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The servants' hall was curiously silent this afternoon, especially after the bustle and excitement of the past several days. Perhaps they were all spent from exhaustion, the maids having had a particular job to do carrying water and delicate treats up and down the stairs. Perhaps they all felt the odd mixture of satisfaction and deflation his lordship was experiencing.
After nine months of certainty, of planning for the future of the estate, the Crawley heir … was a girl.
The maids had been cooing over her little crib until firmly shooed from the nursery by Nanny, and reported that she was a little darling. But of course they would say so. Women were always foolish over babies, in Charles Carson's opinion. He wasn't certain he saw what the fuss and bother were all about, truth be told. What was a baby but a squalling nuisance, a burden to be cared for? And in this case, a burden to be cared for to little purpose. The future of Downton was hardly settled, after all, by the presence of the tiny bundle in the nursery.
It had rather surprised Carson how quickly he had come to regard the fortunes of the Crawley family as his own. Certainly when he had first come to Downton Abbey he would not have imagined that the rather stiff young lord or his flighty American wife would interest him in the slightest, and as for the Dowager Countess … she was simply terrifying. That, at least, had not changed. But he had come to know his lordship as a young man weighted down by the fear that he could not live up to the examples of his father and grandfather in his stewardship of Downton, that he could not understand the people who lived on and worked the land well enough to care for them. And her ladyship as a young woman living in a strange country, learning the ways of those who lived here, watching every word and every step carefully, but yearning to be herself.
The Dowager Countess really was terrifying. No amount of time spent in her presence had changed that.
And now the certainty that the estate was secure, that the fortunes of the Crawley family would go on tied to Downton, had collapsed, and the entail continued. Tied to a small boy, a near cousin, so Carson understood. Nice enough parents, from what he had gathered from Lord Grantham, but still—not the same as the inheritance of the estate going to a child of their own. Not the same at all. He felt a sudden, surprising stab of sympathy for the little girl in the fancy nursery, a disappointment from the moment of her birth. For all the privilege she would be growing up with, for all the love he was certain the earl and countess would be lavishing on her, she would always be just a girl, a bauble on the marriage market, destined to make a good marriage or be pushed aside in favour of her cousin—or a brother, if one came along, which was far from being guaranteed.
Well, what was it to him? Carson thought. His future with Downton was assured for as long as Lord Grantham was pleased with him, and he saw no reason why his lordship should cease to be pleased with him. Why should it matter to him if a little girl might have dreams of her own someday and would never have the chance to explore them? It was the same for anyone, really. The maids, the footmen, his lordship himself. They each had their place to fill, and there was little room for any of them to step aside from that place. In the grand scheme of things, growing up the privileged daughter of an earl wasn't such a bad way to go, even if in the end it meant being sold off to the suitor with the fanciest title.
Still, it was early days to worry about that. There would likely be a next baby, and it would probably be a boy, and then Downton's future would be secured and the young Lady Mary would have more options on the marriage market.
Carson went about his days with little change to the usual routine. The baby's needs were well tended by Nanny and by her admittedly rather besotted parents. Even the Dowager seemed taken with the little one, regardless of her gender.
One fine afternoon, Lord Grantham persuaded her ladyship to take a walk with him on the grounds, the first time she'd been out and about since the child had been born. Carson found himself on the bedroom floor helping the valet hunt for a lost cufflink, which turned out to have rolled nearly into the fireplace.
As he left to return to the wine list he had been working on, he heard a strange noise. Like the mewing of a cat, but louder, more strident. He was reminded of back alleys behind the theaters, where the feral cats of the cities congregated, hunting for scraps and rats. What could possibly be making that kind of noise in Downton Abbey? Surely, surely there could not be a rat, and he knew for certain no one in the house kept a cat.
Moving closer to the source of the sound, he found, to his mingled amusement and shock, that the sound was coming from the nursery. Specifically, from a very tiny human who was very angry about something.
Carson looked hastily around for Nanny, but she was nowhere to be found. Slipped down for tea and a chat with the cook while she thought the baby was sleeping, no doubt. Well, the baby couldn't be left crying like that. Her ladyship would be beside herself if she heard such a noise. Carson himself wasn't unmoved—was a human child supposed to sound like that? He'd been around babies before, but this scream was particularly piercing. This young Lady Mary was not going to be overlooked, apparently, when she needed something.
He looked up and down the hall, seeing no one and hearing nothing but the baby. "Nanny?" he called doubtfully, but wasn't surprised when there was no answer.
Reluctantly, he pushed the door all the way open and made his way to the crib. He was almost afraid to look into it, terrified of the noises coming from it.
