A few days later, it is brilliantly sunny, and Mary decides to take a look at the horses and stables on the estate.
Mary meets with the groundskeeper, who also takes care of the horses, and arranges to have a horse saddled for a ride on the next sunny day, whenever that would manage to be. She interacts with all the horses and realizes how relaxing this is.
She doesn't want to admit it, but being around Matthew is exhausting. It isn't his fault, not really. He's fragile and he needs care, and she is more than willing to give it, although it is at the cost of her energy. She does not complain, because she easily could have left Matthew alone with Isobel, but she decided to come, she even suggested it. And she wants to see him get better.
But the horses are a needed and well-deserved break.
"Life is so much simpler for you, isn't it?" she says, rubbing the dark nose of Olive, the oldest horse on the estate. "You have no war, no injury, no madness, no scandal. That sounds absolutely lovely about now."
"We dragged them into our war," a voice from behind says.
Mary turns around and mouth drops. "Matthew! What are you doing here?"
He shrugs are best he can while balancing himself on his crutches. "Well when you didn't show up this afternoon I wasn't sure what to do with myself. I wanted to go outside and I figured I'm good enough at walking on these things now to get around so I did. And coming to the stables seemed like a logical step. It didn't occur to me that you'd be here, although it makes perfect sense now that I think about it."
"I'm glad you're feeling up to that now," she says, sincerely.
He gives her a tight smile. "Yes. I'm sorry for interrupting you, I'm sure you want to be alone and away from me right now since you almost never are it seems."
Could he read her mind? That is exactly how she feels, although she means it in no offense to him and she is concerned that he is taking it offensively.
Her silence gives him an answer. "I thought so. It's alright, I'm not mad. I don't deserve all the attention you give me and if I had any chance to get away from me right now, I would take it in a heartbeat." He sighs begins to leave the stables. "Are you going to ride anytime soon?"
"I arranged with the groundskeeper to ride whenever the next sunny day is," Mary says softly.
"Good, good. I'm glad."
He begins to leave.
"Matthew!" Mary calls out, before she can stop herself.
"Yes?"
She looks down at her feet. "You want to be alone, too, don't you?"
"I do get a little bit sick of the hovering," he admits, "although I love spending time with you and I'm so blessed to have it."
"Good. If you ever need to be alone, just tell me."
"Likewise with me," Matthew replies. "Or just run away from me, it'll take me quite a while to catch up."
In spite of herself, Mary laughs.
The rain returns the next day. Mary wakes up disappointed that she cannot partake in her ride, but she resigns herself to another day of reading with Matthew and hoping that he has a good day.
In the afternoon, Shrimpie's chauffeur shows up with a shipment of mail that was sent to the post office of the village nearby. Isobel gratefully accepts and sifts through the mail, which takes the form of perfectly normal letters from friends and family, and a large trunk.
On top of it, a letter rests, from a certain Major Hawthorn.
Mary comes into the dining room while Isobel looks through the mail, and notices the trunk right away. "What is that?" she asks.
"It was sent by Matthew's commanding officer," Isobel says. "I think it's the things he left behind when he was injured, although who knows why they took so long to get here."
"The army does seem terribly disorganized," Mary comments, trying to sound blasé. She wants to know what is inside the trunk, to know what he had with him while within the hell of war.
Isobel picks up the letter on top. "Should I open it? I don't want to invade Matthew's privacy, of course, but I also don't want it to... set him off."
"Do it, and tell him it must have gotten torn open on the way if he questions it."
"You want me to lie to him?" Isobel asks incredulously.
Mary's eyes harden. "Lying can be the merciful thing to do sometimes, more gentle than telling the truth. I lied to my family for the last five years about the Pamuk incident and they were blissfully ignorant. Unless the letter might really... cause issues you should give it to him, but you should make sure first."
Isobel nods. "You may be right." She opens the letter very carefully, keeping the envelope intact, and begins to scan it.
Crawley,
Sorry to hear about your injury and that you won't be able to come back to join us. The men have missed you, even Jacobs who got promoted to captain in your place. It's been a rough month since Amiens, we're making advances but we've lost so many men. Of course you got wounded and poor Mason, which we were all sad to hear about, and Jamison and Lewis and Collins were all killed within the last week, and Anderson and Conrad and Andrews and Lowe were all injured and sent back to England. Anderson wasn't hurt too badly, but the rest of them were caught up in a bad shell blast and have long recoveries ahead of them. And yet the rest of us move forward. The war can't be long now, and I pray that we don't have to lose many more men before we beat the Hun into submission. God willing we'll all be home again by this Christmas. Sorry this trunk of your things took so long to get sent out, but here they are, and I figured I should give you an update on how things are going out here. God bless you, Crawley, and I do hope you're doing better now.
