A/N: Before you read, I'd like to give you all a HUGE thank you for nominating this story for so many Highclere Awards (6!)! That's crazy for me, especially since I never thought this would really work out, but it DID, and here we are! Just had to say that first. Happy reading!
Yours Forever: Chapter X
Mary didn't sleep on the train. Instead she occupied herself with the novel in her lap, skimming its contents without internalizing any word on the page, although she continued to turn them. Violet watched with suppressed amusement at her granddaughter's jumpy state as Mary fiddled with her necklace, pretended to read, rested her head against the glass of the window and looked out as green and blue rushed past them. Mary was so lost in her thoughts of what was to come that when the train finally stopped at the station she didn't take notice of it right away. Only her grandmother's voice calling her name drew her out of her reverie, and even then she moved mechanically down the narrow aisle, onto the platform, and into the waiting car.
As her home came into view Mary's palms began to warm, although her cheeks paled. She remembered all too well her grandmother's words spoken earlier in the summer: 'I suggest you run back to him before he turns his back to you.' Was it too late? Had he waited for her?
"Oh, I don't miss the heat of France for a minute!" Violet exclaimed as she stepped out of the automobile and onto the pea stone driveway. "Ah, Robert!" she said happily, going towards him and receiving a kiss on her cheek.
"Welcome home!" Cora's voice called as Mary stepped out of the car behind her grandmother. Her mother came to embrace her and immediately began to ask all sorts of questions about Mary's time abroad. How was Clara? Was the house in good order? And the fashions, what were French women wearing these days? Mary smiled as the situation commanded her to do and answered each question patiently, greeted her father who welcomed her back warmly, and followed them all inside.
"Where-"
"Your brother will be here in time for dinner, I think," Cora explained as Mary's eyes searched around the large hall.
"Oh," Mary said, glad that she would still have two weeks with him before he set off for school again.
"And Matthew?" Violet asked as they all moved to the drawing room for tea. Mary averted her eyes.
"He should be here tonight as well, I think," Cora said. "I've sent the invitation down, at least."
Tea arrived as they all exchanged news, and Mary was glad of the distraction, recounting a story of picking peaches and pears with the local village children and listening to any news from Downton that had been overlooked in letters. And as she listened, she again retreated into her mind, beginning to dread the evening. She was too late, she was sure of it. Her throat felt dry. Again she was furious with herself, for her obliviousness. She had doubted her love of him for so long, and now she would be too late. Tonight she would know for once and for all if he had waited for her or turned his back to her, and his initial absence at her return was making her increasingly pained with the belief that he probably had.
The boys were late. Henry's train had been delayed, and Matthew had waited for him at the station. Neither was dressed for dinner, earning withering glances from Cora and Isobel. Lord Grantham, however, waved their mistake aside, gently advising them to not let it happen again. Anyway, there was no time for them to change, dinner had been postponed long enough.
"Where's Mary?" Henry asked expectantly.
"She's still upstairs. I can't think what's gone wrong," Robert mused.
"I'll go," Cora offered, and passed her son and Matthew on her way to the staircase.
"The blue. No, the black," Mary said in distress, fingers gliding over her forehead. Poor Anna stood there, a blue dress on the bed, the black dress over one arm, a grey one on the other.
"Which...?"
Mary sighed. "I'm sorry, Anna. You pick, I can't seem to make any decisions tonight."
Her faithful maid went to the bed, set down the two dresses in her arms, and went back to the wardrobe, reaching up and taking out yet another garmet. It was from last spring, before Mary had gone to France, and she hadn't worn it since. New dresses hung on her bed and over a chair, tailored abroad, yet Anna chose this one, the last one Mary would have thought of.
"Red," Anna said simply, and walked back to her mistress, who was sitting at her vanity table, half dressed.
Mary's eyebrows came together in confusion. She'd spent the last hour debating over dress after dress, an exhausting process that left her wishing she didn't think so highly of appearances. She stood and waited as Anna dressed her for the fifth time that evening, lifting her hand to ensure her chignon was still intact. It was. Nothing was out of place. She worried too much.
"There!" Anna said in satisfaction, and Mary faced the mirror. She turned her shoulders, taking in her appearance.
A knock came at the door, and her mother's impatient voice soon followed it. "Mary, we're waiting. What's wrong?"
Mary smiled at her reflection. "Nothing! I'm coming!" Then she turned to Anna and smiled at her, too.
"You were right," she said warmly. She laughed as she walked to the door. "You're always right!"
Her maid smiled triumphantly. "You look beautiful, milady."
"Thanks to you!" Mary said, turning the doorknob. She looked back at the mess she'd created. "Oh, Anna, I'm so sorry for-"
Anna waved her concern away. "You're late!"
"There she is!" Henry exclaimed, standing up as his sister walked into the drawing room behind her mother. He smiled at Mary and embraced her fondly, kissing her cheek. "You're taller!"