Inside was possibly the angriest baby he had ever seen in his life. Not that he had seen many, not up close like this, but this little Lady Mary was not shy about her feelings. Not at all. Her little face was contorted, her mouth open, her eyes squeezed shut, and she was screaming loudly enough to make his ears hurt.
"Er … hush, now. Hush," he said awkwardly. What did you say to a baby to calm them? He had no idea.
To his utter astonishment, it worked. She stopped in mid-scream, opened her eyes, closed her mouth, and regarded him with a pair of cool, if tear-filled and reddened, grey eyes. And then she reversed the process and resumed the scream, and Carson jerked back, startled.
Well. He was not going to be screamed out of the room by a mite of a thing shorter than his forearm. No. He peered down into the crib again. "Hush, now," he said again more firmly.
But Lady Mary had determined she would not be told to hush. If anything, she screamed more loudly.
"Please hush?"
No response. Carson was beginning to be concerned that she would hurt herself, screaming like that. He reached into the crib—then pulled his hands back. What did he know about holding a baby? What if he dropped her? He'd be sacked on the spot, turned away with no character reference. Where on earth was Nanny? he wondered, looking over his shoulder with some irritation.
Well, there was no help for it. If no one else was coming, he would have to deal with this situation. He stood over the crib, reaching in. The baby was warm in her little blankets, and he hesitated even after his hands had closed around her. What if she squirmed as he was lifting her? What if he gripped her too tightly?
But the screaming went on, and he was afraid she would hurt herself. With a deep breath, he did it—wrapped his hands around her and lifted her off the mattress of the crib. An odd movement of her head prompted him to adjust his grip to support its weight. That was a large head for such a tiny little neck, he thought, tucking her into the crook of his arm.
"Now, there, little miss. I've got you. You hush now," he said to her, firmly.
She had stiffened when picked up, and now he could feel her body relax a little against him. The screams were receding to a less ear-splitting level, although he imagined that might be just as much because she had screamed her little throat raw.
He looked around the room again for something to feed her, but there was nothing to hand that he could see—and he was not going to take the risk of feeding the young Lady Mary Crawley something that wasn't good for her. Not he. No, he would simply have to rely on certain other skills and hope they hadn't gone rusty with disuse.
Bouncing the baby a little in his arms, he moved toward the door. No, Nanny was not coming. There would be no rescue from this situation.
Bending down until his nose was nearly touching the baby's, he asked softly, "Have you ever heard of the Cheerful Charlies?"
She had not, or so her continued crying indicated.
So he began, singing a song the Cheerful Charlies had sometimes closed with on a Sunday. "I'd choose to be a daisy/If I might be a flower/My petals closing softly/At twilight's quiet hour.*"
As the song continued, the crying began to slow and finally to cease, and Carson looked down to find those wide grey eyes steadily on his face, watching in fascination as he sang.
He paused between verses to apologize for being a bit rusty. He felt foolish for apologizing to a mite of a thing who probably couldn't understand a word he was saying, but he saw something in those eyes—a cool, clear intelligence that made him wonder anew what the future might hold for this tiny feminine representative of the house, what burdens would later lie on those small shoulders.
Carson moved on to another song, lyrics and notes coming back to him as though he had sung them only yesterday. If he had been asked this morning, he would have said he couldn't remember a thing about those days of the Cheerful Charlies, but here in this peaceful room, holding and singing to this baby, he remembered so much of the joy of that time, the camaraderie backstage, the rush of the applause, the freedom of the dancing.
Finding he was dancing a little bit now as he sang, without having realized it, Carson looked down at Lady Mary and saw her give a little sigh as her eyes closed, dark lashes fluttering against her cheeks. Suddenly she was deeply, simply, trustingly asleep in his arms, and Carson felt his heart skip a beat. She had needed him, and he had come. He knew that he would never be able to deny her anything she needed again. This tiny girl with her surprisingly hearty set of lungs was part of him now, and he looked forward to watching her grow, to helping her become the woman those cool grey eyes said she was meant to be.
Standing in the middle of the room staring entranced into the face of the sleeping baby, he had lost track of time, and so was as startled as the baby was when Nanny's loud voice came from the doorway. "Mr. Carson? What be you doing here?"
The baby began to cry all over again, and hastily he handed her over to Nanny. "Left alone … crying … never let it happen again, do you hear me?" he mumbled gruffly, and hastened from the room.
But he stopped outside, waiting to hear the crying stop again as Nanny did … whatever nurses did when babies cried. Only when he was sure Lady Mary was settled did he tiptoe on down the hall and get back to his own duties. Which were the same as before, only now he carried the memory of that small trusting weight in his arms everywhere he went, and the imprint of a little baby with sharp grey eyes in his heart.
*"I'd Choose to be a Daisy", H. De Marsan, publisher. 1861. Written by Frederick Buckley.