Eventually he becomes aware of the fact that she is still touching him, and that he's still vacillating between rage and shock at the fact that she's turned up, effectively, on his doorstep. He has been consumed every day for the last five years with trying to forget her. Now that she is here before him, he is no less hurt. By her rejection of his attempts to comfort her in the wake of her son's death, by her blatant disregard for his loss of power in ceding control of Downton Cottage Hospital to the Royal Yorkshire. By the cold shoulder that she gave him when he asked about her interest in remarrying, and the nail that she pounded into his veritable coffin by marrying Dickie Merton. A man who didn't even know that she'd lost her son, yet who swore that he loved her.
But she had admitted her wrongdoing and laid herself bare when she said that she knew her apology may not change anything, and that even still, she loved him.
It is not a question, for him, of whether he loves her. He could no sooner change that than change the fact that the sky is blue. But he does not know whether he can afford to risk the contentment he has found, and let her get close again. He is terrified at the depths to which he sank in the aftermath, in the wake of her betrayal. He could have drunk himself to death when it was all still raw. He'd entertained the notion more than once. She has proven that she has the capacity to wound him like no other.
He takes hold of her hand and moves it to rest on the wooden surface of his desk. She looks at him with an edge of fear in her eyes. (He hates it that she seems afraid of him, how he'll react. Even if the very least she deserves is a proper dressing down.) He does not move his own hand away, instead leaving it there, the tips of his fingers just managing not to touch hers. She had extended the olive branch to him, and even if he is caught on the back foot by it all, he can return the gesture. Because he loves her, after all.
Even after it all.
"What do you want, Isobel?" He doesn't mean to sound so put out; it's more that the unexpectedness of the last half hour's events has taken its toll on him.
She studies his features for a long moment. "Nothing," she starts to say, and then doubles back. "I expect nothing. I can only imagine what this must be like for you. It's clear that by coming here I've reopened old wounds. I'll leave, Richard. You'll never have to see me again."
He is a man. A doctor, and a soldier; tears are not a part of his vocabulary. Yet now he feels the salty sting at the outer corners of his eyes. As much as he has at times, over the years, thought it only just that she should be suffering miserably for her choices, he takes it all back now that he sees it played out. He simply loves her too much to turn a blind eye to her anguish, even if he doubted countless times whether he would survive his own.
He sniffs; clears his throat. Shakes his head. "It wouldn't be right to ask that of you." His countenance brightens a little when he tells her, "Besides, you still haven't answered my question." It's not quite a smile, but almost, and she mirrors the expression, the both of them thinking how his last remark harks back to old times.
"I want …" she sighs, "... I want to turn back time and take back every cruel word I said to you." She casts her eyes downwards, silent for a long moment as she thinks. "There are so many things I'd change, if I could go back." When her eyes meet his again they are clouded with pain. He remembers that look. He hates it, what it stands for.
"Matthew," he says, and she nods.
"I went mad after I lost him, Richard." Her eyes are so clear, so earnest. His heart hurts. "As I said before, there is no excuse. But it's the only way that I can rationalise the woman I became. Looking back now I don't even recognise her. I wanted putting away, I think, but it wouldn't have been obvious to any but the sharpest observer." A long look into his eyes and then, "Is that what you thought?"
"Is it really wise to revisit those times?" It's a deflection, and if she calls him on it, he won't deny it. If they're ever to find a way forward, there is nothing for it but to do exactly that. But his default is now to self-protect, and if she's going to spend any time around him at all, she'll have no choice but to accept it.
"I'm sorry. I've dropped enough in your lap today. I really should be getting back." She rises to leave.
He stops her with a hand on her wrist. "It's been a long five years, Isobel. We're both of us different people than we used to be. I can't speak for you, but it's going to take time before I can be sure of the best course of action. I don't mean to make you suffer. It's clear you've put yourself through enough of that already."
He's still got hold of her wrist and her arm goes limp as her defences relax. Anyone would think she was starved for touch, or that she had browbeaten herself into thinking she deserved a heavy hand from him. If he knows her at all, there's a great deal of truth in both assumptions.
"I understand, as well as I can do." She offers him a smile, minuscule but genuine. "You look well, Richard. Whatever it is that you're doing now, it suits you. I can't tell you how much that pleases me."
He squeezes her hand in thanks and then sits down again. She follows his lead (there's a first time for everything, it would seem). If she can display such vulnerability in spite of her fears, he reckons he can give a little as well. "It's been a long road," he confesses. "Plenty of wrong turns along the way. Bit of an odd thing starting anew at this late hour, but it seems to have come out alright."
