Chapter Text
It had been such a beautiful day - the sky blue and clear for once, allowing the early summer sun to reflect against the calm waters of the lake, and warm both the figures resting abord the small row boat.
There were no demands of the day, no urgent tasks to pull them from exactly where they wished to be - quietly, peacefully, together, accompanied by Tintern Abbey and the sounds of nature.
If Mary could have picked one moment to stay inside, one moment in her life to linger just a fraction longer - it would have been that one.
Sat in the boat, opposite Mr Hayward, a slow smile spreading over his face and lighting it up from the inside, some echo of something in the air, a suggestion of more on the tip of his tongue.
“Over time my feelings for Miss Baxter had changed.” He had said, and she’d hung herself on every word, unable to draw her gaze away. “Recently I found that they had changed quite significantly and I hope…,” the pause there was longer, eyes catching, bearing her soul to him, his soul to her, two beings joined in a single moment. “I hope that you’d feel the same way.”
It was not that Mary did not care for Mr Ryder - in fact, he was an extremely dear friend to her, and she cared for him deeply, despite of, or perhaps partly because of, everything that had happened before his request for her to join him as he upended his life in pursuit of Italy and happiness.
But it went without saying that Mr Ryder certainly knew how to pick his moments.
Because that was the one he chose to interrupt - with his swimming and his shouts and the unmistakable air of chaos that seemed to follow him through life.
It was an accident when he pulled Mr Hayward into the water too. Probably. Almost definitely.
The shock disappeared from Mary’s face as soon as he reappeared, as soon as she knew he was okay, replaced by a smile that probably wasn’t entirely appropriate but did completely portray her true feelings of amusement at the turn of events.
What happened next was truly an accident. Wholly and undoubtedly.
It had been Mr Haywards idea to use the oar, and after a mite more instruction following a first attempt that left both men firmly still in the lake, and a wooden oar sinking to the depths - she held on more tightly the second time.
The idea was undeniable - it should have worked - and perhaps it would have done if there had been one of them in the water and two of them in the boat, perhaps if they had tried this before Mr Hayward joined Mr Ryder (however unwillingly) in the water, or perhaps if they had not both tried to climb aboard simultaneously. Life contains a lot of perhaps. Mary’s more than most.
“Let go” the words came out sterner than perhaps Mr Hayward had meant them, “the last thing we want is to pull Miss Bennet in.”
Mr Ryder didn’t let go.
Mr Hayward didn’t let go.
And Mary - determined to be more help with the second oar than she was with the first - didn’t let go either.
It’s not like Mary planned on following the oar into the water, it’s just that once the motion was in motion as it were, it was incredibly difficult to stop oneself.
There was a garbled noise, somewhere between a sorry and a scream, and the illusion of solid ground from the row boat disappeared from beneath her.
Mary loved water. The one upside of being the last one of her sisters in the bath more often than she was not, meant there was no one waiting after her, no one to hurry her along, no one to stop her from letting the water soak her sorrows away. She loved being around the water too - the way it glinted and beckoned in the light, entreating her to find out more.
Unfortunately, the fact of the matter remained that Mary could not swim.
It was not the done thing, was not ladylike, and besides where would she have learnt?
No - Mary adored the water, in small doses and at a delicate distance.
This was neither.
“It’s quite bracing isn’t it.” Mr Ryder had said, once he had managed to pull Mr Hayward into the lake and shenanigans with him.
The sentiment didn’t quite suffice.
The frigid water closed over her head at once, not even giving her a second to steal an essential breath, swallowing sound and sense alike, and turning the bright, sunlit world above into a wavering, indistinct blur, impossibly far away, despite her irrationally rational mind telling herself it was a mere arms length away.
For a single suspended moment she did not understand what had happened.
Then instinct seized her, flailing arms striking out blindly, hands grasping at nothing, her skirts billowing and dragging about her legs like some living thing intent on pulling her down.
Her feet kicked wildly, searching for ground that she would not find, ground that was not there.
Panic surged, sharp and absolute.
The reflex to breathe came before thought could prevent it.
Her mouth opened, and instead of air there came water; cold, invasive, merciless. It rushed past her lips, down her throat, filling her chest with a burning agony that was at once suffocating and impossible to resist. She choked, though no sound escaped her, the pain immediate and dreadful.
Her movements grew more frantic, yet no more effective. The water yielded to every motion, offering no resistance she could use, no support she could trust.
She could barely tell which way was up save for the bubbles that escaped her, reaching for that dim, trembling light, wavering just beyond her reach.
The shadow of the boat drifted across it, darkening what little brightness remained, a silent obstruction between her and the air.
Her chest tightened unbearably.
Each instinct urged her to draw breath again, though she knew (from her reading, from the pamphlets she read of the servants, from some distantly remembered overheard conversation) that it would only worsen the pain.
It had been minutes, not even that, possibly only seconds yet still her limbs began to tire, in a manner she had never felt before; her violent thrashing weakening into disordered, desperate movements.
Her eyes stung, refusing to close despite the murk of the lake, refusing to close off her only avenue to find escape, as her arm knocked her glasses clean from her face.
The brightness above dulled further, the edges of her vision softening as though veiled. It did nothing to the terrible urgency of her panic, did not lessen it by any amount - and yet it seemed to recede, dulled by the growing weight pressing upon her senses.
The water was everywhere, cold against her skin, crushing against her chest, filling what should never have been filled.
Mary sank.
Mary sank further still from the light, a pale, unreachable shimmer.
Her arms slowed.
Her legs no longer answered her with any certainty.
The struggle, so fierce a moment before, ebbed into something weaker, something futile.
Her eyes closed.
And her last conscious thought, faint and distant as the sun above her, was that it was a most dreadful shame to die on such a very lovely day.