DISCLAIMER: I don't own any of these wonderful characters, I just have a story that needs to be told.
Charles Blake slipped from the drawing room with his empty glass in hand. He turned right just before the wooden boards changed to thick, Persian carpet. He paused, was he sure this spot was right? This particular stretch of wall?
Past his thinking, past his hands wandering flat over the large slabs of stone like a mime artist, his ears were ringing faintly.
That last song, so very well known, so very well heard. But. To hear it at such close quarters, it's high crescendo never failing to raise the hairs on his skin. What a treat, even if at the expense of his ear drums.
Just as he was beginning to feel rather foolish, scrabbling at this wall, there was a click close by his head.
"Ha." He breathed.
Fingers curling into the fairly ordinary looking wall opposite him, he stepped back to enjoy the spectacle.
A thin crack first appeared in the brickwork above his head. Then, it was as if someone was scribbling at this line with black ink, making it larger and larger, and then the door, the hidden door, swung wide and away from his nudging hands.
There it was. The hidden passageway to downstairs.
Humming to himself, Blake continued his journey, swinging his empty glass by the stem, down the steep, cold steps.
The warmth and fumes of the kitchen below wrapped first round his shoes, then his legs, and finally above his shoulders as he arrived at the lowest point.
One hand resting on the banister, he paused once more. Now. Where would the delicacy that had filled his glass upstairs live, down here? With everyone above, even the maid-of-all-works, there were no Downton staff to assist him. No matter.
Straightening his jacket, Blake resumed his walk.
To his right, down the corridor was Carson's office. A peek in saw a pretty girl in an aging photo sat on his desk, various writing implements including a very fine fountain pen, a corkboard detailing items to get from the village among other things. A gleam caught his eye from the evening sun lowering in the window. Ah. A glass decanter, the light splitting the stopper into thousands of rainbows. Nothing in it though. Hm.
Blake backed out, the door shutting behind his back. The kitchen with its great range seemed the next likely destination.
Still twiddling his empty glass, remnants of his port now dry stains in the bottom, he crossed the threshold.
At the same time as his entrance, another sound overlayed it. Applause from above as the singer finished another sublime song. And. Something else. Something just over the other edge of the wide preparing station. The something was white, was hanging over the side.
At first he thought someone had simply left a serviette after hastily finishing their evening meal. It could have been some spilt sugar, flour even, from the cook's furious food preparations.
As the evening sun moved round to the kitchen window, the places where the white object had been shadowed were now revealed.
Nails were glistening in the sunlight. Nails cut short.
That was what was clutching the side. Not a serviette, not the cook's mess. A hand, well- worn with work, pale from the tightness of its grip.
Blake held his breath, but the old floorboards creaked slightly underneath his shiny shoes.
That hand, that pale hand which had been curling slightly, froze.
Biting his tongue, he dropped his eyes, intending to speak with whoever was round there. Instead, there was a rush of air.
Clang.
Blake had ducked, the top of the apparatus grazing the top his head to hit the shelf behind him. A copper pan. Inches from him. How upstairs would have rioted if he had re-emerged all bloody.
There was another swish of warm air and this time, putting all strength into his legs, that very much wanted to remain crouched, he straightened.
At the same moment, his hand shot out and gripped not the cold metal racing towards him once more, but the form behind it.
Besides the pulsing of the range at the far end, there was silence. Just the wrist in his grip twisting slightly.
"You're…" Came a swallow opposite him. "You're not him."
Eyes. He could not make out their colour, just the whites moving as they took him in. He felt very much like a stuffed bird on display, all in his evening clothes.
"No," said Blake. "I am not." He tilted his head. "I take it, you have not been down here for the fun of it."
"No." said the maid. "At the brunt of someone else's, I think -"
In a swift motion, she removed her cap, revealing dark, chaotically tied, hair and, now that the light could bounce off her face -
"Heavens…" said Blake, swaying slightly. Not just from drink. Not from the blood. It was the preciseness of it all, the bruises blooming dark grey, navy, violet, even as he stood there. None of the inflictions could be disguised easily.
"Too much for you?" Her sharp eyes were assessing him again.
"I have served. In the war." Blake said, placing his glass, that had somehow remained intact in the foray, down with a slightly skittish hand.
"Nothing is too much." He swallowed.
"Or so I thought."
The maid's lips grimaced, distorting not just her mouth, but those bruises also.
"What exactly - ?" Charles bit his tongue, turned to the sink and busied himself with soaking a dish rag. He doubted she would want to relive it. The best he could do was -
"Ouch."
"I'm sorry -"
Thank goodness. Only thin scratches that welled a lot of red but looked far worse before his tentative, damp dabbing.
"Remind me," said Blake, as the red on his cloth turned from dark crimson, to pink, to clear underneath the tap. "Of your name?"
"Madge." She said in a clipped, automatic fashion, so used to, he imagined, at being addressed or introduced upstairs. "I've always been known as Madge." She glanced away to the window, then back.
"May I ask your's?" she ventured.
Dark eyes met dark eyes.
He held out his hand, the damp one, still covered in traces of her injuries.
"Charles. Charles Blake."
"Then -" An equally damp hand slipped into his own grip. "Thank you, Mr Blake. For all you have done."
They both straightened from where they had been curled over the sink like frightened cats.
"I assume… whoever it was," Charles' brown eyes flitted around the space of the kitchen. "Is now gone?"
