Chapter 1

He came to the door of Crawley House and stopped. As he'd walked up he'd realized this was the first time he'd returned under his own power and somehow, in all the strangeness he made his way through, whether to knock or just enter stopped him. Before he decided, a German sergeant opened the door and looked down at him in a neutral way.

"I am Matthew Crawley."

When that didn't get a response, he added, "I was told to come here."

"Ausweispapiere?"

Matthew took a paper from his pocket he'd been given at the train station. It listed his residence as Crawley House. Without moving a muscle, the sergeant conveyed skepticism.

Matthew took a packet of papers in a grey paperboard sleeve from his pocket, held the sleeve and gestured to the paper the sergeant already held. "It's all I have."

The sergeant frowned slightly and closed the door without latching it. Matthew stood, looking along the walkway and along the street. He couldn't decide if it was as he remembered. The door opened fully again to reveal a Wehrmacht major standing at the side of the sergeant.

"I am Major Jantz. You have just arrived?"

"Yes."

"There has been some sort of mistake. Please show me your identification card."

Matthew handed him the sleeve. The major pulled out the papers and the sergeant tried to look at the papers as the major looked at all three sheets.

"Yes, well, this is unusual. As I said, there has been some sort of mistake. However, as you are on parole you may not go elsewhere until a new assignment is made. Wait here, Colonel."

The two walked away as the door shut and latched, speaking quietly in German he didn't try to hear. He turned and looked at the yard, decided not to sit on the step despite his tiredness, and looked about again. The weak late February light usually didn't help old villages like this, but even accounting for that, the place felt vaguely mean. Still, the buildings, roads, and gates were more or less as he pictured. The thought required him to ruffle his memory though, and he pulled himself back into the suspended present that more or less worked, listening to his breath.

Jantz reappeared and told him in English that he would be allowed to stay in a room on a nearby property. The sergeant would show him there and Matthew should go to the police station in the morning to find out whether he would stay there permanently. The major met Matthew's gaze and told him he would do best to read the rules as he gestured with the papers in the grey sleeve. Matthew took the papers from him and met the major's halting motion of not quite coming to attention with a small nod of his head.

The sergeant took him into a back garden of a house a couple of lots away and facing in a different direction. Just inside a broken back gate, an empty rundown sort of garage stood hard against the stone wall, its main door open to show its disuse. The sergeant walked up a flight of wooden steps with only a partial railing and pushed open a thin door. It was a small room above the garage with a counter under a window, a few larger windows set together, and some bits of furniture. The sergeant told him in German to stay only here until the morning and pointed to what looked like an outhouse down the back walkway and perhaps a pump nearer the garage. He walked away, leaving the door open. Matthew shut the door, kicked a couple of crushed boxes and some cloth together on the floor near the bigger windows and fell asleep moments after he lay down.

When he returned the next morning he was relieved to have the room as a destination. The trip to the police station had been confusing. Apparently he was actually on parole, with many precise restrictions. He really was assigned to live in Crawley House because another part of some bureaucracy involved had counted him dead and automatically put him back at an old address when he reappeared. A single man on parole, however could not live in a house and besides, Crawley House was used by officers. The parole part of the machinery took over after the other part got him out of his old home. They had kept giving him papers until he finally told them his eyes had gone bad and he couldn't read anything. That had thrown things a bit, but after a moment they just continued, and gave him more papers. Someone did tell him he had to return every Friday before eight to register in order to remain on parole.

As he walked up to the garage carrying the small box of supplies they'd given him at the station, he noticed what looked like a chair knocked over towards the back. He saw a sink against the far wall and walked to it. After looking at it for a moment, he turned on the tap and the pipes lurched into a rattle that produced a clot of red sludge and then brown liquid that kept coming and slowly started to lighten. He waited because while the outhouse the sergeant had pointed out the night before had indeed been an outhouse, the pump had not been a pump and he hadn't had anything to drink since the train the morning before. He hadn't had anything to eat since before that, but as he tasted a bit of dank water cupped in his hand, he knew he'd take whatever he could for now.

He remembered the somehow active blank at the jail when he'd said he couldn't read the papers they were giving him. That was usual he realized, another moment of him not being the sort of person due that type of regard. The more interesting moment had been when he'd asked about his family. Sound dipped a bit. One young English constable who seemed to have something the matter with one of his eyes looked at him sideways and said he was sorry, that wasn't their role.

He wondered what day it was. They had told him he needed to report to a work crew Mondays through Thursdays to get food rations. The box had looked like it had a Red Cross packet in it but it didn't look like food. He would need to figure out the days.

When the water stank less, he drank directly from the tap and then picked up the chair as he turned back upstairs. When he got back in the room, he put the box on the counter. He heard people outside as he looked around the room wondering about the chair. Before he realized it, Robert Crawley stood at the top of the stairs looking in. They exchanged first names as if they were seeing each other at a party and needed a quick confirmation of knowing each other.

"I don't think you should be here, actually," Matthew said. "I'm not allowed to have visitors."

