William keeps sending furtive glances at him all the way to London where he thankfully boards a train to Yorkshire. He trusts William's discretion enough to not even bother asking him to keep the kiss at the concert to himself when at Downton. He knows he will.
It takes seemingly no time at all before Matthew stands in front of a pretty terrace house on the edge of Regent's Park and swallows painfully. He doesn't think he has ever felt so nauseous and nervous before going over the top as he feels right now at the prospect of seeing his fiancée.
As with going over the top, he has no choice but to do it. He has known so much since he kissed Mary. He should have realised it long before.
It still doesn't make it any easier when he finally forces himself to ring the bell and is led by a young maid to see Lavinia in the sitting room. Thankfully, Reggie is at work. He will have to meet with him too – he cannot imagine avoiding him, no matter how much he would wish to in the circumstances – but he is grateful to have the opportunity to talk with Lavinia in private first. It's going to be difficult enough without an audience.
Her joy at the sight of him makes it exponentially worse.
"I didn't know to expect you!" she exclaims happily and he has never felt more like an utter cad.
"I didn't know until the last moment that I would make it," he says, truthfully enough, trying not to fall into flashbacks of hiding in the dark and German cigarettes.
"Oh, what a remiss hostess I am! Please sit and I will ring for some tea and scones."
He does that, both relieved and tortured at the few minutes of reprieve he got as the maid brings and serves everything. He reaches gratefully for his tea, just to have something in his hands to keep them from fidgeting, but it might be the first time in his life when he cannot stomach the idea of sweets.
"Lavinia, I must talk with you about something," he says heavily when the maid finally leaves.
Lavinia's face grows serious, as she nods for him to continue. He plunges right in.
"I must ask you to release me from our engagement."
For a long, awful moment there is only silence. Lavinia's eyes are expressionless, stony.
"Why?" she asks finally, her voice forcibly composed.
Matthew drops his eyes in shame but forces himself to raise them. The very least thing he can do in the circumstances is to be outright and honest.
"Because I realise how very unfair I have been to you."
"In what manner?"
He takes a deep breath.
"When I asked you to marry me, I've sincerely believed that I left any feelings for Mary in the past, but... I was wrong about it."
"And you realised it only now?" she asks, hitting the bull's eye with that question.
"No," he admits painfully. "But I love you too and I thought... I hoped... that it would be enough to ensure we will both be happy together."
"Then," he sees her swallow, see how much it costs her to remain calm, "if you love me as well as her... what changed now?"
I nearly died , he wants to say, I nearly died and when I thought I will I didn't think of you even once.
"I realised I will never be free of my feelings for her," he says instead, which is also true and at least less cruel. "And I couldn't do it to you. You deserve to be loved by a man for whom you are one and only in his heart. The very centre of his being. And I don't think I can ever be that man for you."
She drops her gaze to the hands she keeps folded in her lap and he sees how tightly her fingers are clenched. He feels like a monster and, for a fleeting moment, wants to take it all back, wants to promise her he will change, he will love her and only her, just to not see her suffering so when she has always been so kind, so loving, so much a source of joy and goodness in his life.
But he doesn't. If he took back his confession, if he stayed engaged to her, he would be doing it for the wrong reasons and it would be her who would suffer the most for it in the end. He thinks back to those awful summer days, after Cora lost the baby and he knew that Mary would probably marry him then, but the prospect of it was worse than leaving her would be, however much it broke his heart to do it. He could not have married her when he knew that she didn't love him enough and he won't do it to Lavinia either.
She raises her eyes back to him and although there are tears in them, she looks resolute.
"I love you very, very much, and I've wanted to marry you from the first moment I saw you. All that is true. But I am not blind, Matthew. I could see... that your heart was not wholly mine. I could see it for quite some time, it isn't a sudden thing. I was starting to worry, but then you were so wonderful to me every time we saw each other, and in your letters, and I told myself it doesn't matter. But it does, doesn't it? Now that you see it too... It would be wrong to continue lying to ourselves."
He has nothing to say to that really. He realises his eyes are wet as well.
She reaches to the engagement ring on her finger and takes it off.
"I should return it to you."
