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Matthew has learned to be careful of his wife’s temper.
It’s not nearly as cutting as when they first met. Distant cousins thrown together by circumstance, she’d cut him quite neatly with some of her jabs. Also, he suspects his skin has grown quite a bit thicker after knowing her for so long. Her first instinct is to respond to insult or injury with the harshest of comebacks. He knows she is just defending herself, but it doesn’t diminish the sting when she finds her mark.
When you know a person so completely, as a husband and wife might do, it’s easy to discern the marks that hurt most. She goes right for the chinks in his armour: his upbringing, his pride, his health.
It helps that she freely admits her fault. Later, in the quiet of their bedroom, where neither of them are asleep, she whispers, “I’m sorry, Matthew. You know how I tend to lash out.”
He rolls to her and kisses her once on her shoulder. He rests his head there for a moment, taking in a deep breath and letting it out again, and then falls back onto his pillow.
It helps that she has never, not even once, used the ghost of Lavinia Swire as ammunition.
* * * * * * * * * * *
If only he would fight back, thinks Mary, who is berating herself for hurting him yet again. Shouldn’t she know better by now?
She is lying in their bed, the blankets down by her feet where she has thrown them off in the summer heat. He still hasn’t come to bed, and so she has more than enough time to go over the scene in her head yet again. It has only ever been so bad that he didn’t come at all on one or two occasions, and she thinks those were much worse than the row they had tonight, but it still makes her nervous. The waiting; wondering what she’ll say to him when he comes to their room; how she’ll apologise.
Apologise! The thought very nearly makes her laugh! Cold, harsh Lady Mary Crawley, worrying whether or not she should apologise to her husband for a stupid row over who knows what? How the mighty have fallen. She can’t help it, though. She hates seeing him hurt, hates hurting him. Hadn’t he been through enough these last few years? Hadn’t they all?
She thinks back to earlier in the evening and she knows exactly where she went wrong. She even rewrites the entire conversation so they sidestep the argument and avoid it entirely. If Matthew comes to bed now, she’s afraid she might give in and ‘fess up, take all the blame and try to make the whole thing disappear.
They’d been so disgustingly nice to each other in the time after he’d been injured, and after Lavinia, that it was almost a relief to fight with him again. He could be so bullheaded! Their arguing was usually good-natured and witty, and they often disagreed just because they could. Tonight had been different, though. She’d had a horrible day and then during dinner he’d said exactly the wrong thing. The words just fell out of her mouth. She watched his eyes go wide and his shoulders stiffen almost before she realised what had happened. He barely said a word to anyone after that. It had been her fault, of course, but still! He can be so sensitive. Matthew Crawley, future Earl of Downton, whose feelings get hurt when someone breathes in the wrong direction.
He was still angry after dinner, and she had tried to provoke him. They ended up rowing over something completely pointless. She thought the fighting would make her feel better. It didn’t. She kept waiting for him to bring up the things she’d said but he never did.
So she went up to bed and he stayed downstairs. He didn’t say goodnight and she didn’t wait for him to do so. Now, here she is, in their room, in their bed, too hot to sleep, mad at her husband, mad at herself, and generally miserable.
Cold and haughty Mary Crawley. She almost wishes she could be her again.
He’ll come up soon, she tells herself. She won’t allow the possibility that he won’t. She’ll lie here and wait for him. She won’t go down to find him. And wouldn’t the servants just love that? Sighing, she reaches her arm up and covers her eyes. She tries to block out everything except what she wishes she’d said at dinner instead of what she’d actually said, and maybe she drifts off for a moment, because the next thing she’s aware of is the quiet creak of the door to the dressing room as Matthew steps into their room.
She sees his face in the dim light of the lamp he carries. He looks drawn and tired. She hopes it’s dark enough that he won’t know she’s awake, that she can put off apologising just a bit longer.
Sure enough, he very quietly sets the lamp down on the table and crawls into bed as gingerly as possible. She feels the bed shift as he turns toward her, and she turns onto her side to face him. She looks at her husband, her love, but she can’t make the words come. They stare at each other for what feels like ages, and then she rolls on to her back and stares back up at the ceiling. A few moments later, she hears him do the same.
She almost swears she can hear his eyelids when he blinks. Her senses feel sharper, her heart is beating faster. Next to her, Matthew’s breaths are uneven and tense, and she is surprised to realise she’s breathing faster too. Heat spreads through her body. No one had warned her about this aspect of marriage - how desire can cut through almost every other emotion in the dead of night. She wants to reach out to him, to love him, to explain that this is her fault, that she’s always been this way, and that she hates hurting him but it just happens before she can stop it.
She exhales, closes her eyes. “I’m sorry, Matthew,” she whispers. “You know how I tend to lash out.”
She doesn’t know how she wants him to reply. She’s half-afraid she’ll end up blubbering, telling Matthew how much she loves him and how he should never, ever listen to the things she says, because she always manages to put her foot in it. Would they talk for hours and then make love as the sun rises? How trite...and (if she’s honest) the tiniest bit appealing. Still, she doubts she could even say all that aloud. Not that it matters in the end. What actually happens is nothing. No response from his side of the bed.
Is that better? she wonders. Is it enough? Her apology? Her life? Their life, together?
Nothing to do for it now but wait.
She hates waiting.
After a few moments, he simply turns towards her and brushes a kiss on her shoulder. She endures the silence, waits for him to speak. Fight back! she almost but doesn’t say. Say something! Anything! Or, at the very least, make love to me. But he just leans back and closes his eyes.
In the darkness, she hears his breathing slow. She waits for him to fall asleep, which he does, and then she curls herself next to him and rests her hand on his chest. His skin is warm, his heart is strong.
She falls asleep at his side.