MISFIT
epilogue
The world isn't kind to those who, for one reason or another, don't fit with its views. And it has devised so many, many ways to hurt us and remind us of our sin for being different. When we find a little sympathy, it can be more precious than any title or any number of acres."
- Peter Pelham, sixth Marquess of Hexham
Brancaster Castle
March, 1925
For as long as Bertie could remember, children had been forbidden from entering the library at Brancaster.
When he was a boy, he resented that stricture enormously. The library, stuffed from floor to ceiling with dusty books and suits of medieval armour, interspersed with glass cases containing all manner of collectibles from Marquesses of Hexham over the years, had been an Aladdin's cave to his wondering eyes.
The very first time he had been permitted to enter- one sticky, school-boy's hand clutched by his mother in a death-grip- he had stared around the leering animals, the strange, primitive weapons and carefully guarded artefacts in fascination. The late Lord Hexham, Peter's unlamented father, had preferred the tribal bonfires of the Far East to the hearths of home. He had travelled far and wide in the world, his Foreign Office postings a convenient vehicle to transport his more illicit acquisitions home to Northumberland without being questioned by Customs.
Peter once quipped that his father arranged for an item to be sent every few months, just to remind his family that he was still inhabiting the mortal plain. Otherwise, the allowance that was shipped to various ports around the world might be cut off entirely. "For all we know, some enterprising young servant has taken note of my father's rituals and is pocketing the proceeds while Papa rests happily in an unmarked grave on the Hindu Kush."
Whether the artefacts came from Lord Hexham or his servant, it was never made clear until the final shipment of golden Buddhas arrived, complete with a death certificate signed in Siam Reap, Cambodia. The late marchioness consigned the buddhas to the attic storerooms, had the death certificate framed for her bathroom and swore never to set foot in the dratted library again.
It was she who began the tradition of tea being taken in the ante-library. She had little intention of enjoying her tea and crumpets in the shadows of the artefacts that consumed her husband's attention far more than she ever had.
Despite that, or perhaps because of it, the library had been one of Peter's favourite rooms.
The late marquess of Pelham was not the avid collector his father had been. He contributed one or two glass-cases of pottery shards and late-millennia Roman denarii. Apart from that, his interest was limited to the books: reading them, cataloging them. The late lord's strictures on unsupervised visitors in the library became more strictly enforced. Peter would not permit any stray drifter pass between the bookshelves, pulling tomes out willy-nilly. The Brancaster library was his sanctuary, its rigid neatness his solace.
In his own time, Bertie began to appreciate the harsh rulings on entry into the Brancaster library. If he had imagined life as the agent for the Hexham estate was busy, it was small potatoes indeed to the battalion of problems and queries that came his way as the Marquess.
In addition to his title estates in Northumberland and a host of smaller, manorial properties scattered across northern England and the Scottish Borders, Hexham the title laid claim to a number of financial interests in London and overseas. The fifth Marquess, Peter's father, had been as avid an entrepreneur as he had been a collector. As seventh Marquess, Bertie found himself in possession of shares in companies from gold mines in South Africa to railway lines across Nevada and California.
All of this added up to an income that made his nine-hundred pound salary as Brancaster's agent as paltry as the bellboy's tip on a hotel bill. Managing that income, seeing it went to the right people, the right places and that enough was left over to maintain the honour and tradition of Brancaster castle- not to mention covering the raft of new taxes brought in by Stanley Baldwin- took up so much time, Bertie could scarcely walk outside some days. The demands of his solicitor, his man of business and his own agents kept him encaged in his study like a canary bird singing for his supper.
The library, with Howell guarding the door against intruders, was the one area of the house where he could be guaranteed peace. He could stand up from his desk and take a turn around the long corridor without exciting squawks of protest from his employees. He could break away from the endless sheaves of paper and bills and demands to peer into the glass cabinets or pull down one of Peter's books and study the beautiful illustrations.
