As Isobel walked back up the stairs to the main house after updating Mrs. Hughes on Anna's condition, she found Mary on her way down the stairs. If Isobel hadn't been sure such a thing was quite beneath Lady Mary's dignity, she would have sworn the younger woman had been leaning over the staircase waiting for her to appear.
"Ah, Isobel," Cora called, appearing in the doorway of the library. "Won't you stay for luncheon?"
"Yes, please do," Mary agreed, playing the polite hostess despite her frustration at having her plans for a quiet chat with Isobel thwarted. Not that she was going to give up, of course. She sat through the meal with a stony expression on her face, barely listening to the conversation as she puzzled over Isobel's earlier evasiveness and Mrs. Hughes' matter-of-fact story.
Cora seemed happy to believe that Isobel's visit to Mrs. Hughes was one of her many "good works", and much as Isobel normally hated that term, that day she was happy to encourage it, its vagueness masking the reality of what she had really been doing.
"Why don't you come up and see little George before you leave?" Mary suggested brightly, knowing Isobel would never turn down an offer to visit her grandson.
"I suppose I could," Isobel agreed. Part of her was eager to see George, the spitting image of his father as a baby, but part of her was wary of Mary's suggestion. She was tired, her head still reeling after what she had seen and heard in the attics that night and morning... not fully herself. And she needed to be in full control of herself if she were to satisfy Mary's curiousity without betraying any confidences.
"Please leave us for a moment, Nanny," Mary ordered in her imperious manner as soon as she and Isobel entered the nursery. George rested his head against Isobel as Nanny laid him gently in her arms, one pudgy hand reaching out for her sleeve, and in that tiny gesture from the baby, tears welled up in Isobel's eyes. In all the hurry to stem the bleeding last night and the pressing need to console and reassure Anna that day, it hadn't really sunk in yet that there had been, not an abstract baby, but a real flesh and blood one, who had been lost.
"Isobel!" Mary gasped, reaching out to take her son, thinking that his likeness to Matthew was upsetting Isobel.
"No, it's not George," Isobel said, relinquishing her hold on the child anyway. "Looking at him got me thinking about something else, that's all."
"About Anna's baby?" Mary asked quietly as she stroked the blonde hair on her son's head. Suddenly she wished they were having this conversation anywhere else but in this room, surrounded by signs of babies.
"Yes," Isobel agreed.
"Will you tell me what really happened?"
"You already know what happened," Isobel said patiently to Mary, as though she were barely older than Sybbie.
"I only know what Mrs. Hughes told me," Mary answered. "And I'm not certain she's told me the truth."
"Mary, Anna suffered a miscarriage. That's all. It's tragic, of course, but there's no more to it than that."
"No, it's not," Mary argued. "Why has Clarkson not been called? Isobel, Mrs. Hughes has never avoided calling Clarkson –why hasn't he been called for this, when Anna's life could be in danger? And what about Bates?"
"Can't you just trust that Mrs. Hughes and I –and Bates –know best?"
"No," Mary said flatly. "If it were anything else –or anyone else –I might. But not when Anna's involved. What if Clarkson had been able to save that baby?" She said the last sentence very quietly, not wanting to sound like she was critical of Isobel, but she still couldn't imagine how Isobel and Mrs. Hughes –and apparently Bates too –had been in the middle of a medical emergency and had chosen not to call Clarkson. Even if Isobel had happened to be there to help, that didn't explain how no one had called him that morning to check Anna.
"He wouldn't have," Isobel said sadly.
"Isobel," Mary said, exasperated now. "I hate to pull rank, but if I don't get an explanation for this evasiveness, I shall summon Clarkson here myself. How can Mrs. Hughes and Bates risk Anna's life like this?"
"If you do that, Anna will be even more at risk," Isobel said, her mind racing as she tried to think of a story that would satisfy Mary.
"What do you mean, even more at risk? Is she still in danger?"
"Mary, please don't get agitated," Isobel said as George, responding to his mother's distress, began to whimper.