Mary shrugged in recognition of the fact. Her brother always said she looked taller, as if she were still a little girl. "Matthew, come see how tall she is!"
His sister's eyes flashed for an instant before she masked her anxiety and looked to see Matthew coming to join them. He seemed quite serious, and her smile froze. He was looking at her strangely. It was a guarded look. ...'before he turns his back to you.' She was the guarded one! She had been schooling her emotions for years now. He was the one who wore his heart on his sleeve, and yet now he concealed it from her.
He opened his mouth to speak, and Mary fairly leaned forward, needing to hear whatever it was he would say to her. But then the rest of the party was moving out of the drawing room and into the dining room, and his mouth closed, the words dying on his lips.
She had never been more beautiful. He had seen her from across the room as she greeted her brother, seen the lovely tilt of her head as she spoke to Henry, the glint of her earrings, the simple shrug of her shoulders. Her every movement was devastating in its beauty, and as Matthew sat across from her at the dinner table he found it increasingly difficult to drag his eyes away from her. She spoke animatedly about her summer. He loved how she spoke with her hands. But there was a nervousness about her, her strict avoidance of his gaze and her almost over-enthusiastic descriptions of France that both amused and puzzled him.
Her skin glowed as the candlelight flickered across it, kissed by the sun during days spent on the beach or in the orchard. Her eyes sparkled as she laughed with Henry. And, once, her glittering, dark eyes found his and she stopped, he saw how her shoulders tensed, how her eyes searched his for something. Then all too soon she looked away again, as if her search had been in vain.
They went outside, the three of them, after dinner. It was a cool night, the breeze ushering September in, and Mary finally found herself alone with Matthew. Henry walked ahead with a bottle of champagne, glasses clinking together in his other hand, purposefully keeping his focus on their destination and not on his two dearest friends behind him.
"How was France?" Matthew asked, because he couldn't think of anything else to say, not when she smelled like honeysuckle and moved with the distinct grace and poise that she alone possessed.
She looked at him with an amused smile, her confidence strengthened the shadows of the outdoors and the wine from dinner. "Hot."
Matthew chuckled, embarrassed by his stupid question. "Obviously."
Mary began to play with the string of pearls around her neck and they clicked together. He loved it when she did that. "And how was England? Did it miss me?"
Matthew looked sideways at her and smiled. "Of course."
She laughed, anxiety setting in yet again as they inched closer and closer to what they really meant to say and stepped away from pleasantries. He coughed, his expression serious. "And I missed you."
"Mary!" Henry called from ahead of them, waving impatiently. Surely he'd given them enough time. His sister was looking at Matthew and didn't react to his call, so Henry sighed in annoyance and sat down in the grass, pouring himself a glass of champagne and watching the two of them as they walked in a meandering path towards him.
"You know," Mary said quietly as they walked, the meadow grasses tickling her ankles, "In French it's 'tu me manques'."
Matthew's eyebrows came together. She swung her arm lazily as they moved, and for an instant her hand brushed against his. It was electric. Their hearts raced.
"I miss you," Mary explained patiently. "In French you say 'tu me manques' and it...doesn't really mean the same thing." She swallowed, glad for the gentle, caressing wind that calmed her. "It means that someone is missing from you."
Matthew nodded in understanding. How right. How utterly fitting. He had lost her to France, and she had been missing from him, he'd felt it acutely. Henry had said to give her time, which he had. And now she was home.
"I missed you, too, Matthew," she said at last, all playful romance gone and only truth dancing from her lips. Now was the telling moment, now was when she would know if she had been too late. "Really. And I've thought a great deal about what you said at Christmas," she continued, choosing each word with extreme care.
Matthew looked up from his shoes at her. Now was the telling moment. Now was when he would know. "And?"
Mary continued to play with her necklace, biting her lip, looking at Henry who was pouring himself another glass of champagne. She smiled, she couldn't help smiling. And then he smiled, because she was.
"What?" she asked when he chuckled.
He shrugged and pointed to her. "What were you going to say?"
She looked at him, and their eyes met. Again he noticed her healthy, sun-kissed skin and a sly red undertone to her hair that must have come from the summer sun as well.
She laughed, not able to keep up their game. "...Me too."
"'You too' what?" he prodded, delighting in teasing her, fiercely hoping to hear her say what he'd waited so long to hear from her. And then he did, in a simple, happy tone.
"I love you."
He didn't say anything, he didn't have to. Instead he took her right hand which dangled between them in his, smoothing his thumb over it. Mary pursed her lips in an effort not to completely reveal her joy, but was unsuccessful, and she laughed. It was a intoxicatingly beautiful, liberated laugh that Matthew hadn't heard since their childhood, and he treasured hearing it again.
