As you may have guessed from my name, this is a far cry from my usual repertoire. However, I have watched Downton Abbey since it began and loved it.
This fic contains implicit spoilers for episode three, season four. The episode affected me deeply, I have always been very fond of Anna. I felt I had to write to clear my head.
After all
He didn't catch up with her on the walk back. That wasn't surprising, Anna could walk faster than he could, she wasn't lame. What was surprising, now that he thought about it, was that she didn't wait. Unless one of them told the other not to wait, they walked to and from the house together, morning and evening, every day. It was time nobody could take from them, not much time, but they always had it, no matter what the day had been or would be. For Anna to give that time up, just because she "felt like walking on her own" was surprising.
It was also surprising that Anna'd been taken ill like that. He hadn't thought much of it when she'd gone down, loud noise would give anyone a headache if it went on for long enough, after all. Anna was hardy, though, he'd only known her to take sick once or twice in ten years – had it really been that long? - now that he thought about it. He'd never known her to faint. For her to faint so suddenly that she hadn't even had time to lower herself in to a chair, or the ground at least, that she'd hit her head on the sink falling, and hard enough to leave quite a mark, put her out for quite a while and, somehow, mark her dress beyond repair, that was surprising.
But, John thought, maybe he wouldn't have thought about any of it if she hadn't pulled away like that. He'd reached out to take her hand and she'd recoiled, as though from a snake, almost run from him. She'd never done that before. In all the time they'd been married, and for quite a while before, if ever, he couldn't remember her recoiling like that. He saw that moment as he approached their cottage, over and over again, the look on her face, that flicker of something he hadn't seen there before. He couldn't put a word to it, but that moment had made him think that something was wrong. Looking back over the evening, it was increasingly clear that something was wrong, badly wrong, something that went deeper than a headache and a fainting fit after all.
The cottage was dark inside.
"Anna?" Her eyes were strong, sometimes she put herself to bed without a light, still able to find everything, though she had to help him. But there was no reply. Had she fainted again here, or worse, by the road, and he'd missed her in the dark. John near ran to the kitchen, he needed light. There were matches in the drawer. He lit one, fumbling in the dark, and put it to a lamp. He swept the kitchen with his eyes, hoping and dreading that he'd see her slumped somewhere. But she wasn't here. Stick in one hand, lamp aloft in the other, he set off again, searching the house.
There she was, lying in their bed, curled on her side, her left side. That was unusual. She usually slept on her back or her right side, so she faced him. She made no sign of having heard him, she was already asleep. Perhaps she was just ill after all, illness makes everyone tired. John set the lamp down and got ready for bed, hanging his livery in its usual place, Anna's wasn't there of course, but neither was the dress Mrs. Hughes had lent her. He looked around for it. It was draped across the back of a chair. That was odd. Anna took care of her clothes, ladies' maids, like valets, generally seemed to, and that dress didn't even belong to her. He'd have thought she'd have hung it up and brushed it down. Maybe she'd just been too tired. She was sound asleep if the lamp and his wandering about the room hadn't woken her. He crossed the room for it and hung it in place of her livery
John got in to bed, trying not to disturb her. An owl called outside somewhere. He lay back. There was no sound in the house but Anna's breathing and his own. His breaths slowing, deepening, hers shallow, halting, as though she was holding them. It was that, in the end, that made him think that something was wrong, very wrong indeed. She'd been pretending all the time he'd been home. Anna was not asleep after all.