"Then tell me."
"I'll have to," Isobel sighed. "But Mary, you must promise not to breathe a word of this to anyone. No matter what."
"I promise," Mary agreed.
"The night of the house party," Isobel began, taking a deep breath. "while everyone was listening to the concert, Anna was attacked –violated –don't ask me by whom."
All the colour drained from Mary's face and her eyes opened wide.
"The bruises?" she asked, and although Isobel hadn't seen Anna's cuts and bruises after the attack, she nodded.
"Why didn't she say something?" Mary asked as she wondered how, no matter how many times since the concert she had asked Anna if she were all right, Anna had repeatedly assured her that she was fine. "Or did everyone downstairs know?"
"She was too scared and ashamed," Isobel said. "No one except Mrs. Hughes knew –Bates only found out last night."
"So the child..." Mary began hesitantly as her mind jumped ahead. "May not have been Bates'?"
"Anna is certain it was not Bates' child," Isobel said.
"But why not call Clarkson anyway? Or... did Bates find out about the child and hit her?" She didn't dare put her fear into words –a horror that Bates, upon finding out the child was not his, had hit Anna badly enough for her to lose the child. "Is he stopping you from calling Clarkson?" Mary couldn't believe that Bates, whose adoration for his wife was common knowledge around the Abbey, could be capable of such cruelty to Anna, but she couldn't think what else could be stopping Isobel and Mrs. Hughes from sending for Clarkson.
"No, definitely not," Isobel tried to reassure Mary. "Bates initially wanted Clarkson called, until he realised it would only make Anna's situation worse."
"How?" Mary asked, beginning to feel ever-so-slightly sick.
"Anna didn't miscarry in the way Mrs. Hughes led you to believe," Isobel said softly. "She tried to take her own, and the child's, life." There was no need to spell out for Mary what summoning Clarkson would lead to.
Compassion surged through Mary –both for the lost child and for Anna, going through the horror of the attack, the realisation of the pregnancy and the decision that she and the child must die... and going through it all alone. Mary hugged George so tightly to her that the boy let out a howl of protest until Isobel took him from his mother's shaking hands.
"And Anna? How is she?" Mary asked urgently.
"Very weak, but hopefully she'll live," Isobel answered truthfully.
"Can I see her?" Mary reached out hopefully to Isobel, but Isobel shook her head.
"Not today, Mary. She's still very upset, still in pain... and she should be asleep now."
Isobel left the house feeling drained –more by her conversation with Mary than her earlier visit to Anna. Mary had been insistent that she wanted to see Anna, and Isobel mused that the bond between Mary and her ladies maid, always very strong, had only become stronger since George's birth. Anna had been the one at Mary's side that day, the one who had taken George from the room when Robert arrived to give Mary the tragic news. Anna had been the first person Mary asked for as the shock sank in, the one who had sat with Mary as she cried and, from what Isobel had gathered, Anna had spent whole nights in Mary's room as she cried for Matthew. Had they been of equal rank, there would have been nothing strange about Mary's need to see Anna now that Anna was the one in need of comfort... but they weren't. Still, that unconventional bond said a lot of good things about Lady Mary Crawley, in Isobel's opinion.
Mrs. Hughes appeared in Mary's room to dress her for dinner, and Mary couldn't help but compare her brisk manner unfavourably to Anna's gentle presence –then mentally chastised herself for the thought, reminding herself that Mrs. Hughes' quick thinking had probably saved Anna's life, and prevented the police from being called on her too.
"She's the closest thing I have left to a mother," Anna had said once about Mrs. Hughes –something which still puzzled Mary, as to her there was absolutely nothing motherly about Mrs. Hughes.
"When may I visit Anna?" Mary asked abruptly. Not that she intended to take no for an answer, not from Mrs. Hughes, but it couldn't hurt to ask.
"You want to visit Anna?" Mrs. Hughes repeated, and Mary couldn't tell whether it was disdain or surprise on her face.
