Post-S4E3: Anna returns to live at the Abbey, but the spectre of Green becomes too much to bear (major trigger warning for mature themes)

I don't own Downton Abbey -Julian Fellowes does


"What have I done?" he asks quietly as he watches her pack her bags.

"You've done nothing," she answers, and she means it. Nothing… only sat in the hall listening to Dame Nellie sing while I was being beaten and violated. Try as she will to tell herself that it was no one else's fault but her own, she can't shake off a feeling of injustice that it had to be her that Mr. Green cornered. Maybe if John had gone down with me…

"I must have done," he muses, but she will not risk answering, will not risk saying more than she should.

She packs sparingly, taking only what she cannot do without. When John, trying to help, holds out a sky-blue dress, one of her favourites, she recoils.

"I'll be downstairs," he says, obviously hurt.

"Thank you," she whispers, trying to convey her gratitude for something she couldn't quite put into words. In the cottage, she was aware of his proximity in a way she never had been before, and disturbingly conscious of their isolation from anyone else. Should John grow frustrated, angry with her, he could grab her, pin her down and force her… no one would be able to hear her.

She finishes packing quickly: black dresses, nightgowns, the most utilitarian underthings she can find –avoiding the garter and racy set of underthings John had bought her from a catalogue. She wants absolutely no reminders of her and John's marital relations, not now that she was so tainted. Placing her powder in last of all, she snaps the case shut and begins to carry it downstairs.

"I could have done that," John protests when he sees her at the foot of the stairs, but she shakes her head.

"There's no need."

Both of them hesitate, acutely aware that this is their last night in the cottage together.

"Anna," John begins, taking two steps together –then halts, hands up to appease her when he sees her move backwards away from him –"please, tell me what's gone wrong?"

"I can't," she says.

He knows it is futile to press her: they have had this conversation time and again, and every time he feels more and more perplexed.

"Will you come up to bed?" he asks, knowing that she will refuse but unable to resist asking.

As usual, she shakes her head and sits down to wait for him to retreat before she begins her preparations for bed. They both know that she will be up and dressed before him in the morning, but neither of them mentions it.


Even Thomas is silent when they arrive at the Abbey the next morning, Anna carrying her small case in with her head bowed. Mrs. Hughes is out to greet them immediately, taking Anna up the stairs to the attics while Mr. Bates walks into the servants' hall alone.

"Are you sure about this, Anna?" Mrs. Hughes asks as she leads Anna into Edna's empty room. It is the smaller of the two vacant ones, but she's chosen this one, right next to her own one, for Anna.

"Quite sure," Anna answers in a voice slightly louder than the one she uses with everyone else.

"You don't have to do this," Mrs. Hughes says gently, but Anna shakes her head immediately.

"I have to," she says. "I can't be near Mr. Bates alone." Her voice cracks and Mrs. Hughes reaches out to her, hoping Anna won't draw back as she has seen her do to Mr. Bates. Far from drawing away, Anna takes the hand Mrs. Hughes hold out in her shaking one.

"Mr. Bates would never –" Mrs. Hughes begins, but Anna cuts her off.

"All men might," she sobs, and feels a bolt of rage run through her as she realises how deep Anna's scars run.

"No one here would," she tries to console her, but Anna's tears cannot be checked.

"W-what if it happens again?" The fear in Anna's voice cannot be denied.

"It won't," Mrs. Hughes promises. "Anna, I shouldn't have let you go down alone, but I won't make that mistake again: you will always be safe in Downton Abbey."

"It's too late, Mrs. Hughes," Anna says with chilling finality, brushing back her tears.


As usual, Anna managed to avoid everyone else for the rest of the day. When Mr. Carson voiced concern at her absence from lunch, and again from dinner, Mrs. Hughes murmured to him that it was best to let things be.

"I cannot have servants' domestic matters interfering with my running of the household," he says to Mrs. Hughes once all the other servants have retired and Mr. Bates has left to make his solitary way back to the cottage. Although Anna was explaining her move back to the Abbey as a temporary move until Lady Grantham found a new lady's maid, Mr. Carson was unconvinced.

