Ch 2- We'll Be Home Soon
Molesley raised an eyebrow when he opened the gate, noting that the front door was open, swinging haphazardly in the wind.
"Phyllis?" He asked as he walked up the steps, "Phyllis?"
He stopped dead in his tracks when he reached the doorway dropping is umbrella and briefcase at the sight of the turned over chair and broken bowl. He knew at once something had gone terribly wrong and his heart began to race.
"Phyllis?" He called helplessly, starting to rush about the barren space.
She wasn't there: he'd know her presence anywhere, and had from the moment he'd first laid eyes on her, he knew now she was gone but cried out in desperation anyway.
"Phyllis!"
Molesley paused, a greater panic rushing over him like a tall wave of water when he realized that if she'd been taken, the children would've been taken too.
"SIMON! PENNY!" Molesley groaned, panic totally possessing him when the children did not answer.
He bit his lip, holding his hand over his head and unable to even consider what to do next. He was about to burst out sobbing when he heard a muffled little cry coming from the corner.
"Daddy!" Penelope cried, coming out from her hiding place, her teddy bear tight in hand.
"Penny!" He gasped, tears pouring down his cheeks as he dropped to his knees and collected the small girl in his arms.
"Oh Penny!"
"Daddy!" Simon exclaimed, rushing up to his father.
"Simon!"
Molesley took a moment to hug the children tight, looking toward the heavens and thanking God that they were safe. He kissed each of the their heads several times.
"Simon, what happened, where is mummy?" He asked seriously, thinking his four-year-old son would be able to tell him something useful.
But Simon had fallen to pieces, too frightened from having witnessed the ordeal to give much information. He jumped at his father's touch, thinking about how the man had touched his mummy, how he'd pushed her and she'd fought back so hard to keep away from him, even pulling a kitchen knife on him, and Simon thought, stabbing him once or twice. But in the end it hadn't stopped him from ransacking the house and pulling her out the door by her hair. Simon swallowed the lump in his throat after several seconds, his mother's screaming still echoing in his ears. Perhaps if he said what he did know it could help?
"A-a man came and mummy didn't want him here, but he came in the house anyway and he fought with mummy and we hid and he took her away with him." He said, chewing on his fingers nervously.
"WHAT?!"
The truth was worse than anything Molesley could've possibly imagined. Worse: it was what he'd imagined, what he knew from the moment he saw the swinging door and overturned chair.
"You don't know where she went?" Simon asked having been sure his father would have the answer.
Penelope began to blubber at her brother's words realizing her mother was really gone and Molesley felt everything, from his mind to his heart just go numb.
…..
"HELP!"
Molesley would never be able to tell you how he'd gotten to Downton so quickly, in the pouring rain with both the children in his arms. Not knowing what was going on, he didn't feel safe in the house and knew that he needed help. As much as he wanted to be with them someone needed to take the children and he needed to take whatever steps were necessary to find his wife. Molesley busted through the Abbey's front door and past Mr. and Mrs. Carson, yelling frantically, causing Lady Grantham to pause at her place atop the staircase.
"What's wrong?!" Mrs. Carson asked, sensing his panic. She reached out and took a crying Penelope from him, placing her on her hip.
"Mr. Molesley?" Carson asked strictly, unhappy about the impropriety of his entrance.
"Please, you have to help me, it's Mrs. Molesley I've got home and the house is ransacked and she's gone!" At this Molesley began to cry, Elsie gasped and Carson was obviously alarmed.
"What?!" Cora asked, quickly coming down the stairs. "Baxter's gone?"
Cora felt she knew her long-standing ladies maid well and knew she never would've left on her own volition.
"Molesley…. You don't think…" Cora paused, not wanting to say anything in front of the children. Molesley nodded quickly, his eyes growing wide.
Elsie was confused, but knew it was high time to make an exit.
"Mr. Carson, I think we should take the children downstairs, for some dry clothes and some ice cream while Mr. Molesley works on finding their mummy." She suggested.
"Thank you Mrs. Carson I think that's a wonderful idea." Cora added.
Carson was torn, while he understood he was being dismissed for a reason, he was also anxious to help. He sighed, distressed by what was going on and followed his wife as she walked away, one child on her hip, the other at her side.
"Mr. Carson." Molesley asked, causing the butler to turn. "Please, send up Mr. Barrow to see me."
"Thomas?" He was dismayed.
"Yes. I very much need him right now."
"We'll be in the library Carson." Cora smiled bittersweetly, gently patting Molesley's back as she led him into the other room, not caring if it was proper or not.
"M'lady if I may, I think I will call the authorities first." Carson recommended.
"Oh that's right! I forgot to call the police!" Molesley panicked.
…..
"The poor loves." Mrs. Patmore whispered.
Charlotte Carson, the oldest of the Carson children, watched carefully as her parents sat around the kitchen island with the two Molesley children. The sixteen-year-old was dismayed by what had happened, so much so that she could barely fathom it.
"Are you sure?" The girl asked her godmother.
Charlotte, who was nearly grown, was short, had auburn-red hair that went just passed her shoulders and was in many ways, the image of her mother.
"No m'lad and lass." Elsie soothed, rocking Penny in her lap. "I know you're so scared, but daddy's going to find mummy and make it all right."
Simon gulped, barely able to touch his ice cream. Carson pat his back watching as big tears rolled down the boy's cheeks and into the bowl. He had something difficult to tell the children and couldn't fathom doing it, not in their states.
