A/N: Downton drabbles, in the form of diary entries, written for Team Anna/Bates over at lovebelowstairs on LJ. This chapter, Mr. Molesley has been shafted by Bates yet again...

Chapter 1 - 'I all alone beweep my outcast state'

I should have known it'd happen sooner or later.

Even after her turning me down, I'd held some hope that she'd just need a little more time and she'd think on me differently. I could be as good as him. Better even! Perhaps he was bigger than I, and all the manlier for serving in a war, but she could just as well do with more than some brute strap. She's a strong and moral woman, is Anna. Her pale colouring might lead one to think she's a delicate sort, but she's a will of iron and a steely mind. She and I would have been an idyllic intellectual match... We could have conversed on Dickens, Joyce, Conrad, Donne... I could have recited Shakespeare for her... I could have educated her on foreign writers; Poe, Twain, Whitman... Yes, she would have loved me easy, had I been given a chance. I would have been so much better for her than him.

But he's back. Welcomed as if he were some sort of hero, Mr. Bates has returned to Downton. Never mind that he's married, been locked up, walks with the aid of a cane and has a reputation of being a drunkard... but then, none of us are without a past.

I should be more upset about losing the valet's position than I am, angrier with him for taking the shoe horn I'd picked and purchased, but none of it mattered much when compared to the fact that Anna and I will never be now.

Never shall I feel her snow-white skin... her golden tresses... her fine pink lips... Never shall I be able to compare her to a Summer's day... Never shall I whisper Sonnet 018 to her over a fine bouquet from my garden, of which grew no flower as lovely as her. Not even my own roses bear the shade of pink on her cheeks. Darling Anna.

I hope Mr. Bates knows how fortunate he is. Much as I want to, I cannot scorn the man. I survived watching them whisper and giggle together before, and I will again. I wish them well.

J. Molesley

PS: I had marked out something a little more joyous for reading tonight, anticipating that I would have sat by her in the servant's hall for dinner, but considering the circumstances, Sonnet 029 is much more appropriate:

When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope...