It had been a week since she returned from London and moved back into the house. She was quietly practical about it, and as always discreet, his Anna. For as large as it was, it was a small house and while servants may be trained to be silent, they were not blind nor deaf. The house was respectfully reserved about the situation to she and him. Even Thomas seemed to sense an enormity that he had no business meddling with and gave them a shockingly wide berth. It was as if it were a lie agreed a upon by all. It was happening, but not really and surely not for long.

She was particularly distant in the mornings and evenings. She never announced when she was off to bed, she just faded away, though from what he heard she was up all hours of the night. She disappeared for blocks of time, only to return with a stack of meticulously finished hand work, so that even Mrs. Hughes couldn't complain of her disappearances. He could at the very least catch her on her way down the stairs to break her fast. Though, it was dispiriting to see her avoid his eyes with such conviction first thing in the morning every morning. Still, he was as stubborn as she, this much they had proved over and over again through the years. She had not given up on him, no mater how he tried to shake her, and he would do the same. So he watched her, he tracked her, and he waited.

She tended to avoid the galley and the servants' hall. She was rarely anywhere without something in her hands for more than a few moments. She busied herself with menial and multitudinous tasks. She was sat down for the requisite time at meals, but never seemed to eat anything. Sometimes he watched her mending things that even he knew Lady Mary would never again wear they were so far out of fashion.

He missed his wife. He missed the smell of her hair on the pillow next to him. He missed hearing her laughing to herself about something when he wasn't even in the same room; the way it filled their cottage, their home. He missed the stubborn sharpness of the corner of her jaw, the way it set when she was decided on something, the way it bit into his shoulder if he did not have her properly snugged to his chest. He missed the soft lilt of her voice as they lay together and whispered of everything and nothing into the small hours of the morning. There were so many other things he missed that he could not bear to think about. Their cottage was dark and empty without her; pointless. Still, she could not stay away forever. He would not let her. He could not believe, not truly, that just like that she did not love him anymore. Not after all they had been through, not after all they had pledged, and certainly not after the mountains she moved to make it all happen. And so, every night he came home to an empty cottage and lit the lamp and the fire and made tea. Before he did, he swept out the cold ashes as she has shown him, and stored them in a bin to steep into lye to make soap; only his Anna, he smiled every time he did it; his country girl. When the light broke in the morning he went outside and harvested her herbs, picked spent blooms, and clipped her lavender blossoms from their garden. The lavender they planted together. He bought it for her as an anniversary gift the year previous. She had insisted on no jewelry or finery. They had a plan and were saving. She hiked her skirts up to kneel on the moist earth, grinning widely as he dug out a shallow hole. Her smile turned gentle, maternal almost as she evened out the bottom of the hole and then settled the young plant into it, back filling with generous palm strokes. He had been ready with the watering can, but lost himself watching her. She had to say his name twice before he came to his senses and handed it to her. His eyes rarely left her when they were together, but this time they bored into her with a purpose he knew she felt, because she had that restrained little half smile that meant she was pleased with herself. She took her time pulling off her gardening gloves, loosening the fingers one by one. Then without a word she stood and walked towards the cottage. Just before she ducked through the doorway she had turned and raised her brows at him, "Were you coming then, Mr. Bates, or did you wish to continue gardening on your own?"

He hastened after her, a very ungentlemanly stirring propelling him.

He missed playing with her; the light back and forth banter that had been present even in their letters while he was in prison. He missed watching her snore lightly when he couldn't sleep. He missed sliding into bed and looping his arm around her waist and hearing her pleased squawk when he pulled her bodily over the bed to mould against him. He missed being teased about the books he was reading, being read to in her lilting soft soprano, the way it turned bright when she was feeling bold or mischievous, the way it turned smokey, raspy even during a particularly sensuous passage. He missed hearing his given name on her lips, over and over again, like a prayer when they made love. Oh God, he missed his wife.


It was late, past eleven, when Mrs. Patmore pushed Anna's sewing pile out of the way and set a cuppa and some biscuits, and a small but generously portioned Yorkshire pudding, still warm, and smelling of roast drippings, thank you very much, in front of the peaked young woman. In all her time at Downton, she had never seen Anna looking so gaunt. Everyone had noticed in the time just before and in the two weeks since she had moved back into the house, but no one seemed to be saying anything. And when one did one was brushed off with a burning the candle at both ends type of statement. Bullocks.

"Oh, Mrs. Patmore, thank you, but I'm fine," the girl had tried to wave her off, but Beryl Patmore, once decided upon something was not easily moved.

"You are not, and if you would be so kind as to not insult me by saying otherwise I'd greatly appreciate it. It's nowt to do with me, whatever it is, but I'll not have anyone say it's me who hasn't been feeding you. So if you don't mind, this pudding won't taste half so good cold, and I've no chance eating it on my own, so please help an old woman out." Anna looked for a moment like she might cry or bolt, or both, but in the end picked up one of the spoons, ate a few bites of pudding, drank the milky, honeyed tea (Mrs. Patmore would be damned if she didn't know everyone's favorings when it came to food and drink, so that punishment, comfort, or praise could be doled out when the respective needs arose.) and sat back with a guarded but relaxed expression while Beryl rattled off about whatever everyday nonsense came to her head.

