XX
Matthew needed to help her.
"Lean on me. We're going." He pushed her up and they walked towards his car.
"My knight in shining armour." She murmured and pressed into his arms as he tried to hold her up.
He placed her in the passenger seat. Got in and made the left turn towards his own lodgings.
He did not know where else to take her.
XX
Matthew stopped the car in front of his rooms. Rose was tunelessly humming a recent revue hit song. Her head was on his shoulder. When he opened his driver side's door and got out, she slumped down with a whimper.
He left her there until he walked around the car to open the passenger door. Rose's behaviour on the ride over exasperated him. She kept trying to get out every time he had to stop and he kept shoving her back into the seat.
"Stay there." His words took on the command tone he used in the army. The kind that brooked no opposition.
But she started to once again. He sighed, walked back towards the car, and helped her out of the passenger door. He lifted her left arm over his head and leveraged her weight beside his own.
"Can you walk at all?" He asked. The pain in his back spasmed.
"Don't think so…" Her words slurring. But she did take a few steps towards the front door. Steps that started to twist and turn as she started humming again.
"Stop it." He slipped once, but regained his balance.
Matthew eased the key into the lock. Rose leaned heavily on his shoulder. He grunted and lifted her up to better balance his own body.
"I'm quite partial to dancing you know…." She muttered. "I don't know why you took me away…." Her words blurred and fuzzy. She tried to release herself from Matthew's grasp. "Let me go. I want to go back." She started to struggle in his arms.
"Stay right where you are." Matthew's tone sharp.
"I'm not one of your men…" She wriggled some more. "You can't order me about."
She lolled her head back and Matthew grunted in disgust. "Stop that. Keep your head level or we'll both fall down."
"I will order you as I please." Matthew snapped. "What have you gotten yourself into?"
Rose's answer was whinish and snarky. "Oh I'm so sorry to have disturbed you. Do get on without me. I'll cuckoo with Phyllis, she's this divvy daughter of a investment banker met at the party…" She writhed again and attempted to free herself. "Let me go…." She yelped.
Matthew's grip tightened on her arm. His words terse. His face red and intense. "Look here Rose. You can struggle all you want. I won't let you go. You've behaved like a silly girl. And as such a silly girl, you should consider it a great favour when someone has taken time out of his life to go fetch you at God knows what hour and take care of you. If you don't obey what I say, I will turn you out and onto the street."
He glared at her. "Or should I send you back to your Aunt Rosamund's…"
"Oh no." Rose fluttered her eyelids. "I'll obey you Matthew." She looked at him, her eyes dilated and rounded large. "I'd much rather be under your protection."
"Then do as I say." His tone became gentler. "Let's climb these stairs."
She leaned in, close to his chest. "Are you taking me to bed..." She started to giggle. "What will the servants say..."
Matthew exhaled noisily and heaved her back into a semi standing position and guided her up the steps to the upper landing of his flat.
Matthew led her into his bedroom. He laid Rose lightly on the covered bed. She curled up like a child against the pillows. "Will you stay with me?"
He had to. His back spasms threatened to incapacitate him. He sat down in the soft leather chair that had been delivered from Selfridge's earlier that day.
A blissful few minutes followed. He closed his eyes trying to remember if he bought some paracetamol at the druggist.
Then Rose started to toss and turn.
She sat up and stretched, a strap of her gown falling over her shoulder. "I'm not tired at all."
"I'm not surprised. Cocaine heightens the nerves. How much did you take?" Matthew resigned himself to a long night.
"A snifter or two…." Rose's eyes beetled back and forth. "Rummy Tisch said it would just be a pick me up. We were all feeling so bluey after Davey's car failed to win…"
"Oh yes." Matthew lampooned. "Rummy Tisch sounds like an ideal source of knowledge on addictive stimulants. And who is he in life? A medical doctor perchance?"
Rose's eyes narrowed. "You can be a real stinker."
"I'm not the one who got blotto on cocktails and cocaine." Matthew maintained evenly.
"What do you know about it anyway? Mr. Goody Two Shoes. I bet you never even tried it. No wonder they call you Galahad? You're as pure as the driven snow…" Her words slurred as she slumped again down among the pillows. She groaned. "My head is pounding….I think I might be sick..."
"Oh no you won't. Not on my brand new sheets." But he watched her cautiously. Anxious that she had done far more damage to her health than he first imagined. She thought herself so grown up.
She simply groaned but no more.
Matthew made a move to get up out of the chair. "I'll make us some tea." He had supplied the small kitchen with some immediate needs earlier that day.
"Stay there!" He ordered as she made a move to get up.
"I can't sleep in this dress… it'll wrinkle…" And she started to remove the blouse.
"Stop." Matthew barked. "Wait there…" He looked around the room and realized he left the small bag of luggage in the hall, ready for his trip to Germany. He exited the bedroom and down the short walk to the front door. It was against the wall. He rummaged around, found what he wanted, and closed the case again.
He walked back into the bedroom. Rose was standing near the window, one finger parting the curtains to gaze into nothing. The night pitch black. She looked so pensive, so young, Matthew felt the first tinge of pity. She had lived through so much in her not quite 21 years of life.
