The snow fell languid and slow, caressing the frigid air, selecting the tree screen that covered a gravel and stone walkway that was centuries old. It was a cold, cold, Christmas Eve in the village of Downton. Most people were already home, those who kept their little shops open, felt the timeless drag of the clock till their luncheon closing time. In the small enclosure of ancient stone and wood that collected the snowy accumulation there was a sleepy spell that fell over the country village. Men and women walking as if in a daze to and fro, braving the bitter cold, picking up the last things they needed before stretching out with the ones they loved for the next two days. All around the cracked cobble stone, were bundled, red faced, children. They were giggling, running, playing, and yelling. Snowballs were flying, snow soldiers being erected by the Great War Memorial. The dreams of all the possibilities of tomorrow, all the joy and magic of childhood memories that would last a lifetime ran through their tiny minds. It was a time before they knew of money, of strife, of what was waiting for them out there in the worlds of their father and grandfathers. They all believed in miracles, they all believed that anything was possible.
It was the only belief that threw more coal on the fire of the small boy who ran faster than any child that day.
Snowballs whizzed by his tiny head, shoes pounded hard on stone, and people called out to him in alarm and curse. But the boy didn't hear anything. Blood was rushing through his ears, his lungs were on fire, and his breath was misting into his eyes, coming apart like steam on a runaway train. His nose and mouth were covered by his granny's scarf. His hat secured to his head, brown tweed coat, and winter pants had snow caked to them. The supple black leather gloves that belonged to his mother were still too big for his tiny hand, but they gripped the white paper bag hard.
The village children, who were ignorant of the boy's plight, played on. But they halted at the small boy's passing, watching the fastest kid in the County of Grantham, run faster and jump higher than anyone had ever seen before. When they arrived at school after the holidays, they'd swear he was the fastest man alive. It would be a rumor, a distinction that would stick with him for the rest of his life around those parts. He was George "The Comet" Crawley, the fastest of the speedsters in the entire Empire …
It was a name that would forever haunt him in his darkest moments after that morning.
His little arms pumped ear to pocket, he hurdled a fence, and juked a grocery man. The boys down at the "Grantham Arms" amongst the racket of their holiday festivities and wild music, gathered at the windows to cheer the speed trail of snow powder and frothing air in drunken pride. Later, when they heard the news of what happened, they wouldn't need their wives to tell them of the shame they felt in the way they acted in that moment. For months afterward, whenever they would see that same boy passing in the village they'd stand and remove their hats venerably in respect as he passed. Any man, any father was expected to do all he could in the situation George was in. In a just world it would be a father who would've, should've, been running, should've been hurrying back home with a white bag in hand. But it wasn't. It was merely a child. It was just a small boy who was so suddenly burdened with the weight of his whole world, his own family's hopes and dreams. It's very future on his shoulders. And no man would forget the bravery of speed in the legs of the smallest Crawley that day.
It was a mistake.
That is what they'll say several days from now. That's what the hospital board will rule. It was all just an honest mistake, but a costly one, one that would forever change the village of Downton.
It had been a record-breaking winter that froze the Yorkshire counties to their very roots, right down to the marrow of the bones. Heavy snows, wet sheets of deadly ice, one layered on top of the other, like a great wedding cake. It was the hardest winter that anyone could remember in so long, a true killing frost. It had reminded Lady Grantham of the winters in Cincinnati. Most of the village had come down with 'the illness' over the first few weeks. Even at the house Mrs. Patmore, Daisy, Mrs. Baxter, Mr. Bates, Lord Grantham himself, and the baby were down. It had come on so suddenly, so violently, both winter and the sickness that the hospital had been overrun. The supplies had been dwindling. Trucks slipped on ice or got whited out in the snowstorms on the way from York. The supplies were coming infrequently. It was a strain on the doctors and nurses to keep up with so many patients. One might have thought that they were back in the war with the influx of casualties.
Later, it would be said that had the hospital been staffed properly, had there been younger doctors and nurses, men and women in their prime to captain the crisis. Had Lady Grantham not allowed her friends stay on past their welcome. That the most egregious of mistakes would not have been made. It was a deadly mixture of exhaustion and old age that produced a great tragedy. They'd chalk it up to incompetence, corruption, and favoritism.
It was the kindness of a conditioned American princess who didn't have the courage, the stiff upper lip of a true Englishwoman to make changes. She was a foreigner who let people's feelings factor in staying on longer than they should have. In the end they'd say that it was all, entirely, Lady Grantham's fault. It would be a finding that would lead her grief-stricken Lord husband to lose all composure and attack the mousy and coldly unfeeling president of the York hospital scheme. They were separated after the first punch. There, a broken Countess, clutching her husband's lapels, only asked, in tears, for the love of her life to leave the man and take her back to their home. Afterward Cora Crawley would be removed as president, Lady Merton would be forced into retirement, and Doctor Clarkson … would never have a chance to face formal charges.
All because of one mistake, one honest mistake …
George Crawley had rather liked Christmas, which was why he had been up so early. The halls were empty, the rooms were bare, and there wasn't enough life in Downton Abbey to fill a hall closet. But that was going to change by this afternoon. The whole family was coming over. His mama had insisted that everyone come, and somehow, as usual, Lady Mary Talbot had gotten her way. Some might have said, if anyone would believe them, that Lady Mary was lonely. More so, some might have even staked a claim that she missed everyone … even Lady Edith. But the winter was clearing, and there was rumor that they might even see the sun today. So overall there was an excitement in the air.
It was strange to the boy. But then there had been an uptick of happiness in the old estate since Cora was born. Everyone seemed to have gone through some sort of revival of spirit. Some great rebirth of happiness after so much gloom had infected the place in the long years bereft of hope of the survival of this way of life. Yet, the truth was that George hadn't really been affected at all.
The boy admittedly didn't really know that much happiness in his life. There had always been a strange gloomy cloud over him at all times that seemed to be noticed by everyone. He had once heard his Aunt Rosamund mention to his Granny that the boy was not born under a bad sign, but was the bad sign, concerning the events of his birth and run of bad luck since. His Granny told her that she didn't think so, noticing that George had heard them. Later, while she changed for dinner, she took a moment to sit him in her lap. Stroking his curls, Lady Grantham reassured the boy, her only boy, that he wasn't cursed. George nodded, but it saddened him to see the uncertainty in the lovely older woman's matching eyes as she buried her face in his little chest comfortingly. He hugged her head with all the love in the world …
But he didn't believe her.
