By the time he got downstairs, most of the servants had gone up to sleep. But Mrs. Hughes was waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs, her arms crossed as she glanced nervously down the corridor.
"Has she gone up to bed?" he asked the housekeeper.
"No. She rarely goes up before midnight, one o'clock any more. And then she only sleeps for a few hours before getting up early, if she sleeps at all."
"Where is she?"
"In the boot room." Frowning at him, Mrs. Hughes said, "Mister Bates... I know this is difficult, but please take care of her."
He nodded at the request, understanding the woman's silent plea. Anna needed his love and support, not his fury over her attacker. And now that he knew what was wrong, knew that he hadn't done something to estrange his wife and cause her to hate him, he had every intention of giving her whatever she might need. "I will," he said.
Bates found Anna scrubbing and polishing Lady Mary's black heels, although the shoes already gleamed in the clear electric light of the boot room. He saw Anna start at the sound of the door opening and glance quickly in his direction. But she relaxed slightly at the sight of him, and he thought he saw a moment's hesitation, as though she were glad to see him.
"You're back," she noted quietly, turning her eyes to her work once more as she continued scrubbing the shoes. Before, he would have wondered at her lack of response at seeing her husband for the first time in almost a month. Now, he could make out the underlying nervousness in her features as well as the restrained relief at his appearance.
"I should never have left," Bates responded, moving towards her with slow, careful steps.
She did not answer immediately but after a moment said, "You had every right. I treated you horribly."
"I had no right. I should have stayed, no matter how much it hurt."
He saw her flinch slightly, but Anna still would not look at him. She seemed so thin and gaunt, as though she'd eaten nothing and slept not at all in the weeks he'd been gone.
"I can leave here," she offered, her voice barely audible. "...find a position elsewhere."
"I don't want you to leave."
The words barely came out, his throat was so thick with contained emotion. Anna stopped her scrubbing momentarily, risking a glance in his direction. He smiled at her, but her eyes darted away again, as though she were a small animal in the brush which could escape the notice of a predator.
"I know what happened," Bates told her, unable to keep up the pretense that this conversation was about anything else. "Mrs. Hughes came to London and told me."
Anna looked at him then, standing up to face him with squared shoulders, the shoes and brush forgotten. She seemed even tinier than before, as though she'd managed to make herself smaller. Her bottom lip trembled as her eyes filled with tears. But her words were full of anger, "That was very wrong of her. It was not her secret to tell."
"She was worried about you. Almost as worried as I am." Bates stopped, not sure how to keep going. "She also wanted me to know that you weren't unfaithful to me."
Anna said nothing, instead averting her eyes to the ground. He hated that she refused to look at him, as though she feared what he would see in her eyes.
"I didn't intend to accuse you," he went on. "I only meant that if that... if that was what all this was about, it didn't matter to me. But I was a fool for even considering you would do such a thing."
"But I was unfaithful-"
"You were attacked," he interrupted her forcefully. He regretted the stern tone instantly as it seemed to be the lever which released her tears. Before him, his wife began to dissolve.
Speaking as she cried, Anna responded, "But it's my fault. I must have done something to bring it on, made him think... I couldn't stop him. I tried, but he was too strong..."
He stepped forward so that he was just in front of her but not touching. Oh how he wanted to hold her, to give her physical comfort. But thinking of all the times she'd flinched away from him, he dared not reach out for her or risk making things worse.
Instead, he assured her, "It wasn't your fault. If anything, the fault is with me. I should have been there to protect you."
Bates had been thinking about it all day, ever since Mrs. Hughes had told him the truth. If Anna was attacked during the concert, then he was upstairs listening to the music, blissfully unaware of what his wife was enduring. He should have known. He should have had some sense of what she was going through. Instead, he'd joked with Mrs. Hughes about Anna falling asleep. He would despise himself for the rest of his days for not being there for her the one time she truly needed him.
"Why didn't you tell me?" he lamented softly.
"I knew the suffering it would cause you."
"Oh, Anna..."
His hand was halfway to her face before he stopped. Bates wanted to touch her, so badly, to pull her into his arms and kiss her hair.
"I'm no longer the woman you married," she explained, her voice cracking "I'm... dirty. Defiled. I couldn't stand to have you touch me."
The tears ran down her cheeks in unending streams, and Anna still could not keep her eyes on him. She would meet his gaze, then look away, and then back at him, agitated and shaking.
"Anna, you're not-" he began, but she interrupted.
"I'm spoiled for you. And I can never be unspoiled."
Her last statements broke him. Bates considered himself a strong man, having weathered much in his years. After injuring his leg in the war, he'd fallen into a bottle and a dark, brooding relationship with his first wife, Vera. Then he'd suffered through life in prison, taking responsibility for her crime while atoning for his own personal shortcomings. Finally, he'd gotten the chance he'd been looking for - a position at Downton Abbey as Lord Grantham's valet. The job was a dream come true and almost as much a blessing to his life as one of the first people he'd encountered upon walking in the door.