Bertie, whose one adventure overseas had been a troop train direct to Flanders and the trenches, enjoyed examining the swords and curios preserved in their display cases. He liked to imagine the hot, humid climates from whence they came. Not to touch, of course. That was childish curiosity. It had no place in this sanctum sanctorum.
Brancaster's library was an adult's world and had passed from adult hands to adult hands, uninteruppted, for three Marquesses in a row.
So when he turned the corner on a bookshelf, one grey day in March, some months after his wedding, Bertie was understandably surprised to come across a miniature human huddled in the corner.
"What are you doing here?"
The words jumped out before he could recover from his shock that he was not alone. Too sharp. Too clipped. A tiny thumb popped into the childishly plump mouth and apprehension made the thin shoulders flinch.
It took a second or two before Bertie realised who his miniature intruder was.
"Marigold."
The flowery name felt awkward in his mouth. He was not accustomed to dealing with little girls. Fighting against his natural inclination to back away from the uncomfortable confrontation, Bertie hitched the knees of his trousers up and crouched down on his floor. It was a clumsy business but then, he was not accustomed to crawling along carpets either. "Hello there. What are you doing here?"
The thumb did not move from its comforting suck. The shoulders no longer flinched though. That was a relief.
She studied him, the grey eyes that looked nothing like Edith. A funny little thing. Always so quiet. No wonder she had slipped into his sanctuary without being seen.
Crouching on his haunches was proving uncomfortable. He was not as young as he had once been. Bertie disentangled his legs and settled back against the bookshelves, mirroring the young child in front of him. A spark of sympathy made him try to smile. "What do you have there, Marigold?"
He reached out for the book. Lord, one of Peter's tomes. Those great slabs, tooled in leather and large with full-page illustrations of Roman life and architecture. It was a wonder the child had the strength to pull it out of the shelves. She did not protest when Bertie turned the pages around to see what fascinated her. She simply curled her knees up closer under the dark green cotton skirt and watched him. As though she was accustomed to being denied the things she wanted.
Bertie had a strange urge to hold out his arm and tuck the little body up under his shoulder. He cleared his throat and flicked the pages over, revealing more illustrations. "Do you like history, Marigold?"
Stupid. He scolded himself, as soon as the words slipped from his mouth. Marigold was not even four years old. He was speaking to her as though she was a casual acquaintance at a garden party. Do you like history? Patronising sod.
How did Edith do it? His fingers stilled as Bertie's thoughts drifted to his new wife. He knew- none better- that not every woman was made to be a doting, affectionate mother. His own Mama dispelled that notion. Yet Edith had a gift for it. Despite her modern ambitions and her extraordinary work with the Sketch, she had a natural affinity for children that filled Bertie with a sense of relief and hope. The Pelhams had spent long enough clinging to lone heirs and single children. A large brood, a sprawling litter of young Pelhams had always been his secret wish. A chance to create the family idyll he never had the opportunity to live.
Edith's obvious affection for her young daughter was evidence enough that his dream was within his greedy grasp. She played with Marigold every day, taking time from her own demanding correspondance to supervise her. She had confided to Bertie that her greatest pleasure was reading to Marigold: "She seems to soak up the words. I know that so many of them are over her head right at this moment but she listens so well, I can't seem to stop."
Soon after their honeymoon in Monaco, Edith brought up the subject of Marigold's adoption. Now that their families knew, she argued, it seemed silly not to make everything official. It was nineteen-twenty-five and the world was open for new ideas. The reproductive functions of an earl's daughter were no different than that of any other woman and plenty of women after the war found themselves in a similar situation. War widows, without a wedding ring. If they could live, in privacy and peace, with their children, why not she and Marigold and Bertie?
Her idealism, so out of place in the narrow-minded landscape of their society, made Bertie smile, even as he urged caution. It was not just their happiness that was at stake in Edith's decision but Marigold's as well. Was she to make a principle out of her daughter? How would the girl cope, if not only her close family knew the truth of her origins, but her schoolfriends, their parents, the whole world?