He recoils from it, but she puts it next to his plate anyway.
"I could not stand to keep it. Do with it what you want but take it away please."
He pockets the ring, his heart breaking all the more for knowledge that he is breaking hers to pieces.
"So, you will marry Mary then?" she asks and he has to shake his head.
"I don't know," he says painfully. "I don't think... that she loves me. She never has before. I didn't come here to free myself to marry her, I don't know if it ever happens. But I knew that I could not marry you when I..."
"When you wish to marry her instead," she finishes for him and her strength shames him all anew. "I think I will be grateful to you for that at some point. Just not now. Not yet."
She bites her lip, seeming to consider something, then adds.
"I think you are wrong about her feelings."
He startles.
"How so?"
"I think she cares about you more than you think."
He wants so much to ask her to elaborate, to tell him every little detail which made her come to this conclusion, but he has enough sense left to realise how wrong it would have been. Lavinia is the last person he should pester for help in figuring out his relationship with Mary.
"Whatever she feels, however it ends, I just want you to know that I meant it when I asked you to marry me. I do love you and I did want to marry you so much. Just..."
"Just not enough," she finishes for him again and he cannot deny the simple truth of her statement.
No. He has never loved her enough. And however painful this break is for both of them, he thinks it's the first truly right thing he has done in the whole course of his relationship with her.
xxx
He drops into his seat on the train to Southampton utterly exhausted. The conversation with Lavinia and subsequent one with Reggie drained him more than whole weeks at the front. But however hard it was, however awful he feels about letting them down, he also feels curiously light. Whatever he will do now, however his future is going to look like, at least he won't continue to betray anyone. He is free of guilt and shame and only now feels how unbearable they have grown in the last months. He may be true to himself and others now and it feels simply wonderful.
Before he boards the ferry to Callais, his thoughts switch from Lavinia to Mary. Was Lavinia right? Does Mary care for him more than he thinks? What he wouldn't give for that assurance!
He thinks back to his conversation with Sybil some time ago.
He has been wondering a lot how the matters stood between Mary and Carlisle. He yearns to ask her but is too afraid to open up that can of worms. Then one day he finds himself alone with Sybil and he blurts out the question before he has time to consider it properly.
"Is Mary going to marry Sir Richard?"
He is striving for a friendly and disinterested tone, but judging from Sybil's knowing look he fails at it utterly.
"Goodness, no," she answers. "Why would she?"
Matthew dearly hopes he is not blushing as he squirms a bit under her gaze. He knows he is giving his feelings away, but he is too desperate for answers to end this conversation.
"Well, Mary and he seemed pretty close when we were all together at Downton in the spring, and she did say she was about to be happy..."
Sybil makes a dismissive gesture.
"He did propose to her, but she never gave him an answer. And then she decided to go with me and she wrote to him to end things, not that there was much to end in the first place. I don't think she ever cared for him."
For once, Matthew blesses Sybil's frankness.
"Quite a relief, isn't it?" she asks mischievously and he retracts the sentiment.
"He didn't seem right for her," he mumbles, and this is honest enough. Whatever his own feelings for Mary are, he never liked that pompous and angry man. Mary deserves better.
Fortunately for him, Sybil agrees.
"Sacking him was one of her best decisions," she says firmly. "However rich he is. But then she wouldn't have married a man just for his title or wealth."
"She wouldn't have married a man without them either," blurts out Matthew with bitterness he thought he conquered sometime in 1915.
"Matthew," says Sybil slowly while giving him a look. "You have no idea why she didn't give an answer to you."
"And you have?"
"No," admits Sybil, and he can see that it frustrates her. "She doesn't want to tell me. But I know it wasn't the baby."
"How can you know that if she hasn't told you? You just wish it wasn't the reason."
Sybil rolls her eyes.
"Matthew, think!" she urges, clearly impatient with him. "How could it have been the baby? The timing doesn't add up! You proposed in May and we didn't learn about Mama's pregnancy until July. Was Mary contemplating the chances of Mama getting pregnant for 2 months?"
Matthew rakes his fingers through his hair.
"Of course not!" He snaps. "It was all so sudden... I didn't court her properly... or at all, really... before blurting out a proposal. She wasn't sure of her feelings for me. But then..."
