This is the chapter where it all goes awry…
XX
Feb 1916
Mary walked the short distance outside the tea shoppe. She was feeling nauseous again. And faint. The bitter February wind made her wince.
And to make matters worse she noticed Richard Carlisle striding towards her. Her shoulders sagged. He always tested the limits of her patience. She didn't dislike him exactly, but found his attentions bordering on the possessive. And she was in no mood to deal with it.
Matthew had returned to France in December. His letters scattered in part due to his being extra busy at GHQ as a staff officer, adjusting to the new surroundings as well as the paperwork which he complained of in his letter of mid-January. The only one she received. She knew he had sent a separate letter to her father about the possibility of a betrothal as he indicated such but it had not arrived in the same post as hers. Subject to censorship as well as issue of him being posted first to Paris then Boulogne before finally settling in Montreuil sur Mer meant the mail got mixed up.
It was frustrating but nothing could be done. They were apart anyway. With no indication he would get leave again for quite awhile.
Mary decided, restless at Downton, to visit Rosamund in London. The click of heels on the cobbled pavement usually cheered her up. But this visit was melancholy at best.
After taking tea she was to go to the Royal Academy to view a new exhibit, but outside she felt dizzy. She put her hand up to her head.
"Lady Mary?" Richard asked cautiously approaching her. "May I be of assistance?"
And to his utter astonishment, she turned ashen faced towards him, moaned, and fainted dead away as his arms reached out to capture her from the fall to the hard pavement.
London Hospital was nearby. He carried her into the lobby. Calling out to the first nurse he saw, he shouted "Lady Carlisle needs assistance here. Please get a doctor."
XX
March 1916
Matthew stood at the seashore. Dipped his left boot in the salted water. The crunching sounds of their feet on the long stretch of sand made a pleasant noise. The blues and greys of the water. The lights dancing off the low waves. It was overpowering. So bright. So outrageously beautiful he had trouble processing it all.
His life's palette of colors was singly muted to muddy browns and pasty whites. Even the shocking red of blood gave up and oxidized to rust. The decay of death surrounded him. The rats ate the remains of those left rotting in the hell of no man's land. The stink he hardly noticed anymore. His senses had dulled as a result. And thankfully so. It was, Matthew learned the hard way, a survival mechanism the human mind was endowed with.
His mind was a whirl of here and what was to come.
For he was too finally to return to it all. He got the go ahead in a few days ago. Declared fit for duty and being posted back to the line. Back to his division and his men. Mason would be happy as he had been left behind with the Duke of Manchester's Own. They would not temporarily assign him to GHQ along with Captain Crawley.
Matthew knew why he was finally being sent back.
The French, exhausted defending the ancient fortified city of Verdun, needed help. The Chinese whispers at GHQ rumoured a joint Franco-British offensive at the nearby Somme River to cause an attrition of German men and material and help out the relief of Verdun. He had seen some of the planning at GHQ. General Haig planned a large artillery bombardment first to bring the Germans to their knees. The French CiC Joffre demanded the offensive be brought forward by a month. So it was planned for 1 July 1916.
He'd be there for the fighting. He was at peace with the order. This was his last week-end as a red tab. He could fling them off and return to front line duty. No longer sending other men over the top from a safe distance. Sending them to whatever fate had in store for them. To their deaths, most probably.
But he was also terrified. Not just of the risk of death or injury, but that he'd get more of his men killed because he'd lost his edge. His abilities. His main job as he now saw it was to make sure the men under his command–as much as possible—remained alive. One of the worst things possible was the gut fear you made the wrong decision. It paralyzed you. The men saw it in your eyes and in that instant you lost their respect.
Today, though, today was all about getting away from the war. They had made a pact. No war talk. The day they had planned for weeks. The motor had been requisitioned and fueled. Margaret had prepared a picnic. Matthew's reposting was the reason for the outing. To the seaside. The weather was actually cooperating. No fog. No rain. Even a bit of heat. Humid to be sure but a strong sea breeze counteracted it. The Cottin Descouttes, a French racing car requisitioned for war work, drove like a dream. Normally utilized by the higher ups like Haig or Robertson, Matthew got it for the day as the Easter holiday was upcoming and a kind of truce was on.
The drive, the day out with Margaret Heyton was a tonic to his troubled soul. She had said would do him a world of good. And she had been right. Ironically despite the name of the town Montreuil-sur-Mer was not near the sea. It had retreated over 200 years previous, leaving the town high and dry. They had to drive 13K to the coast at Le Touquet. To get away. From the war. From reality. They had already spent previous afternoon offs or Sundays walking and exploring the old fortifications in and around town. Despite the curfews in place, the checkpoints, and the blackouts the time away was well spent.
