A/N Language warning
Also, if you've already read this chapter, the "update" was only to fix minor grammar things. (I should've proofread better, my apologies) So need to re-read. Unless of course that sounds fun!
"My word! Aren't you frightened that machine will get carried away and chop your fingers off?" Daisy asked me in fear.
I did my best not to giggle. "Well I certainly hope not!" Many had gathered to see the sewing machine at first, but Daisy was the only one to still scurry to the servants' hall when she heard the soft whirring if she had a moment.
"I used to be afraid of electricity. I'm alright with it now, or the lights at least, but I can't imagine using an electric needle." Her wide eyes glanced behind me to Anna, who was headed toward the back door and her trip to London. I didn't wait for Daisy's simple mind to wander elsewhere.
"Mrs. Bates seems like a very nice person," I prompted.
"Oh, she most surely is," Daisy supplied readily, but I'd been hoping for a bit more.
"Has she always seemed so down?"
"Anna? Never! Anna is the one to cheer us up if ever we're in need of it. And I've never heard her utter an unkind word to anyone, even when it was deserved."
I sewed in silence for a moment, waiting for Daisy to elaborate. I wasn't disappointed.
"I wish you could've known her just a few weeks ago. She was like a different person then. The kind you'd want for a big sister. She's always ever so kind and helpful. I rather miss her being cheery."
I glanced up at Daisy and nodded understandingly. She had to feel she could confide in me. This business with Anna was beginning to be more than I'd reckoned for. I was beginning to think something much more severe than a lovers' quarrel had gone on here, something in which I should have no part of.
Thomas had been keeping tabs on Bates since the moment Anna left. He'd wanted to catch him alone, but he hadn't much opportunity between the various duties of both men. Mrs. Baxter had reported nothing on the situation, nothing he didn't already know anyway.
By night fall, he'd finally taken to smoking the time away in the servants' hall, waiting until he heard the faint shuffling of Bates leaving for bed. Thomas snubbed his cigarette and sidled into the corridor.
"You must be missing Anna already," Thomas began casually, striding up to Bates.
"More so than you know," he answered with apparent sincerity, turning to face Thomas.
"Is it true she'll be moving back into the house?" Thomas closed the length of floor between himself and Bates.
Bates stopped walking and looked away with a sigh of defeat.
"Tell me, Mr. Bates. With a leg like that, I know there must be many times you've fallen." Thomas was now nose to nose with Bates. "Have you ever managed to obtain that many bruises and a split lip in a single impact?"
Thomas needn't clarify the bruises to which he was referring. Bates was clearly uncomfortable.
"I also find it strange that a few bruises should cause such a change in our Anna. I don't think I've seen her smile since before her face was battered. Now I don't know about you, but I myself have never sustained a fall so severe as that."
Bates lifted shining eyes to meet Thomas's.
"It makes me wonder if you might be able to shed some light on the real source of her discomfort." And with a swift, muffled thud, Thomas had seized Bates' cane and barred the man against the wall with it. He gave Bates' bad leg a sharp nudge for good measure.
As Bates groaned, Thomas seethed into his ear.
"Now you listen hear you violent, murderous bastard. I'm still not convinced your first wife died of her own accord, and I'll be damned if I let you hurt another. What happened eh?" He pressed the cane sharply across Bates' arms and chest, hoping he'd leave marks as livid as the ones Bates had left on Anna. "Did she prove to be inadequate? Did you simply grow tired of her?" He gave another sharp kick in the bad leg.
"And I'll tell you what else. If another mark appears on that woman's body, it'll be the last motion you ever make. I'll see to that personally." He stared unblinking into Bates' red-rimmed eyes and pressed on the cane until he thought it might snap.
"Thomas…" Bates began, gulping down the pain shooting from his leg and from his heart. "Lad, I would much rather take a dozen more slow-killing bullets than hurt my Anna." He breathed deeply as Thomas relaxed his force on the cane.
"You're right of course," he continued and quickly raised his hands to deflect a punch from Thomas, who thought Bates had just admitted guilt. "NOT that I caused her pain, but that someone must have. It pains me more than you know to not know what happened to her, to have her unable to tell me, to distrust me, despise me so much." He tossed his hands in defeated. "The light has gone from her, the glow of her skin and spark in her eyes that first drew me to her. Everything that makes her the Anna I love, it's fled somewhere I can't find. And I want nothing more desperately than to have her back."
Thomas didn't return Bates' cane. He was not about to be fooled by this act of innocence and ignorance.
"I admire, truly, that you would defend my Anna. This knowledge comforts me. I'm sorry I don't have the answer you sought. Really there's nothing more I can say to convince you of my innocence other than to once again stress how much I love her and remind you we must get to the bottom of what really happened."
Thomas continued to eye Bates. This was not an innocent man.
"Has she mentioned nothing? Has nobody else mentioned nothing?" Bates implored.
"I'm afraid not." Thomas took a small step back. "And Anna has shed no light on the matter for you?"
"She is silent with me on all matters at the moment."
"So I've noticed." Thomas returned the cane to Bates with a shove. "Please understand that I am not fooled Mr. Bates. I presume you guilty until proven otherwise. I will be watching out. And if I were you, and wise, I would do the same." And with a spin of his heel, Thomas strode toward the stairwell and off to bed.
A/N – So perhaps not the violent outburst many were hoping for, but I believe this would be a more authentic confrontation that did not want to be overheard or interrupted in a crowded house. Also, this altercation reminds me of Bates' threatening Thomas to leave Daisy alone in Series 1.
