A/N: Thanks for patiently waiting for the next chapter as I put my full energies toward finishing Grace. I appreciate it so much. It's been awhile since we've been on this side of the pond in this story so you might need to orient yourself.
Chapter Eight
The sounds of the dinner table are the same–the clinking of the silver spoon (polished every day) against the delicate porcelain of the china, the hiss of a knife as it is dragged across the table cloth, the subtle clearing of one's throat between courses. It is the same and yet even now, after so many months, it is different because Mary does not sit at the table with them. The family shifts chairs to fill the gap and certainly fills in the conversation without her.
Even still if Matthew lets himself he can imagine her into being, as real as his own flesh, turning her head and laughing into her napkin, their eyes meeting after Sir Anthony's Good God! and the salt incident heard round the world but Matthew does not let himself imagine her. Everything is the same and yet everything is different. He sits next to his wife and his mother. There is no room for Mary at this table anymore or in his life, for that matter. There may not be room for her ever again. And yet...
"I cannot believe Mary has decided to spend the holiday in America," Cousin Violet asserts a bit gruffly as she spears a piece of asparagus. "By choice."
Matthew sits up straighter, tensing and then relaxing, knowing Lavinia's eyes are on him now that Mary's name is brought to life like an incantation. She watches him whenever Mary is mentioned; she looks for signs and clues. He knows she wants reassurances and he gives them to her readily. He wants her to be assured. He wants to assure himself, to assure himself that he made the right choice, that he is a good man, that he can be a good husband. Still, he cannot help the slight jolting at the mention of Mary. He can only reassure Lavinia (and himself) when Mary is far from his mind.
"Well, if it makes you feel better Mother says that Mary is doing wonderfully," Cousin Cora replies as she sets down a glass noiselessly, before adding, "Despite the turkish scandal reaching America."
"Oh, yes, Cora," Cousin Violet retorts, rolling her eyes. "This is a perfect topic for the dinner table."
Cousin Cora smiles tightly. "Never fear. Mother believes that...well, I told you earlier."
"Oh yes." Matthew can hear Edith's sarcasm, as thick as the cream sauce over the duck they just finished. "Let's hear all the gory details of Mary's ice cream Baron."
"Edith," Robert warns.
In less then one minute–sixty seconds of a ticking clock–Matthew learns Mary will not return for Christmas and that she met someone else, another man. However important or unimportant this ice cream Baron may be, he is someone else. On his thigh, beneath the table cloth, Matthew flexes his hand uselessly. Lavinia's eyes trace his face and features as if she may draw him later.
"I just want to point out that Grandmother claims there is romance between them but Mary has repeatedly told me that they are only friends," Edith replies a bit more quietly and it is so strange to hear such welcomed news from Edith's mouth. "Repeatedly."
"I only hope that your mother knows how to chaperone, Cora," Cousin Violet quips and pats her mouth with a napkin.
"Mother chaperoned us," Cousin Cora smiles and looks nostalgically at her husband.
"Exactly," Cousin Violet grunts and even Robert clears his throat at the awkwardness.
Lavinia's eyes linger. Matthew does not move a muscle she can see. Internally, there is a chant: Mary met someone else. Mary met someone else. Mary met–
Then, Lavinia speaks, "Mary seems very happy in, the few letters we've exchanged."
Matthew starts. He cannot help it. Though his lips quiver and a thousand words want to leap from his tongue, he manages to remain quiet. His hand does not shake when he reaches for his glass of wine. Betrayal is the wincing pain when he's drunk too much but nonetheless cannot stop. It is the knowing he will be sick and continuing to drink what ails him because he has already come this far.
They have already come this far.
The conversation continues without him but all he can think is that Lavinia has written Mary and moreover, perhaps more perplexing, Mary has written Lavinia. In his life, Matthew has loved two women. Though that is a lie. In his life, Matthew loves two women. He cannot be whole without the either of them but they can be whole without him. In that moment, his throat is so dry, and it is brutally unfair.
Mary met someone else. Mary met someone else. Mary met someone else.
And Lavinia knows all about it.
It is a strange game they play that night. He knows she waits for him to ask. He does not ask, will not ask, or give her the satisfaction. But inevitably, they know he will lose this game because he must ask and he must know. So the winning of this game can only come from the length of time between her admission at the dinner table, that Lavinia and Mary have corresponded, that Mary wrote Lavinia, and when Matthew will finally bang his fist down on the side table, next to the their bed, harder than he intends with that extra glass of brandy after dinner, and says: "You've written to Mary?"
It is a strange game because in winning, Lavinia also loses. "Yes, a few times," she replies as she turns on her side, the light from her lamp already gone out. She turns away from him because she cannot turn towards him, not during a conversation like this.
"You'd think you would have told me," he replies tightly, his fist still tight on his nightstand, his torso still upright in their bed. "Don't go to sleep. We need to discuss this."
"Must we?" she replies, sighing into the dark. "We exchanged a few letters. I hardly think that every bit of my correspondence needs to be vetted through you."
"You know this is different," he spits into the dark.
"You mean she's different," and Lavinia's teeth shred the words.
"I don't want an argument," he retorts but his words are brutal and prove otherwise. "I just think–"
"Oh, Matthew!" Lavinia nearly growls and sits up in bed. "She doesn't belong to you!"
"What did you just say?" he whispers.
"I only meant–she, Mary," Lavinia sighs and lies back down. "I shouldn't have said anything."
"I know she doesn't belong to me." Matthew's fist pounds into the wood again. "She's my cousin; I'm concerned for her..."
Lavinia sits up and whirls on him, her bright hair flashing, her pale skin alight from the moon through the curtains. She grabs his wrist, the one by her side, rigid with tension. "Ask me anything, Matthew," she begs, "but don't lie to me. Please. Please don't lie to me."
"I'm not lying; I know she doesn't belong to me."
He longs for the numbness that comes to his tongue and mouth and face and chest after enough gulps of brandy. Eventually, with enough longing and enough silence in their bedroom, he gets up and reaches for his dressing gown. He walks down the hall to the small room that houses his books and office things, as well as a small bar, and pours himself a snifter of brandy.
When he swallows, he tells himself that the thing he is longing for is quenched.
He doesn't believe himself until the bottle is finished.
A/N: Don't know which is worse for Matthew...knowing or not knowing what is going on in America...