He stops. He's already told Sybil more details about his relationship with Mary than he has ever told anyone, even Mother. But he doesn't want to tell her about the things which took place at her coming out ball. About four dances they shared. About sitting next to each other at supper and laughing the whole time about the silliest things. About sneaking away to the garden and kissing behind the rose bushes as they never kissed before. About Mary's whispered promise against his lips to give him an answer the very day she comes back to Downton.
He bought an engagement ring the very next morning.
Only for her to leave his letters unanswered and tell him that she needed more time when she finally returned.
"But then?" asks Sybil, her eyes boring into his.
"She seemed sure in London," Matthew says with a studiously careless shrug. "And then your mother was pregnant, and she wasn't anymore."
Sybil nods thoughtfully.
"Well, you just confirmed that I'm right," she says matter-of-factly. "You don't know why she didn't give you an answer."
Matthew gapes at her, then narrows his eyes.
"What makes you think so?"
"The fact that I know Mary better than you," she says frankly, but seems to hesitate to elaborate further. Her answer smarts badly and Matthew wants to deny the truth of it, wants to yell that he does know Mary - but then realises that it's obviously untrue. He does know her well, he likes to think he understands her and her way of thinking - but it's obviously not enough because he misread her feelings so badly in 1914 until their whole relationship imploded.
Sybil obviously made some kind of decision because she raises her eyes to him with uncharacteristic seriousness.
"I cannot tell you what exactly I know or guessed. It would be breaking my sister's confidence and I cannot do that. But I will tell you that you're wrong about her reasons and that you should ask her to tell you the true ones. You really, really should."
Matthew shakes his head.
"There is hardly a point in rehashing it all and opening up old wounds. Mary and I are friends. I am engaged now. I don't want to do anything to spoil it just to satisfy my curiosity and lack of closure. We were simply not meant to be."
He is convinced he speaks both honestly and reasonably but he can see that Sybil vehemently disagrees.
"Oh, I am not sure which of you vexes me more! You're just as bad as she is!"
She leaves him abruptly and walks away. He doesn't chase her to enquire whatever she has meant by that last outburst, even though the curiosity is killing him.
He tells himself it's better this way.
He doesn't believe it anymore. He's burning with the need to know, to get answers. He is going to ask Mary. Sybil's urging, Lavinia's hints – they all give him hope that he was wrong, that he misread the situation and Mary's feelings grievously. He thinks back to that awful garden party and cringes remembering her tears. In hindsight he realises that he never really gave her opportunity to explain, he was way too angry and hurt by then. With good reason, of course, but still. Would it all have been different if he met with her before going to enlist, in a calmer, more rational frame of mind maybe? Would they manage to clarify matters? Would it help if he wasn't such a coward and faced Mary before coming back with a new fiancée on his arm? Even if she had something she wanted to tell him, she hardly could in the circumstances, couldn't she?
Oh, Mother was right, as always. He really made a right mess of things.
He goes through his more recent memories. Their long, honest talks in Mary's kitchen. The incredible intimacy of brushing her hair. The closeness he felt when they were waiting out the shelling in that cottage.
The awful moment when she killed a man to save his life.
Her eyes when she told him that she did not regret it – could not regret it, when the reward was his life.
The way she responded to his kiss at the concert.
Could they share all of this without Mary feeling something for him too?
For the first time in years, Matthew allows himself to hope.
xxx
Mary's head is reeling as she lies in bed but can't even think of falling asleep.
He kissed her . Matthew kissed her right there, on a makeshift stage, in front of wolf whistling soldiers and gasping nurses.
And then he apologised and went to see his fiancée in London.
Well, he spent some time with her, Phryne, Sybil and Branson first, explaining his misadventures behind the enemy lines. He walked her home afterwards. But none of them mentioned the kiss, she too overwhelmed with bursting joy that he was back, that he was alive, to even attempt to comprehend what has just happened and he... She's not sure what he was thinking. But he did say that he was sorry and that he was going to London to see Lavinia and that he would like to talk more with her when he came back.