Sincerely, Hawthorn
Isobel looks up. "This is hard to read, to hear what it is like," she says, "and I'm not sure if we should give it to him."
Mary sighs. "What's in the trunk?"
Isobel lifts the lid of the trunk and carefully takes the contents out. On top, an extra uniform, outwardly cleaned but obviously the victim of mud and worn out from overuse. Isobel takes out the uniform and sets it on the table. Underneath, she sees utensils; a plate, a cup, a fork, a flask, all very damaged, pock marked and dented and dirty. The utensils stacked to the side on the table, underneath is his red mess kit. Isobel's throat constricts as she remembers how handsome and yet how sad her son seemed in the clothes. He looked very dashing in them, yes, but he wore them with such sadness and such resignation that there are only sad memories associated with the outfit. There is ammunition. There is box of writing utensils, the pencils messily shaved down almost to nonexistence, the pen and inkwell dry. Which strikes Isobel as odd since Matthew's letters back home were neither particularly long nor particularly frequent. A stack of letters, mostly in Isobel's hand, a good deal in Lavinia's, and at the bottom, a couple in Mary's. And then, on the bottom of the trunk, there are two books and a pistol. One book is a Bible, the other, a copy of Great Expectations, Reginald's favorite book, with a faded and scrawled message from Reginald in the front cover. Isobel bites her lip painfully as she looks at the items. They seem so insignificant and yet they are vivid reminders of Matthew's time at war.
Matthew's crutches and the creaky floors announce his arrival before he arrives. Mary panics and stuffs the letter back into the envelope while Isobel attempts to quickly reorganize the things taken out of the truck.
"What's this?" he asks, nonchalantly, but there is no denying the curiosity in his voice.
"Your things from the war," Mary says, her tone conveying to Isobel that she knows exactly how to control the situation. "They took a while to get here, but here they are and they came along with a letter from Hawthorn, your commanding officer, I'm assuming?"
Matthew nods, his lips pressed together, and speaks, his voice tight. "Yes."
"Would you like me to read it to you, or would you rather read it alone?" Mary asks.
"If you'd read it to me please," Matthew requests, pulling out a chair next to where Isobel is sitting and carefully lowering himself to sit in it. He sets his crutches against the table and picks up first his uniform, unfolding and refolding it carefully.
Isobel seems surprised at his request to have it read out loud, but says nothing. Mary pretends to open the letter again and begins to read.
Matthew's face remains surprisingly impassive as Mary reads, but there is a grimness to his expression that never really seems to leave his face anymore. His lips downturn slightly at the mention of the injured and wounded men, but otherwise he makes no move, creates no sound. In a way, it's as if he isn't there at all.
When Mary finishes reading the letter, she places it in front of him, on top of the uniform. Matthew moves it decisively to the side. He takes the folded uniform and hands it to Isobel to repack it in the trunk. He does the same with the other items. Isobel doesn't take notice of how his fingers linger over the cold metal of the pistol perhaps a little bit longer than they need to.
"Would you take this up to my room?" Matthew asks, very calmly.
"Are you sure..." Mary begins, but he holds up a hand.
"It's fine. Where else would we put it?"
Mary tries to shrug off the gnawing concern that she can't quite place.
That night, it is hardly an hour into her time in bed when Mary hears Matthew crying out painfully.
She only hesitates for a minute, ensuring no one else is coming to help him, before opening the connecting door between their rooms and slipping inside. This time, she doesn't hesitate to get onto his bed, to calm him using touch as well as words, to be much closer to him than would be considered proper, but she doesn't care.
"Matthew," she whispers. His name, over and over again. He was never Matthew in the trenches, he was always Crawley. She hopes that using his name will help bring him back to her. He shifts around, but keeps calling out. "Retreat!" he calls, his eyes open but wild. "We can't lose any more of them!"
Mary gets very close to him, holding his arms down so he doesn't hurt himself. "Matthew, Matthew, you're in Scotland, you're in Scotland."
There's something in his eyes that changes, something that Mary can't quite place, when he comes back to her. But the change is there and it is obvious and Mary immediately breathes a sigh of relief when she sees it because it means her Matthew is back.
He still breathes heavily, he still seems frantic, but at least he is there with her.