Elsie seemed to have some knowledge of what the matter was, so at least Anna wasn't completely alone in it. But between Anna wandering, silent and ghostlike, and Mr. Bates feigning cheer when anyone was looking, then sagging defeatedly when he thought people were not, it was all enough to break one's heart just in the sensing of it.


It has been nearly a month since Bates spoke with me of his marital troubles. Anna is still living here in the house, though Cora's new maid is arrived and seems to be working out, thank heavens. Anna has always been such a delightful girl, so very vivacious and cheerful, always ready with a kind word, when decorum calls for it, that is. Which is why it is so troubling that she has been more somber of late than ever I have known her to be, more so, than during Bates' wrongful incarceration. Somber enough that I have heard everyone, even Edith remark on it. If the remark is directed at her she is quick to shrug it off or claim to simply feel over tired. But I have heard Lady Rose discussing it with Lady Mary on several occasions, and Cora has gone so far as to inquire with Mrs. Hughes. Sweet, dutiful Anna, whatever it is weighs heavily upon her. And as for my good Mr. Bates; to anyone else he appears to be holding up, but I know him well enough, I've known him through enough to say the man is frantic with grief and worry. Call me sentimental, but it breaks my heart. He has been doing his best of course, to be patient, to be constant, and to put up a strong, brave face. No one in the house is fooled by either of them, but such is the English way, to notice and worry and hold our tongues.

He told me once, early on, that someone was sweet on him, he shouldn't like to say who, but the fact alone was astonishing to him. I think it took him until very recently to get over that astonishment, maybe he never has. Watching his affection grow, from my silent vantage point, well, it has been one of the treats of my life. Who knew it is possible for a love to be so deep and wide that it draws people all around to gasping at the splendor of it. It warms the hearts of those not even involved to beating faster. My friend is lucky enough to have himself one of those sorts of loves. He knew, he told me, that whatever she wasn't telling him, she wasn't telling him for a reason. He wanted to give her time, wanted to respect her need to be apart from him, but still insisted on making sure she knew he was there waiting for her. But her rebuffs have been hard to take. He has grown dispirited, as despondent as she is in his own way. My heart goes out to him, as it does to her.

Listen to me, gone sentimental in my age. Still I pray they will find themselves again soon.


She had always been very aware of all the sounds and noises of the house, found comfort in the very murmurings of the floor boards, the sigh and creak of hundreds of years of wood and stone settling. Now one of her few comforts lay in finding places where a silence that seemed to echo up from the house's very center swallowed her. (She tried very hard to imagine that she wasn't doing everything in her power to avoid her husband. Tried to make it out that she got more work done hidden away.) Her favorites were nooks and crannies, small spaces she found to squeeze into for a few minutes here and there throughout the day, to take little rests from everyone's eyes. A hidden windowed alcove behind a floor to ceiling tapestry, in an out of the way corner of a hallway, was her regular stop after seeing to her Ladyship in the morning. Behind the shelf in the dark in the far corner of the downstairs linen cupboard before or after she pushed food around her plate at meals. Abandoned or forgotten places where she could remove a dust cover from a chair and do needlework near cobwebbed windows in dimly lit peace were her salvation. She had even rediscovered a neglected service stairway and hidden corridor into which she could disappear for whole blocks of time to mend and tailor the upcoming season's clothes and, when she could bear it, to hook lace as John's late mother had taught her. Lady Mary was a bit too modern for it, but the Dowager Countess and Lady Isobel regularly requested pieces.

She had taken to writing things down, lest she forget a task or a promise. She wouldn't have her work suffering. Though, secretly she knew to some degree it had. She carried scraps of paper and a shortened pencil in more than one pocket. She would not stand for being seen doing such a thing, scribbling on such scraps. She used the time tucked away to see to her lists after the one time that they fell from her pocket to the boot room floor like a handful of white feathers. No one had seen it, but the proof of how she was slipping shook her.

The boot room. The boot room was the one room where she made herself go every day. She refused to shy away from it, in part because it felt to her that to do so would be conceding to some sort of vulgar final defeat, and in part because she decided she deserved whatever pain it brought her. It was a sort of natural penance.

She had stopped asking why. Stopped trying to bargain away the pain with long hours of work and sleepless nights with her thumbnail dug sharply into her thigh. Why didn't matter any more. How or what didn't either. It had happened, that was all. She was soldiering now, had a job to do. A mission to fulfill. She had to keep John safe, no matter what that might mean to both of them. It didn't help to ask why. She hated him as much as she loved him now because breaking his heart was breaking her own. She wanted to tell him why, but her path was chosen and laid out for her. So she kept to it, avoided him when she could, and was overly cruel when she couldn't, when he wouldn't let her. His eyes, when she forgot and sought them out were so defeated, so hurt. She was dead tired of eyes, of measured looks, that tried to suss out the meat of things. Of the asked and unasked questions that hovered swollen on everyone's tongues. Everyone noticed. Everyone asked at least once. Almost everyone accepted her silence. God would not make her a stone. No matter how much she prayed.