Unbeknown to them, I had heard their whole conversation and only now was it time to intervene and make my presence known. Mr. Carson had just said that the house would have to accept a certain degree of notoriety as the house that shelters a murderer's widow.
"Then let me put you out of your misery right away Mr. Carson." I said, trying to keep a straight face as I put to rest my whole life so far. "By handing in my notice." He ushered me inside slightly and I stepped further toward both him and Mrs. Hughes, who was soon to doubt my seriousness.
"You don't mean that." She sighed with that Scottish accent I held so dear, with such sorrow in her voice.
"Yes, I do. If I stay here I keep the story alive, if I go away to say, Scotland or London the story'll die soon enough. I'll be just another housemaid lost in the crowd." Trying to prove both to them, and to myself, that I had reason to go after the inevitable happened.
"She has a point." Mr. Carson accepted regrettably, I knew I was right to leave but somehow I was still struggling to let the place go quite yet and here he was to help steer me in the right direction, as he always was.
"Not one that I accept." There she went again, she never was able to see things the way they were, she always saw them the way she wanted them because it made her more determined to make them that way. She still couldn't come to terms with the fact that this battle had been lost, but then again, neither had I. Yet I managed to keep up the appearance as I said what I hoped to be my final words on the subject, doubting I would be able to lie to them, and more importantly myself, for much longer.
"I mean it, Mrs. Hughes. I do." I turned, ready to walk out of the door, only to be walked in to by Daisy, hoping to speak to Mr. Carson for some reason. Making my way down the hall I was beginning to think that maybe I would be able to just leave without a tear shed and start out somewhere fresh with a new life, but I knew better than anyone that life doesn't give everyone the easy route to happiness, coming up was another bend in the road : Mrs. Hughes.
"Anna, come with me to my sitting room please. I need to talk to you about what just happened a little more, and no we can't do this later." Knowing I was already defeated, I followed the woman to her room and walked in behind her, that lady had nearly as much determination as Old Lady Violet for heavens' sake.
"What is it, Mrs. Hughes? Really, I have work to be getting on with that can't wait so unless there is something you wanted to discuss I really must be going." Urging her to hurry up only because I didn't know how long I could keep myself from changing my mind and asking to stay. "Please, don't make this any harder than it already is for me."
"Make what any harder, you said it yourself, there's nothing here for you anymore so what will you be giving up when you leave? Anna, if you are so prepared to leave then why would it be at all difficult for you to do so?" She was practically teasing me now, this was just cruel, she knew how much Downton meant to me, and everyone there but if I stayed there I would be haunted with bad memories of John everywhere I went.
"Don't act like you think Downton was just another job to me, you know how much it meant to me and how much the family and all of the staff mean to me. As well as how painful it is going to be for me to leave it all behind, but I must and you know that really, even if you won't accept it, you know that it's true." The thing I liked most about Mrs. Hughes was that she couldn't easily be offended so I could speak as openly as I liked in front of her and unless I said something directly innapropriate or unkind I would never be at risk of judgement.
"But that's what I don't understand, I don't see why you do have to leave because I don't agree, in the slightest, that you should have to leave if you don't actually want to do so. So pray tell me Anna, why you feel it necessary to cut off all connections with the place you've called home for so long and move in to a completely new and different life, is there a real reason?" She knew that I didn't want to go, and she was doing her very best to stop me from doing it even thought the both of us knew I was doing the right thing.
"Oh but you know that I must leave, Mrs. Hughes, it will be too painful to stay here after...after that happens. I truly appreciate everything you have done for me over the years, you have been the best woman I could ever have worked under and I will so hate to leave this house, but I must go." I wasn't telling her alone this, I was still trying to persuade myself that the words I was speaking were true, we both needed to accept it.
"Okay, but you are very highly valued, both of you are. Know that and take it with you wherever you go." I began to weep and soon I couldn't control myself, there was nothing to be done and I was too upset about that fact to maintain any sense of self-preservation right now. Her arms came out to hold me like a young child, and I needed this, I needed her support, Mrs. Hughes was the closest thing I had to a mother since I had come to Downton. "Especially by me, as well as everyone else."
"Thank you...for everything you've done."
She was like a mother to me in more ways than one.