Well. That could mean anything. Starting with I am so sorry, Mary, I was just so happy I didn't end up dead that I couldn't resist this impulse for old times' sake, but I'm an engaged man and it will never happen again.
It's not frustrating at all.
That's what you get for kissing an engaged man, she reminds herself sternly. What the hell have you been thinking?!
She wasn't thinking, that was the problem. She was just so damn relieved to see him that she didn't think anything at all. She has never felt so much joy and relief as she did when she saw him coming towards her, smiling and singing and so gloriously, wonderfully alive . And when he kissed her... there simply was nothing more natural, more right , than to kiss him back with all the feelings threatening to burst from her chest.
Except of course it wasn't right at all considering Matthew is not a free man.
Oh God, she really is a hopeless idiot.
She barely sleeps that night and gets up in a terrible mood.
xxx
When she comes back from her shift two days after the concert, she finds Matthew on her doorstep.
"Matthew!" she exclaims, startled and flustered and supremely annoyed at herself for being so. Lady Mary Crawley is not supposed to be flustered like that. "I didn't expect you back so early! Was your leave cut short?"
He shakes his head, looking at her intently as they enter the house and settle in the kitchen, as usual. It's not like the house has a sitting room.
"No," he says. "I still have eight days left."
Mary frowns.
"Then why aren't you in London with Lavinia?"
"I've been in London," says Matthew heavily. "And I've seen Lavinia."
He takes a deep breath, visibly bracing himself.
"And I asked her to release me from our engagement."
Mary feels her mouth drop open.
"Why?" she gasps.
"Because, however much I love her, I love you more, and I could not in good conscience pretend otherwise anymore."
She is speechless. She literally cannot say a word even if she had the faintest idea what to say and she doesn't.
Matthew bends down his head in resignation.
"I know you do not feel the same," he says quietly. "But Mary, if you feel even the slightest regard for me – even just a bit beyond our friendship – could you let me try to win your love? I was too proud and too hurt to do it back in 1914, when you didn't accept me – but I am not proud now. I just want a chance to be with you if I can."
Mary swallows heavily.
"But I do love you," she whispers, seeing Matthew's head snap up and his blue eyes widening in shock. "I have been in love with you longer than I knew. I loved you when you first proposed, and I wanted to accept you that very night so much."
"Then why didn't you?" cries he. He can barely comprehend what she is saying; the paradigm shift he is experiencing is too stunning.
"Because I needed to tell you something about myself before I did and I was too afraid to do so," Mary swallows thickly again. "I still am terrified, but you deserve to know."
"What could it be?"
"I knew from the moment you proposed that I will have to tell you this, but at the same time I was certain that if I told you, you would despise me. And that I really couldn't bear," she takes a deep breath and looks straight into his eyes. "I took a lover. Kemal Pamuk. And he died… in my bed. I could not agree to be your wife without telling you."
She chokes back a sob and turns her head to avoid his eyes. She doesn't want to see the look in them.
Now it's Matthew's turn to be speechless. Whatever he expected her to say, it was definitely not something like that.
To Mary, his silence is dreadful.
"Say something. If it's only goodbye," she exclaims, her voice tortured.
"Did you love him?" asks Matthew thickly.
"You mustn't try to…"
"Because if it was love, then…"
"How could it be love? I didn't know him."
"But then why would you…?"
"It was lust, Matthew, or a need for excitement or something in him that I – Oh, God, what difference does it make? I'm Tess of the d'Urbervilles to your Angel Clare. I have fallen. I am impure."
"Don't joke. Don't make it... little. Not when I'm trying to understand."
"Thank you for that… But the fact remains that I am made different by it. Things have changed between us."
Her words seem to be hanging in the air between them. Things have changed between them as the result of that event, that is definitely true. Matthew is still reeling from the shock of this revelation, his thoughts so jumbled he has no hope of making sense out of them at the moment. And yet, he is very sure of one fact.
"You were wrong about one thing"
"Only one? And what is that, pray?"
"I never would, I never could , despise you. I told you that before, didn't I?"