There were times when George felt terribly alone in the big house. He didn't have nannies anymore. When Sybbie and Marigold were in the nursery they had nannies and nurses. But when Sybbie went off to London with Uncle Tom to open the family's new motor shop, and Aunt Edith had gotten married to Uncle Bertie and they took Marigold with them to Brancaster … they all left George. It hurt to know that it was because of George personally that the nannies and nurses wouldn't come around.
An old Muslim princess of some sort, named "Pamuk" had hated him, hated him so much that she scared everyone away who could've been his friend. His Mama, who had never been ostracized from society before in her life, was angrily mortified that they had all uniformly done so to her own child before he had even been given a fighting chance. Mary simply said that everyone was just being ridiculous. She assured her boy that there was no vengeful mother of Kamal Pamuk that had placed a sizable bounty on the small boy's head. It was all just a big misunderstanding that should've been ancient history by now. Plus, it didn't matter anyway, because, according to Lady Mary, her son couldn't be friends with the servants. He remembered the hurt look on Anna's face as she was leaving his mother's room.
It was just one more lie by a Crawley girl that George didn't believe.
Being cursed with a Turkish bounty, gave the boy an inordinate amount of time to himself. There were no nannies to instruct him. His Mama was the Agent for the estate, and his Uncle Tom was opening Henry and his business's branch in London. His Aunt Edith, who usually would spare time for him, was in Brancaster. Both his Granny and 'Grams' were always at the Hospital, and Donk was working on something important in the library. He had lessons with Mr. Mosley in the afternoon, and his Grams Isobel helped in the morning with his education. But other than that, George had found himself utterly alone most hours of the day. After Tea, Lady Mary gave him a kiss, a smile, and then went upstairs to start her shift with the baby. It was a strange thing to the boy that while everyone else seemed reinvigorated by life and the modern times, the Heir to Downton felt quite stagnate.
It should've bred some sort of distaste for the new baby, and nine out of ten times any other child would grow to hate the little girl. But nine out of ten children were not fathered by Matthew Crawley. Most children didn't inherit his gentleness and understanding to others caught up in unfortunate situations that were no fault of their own. There had been so many times, so many opportunities, for the boy to hate the baby, hate his mother's new family that he had been left out of since Cora Talbot had been born … but he didn't. And it wasn't even that his mama was getting much better at balancing work and her children, including taking him and Sybbie with her on the runs to the farms. It was something more important for the boy than to be included in his mother's new family.
The reality was that all the time that George spent alone, he usually spent it in the babies. He took his schoolwork, his books, and his toys into the nursery and sat with them. In a strange way, he couldn't hate Little Cora, because she and little Johnny Bates were his only friends these days. When he was mad, when he was sad, when he heard something funny on his walkabouts in the village alone, he'd tell three people in the whole world about it, and the toddlers were two of them. Little Cora was always there, was always in the crib when he came home. So he'd talk to her, because without Sybbie and Marigold, the baby was the only one who would listen to him. Some days the baby, with her rich chocolate curls and her father's eyes, was the only person happy to see him. She'd stand up in her crib and reach for him. The day wasn't complete without a kiss good morning and goodnight from her big brother.
But the baby had been sick for the last couple of weeks. Every day he came to read to her, Pulps, dime adventures, airplane manuals, books on Egyptian Archeology. And she'd just lie there in her crib and watch him with tiredly sallow little eyes. The other night, his mama slept in his room. He could tell that she was worried, because she had carried him out of the nursery, where he had fallen asleep keeping watch on the baby. When he awoke in his room, she had laid his head on her belly as she lounged back on his bed, watching him sleep. She stroked the boy's blonde curls and rubbed his back as he buried his face into her silk covered navel. There was something different in Lady Mary's eyes, like she was seeing her boy for the first time after all these years. And it made her happy and sad all at the same time.
He was growing in likeness to somewhere between Matthew and Sybil, everyone that was missing in her life. Cora was her future, Sybbie was her constant, but George was her past, and it had been so hard for her to balance her three children. But right then, it was the past that she needed. Her two darlings, Matthew and Sybil, were all she needed with a mind clouded in doubts and fears. And George was just that, he was them, he was everything that was missing that had returned. So, she had clung to him, clung so tightly. In her moment of overwhelming love of the boy who was haunted by the missing, Mary Crawley put too much faith in that perfect union of memory and sentiment, and forgot what he really was … just a child.
It opened the door to a mindset that would make what was to come even more tragic.
Most of the staff and Lord Grantham had been strong enough to fight off the illness, but the baby required a new medicine. And it had been days before it could be delivered. In the meantime the house was going all day and night. From Lady Grantham to the scullery maid, everyone tried their hand at home remedies and grandmother's recipes. All to help keep Little Cora afloat till help could arrive. When it finally had, from the slippery roads of York, into the hands of Doctor Clarkson, there had been a sigh of relief in the house. Last night everyone slept soundly, the long dark trial of their hearts had come to an end as they fed the droplets to the baby.
But this morning when George walked into the nursery, air racing book underarm, to wait for all the family and guest to arrive for the Christmas party, he paused.
The toddler had been laying head down, her little chest breathing slowly. He had leapt up to lean over the railing of her crib to see that Cora had her eyes open. But he found that they were glazed over, almost unseeing. Even when she had been sick, the baby had always been a talker, cueing, giggling, and caterwauling just to make sure everyone knew she was there. But it scared George to see her so silent, so completely disoriented.
It took him back to his room where his mother was lounging sinfully. There was a restful aura of comfort that was upon the beauty as she snuggled in, smelling the boy's pillow and relishing the softness of his sheets. There was some unfamiliarity with George's places in the house to a woman who had just done the bare minimum of keeping track of her son. Yet, all the sudden, and much like Matthew, Mary had discovered a wealth of homely warmth and comfort not only in her boy's arms, but also in his dwellings. In truth, she found that, perhaps, she would make more of a habit of frequenting her time with George, if for no other reason than how it made her feel to wake up next to him. Already, she was amused and impressed to hear that George and Thomas had their own method and ingredients for the washing of his linins when she asked how he got everything so soft and pleasantly smelling. He also had taught Mary a simpler and more delicious way to mix certain parts of her breakfast together as he got dressed. She hadn't fathomed how knowledgeable, how surprisingly interesting, George was in the little wisdoms, discoveries, and eccentricity of a rather dashing style the small boy had picked up on his own.