"Mary..." he whispers, finally.
She smiles. "Yes. It's alright. You're here, with me, not on the battle field."
"I'm sorry..." he says, first trailing off. "I'm sorry," he repeats, more emphatically. "Hawthorn's letter just reminded me of the worst of it all, and it's hard to stomach for me and I can't imagine how hard it might be for you to hear about but..."
"Don't think about me," Mary protests. "I can't even imagine what you went through out there, and I don't mind hearing about it, if it opens up your world even just a little bit to me."
He almost smiles. Almost. He continues saying, "I'm sorry for making you read it, I just... if you were reading it out loud I knew I could stay grounded while hearing about it. Because you have nothing to do with the war, and if I'm looking at you and hearing your voice I know that I'm not there."
"I'm glad I could help you with that then," Mary replies. For a brief second she considers telling him that she had already read the letter, but she decides he doesn't need that on his plate as well.
There is silence between them for a while, and Mary relaxes and allows herself to lay down beside him, companionably, in no way romantically, and they stare at the ceiling and wonder.
Finally, Matthew breaks the silence.
"I'm always going to be like this, aren't I?"
"No, of course not. The shellshock will improve, just you wait. You're already so much better than you were when you just got back, you're not having hallucinations when you're awake, you've been so pleasant so much of the time, you..."
Matthew shakes his head. "That's not what I'm talking about. I mean, it is, and I'm not as confident as you that this can get better, but what I mean is my leg. I'm always going to be crippled."
"Matthew, don't say that!"
"It's true, though, isn't it?"
Mary sighs. "Did anyone say anything?"
"I've wondered for quite a while. I'm the son of a doctor and a nurse, I do know a thing or two about anatomy and I know that while bone heals pretty well, muscles and tendons and ligaments do not. Clarkson told me there was some pretty extensive muscle and tendon damage which I kind of ignored then but... well and then Hawthorn saying that I wouldn't ever be able to come back to the army. Don't get me wrong, I have no desire to go back, but it got me wondering how he knew for sure that I couldn't ever come back. I asked Dr. Warren about it when I saw him last but he's absolutely useless and he wouldn't tell me anything. So I just had to put two and two together, and... I understand why you've kept this from me but I just want to know."
Mary presses her lips together, afraid to look over at him for fear that she'll see his bright blue eyes begging for answers. "The doctors say they don't know how much it will heal, you may only have a slight limp... but yes, they said it won't heal perfectly and will probably continue to trouble a little bit you after it's healed. But likely not that much, mind you. You won't be a cripple, Matthew."
"Just imperfect," he murmurs.
"We're all imperfect, Matthew. It's part of being human."
He sighs, blowing out air frustratedly. "I know, it's just... it's going to be difficult being an earl if I can barely walk. Your father, he spends so much time walking around the the estate. What if I can't manage that? I could manage being a solicitor, since I could get away with sitting at a desk all day. But how can I be an earl?"
"You'll manage," Mary says softly. "Look, I don't know how bad it will be, but I do know this; you'll pull through. You survived the war, and you're home now, and I know you can survive anything after."
Matthew tries to blink back tears as he stares intently on a crack in the ceiling that seems to resemble the cracks in his mind. "You all think I was so good at surviving but maybe I wasn't. Maybe it was just pure dumb luck that I'm still here."
"It's not." Mary's voice is hard, but she must convince him of her words. "There's a reason you survived, there's a reason you're suffering like this, but you survived and we're going to make you better."
"What is better, though? Is it being able to sleep through the night without being woken three times by a nightmare? Is it not snapping at you or Mother whenever you try and help me? Is it... not thinking about the war, not having it cross my mind once, for an entire day. Mary, better is not real. Better is not tangible. And people back here talk about war in just the same way, how it's something that's there but not touching them, never quite touching them. But if they just set foot in a trench and immediately felt the mud underfoot and heard the bombs explode around them... they would realize that war is far more tangible than better ever will be."
"No, better isn't tangible. There's no measure by which we can track your progress, no specific goals to meet. But we'll know. I'll know, you'll know, your mother will know... And for the record, I think you are better than you were."
Matthew doesn't respond for a long time. Finally he whispers, "I wish you were right."
Thanks so much to everyone for sticking through the angst/lack of plot with me! I know that character study fic isn't everyone's cup of tea, but I'm really grateful that people have enjoyed this. That said, things will happen and a lot of this is setup for things that happen. Thank you so much for reading, and if you would leave a review, that would make my day and possibly my week! :D