And when he says it, his thoughts suddenly become clearer. While still awfully shocked and astonished by her confession, he realises that ultimately it doesn't matter. Oh, it matters that it was the reason for their heartbreak in 1914 and subsequent lost years and misunderstandings, but it does not change his love for her. How could it, with everything they have seen and done since? One night of weakness five years ago, when she was so young and naïve, for all her sophistication, and they were hardly even friends – how could it mean anything against the wonderful, brave woman he knows her to become since then? And that wonderful woman loves him after all – said she loved him for years , even when she hesitated to marry him – how could it matter at all?
"There is one more thing I have to tell you", Mary takes a deep breath. "People know. Oh, not many people, not the full truth of it, but some people do. There are rumours, enough of rumours that many doors were closed to me in London, many invitations missing. If you marry me there is always a risk that you can find yourself in a middle of a scandal. My story will always be out there."
Before Matthew can manage to say that he doesn't care one whit for it if it means they would face it together, Mary lowers her head, balls her hands into fists and exclaims:
"If I only could explain to you how much I truly regret it! I regretted it from the start, even before he died, I kept thinking that I should have been stronger in my refusal, that I should have screamed like I threatened, that there must have been a way to avoid it all somehow, but I was too stupid. I really was an idiot."
Matthew freezes, an awful suspicion erupting in his mind.
"Mary... Did he force you?" he asks, the words burning his throat on the way out.
Mary shakes her head in shame.
"No, he never did."
"Then why did you have to threaten him with screaming?" he asks, his voice so choked it is barely audible.
She is silent for a moment.
"I was in my room, reading," she finally starts quietly, nearly in a whisper. "Suddenly the door opened and there he was. I have no idea how he found my room. Yes, I threatened him I will scream, I will ring the bell for a servant, but he told me there is no point, a man would be found in my room, I would be ruined anyway. I did not want to, but I thought he was right, so I let him."
Matthew finds it difficult to breathe.
"How can you say it was lust? He raped you!"
"He didn't! I let him, he was beautiful, and until he collapsed on me dead, I even enjoyed it a bit. There you have it, the whole ugly truth. Are you sure this is the woman you want to marry?"
There is no force on Earth which would stop him from embracing her in the moment and holding her tightly against his chest.
"More than anything in my life."
He feels Mary's sigh more than he hears it as she relaxes in his embrace and returns it. They stay like this for a long while.
"It's a great pity this man is dead, because as cliché as it sounds, at the moment I want nothing as much as to kill him myself."
It is not a hyperbole. This bastard, this utter bastard ! He wishes his body was not sent back to Turkey, that he was buried in England, so he could dig him up and desecrate the corpse. It is not jealousy – he was jealous seeing Mary flirting with him, so obviously falling for his charms, oh yes, he was jealous then – but when he thinks now how this bastard hurt her, how awful advantage he took of her, the only thing he can feel is sheer rage.
But his rage isn't what Mary needs from him right now. He can allow himself to feel it fully later, when he is alone, he can rave and curse about the huge injustice which was done to her – but now he has to focus on her and with great effort he does.
"But enough about him," he says, in deliberately lighter tone. "Since we cleared up the matter of your hesitation before the war, and it seems that we both love each other after all," he feels a thrill saying those words, allowing himself to believe that she does love him back, that she always loved him back, even when she didn't agree to marry him. "Will you?"
She looks at him with wide, shining eyes.
"You must say it properly. I won't answer unless you kneel down and everything."
He gives her a look bursting with fond exasperation and kneels down on one knee, taking her hands in his.
"Lady Mary Crawley, will you do me the honour of becoming my wife?"
"Yes!" she gasps, dizzy with happiness. "A thousand times yes!"
He gets up to his feet with a laugh and spins her around the kitchen, barely avoiding falling against the table in the tight space.
They stop, both breathless and giddy, looking at each other in disbelief. The sudden change from despair into that amazing happiness is too shocking for either of them to fully comprehend it.
"How are we going to do it though?" asks Mary finally, ever practical. "Do you want to marry soon or after the war is finished?"
Matthew frowns.
"Is it ever going to finish?" he asks tiredly, rubbing his face. "Sorry, of course it will be finished eventually. Probably sooner rather than later too, with Americans coming to our help finally. It just seems impossible to believe after four years of this."
Mary nods in agreement.