Now that they were well out of town, Matthew took off his great coat and opened his tunic. It was wonderful. He wanted to feel the humid heat on his skin. To remove the pallor of ghostly white. They intended to get back by day's end but that was still several hours away.
They got out of the car as soon as the ocean came into their view. The walk across the dune did not hurt his injured leg which was a good sign. It had finally healed as much as it was going to. It still gave him sharp pain and twinges of irritation. But he could walk. And run. And shoot. And that was enough for the medical men.
"Watch this…" Margaret said, skipping a stone out into the depths of the ocean. It managed eight or nine hops. "See if you can beat that." And she stood with her hands to her hips, the long flow of her skirt muddy from getting so close to the shoreline.
Matthew's mouth puckered in admiration. He was impressed with Margaret's technique. But he had spent large parts of his boyhood in just this endeavor. So he determined to beat her with at least ten skips of the stone.
He picked out a good sized smoothed one. Flat. Just the thing. She laughed at his close examination of the shoreline throwing and discarding one then the other. Matthew's eyes met hers. "It's all in the wrist. And the angle." And he proved it by jerking his wrist, throwing out his arm and making it bounce ten times.
He nodded in satisfaction.
"You were just lucky. The tide caught mine." She smirked playfully. She would never let him win.
She was so different from Mary. Yet the same. The same vibrant energy. The same opinionated arguments that had led them to debate the music of Verdi vs. Wagner, of the impressionists, and the merits of romantic poetry. Anything but the war. She had come to Montreuil as a translator from the British embassy in Paris. An expert in German and French she had proven to be exceptional. Civilian women were not sent into war zones. But GHQ was so far behind the lines that it was considered safe.
Her appearance at GHQ a few months previous had been a breath of life. A way to talk about home. About Mary to someone who understood. Simon had said his wife was a good listener and he was right. She spent hours with Matthew, allowing him to indulge in story after story about his life in Downton. About his hopes for the future. About how Mary's laugh reminded him of a summer's day.
They would wander around the ruins of the promenade des remparts or the Citadelle and talk.
He had reciprocated, listening as Margaret recounted stories of her childhood in the peaks and wilds of Derbyshire, her courtship with Simon, and the utter happiness of their marriage. The fact that were childless still their only sorrow, until the war that is. The war had started for Simon much earlier as he had been Regular Army upon the August declaration. The regulars had been wiped out almost to a man by December thus forcing the New Army of Matthew's time and now the Military Service Act forcing men from 18 to 41 to be called up.
One evening they had left a concert organized by some soldiers at Beaurepaire, the country house Haig had requisitioned for his personal headquarters a few kilometers outside the town. They were walking back along the lanes. He would drop her off at the hotel while he returned to the barracks.
"It was a miracle he's still alive." Margaret had said.
"It's a miracle any of us are." Matthew responded softly.
Today however, at the seaside, she had brought him here not to talk about the war. But because she noticed he had something on his mind. Not the war. Nor the return to his regiment. She knew those signs as they were similar to Simon's. A kind of twitchy nervous energy took over.
This was quite different.
Matthew had grown distant, lethargic. Apathetic.
And that was dangerous. When a soldier became indifferent to life, he soon caressed the peace of death.
So she brought him here for an explanation. To save his life. She was afraid.
Matthew had continued to do his duty. Write reports. Collect the statistics. Had agreed to her day out and was even beginning to enjoy himself.
But the look of despair still etched his handsome face.
She wanted to get to the reason for it. She set up the picnic items on the lee side of the car to protect them from the wind. Some sandwiches, a thermos of coffee, and assorted biscuits was all she could requisition from the mess but it was enough.
Matthew saw down on the edge of the blanket. Took a bite and said, "These are quite good." Another thing he'd not have in a few days. Fresh food. Back to rations.
Margaret acknowledged his gratitude. But then turned on him. "Well are you going to tell me?"
"What?" He knew what she meant but was being stubborn.
She let him think about it.
"I received a letter the other day. From Robert." His voice sad, his eyes confused. "It had been mis-delivered several times as the Army kept thinking I was still in Paris. It had gone back and forth and finally ended up in my hands. He posted it in late February. So now, by the time I got it, there was nothing I could do. It … " He choked and looked out to the ocean. "I could not do anything…. I …" He threw down his sandwich. "Not that there was anything that I could do. It was a done deal by then."
"You're not making much sense." Margaret said. "What happened? Is everyone alright?"
"Yes it seems everyone is fine." He said, practically spitting the words out. "Robert's letter was to inform me of Lady Mary's marriage to one Sir Richard Carlisle, a newspaperman of some repute."
He was greeted with Margaret's wide-eyed bewilderment. "I don't understand….I thought…"
Matthew cut her off brusquely. "And he also told me I was no longer welcome at Downton. Carlisle had informed him of certain unconscionable behaviors on my part that he would not deign to discuss again, but that made me unworthy of his daughter's attentions. That he no other recourse but to continue to accept me as heir, but that as of now, I was to act on my own devices until such time as the inheritance comes my way."
Margaret hardly knew what to say. Matthew was so dear to her now. She knew he was a private man and had not pried too much into the intimacies of his relationship with Mary. But this was beyond anything she could conceive.
He had spoken of Carlisle in jealous tones, to be sure. She recalled an earlier conversation that included Matthew's cutting comment that "Carlisle, probably because he's too old, was allowed to remain in England…safe" with a sneer "and able to visit with Mary at weekends at Cliveden." What had been left unsaid, but understood by both was that Matthew had volunteered to fight but now had to sit out months of the war pushing paper and sending other men to their deaths.
She looked over at Matthew and understood the depths of his recent funk. And felt helpless to comfort him.
He sat, the wind from the sea whipping his hair and getting in his eyes. He pushed it away angrily and got up. "I'm going to take a walk. I'm sorry I've ruined our day out."
"You haven't." Margaret pulled on his arm. "But I'm here. When you want to talk."
He kneeled down and looked her in the eyes. "I know why Robert has done this. It's all my fault."
Margaret replied, "I doubt that. What could you have possibly done to incur such a cold blooded response from a man who admires you so much? There must just be some mistake." She knew she was reaching for straws but after all Matthew had told her of Robert becoming a kind of second father to him, of how proud he was about the MC, and concerned for his safety it seemed impossible.
Matthew turned on her. "You have no idea." He spat the words out.
"Then tell me." She replied. "I'm all you have. And I'm afraid for you. You're going back to God knows what and your mind is elsewhere. That is not a good combination." She smoothed out the blanket and indicated him to sit down again.
Matthew sat down, head in his hands and curling his legs towards his body. Should he tell her? His thoughts ran scattered. He knew Mary would not disclose their secret rendezvous at Crawley House to her father. And certainly not to Carlisle. But somehow he found out. And Mary must now feel that he had shamed her. That he had damaged her reputation. Her purity. And she had to …to make some kind of respectable marriage to cover her disgrace. A disgrace he had brought upon her.
But why Carlisle? What kind of wife would Mary make for him? A beautiful one. An intelligent, witty companion for his dinner parties. One who played bridge and raised his children. Oh God, he was wallowing now.
Finally lifting his face towards her again, he said, "I can't speak of it." He shook his head. "But I understand why Robert did what he did." He paused, "and Mary too."
He pushed his bad leg out in front of him. Rubbed it absent mindedly. "I deserve his wrath. It just came as a shock." He said, trying to recover "Anyway. There's nothing to be done now. My mother would find it very ironic given the fact that I did not want this inheritance in the first place. So now I have that wish." The bitterness seeping back into his voice. "I shall not return to Downton until such time as I am made earl."
"Everything you've known for the past two years has just been torn asunder. I can see why that's a shock." Margaret would not push him for more information. "Sometimes we never know why things happen. We both know that more than anyone now don't' we? The war. The uncertainty of it all. But you must hold it together." She moved to open the thermos.
He looked at her with misery clouding his eyes. Could he move on?
"Simon and I have taken rather the interest in you after all." She tried to smile. "He wants me to take care of you while you've been stuck here. And I would be remiss in that duty if you were to continue to despair."
He accepted the proffered cup of coffee. It was hot and sweet going down his throat.
"Thank you." He took another sip. "I will be fine as soon as I'm back with the regiment. Plenty to do. It will put everything in perspective." He remembered the words he spoke with Thomas Barrow, "War has a way of distinguishing between the things that matter and the things that don't."
He had to just change his perspective. He determined to do so.
Margaret nodded, saying nothing to dissuade him. She knew that would be impossible for him. But he needed to believe it if he was to survive.
XX
Feb 1916
Mary awoke from what seemed like a long surreal dream. Images of falling to earth, of being in a never never world where murmured voices spoke but she could not reply.
"The loss of blood would have been more severe had you not gotten her in time." A man's voice was heard, a hushed whisper. "As it is now though, she'll recover. We finished our procedure and she can rest. You can take her home in a day or two."
Unfamiliar, Mary did not know if they were speaking about her. Blood? Procedure?