He should know. He lived a couple lifetimes himself.
She turned, her face casting the hollowed out, dead eyed look of a fellow survivor.
"I sometimes wonder why I'm here." She whispered to Matthew's shadow in the doorway. "I mean really, why am I so special?" Her face upturned, biting her lip.
"Or is that the great joke?" He answered. "That we aren't important at all. We're the flotsam and jetsam. All the important ones, the smart ones died. They knew when to make a good exit."
A bitter snort escaped her lips. "Exactly…" And she crumpled, as if simply the weight of standing up was too much effort.
Matthew led her back to the bed. "Here." Matthew said softly. "Put these on." He placed a pair of new pyjamas on the bed. Mary had ordered him sets at the same tailor she encouraged him to visit on Savile Row for the suits he was to take with him to Berlin. "I'll finish up the tea." And he left the room.
His hand shook as he poured the tea into two mugs.
XX
Later, much later she fell into a fitful slumber. Waking several times, Matthew did not trust her. She woke once to find him in the chair, dozing with one eye half lidded to keep an eye on her.
"Why are you being so kind?" She asked. Matthew opened both eyes. She finally sounded sober. "I've been nothing but a mean spirited brat to you?"
His mouth turned into a half grin. "I have a soft spot for the downtrodden."
Rose chuckled softly. She curled her legs up and rested her chin on her knees. "I've never done that before, please believe me. I wanted to think it would help me escape."
"Escape?" but really Matthew already knew the answer.
"To forget…" Her words stumbling. "It's always there. The pressure of him. The loss of him. I can't escape it. Mother would say 'botheration girl, snap out of it.' That is of course if she knew at all, which she doesn't. I can't tell her."
"I think you might be surprised." Matthew leaned forward in the leather chair. "I might give your mother a chance. She's had her own suffering you aren't aware of I dare imagine. Could bring you closer."
Rose looked doubtful.
Matthew's voice sad to Rose's ears. "I'd give anything almost to have more time with my mother."
"What happened to her?"
"She died in a German air raid in Paris." The matter of factness belying the emotions beneath. He shifted in the chair. "It was almost three years now. She was an amazing woman. Stubborn and sure of herself to the point of indignation, but funny. We always had a good laugh."
"So you know…. You really do know." Rose shoved a pillow behind her head. "But my mother and father would not have approved of my relationship with Peter. She'd call me a slut. He'd despair of ever making a good marriage for me."
"Were you planning on getting married?" Matthew's hands were steepled in front of his face.
"Yes. I'm sure Mother would have said that was foolish, because of the war or whatever. And maybe she would have been right. Everything was so of the moment, then. We might have regretted it. I'll never know…"
"I lost my wife as well." Matthew revealed to Rose. "She died of the flu in late 1918. We married in a rush of affection, or so I told myself." He shrunk back against the leather back of the chair. She could hardly hear his last words.
"Did you regret your marriage?" Rose inquired. "I'm not just morbidly curious, I keep asking myself over and over would we have been happy? Or is it all just in my mind."
Matthew was quiet for quite a while. Contemplating an answer. "I can't speak of your relationship, Rose. It's special to you. And I'm sure you loved Peter. The war heightened emotions to be sure. But that's to be expected. The fact you're still hurting means a great deal. I am ashamed to say I feel instead a great deal of remorse. That I put Lavinia in the position of being married to a man who was not as much in love as she was. I wanted the security of marriage I thought at the time. As if that would give me something to live for. Only it was a sham. And perhaps if she had not married me, she might still be alive. That's something I'll have to live with for the rest of my life."
"I'm sure I'll never marry. I'll never be as totally, absolutely in love." She pulled up the covers around her shoulders. "You seem much better now, though. So perhaps there is hope for me."
Matthew said nothing. Mary had saved him. He had been a drowning man and she rescued him from what had become the oblivion of his life. But he wouldn't know how to say that to Rose without disclosing the shocking nature of their initial meeting. Something he suspected, Rose's mother would not like him telling her impetuous daughter.
Instead he sat up straight in the chair. "I think you're recovered sufficiently. You really should have known better. You saw as much as I did the effects of narcotics in hospital."
"I gave out plenty of morphine through syrettes or orally to the wounded." Rose replied. "The screams of pain were so loud. It was the only method of relief."
Matthew well remembered. "So many are still addicted. I see them on the streets all the time. It's very dangerous way to forget, Rose. Please tell me you'll never try that again."
"I won't Matthew." She looked at him directly in his eyes. "It didn't even make me forget. Just made it worse." She yawned. "And gave me a massive headache."
She cuddled the pillows. Yawning again.
Matthew stood up. "I'll leave you to rest."
"Thank you Matthew. For not sitting in judgement against me. You are really a most wonderful man." And then she was asleep.
Matthew closed the door and laid down on the sofa in the sitting room. He finally closed his eyes and slept. He had given up completely on idea of getting an early start tomorrow for the coast and the ferry to France. Earlier as Rose fidgeted he had telephoned Rosamund's residence and informed the butler that Rose was on her way to Scotland and her parents. A slight white lie that was. He didn't want any argument about where she stayed the night.
