A/N: Surprise! Okay, I am surprised as you. You cannot get used to this, okay? You cannot. Because you will be disappointed and for that 2% who are mean, I am just warning you, you will be disappointed because I will not meet your expectations.
But for that other 98% of you, I just love and adore you. You have literally showered me with support and for that I thank you. It's strange (actually, it's not) but that actually motivates me to write much more than the second approach.
Which brings me to this. I don't want any more PMs like this: Hi. I really like your a girl you knew story. I was wondering when you where planning on updating? I don't want to tell you how to run your story but I would really like it if Mary got pregnant. She could get pregnant have the baby and Mack can die (NOOO) before or after the child is born I know you said Matthew and Mary are endgame but Mary and Mack deserve some happiness, like I said it's your story I don't want to tell you how to run it I was just saying what I would like to happen, I like Mack/Mary but I like Matthew to.
That is a literal copy and paste and I have many others (too many) to choose from. Please do not tell me how to write this story. Please do give me constructive criticism. But the amount of messages I receive exactly like the one above, with different content, is excruciating and makes me want to delete this story entirely. I don't know why it is like this with this story. It wasn't with Grace.
Okay. I am glad we have that cleared up.
I actually made a mistake in my last Author's Note. This chapter, not the last one, marks the end of another section. I think Part III.
Again, thank you so, so, so, so, so much for your support and love. I love you too. And this story is for you, not the haters. MUAH.
Chapter Nineteen
"Mack," Mary murmurs, trying not to laugh as he slides his hand around the front of her waist and pulls her back to him, so he can nibble on her neck. "I'm trying to get undressed."
"What a coincidence," he whispers against her skin. "I'm trying to undress you." His hand moves upwards, so his thumb is splayed between her breasts and for a moment, she tilts her head and sighs against him, but then the ache in her feet reminds her that she is tired from the party tonight. Her brain is fuzzy with all the small talk around her honeymoon and the way Americans appeared to have a different views on the sense of privacy. She made her way through the night bypassing questions with charm that took effort, almost as if during the honeymoon she forgot how to speak to anyone other than Mack, in their own language. In the back of her brain, somewhere, amidst the love for him and pleasure of him, she worries about caring for him too much, needing him too much, even now.
Mary is a woman who knows what it is to lose.
"Well." She straightens but doesn't pull away. "If you're back there anyway, would you mind undoing my necklace for me?"
"With pleasure." With a final kiss, his lips leave her skin and his hands go to the clasp. "If I didn't already say it–"
"You did." Mary smiles at the two of them in the mirror.
"Now, Mary Jo, don't get ahead of yourself." His brow furrows over the exacting work of the clasp. "What I was going to say, the part you expected, was that you looked beautiful tonight..."
"Which you've said tonight, several times." She tries to hide the grin, to stifle it so it fades into her face.
"But what I didn't say was that you looked beautiful tonight in spite of the fact that you were wearing clothes. I'd grown so used to seeing you naked, you see." He pouts a little which makes Mary blush and laugh at the same time. He is still struggling with the clasp, three strands of pearls, a gift from him, her husband. She sighs at the word.
"Over a month long honeymoon will do that to you, I suppose," she murmurs, arching her eyebrow at him. His excess, his need to show her luxury always makes her raise an eyebrow.
The necklace is undone. He places it on her vanity and then turns her in his arms so she faces him. She realizes he's been busy back there, unbuttoning her dress so now his hands slip inside of it. "Oh and was it so horrible for you then?" he asks, his lips a breath away from hers.
"Nearly intolerable," she replies and closes the space between them, slipping her own arms around his waist, inside his jacket, swaying a bit because sometimes their kisses can make her feel a loss of balance. Her emerald concoction of a dress slips to the floor; his jacket goes next.
"I love you madly," he tells her as he sinks into her, his hair messed from her hands, breath heavy, and she thinks that if this is madness, it is the same as a fairy tale, or the snow globes she saw last Christmas in New York. It is only the two of them, protected and kept apart from the rest of the world, living perfect lives beneath the glass.
Later, just before she falls asleep, skin to skin with Mack, she wonders that if marriage is like those snow globes, how awful it must be to be trapped with someone who does not make your heart turn over in your chest.
The next day, in her negligee and robe, she goes through letters from their past week home. The thank you notes ate away her time, not including the correspondences they missed while away. Mack has left to go into work: "Just for two hours," he told her while diligently kissing her until her head spun. "Don't change out of that. Promise." She laughed at his attempt to "work" after weeks away.