He found his mama reading the paper in her silk night slip, her finished breakfast tray in front of her. George had informed her of the baby's state, but his mama had dismissed it. Of course, the baby was "out of it", she has been sick for a week. Mary, without looking from her paper, informed him that this probably was the first time that the baby was properly getting her rest. It wasn't that Mary didn't care, but for a woman whom motherhood did not ever come naturally, she had been up for four straight days with her child. Today was the day for rest, a moment before the party, before the great celebration of the anniversary of their new lives.
The danger was over.
The boy nodded, even if he was unsatisfied with her answer. However, just as he was about to go, Mary had grabbed his hand. The boy paused, frowning at the action, confused even further by the way she had took his face in her hands. They were so close that he had never noticed that his mother had freckles. It was as if she was looking at him for the first time, really looking at him. Till this day he knew not what it was that had drawn her to him in that moment, only that he would never forget the surge of a powerful love that came in her eyes. There was some memory locked deep inside of her happier days with Matthew, being filled once more with the intrinsic knowledge that this boy was their legacy of a romance for the ages. In her, in that moment of time, there came to surface 'Matthew's' Mary who had not been seen in so long. Gently, she leaned in and kissed the boy chastely with a peck, her hand threading George's curls as she left a wet smack of lips upon him. There, she spent a long time inches from her boy's face, her amber eyes searching his cerulean ones in confusion and passion from the reawakened emotions long dormant since after Matthew's death.
But the moment passed, and soon neither was sure what to do or how to do it. Never before had Lady Mary been so incredibly affectionately intimate with anyone, not even her own husbands. It was a side of the woman that no one, ever, had seen before. Suddenly, if only to break the strange tension, the boy quickly stole the last piece of bacon and a triangle of buttered toast off her tray. There was a mischievous giggle as she swatted him playfully with her paper as he bolted out of his room. He had left his mother watching the doorway he had ran out of with joyous smile on her ruby lips. It would be the last he'd ever remember of his childhood. Thus, it was both unexpected happiness and a curse of fated doom set upon them that Lady Mary was so incredibly high and in love with her son that morning. Fore she believed that George Crawley, Viscount of Downton Abbey, and her heir, was capable of incredible feats …
That the small boy could do anything in that hour.
Yet, when he left her in his bedroom, George still was convinced that there was more going on than anyone expected. With all of his heart he wanted to believe his mama, to trust in that woman that had just kissed him and loved him so deeply in that shared moment. But something just wasn't right. He spent several minutes pacing the nursery, with his hands behind his back, deer stalker upon his head, and a toy pipe in his mouth. It seemed excessive, but a young child was convinced that this was the way only the most serious people thought of the most complex matters. When he was done, he leapt back over the railing to look at the baby. He turned her over to lie her on her back, stroking her rich chocolate curls. Yet, the baby girl only breathed softly, looking demurely, weakly, up at her brother. To see her in such a way, burdened the boy's heart greatly, feeling as if she was asking him, begging him, to help her. Tightening his cheek, the small boy had concluded that this, certainly, didn't look like a baby in recovery of a terrible illness. Palming his pipe, he turned from where he was draped and dangling over the crib railing and to the nightstand table. He knew he'd get in trouble for what he was about to do, but he didn't care.
Something wasn't right.
Swiping the baby's pediatric medicine vile, the boy quickly descended the steps, ignoring a hello from Henry who seemed amused rather than offended by his snubbing. Later, much later, there were years when George would anguish over if he should've said something to him. But in other years he remembered that in these things, George's stepfather would usually defer to his mama. Though he'd fight her on most, children were the one subject in which he would give to his wife. The man watched with a smirk while the boy in dear stalker cap rushed to open the access door to downstairs and descend to the servant's hall
The downstairs had been decked out for Christmas, with homemade decorations and a small Christmas tree in the corner next to the fireplace. The household staff was setting up for their Christmas luncheon, half the staff rushing about while the other half sat at the table, headed by a conversing Mr. Carson and Mrs. Hughes. They had all noticed George come down, finding the deer stalker hard to miss. But they had all gotten out of the habit of standing at attention. Both George and Sybbie had become a fixture of downstairs life. Without a nanny, they found both Lady Mary's eldest children amongst them most of the day. They all took to taking turns watching the children day to day, each absently teaching them something about their trade. Daisy how to bake, Mrs. Baxter how to sew, Mr. Mosley how to read. Mr. Carson was detail oriented in his instruction on how to properly clean silver, while Mrs. Hughes was just as detail oriented in her instruction on how best to dodge silver cleaning lessons. For everything else there was John and Anna Bates who, in tandem, served as the children's nanny and governess. But above all, when George came downstairs, there was only one man he was looking for … his friend, Thomas Barrow.
When the boy found him, he was sitting across from Mr. Bates and Anna, smoking a cigarette, watching ambiguously the annoyingly happy married couple wrap presents for their son's second Christmas. Old wounds never quite fade, and neither did rivalries. But Thomas remained on his best behavior, knowing that any actions taken against Mr. and Mrs. Bates would put a stain on his character to George who thought all three of them as important to him. His mood darkened by a letter in hand, it bore the Royal House's stationary but seemed penned by a personal hand. But whatever weighed on his mind from his special friend in service to the king, it went away when he saw the small boy. The Butler suddenly lit up like the great tree in the foyer of Downton. He shook the boy's hand and offered "The Great Mouse Detective" a seat with a paternal good nature. But George ignoring the many "Happy Christmas" said to him from the smiling servants put the man on edge. The boy whispered into Thomas's ear, informing the man that he had to talk to him about something very important.
Seeing the urgency in Master George's eyes and the need for secrecy, Barrow asked if they might borrow Mr. Carson's pantry. The older man, who had been contently bickering with his wife about the wrapping paper they used, didn't seem to see why not. Though Mrs. Hughes had offered them her sitting room, Thomas denied it kindly, not needing Anna to overhear whatever they were going to say from the vent. The Lady's Maid and Governess was already quite suspicious of the two with deep frowning glances back and forth between master and butler. Her maternal instincts already pinpointing that something rather dire was going on. But she only gave a half-smile to Mr. Bates inquiry as they both watched Thomas and George go into the hall.
