Chapter 37 – Over

Mary sat by Matthew and tried not to cry. She didn't want to tell Mathew that she was now engaged to Carlisle. That news could wait as long as was needed yet the news being in the newspaper so swiftly made her pause. Papa was quite shocked by the news at breakfast and so was she.

"Why so sad?" Matthew asked her that day after luncheon.

"I'm not sad," she sniffled. "Hay fever. Allergies."

"You know it is odd, I haven't heard you mention Richard Carlisle. Is he still around?"

"Yes."

"Anything you want to tell me?"

She stared down at his face.

He went on. "Mother told me at noon today. Thought I ought to know."

"Oh," Mary replied sadly and that single syllable said volumes to Matthew.

He smiled up at her white face and staring eyes. "I'm happy for you."

Mary pressed her hand to her mouth. "How can you say that?"

"I just did and I do mean it." He took her free hand. "You need a life."

She looked hard at him. "Away from you?"

The silence stretched for a few seconds. At last he said, "Yes. I have sent Lavinia away."

Anger flew to her face. "So I'm next, is that it? Another one of your women to be bullied about?"

"My women? Whatever are you talking about? You're not my…" He froze. "That part of my life is over."

"But am I, Matthew? One of your women?"

"That's not what I meant. But you're not… well, not anymore," he spoke harshly.

Mary shook her head as she heard the bitter tone of his words. "Don't let's fight. I don't need another argument. I've had far too many in the last day or so." She released his hand. "Dr. Clarkson thinks we should start exercising your legs first."

"What good will that do? Useless things – might as well chop them off."

That shocked her. "Don't say that! Don't ever say that!"

"Well what would you have me do with them?"

"Matthew they are your legs, like it or not. They're part of you."

"They feel like blocks of wood." He poked at his thigh. "Nothing. Not a damn thing."

Mary rose, flipped back the blanket and beheld his long slim legs. She had washed them several times and when she touched his cool skin it made her tremble.

"Come on, nothing to lose." She laid a hand on his feet, which did not curl down like another paralyzed patient her sister Sybil tended. Her fingers traced them from toes to ankles, then shaking her head, picked up the right foot and began to massage it.

"Cousin Isobel agrees that this may help. She told me about an article she read about keeping limbs supple," she told him. "She convinced Clarkson about the treatment."

Matthew watched this with scorn on his face. "Mary. Mary stop! You might as well call in a witch doctor for all the good it will do!"

Mary ignored him and went on with the massage, bending his lovely toes, the fine bones of his feet and ankles and worked up to his knee. "See? Every day we must do this." She put hands under his right thigh and lifted it from the mattress.

Matthew grabbed at her hands. "Stop it," he hissed. "Stop it!" He tried to push her away. "I don't want you…" he stopped with a lurch.

"Matthew?"

Veins stood out in his neck. "I can't feel it; not anything. Not a pinprick or a poke. This is useless mumbo-jumbo! And besides…"

"What?"

"I don't want you touching me…" he pointed to his groin. "All right for the other nurses to help me, uhm… down there, but not you."

Mary peered down at her wounded cousin. "Matthew, I don't think of you," she cleared her throat before she cried out, "in quite that way." As she said the soft words it was a lie, almost the biggest lie she ever told; nearly as big a lie as her engagement to Richard, the ink fresh on the page.

She kept flexing his leg up and down, back and forth to distract her mind. Matthew turned his head and was silent as Mary went on with the exercise, now working on his left leg.

So Matthew was squeamish about that? She sniffed. What would Matthew do if he knew that she did know what he looked like, down there? She and Sybil had bathed him three times when he was drugged with morphine. Mercifully they did not discuss the process of bathing their male cousin, other than medical matters of course, but the sight of his naked body almost made her faint.

Naked seemed so much awful a word as bare, didn't it? She turned her face so he would not see her blush.

Mary was no prude - not exactly - and she did know how things worked between males and females, that is, men and women. And Kemal had touched her. She forced aside the memory of that terrible night. The worst of course was carrying the body, her dear mother and maid helping her. She still dreamt about the horror of it.

She turned her thoughts to the other patients in the ward. Some of the men were enjoying the show and she wished they had put the screens up about the bed.

"Mary," he grunted.

"Yes?"

"Thank you. I know that you are trying to help. Not that it will."

"Matthew, you have to remember that you have survived the war. The war is over."

His face flipped toward her and he grabbed her soft hand. "No. You're wrong."

"But, you're here now. Back from the Front."

He pulled her close so she could hear him whisper. "Mary, Cousin Mary. You think it's over? Look about this room and tell me that it's over."

Her face fell as the sadness of that statement stung her heart. She looked at Matthew's attractive legs and feet then to the man down the way missing a leg and an arm and another who had no legs. She stopped the grim inventory before she fled the room.

"And as I lie here – a cripple – there are men out there…" he flinched, "my men, and thousands of others fighting and dying this very moment!" His blue eyes peered up at her with force. "So don't tell me it's over. Not yet! Not by a long shot!"

She reared back and saw the anger in his eyes. "Oh, Matthew, I…"

"Sorry to put it that way." He dropped her hands. "And congratulations on your engagement. Tell Richard that if he's not decent to you, I will personally see to him." He almost chuckled as he said it.

"Oh, really?" She told him, the sudden injection of humor making her head spin.

He smiled grimly. "Tell him if he does not treat you well, truly well, then I will have to rise up and challenge him." Then his eyes twinkled.

"I shall hold you to that, Matthew. I shall." She said this white faced and trembling looking down at his handsome body; a body that she longed to hold close.

"I mean it. Mark my words, Cousin. I do mean it."

"I'm sure you do." She tittered. "Now how about tea?" she added thinking that was a safer subject.

"Yes, I'd like that."

Mary pulled the blankets back up over his dead but still fine-looking legs and went to prepare tea.