He thought of Peter, ostracised from people he should be able to look to for support and friendship. His cousin had been legitimate, heir to a marquessate. Yet his nature forced him from the bounds of society as much as Marigold's birth would do to her. Remembering the unconscious slights Peter endured, the unrelenting acrimony that dogged every step he took, Bertie made his arguments forcefully
In the end, Edith acquiesced. They had been sitting down to breakfast on the terrace of the Hôtel du Quatorze, overlooking the turquoise waters of the Mediterranean. Despite the sunshine, Edith had been pale. Their first real argument as man and wife had hurt her and disturbed the glow of their honeymoon from her face. He had been curt with the waiter, Bertie remembered, snapping orders at the man like an autocrat. He had not enjoyed the argument either.
The man had just poured their morning coffees when Edith broke the tense silence. She reached across the white linen cloth and placed her fingers on top of his hand.
"You're right." Her voice broke a little and his heart broke in turn. Bertie did not dare raise his eyes from the cup of dark coffee to see the pain he could imagine in her warm brown eyes. "I need to think of Marigold's peace of mind. Her future. That is best if she... if she remains my ward."
Bertie had felt no pride in his victory. Not even relief, at having the matter settled once and for all. He covered her fingers with his free hand, trapping her in his grip. "Perhaps someday, when she's older. She will have questions, no doubt and when that time comes..."
He hoped, even now, back in the blustery, familiar comfort of Brancaster Castle, that day would not come. Looking across the painted pages of Peter's old book at this daughter-not-daughter and her solemn, innocent eyes, Bertie hoped Marigold would do never feel the need to question her parentage or the real identity of her mother.
They had stopped in London on their meandering journey back north from the sunny climes of Southern France. The Pelham family solicitors were good, very good. Quiet, beetle-like men who scurried to and fro in their obsequious black morning suits, filing this suit of guardianship, that afffadavit of parentage.
It was decided that the old story would suit best. The Drewes had returned to Downton, aided by a private injection of cash from the Pelham coffers. Timothy Drewe agreed to pretend that Marigold was his late sister's child, born after a disastrous marriage to a French soldier and raised, for the first year or two, in France with her paternal grandparents.
That would account, Edith informed him, her voice trembling under the strain of remaining unemotional, for the slight French accent that lingered in Marigold's pronunciation, as well as her absence for the first two years of her life. It would also give Marigold a base in Downton, a reason to visit her unknown grandparents, under the guise of paying her respects to her "Aunt" and "Uncle" Drewe.
Bertie's own mother, once they informed her of the plan, had been delighted. It was excellent news, she told them over tea and crumpets at Pelham house, her preferred residence in town. "The girl is a charming little thing and I am delighted to know her. But it is such a comfort to be certain of her place in things going forward."
Mirada Pelham smiled at Edith and reached over to pat the new Marchioness's hand with a patronising air that had Bertie biting his tongue on a sharp rebuff. "You've made the right choice, my dear. The only logical choice."
It was right, so perfectly logical and right like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle slottting into place. Why so, Bertie thought, did he feel a sting of guilt when he looked down at the little girl, buffeted about by the winds of fate?
The solemn grey eyes studied him for a moment. Then, slowly, she nodded. "The pictures are pretty." A thin hand reached out and hovered over, but did not touch, the page. "Like Tante Edie's storybook."
"Are they?" Bertie turned his head and looked down at the depictions of mosaics from the ancient city of Volubilis. Rough and battered as the illustration rendered them, there was a certain beauty about the hunting scene shown, rendered in the elongated legs of the animals and the symmetrical features of the hunters.
"Yes." The definite note in the childish voice made Bertie want to smile. "But they don't wear trousers like you."
"No, they wouldn't. You see, these pictures here," he tapped his finger against the pencil sketch. "Came from North Africa. A country called Morocco. It's far too hot to wear trousers. And these pictures were made long ago, during the Roman Empire. Only barbarians wore trousers back then. These were civilised people."
"What are barbarians?" The French accent lingered with the long tug of the 'a'. But Bertie was surprised at how easily the difficult word slipped from the young child's lips.