George had gone down to see Thomas knowing him to be the only one in the manor with some medical knowledge, as well as the only one in the house who would keep his secrets if George was in the wrong for doing what he was doing. The small boy didn't know much, but he had a good gut intuition for medical situations. Two generations of doctors in his blood had not dissipated yet, and all these instincts were telling him that there was something bad about the medicine they had given the baby. He explained his paradox and troubles to Thomas, before giving him the vile. The man hadn't spent five seconds reading the label before his eyes went wide.
There was excited chatter in the servant's hall about the coming days when suddenly their merriment was broken by a violent slam of a pantry door being thrown open. George followed long enough to watch the servant's hall go from a place of coming merriment to exploding into chaos as Thomas Barrow charged up the stairs only half uniformed. The other staff was confused, some standing, other still sitting and questioning what it was all about. Mr. Carson, Mrs. Hughes, and Anna went after the other butler and the master of the house, shouting for both to explain what was going on. George followed up the stairs and rushed out to the manor's great hall, standing in front of the great lit tree that Thomas and himself had picked out personally. He watched the butler trip and stumble his way up the grand staircase. Anna had caught up with Thomas, pushing George out the way on the second landing. It took only a moment for the desperate man to tell her what was happening, shaking the pediatric vile in manic fear. Then, without a break, the lady's maid and governess was suddenly following her colleague up the rest of the steps to go get Lady Mary and Lord and Lady Grantham at once.
George stayed at the second landing of the staircase, watching from below, as his mother, without a robe, sprinted from one side of the house to the other in her long form fitting silk nightgown, Henry trailing behind her. Next, he saw his grandfather and grandmother. One already dressed, the other in her morning robe, rushing to the nursery. George didn't follow or go up. He wasn't sure what the problem was, but he didn't want to get blamed for it, and he didn't want to get in trouble for bringing on this scramble. He waited by himself for a long time, listening to alarmed voices muffle loudly from the west wing, drifting down the stairs to the small boy. He was frightened at the desperate and worrying sounds that were coming from the nursery. Finally, from somewhere deep inside, he got the courage to go up the stairs. The banister felt cold as he slid his hand over the polished wood, inching closer and closer to the angry and desperate raised voices thundering down the hall. When the small boy reached the top of the landing, he was met by Anna who had both Lady Grantham and his mama's winter coats, gloves, and hats in arm. It was obvious that they were going to the Hospital.
"It'll be okay." Anna said with a glassy eyed nod to the boy.
There was something desperately sad about the way she lovingly tugged on the curls sticking out of his deer stalker. She tried to hide her sniffle as she quickly paced down the hall toward the Nursery. It was then that George knew that Anna knew about something, about something terrible that had happened, to which there was nothing that could be done. The boy returned the nod but didn't believe in her teary-eyed comfort. Just as she turned into the shadowed corridor Anna was met suddenly by three figures that were storming down the hallway. His Donk was in a rage at Thomas. Henry was absently following behind them, as if he was in a daze, in a different world all together.
"Well, when the bloody hell were you gonna fix it?!"
"The roads are iced over, M'lord, there was nothing we could've done!"
"Then, who was the imbecilic who left the car out of the garage!"
"It wasn't anyone's fault, M'lord! No one saw the storm coming, no one!"
Suddenly Lady Mary rushed out of the nursery. George wasn't sure he had ever seen his usually frigid mother more terrified in his entire life. It made his legs weak, his heart sink into his stomach, and his hairs prickle on the back of his neck. If she was frightened, then her son was completely terrified. The sleek woman grabbed her husband's arm and looked to the Butler.
"Drive us to the hospital, now!" She demanded.
"I … I can't, M'lady." There was something devastated and in shock about the way the butler spoke. Thomas Barrow could barely look the panicked mother in the eye.
"Why not?!" Her red eyes were infuriated.
"The engine is frozen. And none of the other cars have been adapted to the conditions."
There was something eerily calm and disconnected in the way Henry Talbot spoke. He looked down at the carpeted floor, at his feet, and saw nothing but the abyss of a blank mind reeling. His wife and her father turned to the man with looks of outrage and shock at the seemingly laconic reaction to it all.
"Wha …?" Mary's mouth hung open at the complete unwinnable situation. Thinking only moments ago she was talking about New Year's plans with a husband and a getaway holiday with George and Sybbie. Now her baby girl was in danger and the universe was plotting so nothing she could do could save her.
Thomas strode forward. "All we need is some stimulants to get her heart rate back up, M'lady!" He explained. "We just need someone to run to the hospital and get them!" Thomas pushed his way back into the nursery, the only one with the training to keep the baby going.
There was a long silence between the quietly frozen people in the hallway. Robert and his daughter met their gaze, the woman feeding off the dwindling strength of the pillar she had always leaned on in times of trouble. He motioned to Henry pointedly, all the words unspoken with one look telling her of what had to be done. Robert jogged back inside the nursery after Barrow.
Mary gave a hard swallow and turned to her husband. Henry was leaning against a column on the balcony overlook, staring blankly at the coats of arms that hung around the foyer of the manor. If one would've asked the dealership owner what day it was, he might never be able to have told you despite the tree and decorations.
"Henry …" Mary rushed to his side. "Henry, you have to go to the hospital!" She demanded. But the man didn't respond. He didn't even look his lovely wife in the eyes. "Henry!" She shook him hard. It took a beat or two till the man bit his bottom lip and finally met Lady Mary's gaze.
"Henry, you have to run to the hospital and get stimulants!" She searched his eyes in a panic.
"Mm ..." He acknowledged her. "Right … go get stimulants." He nodded and he moved just an inch. But then he stopped. He seemed to be a man in complete conflict with every thought and emotion, every movement and instinct. Henry Talbot's whole body was at war with itself. Grief, sorrow, panic, fear, it all took hold of him.
"Mary … I'm, I'm afraid." He looked up at her in a deep shock. "I'm afraid I can't …" He sniffed hard. "Mm …" He shook his head. "I … I can't." He was disappearing again.
"No … Henry, for god sake, Henry!" Mary shook him, tried to hold him up. But the man only sank slowly to the floor, his back against the overlook column.