Ever since he'd met Anna, she'd been like a ray of healing sunshine on his scarred soul. She treated him as the man of honor and respect he'd strived to become. She made him a better man, the kind of man he hoped would be worthy of the love she'd shown him. And she'd stuck with him, through his failed attempted to divorce Vera, through the murder trial, and even his resulting incarceration. Through all of it, she'd been at his side, comforting and encouraging him.
Seeing her in pain ripped at his heart like jagged edges of a broken bottle, but hearing her speak of herself in such harsh terms was Bates' undoing.
"You are not dirty or spoiled," he told her, his throat almost closing with the force of his emotions. "You are my wife, and nothing could make me love you less."
He reached out his hands to touch her face, and for the first time in weeks, she did not shrink back from him. How could she consider any of this was her fault? How could she believe he would ever think less of her? To think of all she had endured, and in horrific silence because of him, because of her desire to protect him.
"You are everything to me," he told her forcefully. "Do you understand? Everything. Without you there is nothing. I am nothing. Anna... you are as precious and wonderful a person as you were the day we wed. Nothing has changed that. Nothing ever could change that, least of all something terrible that was done to you. Oh, my darling."
Anna let him fold her into his arms as she began to sob uncontrollably. At first, body stiffened, as she were though unsure about having him so near, but as the minutes passed Bates felt her gradually relax against his body until she was clinging to him. Finally being able to touch her after so many weeks apart overwhelmed him almost as much as the sound of her quiet sobs. But Bates just stroked her hair and whispered endearments to her, over and over.
Anna spent that night with him at the cottage, walking home with him just after midnight. But neither of them found sleep easily after crawling into bed together, the first time since that horrible night of the concert. They lay facing each other, their only contact his hand laid over hers.
"I thought it was something I'd done," Bates confessed to her. "I thought you'd gone off me."
She shook her head. "Never."
"I'm just glad you still love me."
"I'll always love you," she said matter-of-factly. "Nothing can ever change that."
"Even though I failed you?" he asked. "I should have been there to stop it-"
Holding out her other hand, she pressed gentle fingers to his lips, silencing him. "You've just spent half the evening telling me what happened wasn't my fault. I won't let you turn around and blame yourself."
Chastened, he nodded acceptance of her words. The last thing she needed was to hear his self-pity at having been unable to protect his wife.
"I'm so sorry I put you through all this," Anna went on. "I never meant to hurt you."
Bates wanted to reassure her, to tell her that all the distance she'd put between them didn't matter, but instead, he let her keep talking. She truly had broken his heart, convincing him so thoroughly that she no longer loved him that he'd left Downton completely.
"I wanted to tell you, but I was afraid," she said, shame coloring her admission. "I didn't know how you would react, and I couldn't bear to lose you. So I stayed silent and avoided you as much as I could."
"You thought I would leave you?" he asked after a moment.
"No. Not exactly. I thought..." She stopped herself and looked away from his eyes, focusing on a spot on his shoulder.
"Tell me. What did you think I would do?"
He kept his voice low and gentle despite the sudden curiosity tinged with hurt.
Biting her lip for several moments, she finally looked back up at him and said, "I thought you would try to find the man and kill him. They would have arrested you and with your history, you'd have been hanged for murder."
Murder was not far from Bates' mind each time he thought of what Green had done to his wife. And he knew it was Green. Her silence on the subject – silence she kept to protect her husband - had forced Anna to sit next to her attacker at breakfast, to endure speaking to him and being in his presence. It made Bates dizzy with rage to think of Anna in such a position, and a visceral, animal part of him wanted nothing more than to tear the man into pieces. But as Mrs. Hughes had pointed out, Anna needed him. Revenge against Green could wait - for a while.
Anna went on, "I barely survived the first time they took you away from me. When you were found guilty and sentenced to death, I thought my life was over. I did not live again until you left that place and came back to me. I couldn't go through it again."
Better a broken heart than a broken neck, Mrs. Hughes had said.
He thought back to Anna's letter to him in London. If you want to divorce me, I will not contest it.
She'd have let him divorce her over this rather than risk him finding out about the attack and the one responsible, Bates realized. Despite the fact that she still loved him - enough to put aside her own personal feelings about her violation to protect him - she would have let him go to spare him a fate he'd already narrowly survived.
"You are an amazing person," he told her sincerely.
"How do you figure?" she asked sardonically and self-effacing.
"Because you are. You're strong and smart and so incredibly beautiful, inside and out."
Anna colored a bit at his description of her, and he thought he detected the faint ghost of a smile, but she quickly shook her head. "I'm not beautiful."
"Yes, you are. You are so incredibly beautiful, Anna. You were beautiful before and you are still."
This time, his wife gave him a real smile. The light in her eyes was still dull and muted, but he could see a flicker there of the old Anna.
"I think you'll have to tell me that quite a few times more before I believe you," she said quietly.
"Then I'll tell you every day." Taking in her sad expression and tired eyes, he said, "Try to get some sleep. I'll be right here if you need me."
TBC