"Yes, I have leave to speak with you."

"Ah, of course." Matthew tried to look out a window but couldn't focus. His eyes came back to Robert's face, remarkably unchanged in the three years since they'd seen each other. "So is it your role to tell you about my family?"

"Sorry?"

"It's been strange being here, it's only been a day but, well, it's been strange."

"Of course." Robert frowned and looked away. "I can't imagine what this must be like. The thing is, we thought you were dead."

"Yes."

"We…"

Matthew took a breath and put his hand on the back of the chair. "How is everyone?"

"Do you know anything?"

Matthew felt light for a moment. "Apparently not. Would you like to sit down?"

"No, thank you."

Robert looked away again and then squared up to face Matthew. Matthew felt comforted by the familiar display of effort. Robert sighed and began.

"In the months after the surrender, many of the old estates were grabbed, supposedly to the crown, if any excuse regarding their fitness could be found. Although our financial situation was bit precarious we were more or less sustainable, but at risk with you, well. The boys were underage and some were moving to revert the inheritance laws to restore old rules of succession. A faction in the Lords moved to stabilize things, mostly just to stop the movement and mark their own positions. Everyone assumed that many of the retained titles would be given to sympathizers, possibly along with the estates themselves. We and a number of the other old families were able to arrange private bills in Parliament to clarify succession."

"And isolate from risks."

"I am sorry to say it, but yes. You had been convicted. Had I thought you were alive, I never would have considered it."

Matthew nodded. "And from this I am out."

Robert bit his lower lip and looked down.

"But I don't understand," said Matthew, "why I am kept here, and why you are so embarrassed. The estate and the money are Mary's of course, and have never been the point for me whether or not she is excluded from the title. I thought you understood that."

"You are here because you have no legal connection to the family any longer."

Matthew looked up. "But how? Has something happened to Mary?"

"She is as well as can be, but, well, she sends you this letter."

Matthew looked down at the impossibly clean envelope Robert held towards him. It was from Mary. Somehow she still used the same stationery.

"I can't read anything."

Robert looked up from the envelope with a start.

"My eyes have gone bad and I can't read anything in normal size. A handwritten letter would be hopeless. It must be pretty bad if she's sent you with a letter but you'll have to tell me. Sorry."

For the first time, Robert appeared to have ghosts of tears behind his eyes.

"She has divorced you. Though we truly thought you were dead you were not legally so. The way they've set things up, divorcing you was the only way she could be sure to take the estate on my death and make George the heir."

Matthew looked to the door beyond Robert's shoulder. "And I cannot return as the children's father because as a convicted war criminal I am restricted from non-relatives. I would drag you all down with me. Did you make some sort of deal?"

"We agreed that your residence was not Downton. And Mary took full custody of the children."

"Well. For the better then."

"Matthew."

"Please." He looked at Robert. "Please, tell me how everyone is."

"As I said, Mary is as well as could be expected under these circumstances. Cora died just after the surrender."

"I am sorry," Matthew broke in and looked back at Robert. Robert nodded.

"Your George and Rob are splendid, in good health and doing well in their studies. George is a fine lad, ready to be his own man at the earliest possible moment and Rob is not far behind. Little Violet has had some sickness this past winter but seems to have come through it."

"Isobel."

"I am sorry beyond words, Matthew, but she is dead."

Matthew's hand tightened on the back of the chair.

"She was killed outside Ripon during the little fighting that happened in these parts. A group of the young people gathered, most like her back with family after the schools and universities closed down. We aren't sure what happened, but she went off with a fellow I think she'd been seeing. There was something like half a day of resistance by a home guard unit in Ripon and some of the young were caught in it. She was one of those who died."

"I don't know why, but I just never thought of it. The boys perhaps, but not Isobel. How stupid of me. Mary must have been crushed."

"She was. We all were. For the rest, Edith remains in Canada so far as we know, and we have had no word from Tom or any of the rest. And Carson died in the same wave that took Cora. Another influenza, they thought."

"And I was not here."

"You did your duty."

"Not the right one, apparently. I don't know why I'm not dead, actually. Most at my rank were shot if they hung on. Probably shouldn't even have gotten that far, it was sort of a fluke I was even captured, more that I made…" Matthew realized he was starting to babble. He looked up at Robert who had visible tears in his eyes.

"You must despise me," said the older man.

"Is that in the letter?"

"What…"

Matthew clenched his eyes shut for a moment and shook his head, then looked again at Robert. "No, sorry. No. I do not despise you. Any of you. This has all been madness and I am sure you have done your best. Thank you for coming to tell me."

The two men looked at each other. Matthew was angry, something he had thought he didn't have in him anymore. The matchless sadness he saw in Robert's eyes held him in check.

"Thank you again for coming, Robert, I mean it. I wish you the best, you, Mary and everyone. I send the children my love, but I leave it to you and Mary to decide what to tell them. And now, I think I'd rather you leave me be."

Robert opened his mouth but then just nodded.

Matthew sat down on the chair as Robert closed the door and walked down the steps.