"Rough, savage people who fought against the Roman Empire. Mostly," He tried a wink. "They came from England."
The giggle that stuttered out from Marigold was like finding a pot of gold under the rainbow. The smile she turned up towards his face, unforced and impulsive, was a mirror for Edith. "I come from England! Tante Edie says so."
"Really? Good Lord!" Bertie pretended horror. "Are you a barbarian then?"
"No!"
"Are you sure?"
"No, no!" The squeal was high with delight. Marigold scrambled to her feet with excitement. "Bar-bar-barbarian!"
"Careful!" Bertie grabbed a small, flailing arm before Marigold toppled over into a flurry of skirts and flounces. Lord, he never realised how tiny a child's bones were. Marigold's felt as fragile as a bird. He loosened his grip until it was firm but gentle. The Pelham signet didn't leave a mark on her pale skin.
She stilled immediately on his command. As though watching a balloon deflate its air, Bertie could see the childish glee slip away from the young girl. She resettled her feet with an obedience that suggested a familiarity with orders given in just such a tone- or worse. The arm hung limp in his grip. Her lower lip slipped in between her teeth.
Bertie recognised the gesture. It was the same that Edith had worn, that day she confessed Marigold's birth history to him. As though she had tucked in the softer, most vulnerable parts of her face in against recriminations, much as she tried to harden her heart against the harshness the world threw at her.
He did not know much of Marigold's history. Only what Edith had told him. She herself confessed that she had never met the Schroeder family who first adopted Marigold in Switzerland. Rosamund Painswick had organised the adoption and all communications had been filtered through her solicitors. Edith admitted- one night, when they were alone on their honeymoon and the time was ripe for such confessions- she suspected the Lutheran clockmaker and his wife had not been good to the little girl.
A pang of sympathy, at once familiar and different, swept through Bertie's heart.
Reaching up, he smoothed one of the tiny curls back from Marigold's ear. Then extended the gesture to ruffle the fine russet hair into disorder, the way he remembered his own father doing when he was little more than Marigold's age.
The uncertain smile that cracked the blank mask of her face spurred him on.
"Well, sprat." Where had that come from, Bertie wondered. His father had delivered the same, hearty moniker to Bertie as a boy. "Would a barbarian like to see something rather interesting?"
The nod hesitated half way down. Then kept going, a second and third time. Bertie clambered to his feet, as awkward as an ageing Labrador dog. Marigold's arm slipped through his grip, until her hand was engulfed in his, her thumb tucked against the Pelham signet.
"Yes, m-m-my lord." She flicked a glance up at him. "Is that right?"
Thank you, Howell. Bertie fought back a grimace. His butler was more of a stickler for convention than Mirada Pelham herself. No doubt he had taken pains since the family's return to Brancaster to impress upon the four year old her 'place' in the household.
Edith would be furious.
"I suppose it is." He shortened his steps to an amble to accommodate the patter of small feet. "I am the Marquess of Pelham so when I meet people for the first time, they must call me 'my lord'. I'll tell you a secret though," He squeezed her fingers gently, enough to reassure. "I don't like it one bit. Far too stuffy."
"Like Grandma Violet."
"Rather like."
Bertie drew Marigold closer to the smaller glass cabinet. It was one of his favourites in the room. Three rows of Roman coins, mostly from Volubilis or around Tangiers. Peter, following, as he joked, his father's tradition, had sent them over from his retreat to North Africa before he died. Unlike many artefacts by the fifth marquess, Peter's father, every single coin had been removed from the earth by Peter's own hand, not purchased from a dealer.
It gave Bertie pleasure to imagine Peter, as hale as he was before the war, squatting in a sandy, rocky trench under the Moroccan sun. Of course, that was far from the case. Peter himself admitted that he had to be lowered on a litter into the dig. Still, the coins were one of the few reminders for Bertie of the cousin he missed.
Marigold peered through the glass sides of the cabinet. "What's that?"