It wasn't that Henry Talbot was a coward, or that he was a weak man. In his younger days he would've gone running before Mary had even left the nursery. But every man has a breaking point, and today Henry Talbot had reached his. Some would say that it was the beginning of the end when he witnessed the fiery death of his best friend on the race track. But after all the death that had surrounded him in the trenches for years, he had come to motorcar racing to try and escape those brutal memories, to try and outrun the German gun. He had made new friends. He had made a new life for himself. And each time he lost something, he found some other way to replace it, ever running from the memories of the Kaiser's men. He lost his brother and cousins on the Somme, so he raced cars. He lost his best friend on the track, so he married Mary Crawley. But now that he lost his baby girl … where was there to go? Where was there to run too anymore?
No matter where Henry Talbot ran, death found him.
"Henry, Henry … Henry! You have to get up! You have to get up and save our baby!"
Mary shook him, grabbed his face frantically. But no matter what she said, the man wouldn't move. He had completely shut down. His knees were pulled up to his chest, his arms hugging them tightly, shame on his face, deep, deep, shame. The beautiful woman would have had an easier time moving a stubborn mule, than a shell-shocked veteran who had lost too much.
Despair, sorrow, and fear, so much fear, ran through the woman on that Christmas Eve. It was a fear that went right down to the core, the kind that was only felt once in a lifetime. But for Lady Mary Talbot it was twice now that it had interrupted her life. It was a state of mind, a place so dark that it changes you forever. It had taken four years to recover from the death of her husband, and in those years, she had gone from cold, to haughty, to snobbish, to somewhere in between all of them just before marriage had been blissful. But she had never been the same Mary that Matthew had known and loved. Now, faced with the old dread, the emptiness again, there was no going back to even what little she had salvaged from the last time. As her daughter was clinging to life in extremis, all Mary could think was why couldn't she have died with Matthew? Why couldn't she have been driving back with him, George safely in the care of mama and Isobel?
Many years later no one who was there that day, who heard the story, and who watched what happened first hand will ever know what was going through Mary's half crazed mind. What she saw when she looked down the hallway at George watching her in the distance? No one was sure what she was thinking, what she thought would happen, or if she was thinking at all. So many years in an ice block, not even the ageless beauty knew why she did what she did. Maybe it was because of the dark abyss that she had skirted so closely so many times before? Maybe it was all the clawing and scraping to return to the world of the living? Or was it that George, who was always there for her in the dark days, never let her down?
Some would say later that in her desperation she saw the two people missing in her life, the two people who could never let her down. He was one part Matthew, one part Sybil, a baby born in tragedy there to replace all that was missing in her life. It was possible, after witnessing so many miraculous things, Matthew walking again, escaping from the lost patrol during the war, Reggie Swire's money. If she had prayed hard enough, their love, Mary and Matthew, 'The Lady and the Lawyer', had squared away one last miracle inside the little soul they created together from stardust.
All anyone knew was that what happened next would conceive a doom that would fall ever upon the future heirs of the House of Grantham for near a century.
"No …" Anna stepped in front of Mary before she reached George. "M'Lady, don't! It's already over!" She sounded forceful, and defiant. The woman knew what was about to happen. Even if it cost her everything, Anna Bates was the only one who tried to stop Lady Mary that morning from doing what she did.
There was something practically mad in the way her employer looked to her maid. "Get out of my way, Anna!" She snarled at the woman, grabbing the blonde by her arm and yanking her behind.
"Don't do this, m'lady, please! It's impossible!"
George looked from Anna to his mother in indecision. He didn't know what was going on. He had never seen the two women disagree, much less physically struggle. Nor had he ever seen his mother look this afraid or Anna in such desperation before. His pale, silky and sleek, mama dropped to her knees to get eye level with him. Her slender fingers were like cold hooks in vice on his arms.
"Darling, listen to me …" Her voice was very grave. "Cora is very sick …" She explained.
"M'Lady, please, don't do this!"
George gazed at Anna for a moment, but his mother grabbed his chin forcefully and turned his head to look her in the eye. "I … I know." He answered her with a frightened nod.
There was something empty in the fake smile she gave him. "Of course, you do." Lady Mary shook her head, her voice trembling in fax complement. There was something frantic in her red tinted eyes. "There's a way to make her better." She readjusted her grip on him.
"I'm begging you, don't make him do this …!"
The boy focused on Mary as she shut her eyes in anger at Anna's pleading. When she opened them, she was almost enticing in luring the small boy to her. "Darling, I need your help! Cora, she needs your help!" She nodded so he'd comprehend what she was saying.
"I can help." He agreed without a moment's hesitation.
"Don't do this …!"
"Darling, listen to me." Mary centered him just as he was about to look back to Anna. "You have to do this! Do you understand me?!" his mother was stern, giving him a sudden sobering shake. "There's no one else!" Her voice cracked.
It was that one moment, in truth, that the House and County of Grantham would fall, their heirs exiled and lost.
George Crawley would point to that one moment as to why he did it when all hope had faded in his heart. He would always say, when questioned, that he guessed it was easier to try and do something than to stand around and do nothing, he supposed. But, in reality, in all of his life, in his most horrible nightmares, George Crawley knew it was the beautiful woman on her knees, breaking before him. It was when the strongest woman he ever knew nearly shook apart and dissolved into the abyss beyond the circles of the world. Mary Crawley nearly broke in front of her son, broke into tiny pieces that could never be put back together again. She was vulnerable, she was exposed, and that small boy that day, that hour, had never loved anyone more. He had loved Lady Mary Talbot so much that all he wanted to do was protect her, to make it better. When she nearly broke, George knew all the way back then that there was no going back, no backing out.
He'd do anything for her.
"I'll do it. I'll get the Stimulants from Grams at the hospital. I'll save Cora, mama." He nodded with a conviction that was beyond its years ...
It was an impossibility that only a child could promise with such confidence.
"Thank you! Oh, my darling, thank you!" She pulled him close and kissed him all over his face. The light momentarily returned to her eyes, hope sprang once more into her breast as she held him close in arms, heart, and soul like no one else before. It would be the last time for many long years afterward.
Tears were streaming down her milky cheeks as she reached back and began to pull items of clothing out of Anna's arms, not sparing her lady's maid even a look of contempt. She ripped off his deer stalker and wrapped Lady Grantham's dark blue scarf around his mouth and nose. Then, taking a pair of her own leather gloves, she pulled them over the boy's hands.
"Go get your coat and hat!" She shook him.