"It isn't a domestic matter," Mrs. Hughes says, wishing she could tell him everything, starting with the concert and ending with Anna's understandable fear of all male members of the household, but Anna would never forgive her if she did.

"Will Anna be moving back to the cottage once a new lady's maid has been taken on?" he asks, but Mrs. Hughes has no answer. She hopes so, but she cannot see any way for Anna to move past this as long as she insists that Mr. Bates is kept in the dark.

She makes her excuses to Mr. Carson and retires to the attics, wanting to see how Anna is faring on her first night back. She pauses outside Anna's room to listen: normally she would walk straight into a maid's room, but hesitates to do so for Anna. As a lady's maid, she is not one of Mrs. Hughes' subordinates, and after what she has been through, Mrs. Hughes wants her to feel she has some degree of privacy and safety at the Abbey.

"Anna?" she calls softly, and the soft, breathy sobs stop.

"Mrs. Hughes?" Anna's voice is hesitant, then she hears the sound of furniture being moved. When Anna opens the door, she sees that the sound has been the dresser, which Anna has dragged across the room to barricade her door.

"I didn't want anyone to come in while I was asleep," Anna explains when she sees that Mrs. Hughes has noticed the dresser.

"No one will," Mrs. Hughes sighs, but she is starting to see that Anna's fear is not open to reason.

"Anna, I can't have you barricading your door with furniture," she says. Much as she wants to humour Anna's fear, she knows she would never allow it for any other member of staff. "What if there were to be a fire?"

"Then I'd burn, God knows I deserve it," Anna says.

"You deserve no such thing! Anna, you are blameless in all this."

"No," Anna shakes her head. "I led him on, you saw me laughing with him –everyone did!"

"Anna, everyone was laughing with him."

Through her sobs, Anna chokes something out that Mrs. Hughes doesn't quite catch.

"What was that?" Mrs. Hughes asks as she sits tentatively next to Anna and puts a cautious arm around the younger woman's shoulder.

"I wish –I wish he had killed me when he had his hands around my throat. Anything would be better than living with this –this shame," Anna cries, and Mrs. Hughes feels helpless to console her. She cannot promise her it will pass, cannot promise her things will be better soon. All she can do is watch helplessly as Anna despairs.


Two weeks later, things are no better. Although Mrs. Hughes determinedly talks to Anna about lighter subjects: the arrival of the new lady's maid, Alfred's learning to cook, Miss Sybbie's escape from the nursery and subsequent arrival in the library looking for her Dada, Anna seems to be putting up a wall between herself and the rest of the Abbey. As the days pass, Mrs. Hughes wishes more and more that she could confess all to Mr. Bates. She knows Anna is pining for him, and she knows maintaining her detachment from him has to be hurting Anna as badly as it hurts Mr. Bates.

"I'm not sure I can go on like this, Mrs. Hughes," Anna says quietly one night –the tears have long since subsided and been replaced by a subdued, withdrawn demeanour. "He's won. He's killed me."


The next morning, Anna was not at breakfast.

"Madge, could you go and hurry Anna up?" Mr. Carson asks the nearest housemaid, casting a wary glance at the ringing bellboard.

"I'll go," Mrs. Hughes offers. "I'm sure she's only overslept," she adds in response to Mr. Bates' worried look. It would be easier and more fitting to send a maid up, but she doesn't want anyone else to catch Anna upset.

"She was awake when I got up," Ivy interjects helpfully. "I heard a noise coming from her room."

"I'll go and see what's keeping her," Mrs. Hughes says, trying to hide her own concern for Anna. Lately, Anna has been present for all meals: lost in her own thoughts but present nonetheless.

She hurries up the stairs, with Miss Baxter and Daisy a few paces behind her.


The whole household hears the piercing shriek as Mrs. Hughes calls for Dr. Clarkson, for Mr. Bates, for anyone to come upstairs to help.