"Coins. Pounds, shillings and pence for the Romans."
"Are they old?"
"Very." Bertie scratched his memory for the dates Peter had painstakingly inscribed on the letter that accompanied the find. He had been meticulous about the correct labelling for each denarius. "That one-" he pointed to a chipped brown smudge, the inscription nearly worn away. "Is two thousand years old."
Marigold studied the smudge in silence. Bertie settled into the quiet, surprised at how easy it was. Even pleasant, having the small hand wriggling in his and looking down at the fine dark hair. She did not take after Edith, little Marigold. It was there in the expressions, the delicate way she had of moving her hands. But her hair, her eyes, even the set of her jaw as she perched beside the glass cabinet and stared in at the curios, was foreign.
How much of her father was in her, he wondered? The mysterious Michael Gregson, of whom he knew nothing more than that he had lived in London, worked at the Sketch and died in Germany? The man who had never known he had fathered a child, who left no other surviving blood relation by which to compare. Only a lunatic wife and... Edith.
"Hold?"
Yanked from his thoughts by the question, Bertie blinked. "You would like to hold it?"
Marigold nodded. "Yes. My lord."
Bertie had a vague inclination that he should demand the word 'please'. A stronger, bone-deep inclination urged him to deny her. Bad enough that the sanctum sanctorum of the Brancaster library was infiltrated by a rogue child. It would go against every tradition in the place if the curios in the glass cabinets were finally picked up and used the way they had been centuries ago. It was not Marigold's... place.
Ah.
Bertie looked down at the small little misfit at his side. Already, through no fault of her own, she had been denied a reputation, a father and a normal life. Britain was changing to a modern society but, Lord knew, the mills of God and social opinions ground slowly. If the truth were known, Marigold could well be a source of curiosity to strangers for the rest of her life. Poor little sprat.
He chewed over the question for a few seconds more. Then, "Why not?"
Breaking the habits of a lifetime, Bertie reached to the concealed drawer of the glass cabinet. From it, he withdrew the small gold key that locked the covering, set it in the cabinet and opened the protective shield. The hinges groaned like a dungeon door being released to the light.
Marigold's eyes widened to saucers.
"Oh." She breathed as Bertie lifted out the coin she had spotted- with, he was embarrassed to admit to himself, more than a touch of panache. "It's pretty, my-lord."
The title had distintegrated by now into a sing-song muddle of two words to one, accented now, Bertie thought, with the rolling rrr's of Yorkshire.
He crouched down as he handed it to her. Two thousand years of history fondled between tiny hands like a marble. A miniature thumb rubbed across the barely-there inscription of some long-dead emperor. She stared at it and then looked up to Bertie. The baby teeth gleamed between her lips.
And with that, Bertie Pelham lost his heart for a second time in under a year.
"It's pretty!" She declared again, with more delight than before. "My-lord."
"Yes." Bertie took one small hand from the coin and cradled it in his own. Like Edith, it was swallowed up in the farmer's palm he had. "But, Marigold, maybe you can call me something else."
"What, my-lord?"
"Uncle." He put the British pronunciation on it, not the French as she had done with Edith's name. "Uncle... Pelham."
A ghost from the past reared up behind his eyes, showing a tall thin man, remarkably like Peter, looming over the small boy he had been. "I am Pelham, young man. You may call me 'uncle'..."
"Uncle Pel..." She stumbled over the second syllable. Mouthed it, then smiled. "I like Uncle Pel!"
Yes, Bertie decided, as he exchanged the first coin for a second and began to explain its origins to the smiling four year old. I rather like it too.
I wrote the first "Misfit", thinking that the relationship between Bertie and his cousin Peter Pelham was one of those unexplored areas of Downton that cry out for a bit of digging... except, once I started, the other side of the coin (ba-dom-dom-dom!) also came to mind: how would Bertie deal with becoming a parent to Marigold?
I hope you enjoyed this Drabble into the potential relationship forming between Bertie and his new step-daughter/kinda/sorta. Please take a look at the other half of the story too!