The boy paused. The whole situation was starting to catch up to him. His baby sister wasn't just sick. It wasn't like it was even a week ago. Something much worse was happening here. The young child was staring at Henry several yards away. He was watching a man that was staring right back at him. A single tear fell from the former auto racer's eye. And in that tear, in that face, and the way his mother was looking at him, in Anna's protests … it dawned on him.
The baby was dying.
"George …"
His chest was heaving and he felt light headed. The baby, his baby, his only friend, his baby sister was dying. She was dying and he was the only one who could save her.
"George!"
He snapped back to his mother when she shook him.
"Run …"
His mother shouted the same thing at him all the way down the steps. Her polished voice echoed desperately, helplessly, through the halls of Downton, maybe for hours, days, years, maybe till Judgment Day. He heard her as he put on his coat and hat. He heard her as he opened the glass door. It was the rowing cadence that worked little muscles to push open the heavy castle doors. It was the command that mixed in with the banshee's wail that met him when he hit the wall of solid cold air. Squinted little eyes were met with the bitten savageness of the elements and combating air pressure of hot and cold. And yet he heard the same thing in mind, heart, and soul.
"Run, George, run!"
Tom Branson, Lady Edith, Bertie Pelham, Lady Rose, and Atticus Aldridge could've all used a cup of hot coco at this point. When they had all met on the London train, they thought it a merry coincidence on such a fortuitous Christmas Eve. With Sybbie, Marigold, and Little Rachel with them, they had all spent time away from Downton, busy with lives that were just starting out. Now that they were back, there was a certain feeling of home that was associated with the great house. It was a fortress built of the fondest of memories, in which they could hide away from the bustle of their world. There they could relax and once again rejoin one another's company.
But for all the merriment of the train ride, a great Christmas setting and early holiday celebration of excited chatter and joyful banter, they had found themselves in the aftermath of a storm. They were all standing in a great frosted winter land. They found themselves stranded at the station. It had been a long, frigid, hike through the icy, scenic, country, carrying their babies and luggage along the way. Mummy and Daddy switched every half a mile between baby and luggage, poor Tom Branson had both to haul, every once in a while, Edith volunteering to carry both Sybbie and Marigold in each arm. It wasn't all too bad. Rose had kept their spirit up with her usual brand of positive and boundless in energy that somehow always made everyone smile. If there was ever a bright light in the darkest places of the world it was the lovely Lady Rose. Yet, while Edith continuously reminded everyone that in a few years they'd all remember this fondly, all they wanted was the warm fires and golden hued foyers of Downton Abbey. By the time they had spotted the gates of the great estate, they all cheered as if they were attending a competitive rugby match. In just a dozen more frozen minutes, they'd be in the warmth of the grand country manor.
It was Sybbie that first spotted the boy. She wanted to be let down to run to him, but Tom told her to stay in her Aunt Edith's arms. She wasn't in the right boots to be running around in this deep of snow. Edith was overjoyed to see the boy streaking toward them, but questioned what on earth Mary and Mama were doing letting the boy out in this ghastly weather. Atticus and Bertie were of the same mind. But for Rose, she almost tossed the luggage aside when she squatted down with open arms to catch the speeding comet into her embrace.
"George!"
"Hello, Darling!"
"George …"
"George?"
"George?!"
The boy raced right by his aunts and uncles as if he didn't know them, didn't see them. The little lightning bolt flashed right past Rose's open arms and split Atticus and Bertie, charging toward the village faster than anyone had ever seen a young child run. Sybbie and Marigold both shouted for their best friend and adopted brother in the distance, but even the girls he loved the most in the whole universe couldn't pierce the voice that was echoing through his single-track mind.
"Where the devil is he going so fast?"
"Something's wrong …"
"You don't mean it, Tom?"
"I think he's right."
"Let's get there!"
Even in the quiet of the empty beds and cold halls, there was still the ghostly echo of coughing, sneezing, and wheezing that haunted the village hospital. Every weary nurse and doctor could still hear the clamor of patients and the full wards when they walked through the hospital wings. But with the new supply of medicine, and the frosting starting to break, they had successfully put away many of the cases, though bleakly and tiredly. Isobel Grey, Lady Merton, had just been mentioning to Doctor Clarkson that you really couldn't hear the noise of triage till it stops, when George Crawley came bursting through the doors.
His Lady Grandmother had been expecting to see her grandson when she, Lord Merton, and The Dowager went down for dinner that night, and she'd certainly see him again tomorrow morning. Yet, none the less, she was happy to see the everlasting testament to her beloved son's great love. Though she couldn't fathom what he was doing out in the cold this early in the morning, wearing Cora's scarf and Mary's gloves. She had tried to hug him but was shocked when he pushed her away aggressively. The boy began muffled shouts about Cora, wrong medicine, and infant adrenaline. He kept shouting it at his grandmother and Doctor Clarkson in alarm till they got the full message. Isobel rushed to the medicine cabinet, anxious under the chorus of panic in her beloved boys need of help. Yet, Clarkson ranted in denial as he followed the two, claiming that what the boy was saying was impossible. He'd stake his career, his life, that Cora Talbot had gotten her medicine already. It was the only thing he'd ever say to anyone afterward. Fore when the board member opened the hospital cabinet, there on the shelf, was the pediatric vial with Cora Talbot's name on the label. Missing was the spare adult dosage of the same medicine.
Isobel was white as a sheet when she slowly looked back at Doctor Clarkson. She knew immediately what they had done, what had happened. They had given the baby the wrong dosage. Stunned mute, absent of any feeling in her shock, she met George's desperate request in a fog of routine, even putting both vials in a white pharmaceutical bag. There was no bidding farewell to a small boy she'd soon take guardianship over. There was no apology from Doctor Clarkson who was horrified beyond rationality of the mistake they had made. The board would eventually tell her it was an honest mistake, that it wasn't her fault, everyone gets old and that it was Lady Grantham's job to have seen that. But Isobel would never out live or down what happened that day. The poison of what will happen would age her overnight. And by Christmas Day she'd become a brooding, melancholy, old woman, nearly unrecognizable in spirit or attitude as she raised a haunted, haunted, young boy.
Powder and frost kicked up behind little legs that sprinted tirelessly past the gates of the estate one last time. The little boy's chest was on fire and ached so terribly, he couldn't feel his nose which was now bleeding profusely from the fierce cold. It felt like someone was stabbing his scalp with a knife as the frigid air cut threw his hat and layers. He felt as if there was something wet and hard crusting on the tips of his eyebrows and eyelashes. His face was red and raw, painful to the touch. But he kept going. He was almost there … he was almost home.
