I was not a monster. I was a man broken by love.
I had spent years dwelling on that moment with Mary, when I had given into the savage nature that all men had deep in their hearts and robbed her of her innocence. It had been a final desperate attempt to bring her back to me and it had failed. I remembered her sobbing pleas more than the act itself. It filled me with shame. I had discovered the only way to separate the shame from the pleasure was to remember that afternoon through a dose of morphine.
In my dreams she was my Mary again, as willing for my embrace as she had once been for my kisses. It was a dream that I knew I had lost.
This was a dream of lust not love, I knew that, but the love I felt for Mary was real.
When I first met her, she was surprisingly serious for a girl of sixteen, perhaps old before her time through caring for her father. There was a kindness and grace that I did not see in the rest of her family; Charles Burdett was avaricious, Lydia Burdett vain and her Cousin Harriet was over-indulged and under-educated. I had never met a girl like Mary before, who both knew Latin and how to make lace. My family, always keen to keep some distance between our more gauche neighbours, universally approved of her.
Not that my family was perfect. My father's gambling was the ruin of us all. From cards to the stock market, we lost everything due to his foolish compulsion. I had not yet turned thirteen when my father told me about the gentleman's agreement to settle his debt. When I came of age I would marry Harriet Burdett and the deeds to our ancestral home would all pass to me. It seemed like nothing at the time, I was too young to think about marriage and Miss Burdett was younger still. I put it out my mind and lived the life of any young gentleman; Eton then Oxford, gained a different kind of education with a married woman and spent a lively London season with debutantes. It was when I returned home from Oxford, I met the Burdett's young ward; Mary Taylor.
It had started with an idle flirtation with a pretty girl in the summertime, but my infatuation quickly took over. Every time I read a book, I took her a copy of the same so we could discuss them at length. I took my sister, Mary and Harriet out for picnics on the lake, just so I could watch Mary dip her ungloved hand in the water. I would dance two dances with Harriet, so Mary would allow me the first and last dance of every ball. I suggested she taught my younger sisters how to make lace, so she would come to our house every week and I had the excuse to escort her home. I wrote her love poems in Latin, so Harriet's prying eyes could not understand them. It was not enough.
We wrote frantic love letters to one another, concealed from the world in the boathouse. I let her tease me, torment me, make a lapdog out of me. I found moments in private to snatch a kiss, to tell her my love for her, to promise her the world. I watched her and I loved her and I saw no-one else. I saved money for a diamond ring. All thoughts of my father's agreement with the Burdetts had left my mind.
Then the first blow came; my father noticed my partiality to Mary and told me in no uncertain terms that there was only one woman I could marry: Harriet. There had been a fierce row, with things said that were best left unsaid. When my mother tried to intervene, my father quickly silenced her. This was a matter for men. I said nothing to Mary but planned an escape for both of us; I could wait until she was twenty-one or we could make a dash to Gretna Green. She would be my freedom, she would be my salvation.
Then it all cracked.
A note came from Mary to say she couldn't marry me and she returned the locket I'd given her for her birthday. It was like the world had stopped. I ran from the boathouse towards the Burdett's house, finding Mary and Harriet playing croquet on the lawn.
"Mary, I need to speak to you alone," I said urgently.
"Anything you want to say to Mary, you can say in front of me," Harriet said.
Mary said nothing, but did not meet my look. It was then I noticed her eyes were red from crying. The Burdetts must have been haranguing her all day, there was no other explanation.
"Mary!" I said, ignoring her cousin. "For pity's sake, I deserve some explanation for this note."
"Five minutes, Harriet, please," Mary said, handing her mallet to her cousin. "We'll just stand over by the gazebo."
Heavy-hearted I followed Mary, so we were not out of site but we were out of earshot. I stood a respectful distance away and held out the note.
"This is how you break my heart? Two lines hurriedly scribbled on a piece of paper."
"I didn't know what to write," she said, wrapping her arms around herself.
"What on Earth induced you to write it?"
"I can't marry you," she whispered. "I thought we could find away to be together, but it is impossible."
"Nothing is impossible," I said. "We can elope. Say the word and we can be in Gretna Green tomorrow."