"We could marry here," she says. "I'm not sure how one gets a weeding at the registry office arranged, but I know it's been done by some soldiers and nurses, so it must be possible. We both speak French, that should make it easier."
Matthew stares at her.
"You would be willing to elope with me?"
Mary gives him a determined look.
"I would marry you right now, as we stand here, if I could," she states firmly. "For years I believed it impossible. I do not care how we do it as long as you will finally belong to me."
Matthew looks at himself in his creased uniform and at her, in a shapeless, muddy uniform of her own, and the only thing he can do in response is to kiss her passionately. Which she returns with an equal passion of her own.
When they reluctantly part, he feels a slow return of reason.
"We cannot do it like that," he says slowly, only to see Mary frowning in response. He caresses her face to ease the frown, thrilled that he can , that he is allowed to now. "You deserve to have a wedding at Downton, with everyone we love and hundreds of guests we don't care about in attendance. I don't want the gossip to follow you that we had to marry; I want our wedding to be a celebration and triumph for you, with our pictures on front pages of the newspapers."
"It sounds lovely," says Mary stubbornly. "But I don't care about any of that anymore."
"You don't care about it now, but you will. And our family would be awfully disappointed."
Mary exhales angrily.
"I don't care about it either," she persists, but then slumps a bit in defeat. "But I guess you're right. You're the heir to the earldom, we should show some decorum in getting you married to your future countess."
He laughs at her mockingly haughty tone.
"Quite," he says, his blue eyes sparkling. "So, since we are regretfully too reasonable to elope, how are we doing it? Should I write to your father or should I wait until I have a chance to speak to him in person on my next leave?"
Mary purses her lips.
"Since you are still on your current leave, you would have to wait months for the next one. Better write to him then, I am sure he will be too elated by your request to care about the form. But," she hesitates for a moment then plunges on, "wouldn't it be insensitive of us to make our engagement public so soon after you broke your previous one? What will Lavinia think when she sees the notice?"
Matthew cringes. He has been trying very hard not to think about Lavinia's reaction, even though she obviously will be much less surprised by this development than he is.
"We should wait," he agrees reluctantly. "I will write your father tonight, and my mother, but I will ask them both to keep the news private for some time. We won't be keeping it secret," he is very firm on this point. "We will tell Sybil, of course, and other people here, but we won't make a formal announcement yet."
Mary nods.
"We can do it on your next leave," she suggests. "I could arrange to go home with you. We could make an announcement, maybe even have an engagement party. And we could plan the wedding with our family in person."
They look at each other, both exhilarated and stunned and just so incredibly, unbelievably happy.
xxx
In the end, since Matthew is on leave anyway, he decides to inform his mother in person. He is spending the remainder of his leave with Mary, of course, settling into an empty bedroom in her house, on a cot they managed to borrow from the hospital. They tell their news to Sybil and Branson first of course. Sybil shrieks so loud that Matthew thinks his ears are still ringing the next day and embraces them both. Branson looks more amused than anything else, but his congratulations sound sincere. They have an impromptu celebration in the kitchen and, if not for the fact that everybody but Matthew is on duty the next day, they would have ended up very drunk. The shabby house is bursting with joy that night. Mary even starts calling Branson "Tom" after her second glass of wine.
The look Isobel gives her son when he shows up in her office is far from approving.
"Tell me you were just released from the dressing station," she says threateningly, clearly knowing the truth of it already. Matthew tries to remind himself that he is not a schoolboy anymore and doesn't have to explain himself to his mother.
"You know I wasn't," he says chidingly. "I had important matters to see to."
She sighs with visible exasperation but gets up and reaches for her hat and purse.
"Let's go for tea," she says. "I expect from your presence here that you have much to tell me."
They go to the same little café they visited before his unlucky patrol.
"I left the dressing station soon after you did," admits Matthew, raising his hand to stop his mother from chastising him thoroughly. "I'm fine, Mother! The wound is closing very nicely and there is no sign of infection or any other cause for alarm. And I needed to do some things while I had a chance."
"So you keep saying," she says with evident displeasure. "What were they?"
"I had to see Mary and let her know I am alright," he starts quietly. "Yes, I know you promised to do it, but I really had to. And then..."
He takes a deep breath before he can continue.
"And then I went to London and broke things off with Lavinia. Which I should have done long ago. Oh, Mother, you were right, about nearly all of it. I have not been behaving fairly or honestly to either of them. I had some time to think about it all in the last few days and I am thoroughly ashamed of myself."
She looks at him intently, much less shocked than he expected her to be. More sad than surprised, really.
"I am sorry to hear that this is the conclusion of your thinking," she states. "I truly came to think that you and Lavinia are exceptionally well suited. But I am glad you are honest with yourself and the women in your life. Should I understand that now you intend to pursue Mary again?"
Matthew exhales and cannot help but smile brightly.
"I already did. We're engaged, Mother."
Isobel's eyebrows rise briefly in surprise this time, and then her mouth twitches in amusement.
"My, you have acted fast when you finally decided what you want! Switching from one engagement to another in a matter of two days!"
Matthew blushes in embarrassment.
"It does sound bad when you put it like that," he mutters. "But yes, it is exactly what happened. I have long known that I haven't gotten over Mary as I thought I did when I proposed to Lavinia. It took me shamefully long time to realise that I was being unfair to her intending to marry her when my heart was not fully hers, but when I finally accepted it, I could not avoid acting on it immediately. And when I learnt that Mary does love me after all... that she has loved me for a very long time and that the reasons she hesitated to give me the answer were different from what we all assumed at the time... well, there was no reason not to propose immediately. Not feeling what I feel for her, Mother."
Isobel sighs.
"You know what I think about her," she says matter-of-factly. "But I must admit that she surprised me greatly coming to tell me about you being missing in person. She showed such consideration for me, not wanting me to learn of it alone among strangers, from a telegram... And I could see how genuinely frantic she was about you. Whatever I think of her still, I do believe she cares for you."
"She does, Mother," says Matthew firmly. "She saved my life, you know. That day when we were caught by the fighting and had to hide in a cottage. There was a skirmish with some Germans later and I would have been dead if it wasn't for her. She is truly such a brave, incredible woman. You don't know her, not as she truly is, so you don't give her enough credit."
Isobel purses her lips, but her eyes show how deeply touched she is by what she has just learnt.
"If she did that," she says quietly, "then I am eternally indebted to her. But tell me, what do you mean by saying that we were mistaken by her reasons to refuse you before the war?"
Matthew takes a moment to consider his words carefully. He knows that Mary would be aghast if he relayed her whole story to his mother, but he yearns to change her opinion of his beloved fiancée. He cannot think of Mother disapproving of Mary without pain.
"She loved me before I even proposed to her," he starts. "But something happened long before that, before we were even friends, which made her hesitate in giving me an answer until she found the courage to confess it all to me. Unfortunately, before she did, Cousin Cora got pregnant and it confused the issue to no end. She was not unaffected by the matter of inheritance and of course I made the wrong assumption that it was all that was pulling her away from me when nothing could be further from the truth. I was hurt and angry and didn't trust her, so I didn't really give her a chance to explain. I was a fool, Mother, and we all suffered for it, including Lavinia, whom I should have never brought into the middle of it all. Not without closing the matters with Mary first. We could have avoided so much heartbreak if I did. If I was just a little bit braver about it all."
Isobel obviously does not disagree about his conclusions, but he can see she is not wholly convinced yet.
"What was the matter she needed to confess to you?" she asks and Matthew winces.
"I cannot tell you, Mother," he says firmly. "It's Mary's story and quite a painful one. You must trust me that I am assured I know everything I should and that I find her blameless. I know you think I am biased, if not blind, when it comes to her, but I'm really not. Mary is not an easy person to get to know truly, but believe me, when you do, she's so much more than she appears to be."
Isobel grasps his hand.
"My darling boy," she says, her voice thick with emotion. "What I know is that you love her dearly. I see that you are sure of your feelings and actions. As long as she makes you happy, it does not matter what I think of her. I just hope that she will turn worthy of you in the end."
Matthew's eyes are shining with assurance as he answers her.
"She will, Mother," he says confidently. "And I can only pray that I will turn worthy of her."