The child told himself that he would get there in time, he had too. That is how these things work. It'll be close, but then that was how it always went in the stories. But he'd make it, Thomas will give her the right drops, and everything will be fine again. And George Crawley would be a hero for once in his life. The frozen gravel crunched and slushed under speeding feet as his breath misted heavily, sputtering, as he rushed past the old bench under the great tree. He wanted to stop for just a second, to catch his breath, to sit down for just a moment, even just lean on the tree. But his mother's voice kept screaming at him, his sister's disoriented eyes haunted his mind, as did the parting look Anna had given him. It was the same look that everyone had always given George. It was one of sympathy, one of faithlessness. He was poor George Crawley, cursed since the day he was born, the very same day his father died. Bless the heart of Little Master George who couldn't do anything right. But today that was going to change, today they'd all remember this Christmas forever …
And they would.
Someone had left one of the heavy double castle doors open. And when George rushed through, he found snow flurries blowing inside, sticking to the carpeted floors and glass doors, melting in the warmth. The boy was light headed, staggering when he stepped inside. The heat felt heavenly and foreign. He threw open the glass door with a violent bang and paused. The great hall of Downton was dark to the boy's eyesight … as dark as it got. After being out in the bright hue of daylight and the glow of newly fallen snow, the inside of the stately manor was shadowy and filled with gloom. The only beacon was the giant, lit, Christmas tree that sat in the middle of the house.
In front of the grand staircase, whose railing was wrapped elegantly in garland and tinsel, gathered the downstairs staff. Mrs. Patmore was hugging a crying Daisy. Mrs. Baxter was holding Mr. Mosley's hand. Mr. Carson was sitting on the steps next to Mrs. Hughes who was worriedly attending him. George saw that Anna was kneeling next to the old butler in fright, while Mr. Bates stood at the second landing keeping watch over them all. Obviously, the old butler wasn't sitting on the stairs voluntarily, having collapsed in shock and utter devastation. Mrs. Hughes was rubbing the emotional man's broad chest with tears of her own while her husband clutched Anna's hand, his other hand covering his eyes.
George sprinted toward the group, pushing his way through the crowd. He rushed past the fallen Butler, his wife, his nanny, and the valet. Mr. Bates reached for him, but didn't commit to it. There was no use, no help in keeping him with the staff. It broke his heart to realize that there would be no protecting the young master from what was up there. When George reached the middle of the grand staircase, he stopped. All of the eyes of the staff, everyone that made his world what it was, he could feel their eyes on his back. The boy stood silhouetted against the bright lights of Christmas for a long beat. He wanted to look back at all of them, but he couldn't. If the boy had done it, if he allowed himself to do so … then he'd know for sure.
He'd know he failed.
Skipping two steps all the way up, the hospital bag crinkling the whole way, George finished his ascent of the famous staircase with bouncing thud of fast legs. When he reached the gallery, he saw that Henry Talbot was in the same place. He was weeping quietly, rocking back and forth, face buried into his knees. When George breathlessly jogged up, the man looked up from his silent sobbing. His stepfather was almost unrecognizable. Grief had twisted the handsome face that was shadowed in the grand tree lights from below. His cheeks were soaked with tears, and there was no composure as he rocked back and forth. He gave only the briefest looks to the bag in the boy's hand. Something strangled escaped from his throat then. Whither it was a laugh, sob, or both, George would puzzle on it till the day he died. The man buried his face into his knees and took no more notice of the boy.
Little feet didn't halt till they had slid smoothly to a stop amongst the small group of people that had gathered outside the nursery. The small child looked spent, exhausted, torn to pieces from the elements … but mostly he was just terribly cold. He was breathing heavily as he looked around him. Rose was shaking inaudibly, her face buried deeply into Atticus Aldridge's chest, his arms protectively holding the young woman to him. In the corner Robert Crawley was leaning his head against the corridor wall, his teary eyed daughter Edith, held him from behind tightly. From the moment the guests had been told what had happened, Lady Edith had asked Bertie to take the little girls to her room. It was an act of a quick-thinking mother that would spare their little beloveds' sorrow and nightmares for lifetimes to come …
It was a mercy that would not be gifted to George.
Looking around, the boy found his mother. Lady Mary was on the floor outside the door. She looked lost in a world of pain that was so deeply internalized that she looked numbed to the world, to the very spectrum of human feelings. On one side of her, Tom Branson was on his knees, holding one of her hands, whispering heartfelt comforts. On the other side was Lady Grantham pressed tightly to Mary's side, petting her hair, burying her tear strewn face into her daughter's bare shoulder, kissing it comfortingly.
"Mama …" George panted heavily rushing in front of them. "Mama … I got it! I got the medicine!" the suddenly threadbare, torn-up, young child pulled down his granny's scarf, sticky blood rushed down his nose. In his gloved hand he held the crumbled white bag out to her. There was never more urgency in a young child's voice, never had there been such courageous hope in dark blue eyes. It was just like the stories, everyone was sad, given up hope, but just then George would arrive and save the day. Cora was tied to the train tracks and George had the swashbuckler's saber that would cut her free just at the last moment.
Red tinted eyes slowly lifted to examine the threat bare and torn bloodied child, crusted in frozen powder and frost. Her eyes focused on the white paper bag in his gloved hand. She stared at it for a long time, before she returned to the boy. Then, Lady Mary Crawley Talbot turned to this amalgamation of everything in her past that she loved so much, the people that would never let her down …
Till now.
As long as George Crawley lived, it would haunt him, the way his mama looked at him, her own child. It was sharp, venomous, and filled with the deepest of hate. There were no words that needed to be spoken to communicate how disappointing he was at that very moment, standing in front of her. The boy took a visible step back at his mother's reaction to seeing him, seeing all of them inside the boy who had just let her down. But the vicious gaze followed even as he retreated. She hated him. Lady Mary Talbot hated everything about George Crawley in that moment. He saw it in her eyes, in her heart, and in her soul.