But that meant in the morning he would have to put her on the train to Scotland. And he'd have to turn around quickly and get ready for his own trip to Berlin. He could take a later train he reckoned and still make it to Germany in time to meet up with the rest of the diplomatic mission.
But as Robert Burns so presciently said, "The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men Gang aft agley." They both overslept. Matthew waking up only to the sounds of car horns and hawkers outside his window.
And his back was stiff as a board. He winced in pain as he stretched. Stumbled over to the kettle and put it on.
"Rose." He called out. Knocked on the door. "We need to make a move."
The grumbling from inside told him she too was still half-asleep.
"Get ready, please." He insisted. "We'll have a meal out and then it's to Euston station."
He shaved in the hall bathroom and then moved into the kitchen to give Rose privacy as she dressed.
"I look a fright. But I can make it to Scotland." She said. "But what about my trunks and clothes?"
"I had a word with Rosamund's butler last night. He said he'd forward all your things to Duneagle."
"Darling Matthew," Rose gushed. "What would I do without you?"
Within the hour the two were out onto the sidewalk and walking to the Savoy where Rose insisted upon eating.
"I'll have the glazed omelette Arnold Bennet." Rose did not even look at the menu. "I heard from Lady Violette that it's simply divvy. Then champagne?"
"No." Matthew rejoined. "Coffee and no arguments." He turned to the waiter. "And I'll have the same"
Rose hummed breezily.
"You're in a better mood." Matthew was happy to see.
"I'm never down for long." Rose replied. "I've heard it's a family trait. And we still have a lovely lunch to enjoy before I'm on the train back to gloomyville."
Matthew scoffed quietly. "I'm sure it won't be that bad."
"You've never been among the heather. It's awful. You should feel terrible you're sending me back north. With a monster for a jailer." She clucked and took a sip of her coffee.
Matthew drew her eyes to his own. "You must promise me to try to get along."
"When will you be visiting? Tell me you will be visiting? You must. I'll die otherwise." Her tone elongated and desperate.
"I think I heard Robert saying something about going up for the grouse shooting." Matthew replied hardly believing he now associated with the set who spent their idle time shooting poor helpless birds.
"Oh thank God." Rose replied dramatically. "We'll take long walks. I'll show you all my favourite spots."
"I thought you hated Scotland," Matthew drew his eyebrow up in mock astonishment.
"Well," Rose admitted. "Near the loch is quite beautiful."
After the lunch and a quick ride to Euston station, Matthew bought Rose a ticket home.
"Will you wait with me?" Rose fidgeted with her gloves.
"Yes. I want to make sure you get on it." He joked.
And sooner rather than later, to Matthew's gratitude as he kept glancing at his watch, the train conductor called for the passengers to board.
He opened the First Class compartment. "Get in then."
Rose smiled and did so.
The whistle blew and the train started. At the last minute Rose bent down and kissed Matthew on the mouth. "Thank you kind sir. I shall be bereft until we meet again."
Astonished at her boldness, Matthew was taken aback. But before he could protest, Rose had disappeared into the train cabin.
He was left alone on the platform.
She was such a child, Matthew mused as he walked back towards the front of the station. He had to get back to his rooms and pick up his luggage for his own trip to Dover.
Sweet and intelligent. Fun to be around. But lost. And she frankly exhausted him.
Her companionship was pleasant. But he longed to see Mary. To hold her in his arms. To hear her heart as he put his ear to her breast. To kiss her sweet, soft lips. To know that she loved him, and he loved her.
The trip to Berlin loomed large and he turned his mind to the trade issues and diplomatic mission ahead of him. He wanted to make a good impression on Sir Eyre as he was being given the lead in this visit. If well done, it could be a career maker for him. The potential for it being a springboard to a career in politics made Matthew's head spin in fear and dread.
Part of him still wanted to laze about in Paris writing his novel. Taking long walks along the Seine with Mary. But he knew that was impossible. His future, their future lay before them at Downton as Earl and Countess eventually. Before them in London as he took up his post with the Foreign Office.
The possibility of children as well. He quickened his steps towards Victoria station as he was already late according to the train timetables.
She would make such a wonderful mother.
They were to meet in Paris after his fortnight in Berlin. He would hold to that promised reunion to see him through going to the land of his former enemy.
Germany.
He had shot and killed his fair share of Boche in the war. Meant to be a term of derision and scorn, he had no real enmity towards the Germans. They did as they were told as he had done. They had been good fighters. A respected enemy by his fellow soldiers. It had been an ugly war of attrition.
And the peace was a shambles in Matthew's opinion. One he kept largely to himself. That would make him no friends in Whitehall.
So he'd do his best with the mission as set forth by his betters at the Foreign Office. And then make as quick as possible for Paris and Mary.
He caught the train, only realizing at the last minute that he had not telephoned her to relate his night with Rose to Mary.
Matthew creased his brow in consternation. He didn't intend to hide it from her…
She would surely understand….
XX
Thus begins this next part of the story… Oh Matthew and Rose… two lost souls they are…
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