They neared Henry's chosen spot, hands locked together, hearts melting into each other, the glimmer of happiness evident around them as late summer fireflies blinked all throughout the field.
Henry raised his glass, finished it, and applauded, smiling sloppily at them both. "Bravo! Well done!" he said with a laugh, standing up and coming to embrace them both, kissing them on the forehead and clapping his hands over their shoulders. "Now, no more funny business. We have champagne to drink! Mary's home!"
Mary and Matthew sat down with him and took their glasses, laughing as he poured and it spilled onto the grass. They leaned back and rediscovered old memories as the sun dipped lower against the horizon, remembering the other times they'd sat here together, reminiscing over their childhood. And Henry watched, filled with love for the two, as they sat there in front of him and were finally free. He'd known it would be inevitable, known ever since he'd seen the way Matthew looked at her when she wasn't paying attention, that they would come to love each other. And now to see it unfold before him was wonderful. He was proud of them both, and laughed silently to himself at how awkward they were together as they sat on the hill and slowly realized that they didn't have to hide from each other anymore.
Summer faded into autumn, and then the coldness of winter swiftly followed as the months passed. For the first time, Matthew and Mary wrote to each other. Of course, they had written before, but now they really wrote. Now not only did they send a chronicle of the events passing through their lives while they were apart as they had before, but they also sent words straight from one heart to another. It was not saccharine. Neither was able to express with a pen what they wanted to say with their lips, yet their mutual admiration and love shone through each word, an undercurrent that carried letters back and forth.
Mary was happy, even as the harsh cold kept her locked inside. Her face lit up with each new letter, and her parents watched this change in her with satisfaction, glad that spending time abroad had lightened her disposition so considerably.
Cora, for her part, noticed the attachment between her daughter and Matthew grow stronger and viewed their increasing affection for each other with a wary eye. She loved Matthew like a son, she always had, yet she had always wished for Mary to make a match that would potentially raise her status in society, and as she considered the far off possibility of them marrying she worried. Perhaps it was a mere infatuation, one that would fade while the boys were away, but as time passed the connection between the two grew more pronounced, and she could not dismiss it as a simple love anymore.
At Christmas they seemed to have abandoned the bulk of their awkwardness and played heated games of chess (Matthew was improving and, as such, had become a more challenging opponent). The boys sung carols around the piano as Mary played for them and she laughed and teased them for being out of tune. It was just like how it had been before, except for the shift in Mary and Matthew's relationship that the family saw play out in front of them with each passing day.
In light of the fact that Mary and Matthew now felt more for each other than the familial love of two cousins, Cora did something she never thought she would have to do. She asked Henry to act as their chaperone.
"Oh, Mamma, must I?" he grumbled when approached about it, rolling his eyes.
Cora nodded. "Yes, you must. They aren't children anymore, after all." She frowned. "Perhaps we should have thought of this sooner..."
Henry looked up at his mother from the armchair in the library in which he was currently sprawled, a book resting on his chest. "Of course they're still children! What do you think could possibly happen, Mamma?"
Cora gave him a withering look. "Henry, do as you're told, please. Just keep an eye on them, that's all we're asking."
"Papa knows?"
"Yes, Henry, your Papa knows. Who doesn't, with the way they look at each other?"
So Henry watched them. He watched them play chess, watched them at dinner, watched a shy kiss out of the corner of his eye as they took a cold walk in the snow ahead of him, watched how their fingers touched when exchanging gifts and the smiles that followed, and watched as they laughed together. It bored him. He had never been a romantic, but his sister was happy. So he watched them, but not all too closely. They were in love, they were happy, they were adults, and he saw no reason why he should watch them like a hawk as his mother had suggested. Henry knew them better than anyone, and trusted them completely. Besides, they never had more than a few weeks together at a time. They should be allowed to enjoy that short bit of time together without constant surveillance.
Mary saw them off at the station again in January. She no longer felt abandoned when they departed, not now that she knew she was by no means being left behind. This time there were no coded words, no threats of tears, only the promise of letters and, as Henry purposefully boarded the train before Matthew as always, another kiss to act as a wax seal on their promise and to remind the other through the softness of lips, I'm yours.
As a child the separation from them had cut through her harshly, but now that she had stepped off the platform of her childhood onto the fast train of her adulthood Mary viewed the separation as merely a pause. Never before had she felt so safe and secure as she did now, knowing that she was loved and cherished by the one whose opinion mattered the most to her, assured with the knowledge that he would come back to her and kiss her again at this station she had become so well acquainted with.
A/N: There are so many thank you's that need to go out for this chapter, especially since I've been abroad amidst all this horrible flooding, and it took many hands to pull this thing together! You all know who you are, and it means so much to me that you put up with my ranting and messages at 4am because I'm freaking out about whether there should be a comma somewhere. Thank you so much, always!