Lady Grantham noticed her grandson and was visibly stricken by his weathered and bloody appearance. She saw the hospital bag in his tiny hands and slowly turned to Mary. It was a face that only had been used once in her life, when the son of a Turkish Ambassador was naked and lay dead in her eldest daughter's bed. She couldn't fathom, even in her grief, how anyone could do that to a child. How her own daughter could put that sweet girl's life on the shoulders of a small boy, knowing what she did the moment she got to the nursery, the sheer impossibility of the doomed mission he had been sent on. The only thing that covered the horrible spotlights that was murdering the small boy's soul was Cora Crawley's gentle hand that cupped her girl's eyes and pulled her into the crook of her neck. It was an action that kept her venomous gaze off of the boy.
There was no comprehension of why she was mad, why she hated him. George had done exactly what she wanted him to do. He had run all the way to the village, he had gotten the medicine, and ran back. There was nothing more he could've done. He did what she wanted him to do. He stared at his mother and grandmother, the pale woman blindly pulling Tom's hand to her chest in sorrow. She needed everyone, all her family, all of their love …
Everyone, except George.
Slowly, the boy looked around and saw that all eyes were on him. His family had seen their exchange, the bag in his hand. In their eyes he saw sorrow turn to something else entirely. But it was not sympathy, compassion, or understanding for the weather worn and blooded child before them. In that whirlwind of emotion, pain, and despair, they chose to put all those things into a boy that had in his hand the one thing that was needed. Yet, as usual, he had come all too late. In their minds, in their stricken hearts, they suddenly remembered every ill spoken word about the child. They remembered that the boy was slow to his numbers, his letters, slow to grow out of habits … they realized that George Crawley was just slow. The small child looked around him and found himself surrounded suddenly by angry and viciously disappointed looks from his family, a family who, so suddenly, didn't want to be associated with him, know him. It was simply a family that didn't want him anymore, period.
Something died inside the boy that day. It was something that would never able to be saved or resurrected. He'd see that look in his dreams, in his waking mind, and in everything important he'd ever do. No matter if he had failed or if he had won, it would be all about the same, fore he'd only ever see those angry looks on that one fateful Christmas Eve Morning.
Suddenly, the nursery door opened. When the boy saw that it was Thomas, he quickly moved two steps, holding the hospital bag out toward him. But he stopped himself, halted any words that he might have said. Seeing the man walking out, his arms full, George lowered the bag to his side. He followed the man with his gaze, watching the motionless bundle in his arms. Slowly, sadly, he crumpled his flat cap in his hand and pulled it off from the side of his head, letting snow caked curls fall wildly out with a frigid dusting as they passed.
The baby looked like she was sleeping.
There were many things that came to mind as he watched Thomas carry her away. He remembered the day she was born, sitting at the table with the rest of the men of the family. Donk had his hands behind his back as he stared out the window, Bertie counting cigars, Uncle Tom making jokes to crack a smile out of a nervously sweating Henry. George had joined Donk at the window, copying his posture and stance. The older man looked down, smiled, and placed a hand on the boy's shoulder as the Lord and his Heir shared the view. When Anna came down the stairs, smiling, they knew that she had come through it. He still remembered Henry turning to him. "Shall we go see?" He had asked as he lifted the boy and carried him up the stairs.
He remembered every giggle, cry, smile, and tear that had been shed since that late night he curled up in his mother's lap and held little Cora Talbot for the first time. The way the baby used to quiet as he began reading his books to her, making the voices to get a response out of her. How she'd reach for him, when no one else had. All of it was flashing through his mind as he watched Thomas solemnly tread down the hall with what remained of all the happiest of the most innocent loves. But the thing that got to him most, that would tear him to pieces some nights, rip him hollow on others, through the long hard years that would follow this day. After everything he had done, all the hardships, and doomed charges made on behalf of the beautiful little baby whose picture only conjured joy, happiness, and contentment in his darkest, loneliest times …
George never got to say goodbye to her.
When Thomas was gone, the family had cleared away. Tom and Cora helped Mary to her feet and walked her to her room. Atticus and Rose followed, both mother and father, desperately needing the company of their own little girl in the private of Rose's old room. Edith helped her father, neither letting go of the other as they walked away to help Mary in any way they could. With Tom's help, even Henry was helped back to his feet and escorted to another part of the house. But for one last time, forgotten in the vortex that Lady Mary had drawn around her in grief, was George Crawley.
Soon enough, the small boy, windblown, bloody, and covered in the elements found that he was utterly alone. He stared inside the empty nursery where so many happy memories had lived from Sybbie and Marigold, to the baby. Then, with head hung low in grievous defeat, he trudged away to his lonesome room at the end of the hall.
"You forgot this …"
George turned his head morosely to find a young woman standing in a satin gown of Champaign and jet. Her long raven tresses were pinned back in a stylishly elegant bun of a, then, Ms. Anna Smith's crafting. The small child and elegant youth had matching eyes, curls, and facial features. He didn't know the woman, but George had stopped questioning the randomness of high born guests that stayed at the estate while passing through or attended dinner. In her silky gloved hands was George's book.
The boy walked up to the woman. There was something deeply broken about the way he stared at the book in her hand. It was about airplane racing, and it was the baby's favorite. Mostly because George would read off the tactics, and somewhere in the middle, he'd orate and reenact mesmerizing races and dogfights that he made up to entertain himself and the baby. Whenever she saw the blue and gold cover, she'd bounce her little knees and laugh, knowing that a good story was coming. A single tear drop fell on the book cover as the boy took it from the beautiful young woman.
"Thank you …" There was nothing but heart break in the quiet polite little voice. He placed the book under arm and turned to leave dejectedly.
The girl reached out and grabbed him back as gentle as could be imagined. She sank to her knees in front of him, coming eye level with the most broken of hearts that had ever been seen. She cupped his cold face in her warm silk gloved hands.
"You don't have to worry about her anymore … not anymore." She shook her head, rubbing a silky thumb over his wet cheek.
George sniffed hard. "I wish I still could." He brokenly sobbed in admittance with shaking shoulders.
The woman shed a single tear as she folded the boy in her arms and held him close. She kissed his temple the way her mother had once done to her, the way she had only done once for her own baby girl, before death had claimed the young woman just across the hall from the boy's own room. But squished together in a tight in embrace, the young beauty found holding the broken child so very close brought a kind of absolution that so very close to holding her own girl.
George sobbed quietly in the warm and loving embrace of a woman he had only seen in a picture on his Uncle Tom's nightstand.
Acknowledgements
"Wildfire" – Michael Martin Murphy