"Simon." He cleared his throat. "Simon, Penny the police are coming to the house. You know the policemen are good men who help people?"
Simon and Penny both nodded.
"And you know Sargent Willis from church and from town?" Elsie asked and they nodded at this too.
"Simon, the policemen are going to want to talk to you and to Penny because you were there. It might be upsetting." Carson finally said.
"But we'll be right there and so will your daddy and the more you can remember just the way it happened the better it can help mummy, do you understand?"
"Uh-huh." Simon mumbled, realizing he was being given a very important job.
For Penelope, much of the lines were already blurred, and because she was so little; things about her memory of the incident were already distorted. But one thing she recalled clearly was the screaming. Her mother's pleading with this strange man echoed in her tiny mind and while she wanted to help she sought desperately to drown it out. She buried her face in Mrs. Carson's chest, hoping that the closer she got, the noise would flee from her: but she had no such luck.
…
"Molesley I want you to know Lord Grantham and I will do whatever we can, and whatsmore anything that needs to be done." She promised, shakily pouring two cups of tea as she watched him. She was very upset but tried not to let it show, knowing that he needed strength and support.
Molesley sat on the chaise, his face in his hands. He bore a look of utter defeat and crippling despair not just in his face or his eyes but in the very way in which he sat and even breathed. He was terrified, confused and worst of all, restless. He was waiting for the police and trying to stay calm but knew in his heart of hearts that he needed to have dropped off his children and left at once to begin looking for her. There was no time to loose and he felt that strongly, every inch of him, body and soul seemed to spur him to an action he knew not how to take.
"It's Coyle." He spat. Cora jumped, surprised by the hatred in the normally docile man's voice.
She'd known him many years, practically since she'd come to the village and never heard him take such a tone. She elected not to say anything in reply and let him continue speaking.
"She's…she's afraid of him now, did you know that? I know she tells you things."
"She is more my friend than my ladies maid but she'd not told me that." Cora said.
Molesley was haunted. All he could think of were his wife's dreams: the ones that woke her up violently night in and night out, scared nearly to the point of delusion. And now she was out there somewhere: those hellish dreams that dissolved her into a whimpering mess of a soul becoming a reality while he sat there and had tea with Lady Grantham.
He felt every bit responsible and wanted to be every bit her protector, although very secretly he didn't feel up to the task. He was a gentle man, one of words and heart but not action or force and or that he felt a failure. He always held her at night when she awoke from her hell and promised her there was no going back: but he'd let it happen, he'd done the unthinkable and allowed the one thing he promised himself would never happen: for that man to have a real hold on his wife again.
'You have to do it.' A voice whispered. Molesley was confused. A very reasonable, and good man, he knew the varying parts of his brain well and understood this was his rational side speaking to him. 'You have to find him and kill him.' 'Me? Kill a man!' Another part of him wanted to scream.
Molesley had been through a lot in his life, but had never experienced an emotional tug of war so intense: he struggled with the pain and fear of the situation, they were overwhelming but his anger was swelling to depths that he'd never experienced or even fathomed. It was unnatural for him and he wasn't sure how much longer he could handle it before he lost it.
"I'm sure she's…." Cora began; wanting to assure him that Baxter was strong.
"She's having a baby, did she tell you that?" He asked, anger swelling in him again at the thought that Coyle was endangering not just his wife but also, his youngest and much wanted child.
"Yes she did."
"What's going on?! I came as fast as I could." Thomas asked, stopping in the door to catch his breath. "Oh, pardon m'lady." He said very formally.
"Don't bother right now Barrow, just think war time." Cora corrected.
"M'lady?" Thomas was confused.
"I think you might be able to help us Thomas, please, close the door and sit."
"Only he can help me: he knows the whole story. More so than I do." Molesley spat, a hint of resentment in his voice.
Thomas paused, looking back at Molesley. He'd heard what had happened and drawn his own conclusions. But it was only now that he'd been asked there; that he came to understand the request that Molesley was about to make of him. He paused, considering it for a minute.
"We leave tonight: as soon as the police do." Thomas recommended.
"It couldn't be soon enough."
…
"Daddy don't go!" Simon cried.
The children were tucked in bed together and immensely distraught when they heard that their father would be leaving them now too. He felt similarly but couldn't admit it to them at least relieved he'd be leaving them in a place where they'd absolutely be safe.
"I don't want to go either, but you want me to find mummy right?" He asked.
The children watched him innocently, tears in their eyes.
"Daddy no leave us." Penny whispered.
"Oh Penny, Simon I love you more than the world. You're going to stay with Mrs. Carson just until I come back." He whispered, kissing each, child as he tucked them in and turned off the light.
It was barely nightfall and his children's bedtime made all of those conflicting feelings rise up within again: sorrow, extreme anger, panic, his love for his children…even the one who was not yet born.
"Will you come back?" Simon asked, yawning.
"Daddy loves you, he will be back."
"Will you come back with mummy?" Penelope asked.
Molesley paused, not knowing what to say. He couldn't promise it could he? Not even to himself. Coyle was a dangerous man, one most likely out for revenge.
"Mr. Molesley I hate to interrupt but it's time to go." Thomas said. He stood in the doorframe, a sack over his shoulder. "Good night children."
"Good night Uncle Thomas!" They yawned.
Molesley bristled, he'd never get used to Thomas being his children's godfather, even if he had agreed to it.
"Good night my wonderful children." Molesley whispered. "Don't forget mummy and I love you very much. We'll be home soon."