Trigger Warnings: Depiction of Sexual Assault Aftermath, Discussions of Consent and Sexual Assault, and General Themes of Rape/Non-Con.
This chapter does not contain direct depictions of sexual assault. All events occur off screen and are not graphic or gratuitous. However, do what is best for your own mental health. Take care of yourselves!
Edith rushed from her room, pausing only to grab her dressing gown before flinging open her door. There was no desperate Mary, no flustered Anna, disappointed Cora, or confused Pamuk. Instead, she was met with an empty corridor and a glimpse of candlelight and a tall, dark haired footman disappearing around the corner. Thomas had warned her. But how long had he waited?
Edith flew down the hallway, barely managing to stay quiet enough to not wake Sybil, before she stopped in front of Mary's door. It was closed, but a light shone under it and she could hear faint noises, voices. One was Mary's. Another clearly a man's. With one last shuddering breath, Edith flung the door open.
A gasp, a curse, a flailing of sheets and limbs before everything was quiet and still. There, on the bed, Mary and Pamuk lay in a lovers embrace. His hands were wrapped tight in her hair, bruises were already showing on her throat, and her dark eyes were filled with shock and fear. But also shame.
Mary pulled herself away harshly, jerking the covers around herself and pulling back against the headboard away from Pamuk. Pamuk himself struggled to untangle his hands from her curls and pulled at the covers to hide his lower form. Clearly, neither had expected her interruption.
"Mary," Edith forced out, though her mouth felt dry and tongue wooden. She didn't know what to say.
"Edith," Mary hissed, shocked and lost. "Why did you come in here?!"
"I told you to call me," she said stupidly, scrambling for something to say. "I heard you, through the walls. I was reading and I heard."
"I- This isn't-" Mary breathed. "This isn't what it looks like."
"Isn't it?" Pamuk said, stretching out for Mary's hand. "I don't know how it could be anything other than two lovers caught in the act."
"Keep your hands off her!" Edith snapped. Mary pulled back from his touch, cowering under the sheets like a little girl. "This could be many things, Pamuk. Love. Lust. Rape."
"No!" Pamuk raged.
"He didn't force me, Edie," Mary said softly. "I let him."
"Did you?" Edith asked. "Did you invite him here? Did you tell him yes happily when he propositioned you? Did he promise love, marriage? Did he tell you not to scream, not to get help, not to call me?" Mary didn't answer. She just ducked lower and let her dark curls cover her watering eyes.
"Well," Pamuk dralled, "What do you plan to do now, Lady Edith? Wake the whole house and tell them what you found? Show my sins and your sister's shame? Get me thrown out by telling your mother? Your father?"
"No!" Mary cried.
"No," Edith bit out. "I won't. Not for Mary. Not now. But you will leave. You will leave this room tonight and you will leave this house by dawn. I don't care what excuses you use, what disrespect you show to get away. You will not be in the same room, the same house, as my family again."
"And if I don't? If I stay?" Pamuk asked.
"You won't." Edith said. You will be dead.
"No. I won't," Pamuk hummed, rising from the bed with nothing but the blanket around him. "You are more lioness than the mouse I thought you'd be. Shame. I would have been more interested if I'd known."
Edith remained stonily silent at his words, hands clenched and eyes burning. She looked away as he gathered his littered nightclothes and dressed haphazardly. When Edith looked back he stood as deviously handsome as ever, that smirk still on his face. He had no trouble meeting Edith's eyes as he walked past her to the door, pausing only for a moment to look back at Mary still huddled on the bed. "Thank you, Mary. For your charms and your beauty. You have given me a gift I won't soon forget."
"Get out!" Edith spat, and at last the repulsive man slithered out into the night leaving the two sisters alone in the dim room.
"You were right." Mary's voice was hollow and weak yet with the same dry strength she always put on when at her lowest. "I am a tart on the street corner after all. Seduced and spoiled."
"Mary, no," Edith cried, coming to sit on the foot of the bed. She didn't dare reach out to comfort her, to crack the shell already hardening around her sister. "It wasn't your fault. He came to you. He took advantage of you."
"I let him," Mary said firmly. "I chose it. I would never let a man take-"
"Take, Mary! Take. These things don't happen because someone is too weak, but because when someone chooses to hurt you or take from you they don't give you a chance to be strong, to be brave or virtuous or whatever else you think you would be in the moment. They take, by force, and there isn't a damn thing you can do about it!"
"I let him," Mary protested weakly, quieter and younger than before.
"He didn't give you much choice." The two sat in silence for a moment before Edith reached down to grab Mary's discarded robe. Eyes averted, she offered it to Mary who slipped it on.
"Will you tell?"
"Tell who?"
"Mama. Papa. The Papers. Take your pick."
"I would never do that to you, Mary."
"What? Make me a laughing stock, a social pariah, ruined and notorious. Because that's what I am. That's what I'll be if anyone finds out," Mary said hysterically.
"No one," Edith said firmly. "No one will find out. Not from you, not from me, and not from Pamuk."
"But what if he tells someone?!"
"He won't," Edith comforted.
"How are you so sure?" Mary demanded. Because he is going to die, Edith thought.
"What else can we do? It's done. If he tells, we'll deny it."
"And that always works for gossip."
"All we can do is not tell a soul now," Edith replied. "And... tell mother and father if it comes to that."
"No!"
"Mary-"
"I couldn't bare it! I couldn't bare the way they'd look at me!"
"If it protects you. If it protects the family-"
"No! Say you won't tell! Promise me."
"If- if he is gone by morning," Edith said, "I won't tell."
"That's something," Mary said, clutching her robe around her. Her hand was feeling up her throat, pushing on the bruises left by Pamuk as they began to darken. The two sat side by side on the rumpled bed. Edith had never felt so lost. Mary had never looked so fragile.
"Do you- Do you want to come to my room?"
"What?"
"If you don't want to stay here, you can come sleep in my room," Edith suggested softly. "We can tell Sybil we made up in the night."
Mary scoffed. "As if anyone would believe that."
"She would. She's the only one who would."
"Yes, she would." Mary was quiet for a minute before she stood. "Let me get some things first."
Mary avoided the bed as she grabbed a couple of items from around the room. She shakily rebraided her hair and adjusted her nightgown. Edith watched silently all the while until Mary was at last ready to leave, and together they made the short journey to Edith's room.
Mary curled up on top of the quilt, not bothering to slip under the sheets. Edith followed suit and together they laid awake, staring up at the peach canopy as Edith had done alone an hour earlier. They stayed like that for hours until the first light trickled through the curtains.
Edith offered to let Mary dress and have morning tea with her, but she refused. Resolute to pretend nothing was wrong, even as her eyes were ringed with black and her face was deathly pale, Mary returned to her room to ring the bell. Edith pleaded that she at least tell Anna she was sick, to spare her some of the shock of the news to come.
Edith herself rang her bell earlier than usual. And after unseeingly reading the paper, sipping tea that had no flavor, and dressing in one of her most somber gowns, Edith made her way to the ground floor. She was prepared, or so she thought, completely prepared to face the news. But as she stepped into the dining room and made herself a near empty plate, she wasn't given the news she was ready for.
Edith didn't understand at first when Napier told her. He was quite apologetic. He didn't know what had come over his friend, but, as he had taken Pamuk on as his duty, he felt the need to apologize. It had been sudden, an emergency of some sort, but he had made his excuses and left. Pamuk had up and left Downton in the middle of the night. Kemal Pamuk had left Downton Abbey alive.