"How wonderful for you, truly." Her expression, if he had to label it, speaks of pride. Pride in him. Over the course of this reunion he has yet to witness even a hint of selfishness in her. He's beginning to feel a bit uncharitable.
"You mentioned getting back. Are the family sending a car, or—"
"No, no," she cuts in. "I'm … um … I no longer live at Crawley House." At his shocked look she gives a tiny, mirthless laugh. "I know, it's rather unexpected."
A sudden feeling of protectiveness rises up in him. "Have the family put you out?"
She reads his posture and it makes her smile. "Oh, goodness, no. It's nothing like that. There's simply nothing keeping me in Downton anymore. And far too many ghosts."
He understands. Wants to comfort her. To take her into his arms. But that's not where they are yet, and she's rejected the shoulder he offered her once before.
"Master George must be away at school then." He knows that she would never leave if her grandson were still at home.
She nods, and there's that look of pride again. "Off to Eton, like his father. And doing very well, from the sounds of it. He's only aged nine, of course, but he already says that he intends to read medicine."
He grins at this. "Lad's not enamoured of the high life, eh? He sounds every bit his father's son."
This time she laughs a bit in earnest, and it's music to his ears. "The title will convey, of course, whether he likes it or not. He may be only young, but he's got a good head on his shoulders. I see him being a trailblazer. Changing the face of the aristocracy; making it accessible."
It's his turn to look at her fondly. "That wouldn't surprise me one wit. But what of you? Now that you've left the village, I mean?"
There comes over her features a look of pure exhilaration. "It's a bit of an unknown, you see. I've taken a room in a guesthouse in the high street …"
"Here?" he interjects. "In York?"
Nodding, she goes on. "Yes, and the hospital board here have asked me to teach a course in nursing. Of course it's not as straightforward as all that; there's a clinical requirement for teaching staff as you know. And nursing is becoming more regulated now, so they want me certified before I make a proper start. Imagine it: revising for examinations at my age!" She laughs again and shakes her head and it's reminiscent of the Isobel of old. He'd forgotten how pretty she is when she's happy. It's an altogether separate thing to her beauty; she was breathtaking even in the depths of her mourning for Matthew.
"It's all just formalities," he assures her. "You'll do brilliantly. That is, of course, assuming you accept what they've offered."
"Do you think I should?"
"That's not for me to say. I mean, we hardly know each other now."
Her countenance falls at that. "Yes. Quite."
He didn't intend to spoil the mood. "But if I had to go by the look on your face when you were telling me about it, I think you'd be doing yourself a disservice if you didn't try."
"I suppose that I'll reassess my living arrangements once I see how it all shakes out."
He is impressed. "It's terribly brave of you. But then I would expect nothing less."
"You're too kind." She lets those words hang there. They both feel the gravity. "Don't think for an instant that I don't have moments of sheer terror. But it's time my life was mine to control." Another pause, and then she adds, "It seems we've both of us arrived at that conclusion."
There was a time we were of one mind. He doesn't allow himself to voice that thought, but he can do nothing to stop the smile that crosses his lips.
"If you've no need to dash off, my lecture starts in half an hour." If we're to make a start, you need to know what my life consists of now. "You'd be most welcome."
For the first time since her grandson's birth, he watches her face light up completely. Unguarded, her smile radiating from within. "I'd enjoy that very much," she tells him. "As long as you're sure that I won't be in your way."
"Nonsense. It'll be good practise for your certification anyway. Besides, I would feel a bit adrift speaking on this particular topic without my right hand present."
"What do you mean?" She cocks her head inquisitively and catches him wrong-footed for the moment.
So very pretty, he cannot help but think again.
He retrieves a stack of papers from his briefcase and pushes them across the desktop towards her, watching as she reads.
The Provincial Cottage Hospital in Wartime
by Maj. Richard E. Clarkson, MBChB
She looks up at him with astonishment. "Was this published?" There was a time she'd have known the answer without asking, but when her life took its detour she got out of the practice of following the medical journals.
He nods. "It was in the BMJ in February."
She glows as she tells him, "I'm pleased to see you writing again; sharing the breadth of your knowledge." She shakes her head in apparent wonderment before continuing, "My, my, Richard … it would seem the world is your oyster."
He had come to believe that the presence in his life of someone who really knew him, and with whom he could share his successes, was inconsequential. He was satisfied enough in his own accomplishments, but seldom paused to consider their significance.
Her obvious pride in him; her effervescent joy on his behalf, suddenly has him thinking that perhaps he was wrong.
He begins to wonder whether meeting her again, the fear of which for so long had plagued him, might not in truth be a case of meeting his destiny in the very road he'd taken to avoid it.