"You love your mother and sisters too much to abandon them."
"I would sacrifice anything for you," I said.
"Then sacrifice our love," she said. "Lock it away and throw away the key. Marry Harriet-"
"Marry Harriet? Are you mad?"
"It's the only way your family can keep their home."
"So my right to a happy marriage was lost in a game of cards?" I cried out. "I'm to be auctioned off to a woman of no grace or breeding, like a prize bull?"
"Shhhh, Harriet will hear you."
"And?"
"You'll hurt her feelings."
"What about my feelings?" I said. "What about yours? Can you tell me that you don't love me?"
Her beautiful jade coloured eyes opened wide and she stepped forward to take my hand. I fought every impulse to pull her close and kiss her.
"I love you, Daniel, I love you more than you can know," she took a deep breath. "Which is why I want you to marry Harriet, you'll find more happiness with her."
"I can't love anyone but you," I said.
"That might be true, but I cannot be the cause of your family's ruin," she said, squeezing my hand tighter. "Do it for me."
Mary raised her gloved hand to my face and kissed me gently on the cheek. A farewell kiss that broke my heart. I stood in the gazebo and watched her walk away, past Harriet, past the croquet lawn, her shoulders shaking with sobs. That was the end of my happiness.
* * * * *
The announcement in The Times went out to announce my engagement to Harriet, but I could still not believe it was true. I sank into sulleness whenever the wedding was mentioned and dashed off to Town rather that stay to endure well-meaning congratulations.
When I was summoned home to partake in the engagement ball the Burdett's had thrown, I disgraced myself. A young buck called Edmund Chesterfield had been dominating Mary's attention all night and my jealousy burned quick. I had asked if I could cut in a dance with her and rather than do the gentlemanly thing and let me dance with Mary, he refused. So I punched him right on the nose. The next day, I went to apologise to Harriet to the distress, half in the hope she would call the whole thing off. She didn't. Instead, she called Mary to witness the apology. Mary sat still as a saint, while I made my apology to both of them. Harriet accepted it with bad grace; then as to remind me that I could no longer kiss her cousin, she put her arms around Mary's neck and kissed her on the cheek and told her she forgave her too. I hated Harriet for that.
The only thing that gave me hope, was that I knew Mary loved me.Right up until my unforgivable loss of self-control in the boathouse, Mary had still loved me. Then like a fool, I did the only thing that could destroy her love for me. A thing so hideous that I could barely admit to myself. If I ruined her, I told myself, it would be my duty to keep her. I'd tried to soothe her, to explain how I had hurt her to keep us together but she did not listen. Shaken by the look of disgust she gave me, I left her broken and deflowered on the dusty floor. In trying to possess her, I lost her completely.
It was only on my wedding night, after forcing myself to consumate my marriage to Harriet that I realised the enormity of what I had done. I hated myself almost as much as I hated my new wife.
After seeing Mary with her husband, I thought I had lost her forever. The first letter had certainly made me think that.
"Daniel,
I forgive you. I forgive you for Harriet's sake and Harriet's sake alone. Treat her with the love and respect that she deserves.
Yours,
Mary Wilkes"
Two days later another letter came. A more tender letter, a letter that gave me hope of a second-chance. It was so sweet and unexpected that it left me reeling. No answer needed, just my presence. Mary needed to see me alone.
With a lightness of heart I had not felt for years, I boarded the train to Loseley and walked to Loseley Court at the hour I was instructed. The house stood dark and quiet, except for one light in the window, Mary's room. I entered through the French Doors, that were closed but not unlocked. Upstairs I heard the faint sound of the gramophone, I followed the music. My heart beat faster with anticipation. This time I would be tender, this time time I would be patient. The only agony Mary would feel was the agony of bliss.
I pushed the door open expecting to see Mary waiting for me. There was no-one. The clock on the mantlepiece struck nine, the exact time she was expecting me. The gramophone stopped and I walked over to it, ready to wind it again.
As I glanced in the fireplace mirror, I saw an unexpected face behind me.
I spun around.
"What are you doing here?" I said.
It was only then I noticed the gun.
As I lay bleeding on the floor, I thought of the only thing that mattered to me.
Mary.