Then she heard a familiar voice. Richard's voice. "Thank you doctor. My wife and I are very grateful."
"And I'm sorry for your loss. But there is no reason why you cannot try again. After some time and rest of course."
"Of course." The Scottish burr soft and agreeable.
The doctor left and Mary turned towards the voice. She stirred and tried to speak. "Why…" Her mouth was dry.
Richard gave her some water. "Just rest now."
She tried again. "Why am I here? What happened?" Her voice, brittle and agitated.
Richard sat down in the chair next to the bed. He collected his thoughts on how best to tell this. "You fainted in my arms two days ago. I brought you here to the hospital." He tried to hold her hand but she snatched it away. "Your mother was here earlier today but the sleeping draughts have kept you in a deep slumber. I've already spoken to Lord Grantham. Apprised him in private about the situation."
His smooth tone was unnerving her. "What situation?" Mary tried to sit up but the pain in her belly forced her back down.
Richard swallowed slowly, then spoke. "It seems you were pregnant."
Mary's face, drawn pale from pain and sleep, turned sharply towards him. "What?"
Richard continued neutrally. "You lost the baby." Only then did he look at her. "I had to tell the doctors when I brought you in that you were my wife."
Mary gasped in slow appreciation of what had befallen her. She had no idea she was with child.
Then she looked dumbfounded as he said, "Well I couldn't very well tell the truth could I? That Robert's golden boy violated you and left you to fend for yourself. I, on the other hand, have your best interests at heart and have saved your reputation."
"I won't marry you." Mary said tersely. Her world collapsing.
"Oh you will. Once you consider your options. It is your best choice. Lord Grantham has agreed. And he wants it done as soon as possible." He moved to show her something. "I've already had the wedding announcement made in the Gazette."
"Papa won't make me. I… I will tell him." Mary bluffed. She had no idea whether she could tell her father the truth. "He will believe me."
"Oh he might believe you." Richard said, "But he will continue to agree with me. This way everyone will be safe from any scandal. Any stain." He leaned in, "or even any whisper of such."
Mary understood Richard's oblique threat. He owned newspapers. He could very easily drop a hint or two that would escalate to unwanted proportions. She did care what people thought, it was a weakness of hers.
And she did not want Matthew drawn into it at all. Not where he was. It was better that he not know about the baby. She was afraid of what kind of impulsive confession he might make. Her father would bring the wrath of God upon him for violating his daughter outside sanctity of the marital bed. Bring even more gossip and scandal. So she decided that Matthew won't be told anything. He would think the worst of her but that couldn't be helped. This way she could protect him. It was the least she could do. And the most.
She brushed a wayward strand of hair back across her head. "Very well. You seem to have thought of everything."
"I live in a tough world." He said. "I'm hoping to learn how to do things properly. I think we can help each other out. We could be a good team. You see, I've wanted to marry you since first meeting you at Cliveden."
"A marriage without love." Bluntly spoken.
"There are many kinds of marriages, my dear. Your parents for example. Some are drawn up under the most peculiar of circumstances. But grow. We're strong and sharp, and we can build something worth having, you and I. If you'll let us."
Mary turned away from him. She didn't want him to see the tears. "I will do what you ask." She needed to be strong.
"Remember I'm paying you the compliment of being honest. I believe this makes us come into our marriage on more equal terms." He sat back against the hard hospital chair.
"You mean rather I'm in your debt." Mary turned back to face him. "I'll be made not to forget that."
"Never mind. As my future wife, you're entitled to be in my debt." Richard said. "We'll make a go of it. You'll see."
She could not make out whether he was full of bluster or whether he actually believed his words.
But it did not matter. This was her life now. She'd better start making the best of it.
XX
I see Matthew as a man of deep emotions—that he doesn't always know how to manage: duty, honor, guilt, passion, and love. He wears his emotions on his sleeve and goes with the moment. And regrets later. And we will see this time and time again with him. He lashes out. He loves big. His guilt is deep and self inflicted. I see Mary as a strong woman who can handle most of life's challenges. She has been made to endure great challenges in this story—some of her own making, some not. But she will rise to the occasion, make no doubt. We'll see how as this story continues.
OH God…don't hate me for this. I know it's very AU in some ways—(not as much as some recent stories I've read though…)—and perhaps this plot could have gone a different way with better communication, etc (But then so could canon). I wanted to try something different with this story. A war story without the traditional 'canon' elements or one whereMM get married during the war (those are already out there and are perfectly written by others!). This is a story of love. A love tested by distance, by scandal, by secrets, and by war. I believe in a good old romantic angsty story—and I'm going to try to give it my best in this one.