? He certainly would not be happy having to smile through it in the same room as her, when he must think so, so little of her. And yet she was miserable without him. But then she'd feel angry at herself for feeling so low, for what right did she have to? Hadn't she brought it on herself?
There was no way out, or none she could see. January came, a full month had passed, and then some. She'd hoped that perhaps with the new year, a new perspective… but, no. Once, then, he came up for dinner… She wondered if his mother had pushed him to it. He did not speak to her, not directly, he hardly even looked at her. Oh, but she looked at him… at the weary, tired circles under his eyes, his stiffened posture, tightened knuckles, pressed-closed lips in a tight smile, breathless voice. She looked at him, missed him, loved him… for he was still the same Matthew, still so upright and handsome (she saw it now more than she ever had allowed herself to before)… and it made her ill to think that she had thrown him aside, to lose him forever.
Her food was even more unpalatable than usual, and she was forced to claim a headache and an early escape as her body would not hold it.
Another week passed, and two days more, and she finally accepted that her inaction would get her nowhere – it would only destroy her. But how to reach him? For he would not speak to her, she was sure. And then she sought her father, and to her delight (though she felt sick with fear), Carson told her he was in the library with Mr. Crawley.
With nothing to lose (their relationship could hardly be worse), she hovered in the hallway a moment or two and went in.
"I'm so sorry to interrupt," she braced herself and wore a charming smile, clasping her hands anxiously together. "Are you very busy?"
Matthew peered studiously at a book which lay open in front of him, thankful that he was already standing so he didn't have to acknowledge her presence.
Her father smiled. "Actually we're just about finished, my dear. Was there something you wanted?"
She nodded. "There is. Could I speak with Cousin Matthew for a moment, Papa? That's all, in fact, please don't mind us."
While Matthew finally glanced at her, startled, Robert beamed approvingly.
"Of course. I'll leave you to it –"
"Actually I really should be going," Matthew cut in quickly, his tone hard and, Mary thought, concealing a note of panic. He stared somewhere near Mary's feet. "I've already had to decline an offer of dinner as I've promised Mother I'd –"
"Oh I'll only be a moment," Mary pushed in, still forcing that bright, pleasant smile to her lips while her stomach turned unpleasantly. She felt almost faint.
There was really no more excuse he could muster, at least not before Robert had bid him a hearty goodbye for now and promised to catch up with him very soon. Matthew nodded, swallowing with difficulty past the nervous lump forming in his throat. He was desperately uncomfortable, he'd been alright, alone, he'd numbed himself to it and he could not face her. He didn't want to.
As the door closed behind the Earl, Matthew turned his back on Mary and wandered across to the window. She couldn't see his face any more, only his tense, rigid shoulders and his hands clasped tightly behind his back.
"I have nothing to say to you," he muttered coldly. He couldn't bear to, it hurt too much, the stamped-down pain rising fiercely again in his chest, making his gut twist and his pulse race.
Mary's heart raced as well. He was here. She was talking to him. She could barely force the words from her lips but she must, she had no choice… He was her only choice.
"Well that hardly matters," she said quietly, taking another deep breath and a single step towards him. "Because you see I have something I must say to you… and then I think you might."
TBC
A/N: Thank you so much for reading, that alone means such a lot to me. Needless to say I'd love to know what you thought, and what you think - thank you! :)
(Also, SORRY MATTHEW, I love you, HUGS.)