"Yes, of course," Mary said matter-of-factly.
"Well, why don't we see how she is in a few days' time?" Mrs. Hughes suggested, sure that Lady Mary's sudden wish to see Anna would blow over quickly.
"I suppose that will have to do," Mary lied. She had no intention of waiting a few days to see Anna.
"Mrs. Hughes?" she added as Mrs. Hughes left to see to Lady Rose. "Thank you for not calling Clarkson."
It was such a change from her attitude that morning, and so obviously an admission that she knew, that Mrs. Hughes had to lean against the door when she closed it behind her. It was clear Mrs. Crawley had told her everything... but to have her be so clearly accepting and forgiving? This was certainly not what she would have expected from Lady Mary. Then a long-forgotten conversation with Anna drifted into her mind. "Lady Mary's actually not as high and mighty as she seems," Anna had smiled once in response to a diatribe of Mrs. Hughes' about Lady Mary's prickly, haughty behaviour.
Well, Mrs. Hughes thought as she set off for Lady Rose's room, evidently Anna had a friend in Lady Mary.
Bates just could not focus that day, lack of sleep and worry about Anna combining to make his fingers clumsy and his brain heavy. Every so often, a memory of Anna's cries or Anna's drawn face would flash into his mind and his legs would shake until he was grateful for the support afforded by his cane.
"I'm sorry, milord," he apologised as he fumbled, for the third time, His Lordship's tie.
"Is something on your mind, Bates?" Lord Grantham enquired. Such clumsy, absent-minded behaviour was quite unlike his valet.
"Anna's not well, milord," he explained. "I think part of my mind is still with her," he added by way of an apology.
"As it should be," Lord Grantham said. "I'd be the same way if it were Cora."
Bates managed to finish dressing Lord Grantham without any further mishaps, and once His Lordship had gone down to breakfast, set about sorting through the wardrobe and gathering any garments which needed mending. Preferring to avoid company, he settled down in the little dressing room to work on the mending... which he gamely tried to do for the first hour, until the repeated pricking of his finger made him give up rather than risk getting pinpricks of blood on Lord Grantham's pristine cuffs.
His hands itched to open and read Anna's letter to him, but he couldn't. He knew he would most likely find it extremely upsetting, and he would rather be in the privacy of the cottage when he read it, away from prying eyes and where he would have a night ahead to get rid of the redness around his eyes, should he need to.
The rest of his morning passed in a daze –should anyone have asked, he would have been hard-pressed to describe what he had done. The only thoughts he was conscious of were thoughts of Anna, hoping that Mrs. Crawley had been by, that she would survive this ordeal.
"Mr. Bates?" Alfred called cautiously from behind the door. "Are you in here?"
"I am," Bates affirmed, hoping his voice didn't shake when he answered.
"Servants' luncheon is being served in a few minutes," Alfred informed him. Luckily for Bates, he saw no need to open the door to deliver his message. "And Mrs. Hughes would like a word with you."
This last sentence was enough to make Bates grab his cane and hobble downstairs, jelly legs and bloodshot eyes be damned. If Mrs. Hughes wanted to speak to him, it could only be about one thing.
"How is she?" he asked as soon as the door of her sitting room had closed behind him.
"Mrs. Crawley thinks she'll live," Mrs. Hughes said. "You know as well as I do the danger she was in, but we must hope it passes and give her all the time she needs to recover."
"May I see her today?" he asked, hating that he had to ask permission to visit his wife. If it weren't for Anna's weak condition, he might have considered moving her back into the cottage there and then. Although he knew she had moved out out of fear, he would do whatever it took to put those fears to rest –he would sleep on the sofa for full years if that was what Anna needed to heal.
"I suppose you might," Mrs. Hughes agreed. "Maybe you could slip up while the family is at dinner?"
"I will," he said decisively.
"But don't tire her out! She needs rest," Mrs. Hughes worried.
What does she think I'm going to do to Anna? All Bates wanted was to sit next to her, even watching her sleep would be enough.
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