Madge swapped the cloth now drying over the edge of the tap for that copper saucepan again. After a moment, she crossed to the shelf behind them and repositioned it back to where it belonged.
"If they aren't, then they're very foolish."
A smile passed between them.
Then -
There was a faint tinkle. It sounded very much like summer rain on a roof. A calling for a speech from upstairs? No. It sounded much nearer than that.
Blake raised his gaze to Madge's.
"Down the hall." Her hand pointed in the direction of Carson's office. "I'm sure."
"Hm." said Blake, smoothing his jacket in thought.
After a pause, both moved forward to the same doorway.
As Charles stepped aside to allow the maid to pass through first, there it was again. A tinkle.
He watched Madge pause the same time as him, glance back as the sound peaked again, like straining bells. Mid-way down the hallway now, it no longer sounded like glass being tapped. The sound was still high, but it was distinctly human.
"Crying." was all she said.
The pair walked with brisk purpose now, past Carson's office, past the boot room, no sound from within those, to the only other door on the corridor.
"Mrs. Hughes' rooms."
A flutter out of the corner of his eye. Madge's hands trembling against the whites of her apron. He caught her eye, swallowed, then knocked on the solid door. Hard.
As expected, the keening sound from inside stopped. What was not expected, was that before they could do anything else, the handle of the door rattled with a slam alike to a rhinoceros.
They both stepped back fast, 'Hello?' or 'Is anyone there?' drying on their lips.
Rather than the door bursting open, the noise from inside seemed to be that of stacking heavy objects. With a jolt, Blake realised that the person inside was blocking themselves in, and anyone else out.
"Get away!" came a muffled voice from inside Mrs. Hughes' rooms. It sounded very high and very raw.
"But - it's -" started Madge, pitching forward and hammering with her elbows on the smooth surface of the door.
"It's not him!" she cried. "We're not him!"
Blake shook his head. Another victim?
"It's me - Madge -"
"I don't care who you are - No one is getting in! No one!" shrieked the person behind the door.
Shock smoothed the maid's face flat underneath her bruises, the colour she had lost making her afflictions look even more horrendous, if that were possible.
"Anna?"
Madge's voice sounded quite alone in the silence of the corridor.
Charles Blake stepped back. Anna. The lady's maid? Surely not. He urged his feet forward, back to the door.
"Anna?" Blake angled his head so to not shout directly into Madge's ear. "Charles Blake here. With your friend, Madge." Still silence from the door, so he pressed on.
"An odd mix I grant you, but fate deals us the strangest of hands."
He saw a little smile from Madge which was quickly dropped. There was no humour to be found in this horrid situation.
"We have reason to believe -" A quick check to the maid at his side who nodded. "You've been - attacked." Blake swallowed. "We're not asking you to say who it was - far from it. We just want to help."
There was no shout, just a sniffle.
Madge now spoke, her voice a little lighter.
"He came down in search of drink, but instead stayed. Because, Mr -"
She paused, eyes closing for a beat. She had said too much.
"Because the man got me too, Anna. He got me too."
That high sobbing again.
"Oh," came Anna's mouse-like voice. "Oh Madge…" Anna's voice was even more muffled, as if she was covering her mouth.
Charles looked to Madge whose gaze was at the barricaded door, eyes shining. Her hand had found its way to her own face, wincing as it roved over her wounds. It was not just the dim hallway lighting. Those bruises had darkened to almost the same colour as her eyes.
Blake blinked. Without so much as a thought, his hand was at hers, pulling it away from her poor damaged skin, her wet eyes clearing from reliving it all.
How long they all stood there, Blake could not tell. All he knew was that each of them took solace in the other's grip.
A great rumble came from above their heads. It seeped through ceiling to them, through the hall, now a light shimmering sound. The great brass gong signalling change of rooms.
"You need to go." said Madge.
Blake cleared his throat, carefully disengaging his grip.
"I do. There will be questions, I'm sure, but if I go now, there will be less of them."
"Anna -" Madge called to the door. "I'm just going to escort Mr Blake -"
"No, no." said Charles, quickly. "I can see myself out."
He stepped around her before she could say anything, the underside of his shoes clicking as he stepped down the hallway. He turned left, and began to ascend the stone stairs.
Footsteps coming up behind him at an alarming rate. Blake swivelled. Madge, holding her skirts as she climbed up to him.
"I'm sorry - for all this - here -"
A decanter was pressed into his hands. It was heavy and the liquid inside sloshed.
"There's no need -"
His arm was sagging under its weight. The maid shrugged, pressing the glass more firmly to him.
"It is what you came down for."
Blake's mouth twitched.
"True. Now. What are you to do?"
Madge sighed.
"I'll stay with her." A glance back to the hall, which was quiet now. "Even if she won't let me in -"
"Will you be safe? Both of you?"
The maid raised her chin.
"There's two of us."
He took in her polite stance, her dark, determined gaze, and nodded.
Turning, Blake shifted the decanter to the crook of his elbow, nudging that hidden door open with his foot.
"Until we see each other again -"
"Will we?" said Madge. He nearly missed it, negotiating his way back through the hidden door, green velvet on this side turning to brick on the other.
Charles' dark eyes rolled as he craned his neck back through. She was biting at her mouth as if in punishment.
"Tell me how Anna, and you, are fairing at the very least."
And then the secret passage door swung closed completely. All of downstairs, the kitchen, the fateful hall, Madge and her skirts as she ran back down the steps, disappeared from him, from view, as if nothing had ever happened.