"I promise, Mack," she smiled at him.
She smiles now, seeing Mama's handwriting but quickly raises an eyebrow when she sees Lavinia's handwriting in an envelope just behind it. Lavinia's letters are always unexpected, something is always off with them. They are perfectly normal but then she will make a strange remark that makes Mary raise an eyebrow. She doesn't like to dwell on Lavinia. It is uncomfortable. It is hard enough not to dwell on Matthew, let alone his wife, so she opens Mama's first.
My Dearest Mary,
If you are reading this, you are home from your honeymoon. I hope that it was lovely and everything you hoped it would be. Don't blush, Darling. You're a woman now, and we can talk not about some things, but around them. Don't you think?
Mary shakes her head but doesn't blush. Women don't blush. And she laughs at her own joke and her mother's love of the book Little Women, as if the world works that way.
...But I don't wish to embarrass you, my dear. I cried all through the ceremony, you know. My nose was quite red and your father made a joke about it for which I could not properly punish him because my heart was brimming with happiness for you, my brave, brave darling. Mackenzie is many things–charming, handsome (yes, I notice such things), wealthy. But best of all, he loves you so much. He loves you, not a version of Mary, or the face you give to the world but the very heart of you. And what more could a mother wish for than that?
Forgive me. (How funny it is to me that you used to make such fun of my American sense of nostalgia and now you live amongst it.) As I said, please forgive me and my blubbering. I beg that you write me and tell me that marriage is more than you hoped it would be. I know what you once hoped it be, when you were, in essence, engaged to Cousin Patrick–a duty, a means to an end. So I hope when you write me, it is with great joy over the discovery that marriage can be something beautiful when it has nothing to do with necessities or duty, when you allow it to be more. And something tells me Mackenzie is not one for duty. Dear me, I am laughing as I write this.
Mary is laughing too.
I keep getting off track, you see. Because there is more to this letter than simply my well wishes (though I wish that was the only information I had to impart). I am afraid I do not even know where to start.
I don't know what state you found Matthew in, the day after the wedding. I just know that the four of you–Mackenzie, Lavinia, you, and a wet Matthew made your way back home. Lavinia's face was devoid of emotion. Mackenzie: it is not for me to say how he looked...And you, your face appearing as if you had been crying. That is all I know and for the first time in my life, that is all I wish to know about it.
We returned home, the lot of us, and things went back to normal, or so I thought. Isobel came to dinner that week but left early. She seemed out of sorts but I attributed that to headache she mentioned. Several days later, Matthew came by the house in quite a state, asking to speak to your father. They sequestered themselves in Papa's library for several hours. I knew better than to ask what was so important.
It was only that night before we went back to bed that your father told me the news.
Mary bit down on her lip, her heart beating hard in her chest. Lavinia was pregnant. It had to be. And Mary ignored the ache in her own womb, ignored the old dream of rocking blue eyed babies to sleep.
Matthew is divorcing Lavinia.
Mary gasped, held her hand to mouth.
...Please, Darling, don't let this upset you but I felt you had to know. Your father is a mess. Your grandmother...I cannot begin to explain the chaos and pain that has somehow weaved itself into our family. I don't even know what to tell you except what I already have written because I have no precursor for such an event, no idea for how things will go from here. Your father has given me no further information and it seems best that I know nothing further either. I implore you to act as I have, and not ask for more detail, from your father...or Matthew...for the benefit of your own marriage.
Mary knows very well what her mother is "imploring."
I cannot bring myself to ask your father what this will mean for us, when obviously Matthew, Lavinia, and Isobel bear the pain. But the fall out will land on us, as well. And while we have borne many a storm before, this is a scandal I have no story to call upon from some other's experience. I don't even know anyone who has been divorced, let alone a future heir. And then there is, of course, Edith, who has grown quite close to Evelyn Napier. You remember him? We had hoped that...Well, now we aren't sure what to do. Do we wait for him to ask for her hand and then tell him? Or do we tell him now, with the assumption that he wants to marry her? You won't be shocked to know that Edith has taken to her bed and only comes out when he rings her. I ache for her. First, her crush on Anthony Strallen and now this...And Mary, not by any fault of your own, always in your shadow, with both her sisters happily married. But I suppose each of those marriages all began with a bit of a scandal too, when you think about it. So there is hope yet.
"Oh, Mama," Mary says aloud, rolling her eyes.
Well, do write me back, Darling. I love you more than I can say. You must get used to this American love of expressing feelings as I am sure your husband (oh, the word alone thrills me) is a product of it. I am sorry to include such horrible new but you needed to know. Give Mackenzie our love and his family as well. His grandfather charmed even your grandmother. Think of that! Oh, think of that and do not dwell on what else I have written here. Remember you are loved, even if we are an ocean away. And that I will see you soon, if only in my dreams.
Your Mama
Mary rips into Lavinia's letter. She cannot help it. She is not like her mother. She does, quite hopelessly, want and need more information. It makes no sense–Matthew divorcing Lavinia. And what state is Matthew in? Has he stopped drinking? She thinks that is impossible at this point. And his reasons for divorcing Lavinia? Mary cannot imagine it. She cannot imagine the story, their story...because isn't it in some ways, though she hates to admit it and never would to Mackenzie, their story–Lavinia, Matthew, and Mary–the three's story.
Dear Mary,
Please accept my well wishes for your wedding, honeymoon, and marriage. You will notice that I use the word "my," instead of the word "ours." I can imagine that you have heard the news from your family. And I suppose it is very strange that I am writing to you–me, a soon to be divorcee, once a Crawley but no longer.
Please do not think I write these words with levity. I do not. I never wanted this. I never hoped for this. I never planned for this. I am writing you this letter because if anyone deserves the truth, it is you. For so long, you went without what you deserved. At least, I can give you this. Of all the things I have taken (without malice, I beg of you to understand), I can give you this.
He loves you. He will always love you. And once upon a time, you loved him and I am sure you thought you would always love him. Maybe you will. But he married me. Your bravery and courage to choose another life has always been something I admired. You could have wallowed in it. No one would have blamed you, not even me. You could have tried to take him from me, which would not have been very hard at all, I think now. But you chose something different.
Do you remember telling the group of us: "Aren't all of us stuck with the choices we make?"
You probably don't. But it has always stayed with me. You made your choice and you went head on into a storm and made it through. I am not one for lyrical language but I do so admire your courage.
He loves you. He will always love you. But your married Mackenzie. And he does not have your bravery, your courage, your fortitude. I write these words without the bitterness I once would have felt because it seems that is beyond him now–the need for numbness, the need for oblivion. It is beyond all of us, really.
So I made a choice. Matthew is divorcing me. It is the easiest way. I am going abroad. Paris, first, I think. I am only taking what my father left me but it is plenty. I don't know if I will ever come back to England. I don't know if I will ever see you again. So I suppose this letter doesn't just serve as giving you the truth, but also a goodbye.
Once we were friends and rivals at the same time. We never acknowledged it but we both knew it, perhaps you more than I. And then he chose me. How hard it must have been to realize he himself was stuck with the choice he made (that is, me)? And then somewhere along the way you became a woman I wanted to be like, and not because he loved you best, but because you were willing to start over. Even as you bled with the pain of it, you left with dignity and bravery, that same dignity and bravery that I muster now. God Bless you, Mary. I never thought I could fill your shoes and I never will because I am not you. But. (Please excuse my sentimentality here because I am sure you have not thought about me as I have thought about you while living your life in America). But you have become a touchstone to me, a hope...that there is, that there can be...more.
Most Sincerely,
Lavinia
Mary is not stupid. She can easily read between the lines of Lavinia's letter. Lavinia never said his name, the very name Mary fought so long to forget and now Lavinia is erasing it too. She sits very still with the papers in front of her. She is startled when she feels Mack's hands on her shoulders. He kisses her hair. "I didn't mean to scare you," he tells her.
She stands and turns in his arms, clutching him in a hard embrace. "You didn't. You didn't. You don't."
"What's this?" he asks her, pulling back a little to look at her face. She is very pale but her eyes are dry. "What's happened?"
"I–I don't have the words to...I..." She rubs her brow. She feels sick to her stomach. "Here," she hands Mack her mother's letter and in the same turn, as he reads, she shuffles Lavinia's letter into a drawer of her vanity.
A/N: I am dying to know what you think. I am trying to balance all these character's many, many mixed emotions and allegiances and I hope I am doing them justice. Please let me know. Can you read between the lines, like Mary must? I hope so. Otherwise, I am failing.