Thanks for reading, all! No update next week, but hopefully this chapter will give you something to smile about in the meantime.


May 1920

Bates sat at his little table, reading a book. Wordsworth. He could remember so many times sitting next to Anna, reading aloud to her, watching her face with such pleasure that he forgot to look at the lines. Could she ever forgive him for this? It hadn't been his fault, exactly—but it had been, too, and she had suffered, again, for his impetuousness and his inability to control his temper.

The lock turned in the door, the hinges creaking as it opened, and Turner stood there. From behind his back he took a bundle of letters, tossing them across the cell to land on the table.

"These came for you, Bates."

He took them gingerly in his hands, his fingers practically trembling at the joy of it—Anna's words, here in front of him, to read and to savor, to hear in his head in her voice, to imagine lying there with her while she spoke with him. His whole world, back there in front of him. "When?" he asked. "When did they come?"

"They came when you were out of favour. Now you're in favour again." Turner gave a small shrug; that was the way it worked. Not his job to worry about the whys, or about who was deserving of such small but painful torments.

Bates took the string off the letters and sorted through them. He wanted to devour them, to inhale them, to cover himself in their pages. "Why?" he asked. "What have I done?"

The questions stopped Turner in the doorway. He looked thoughtful, as though he was considering the answer. "Just watch out for Mr. Durrant. You're not a favourite with him."

It was good advice, and Bates would give it the consideration it was due—later. As the door swung shut and the key turned in the lock, he was spreading the letters out on the table, laughing and crying a little as he opened the first one.

Dear John,

I am so sorry that I left you in anger today. Our time together is so precious to me, I don't want to waste a minute of it, ever again …


Anna made her way slowly up the stairs. Another day without Mr. Bates. Hard enough to get through without him here, at Downton, with her, but now he wasn't in her heart, either; only the fear lived there, the fear that he had finally decided to shut her out completely. Behind bars as he was, there was no way for her to push on in, no way to get to him to change his mind as she had done before. She was helpless before the implacable stone walls of the prison. And Anna hated to feel helpless.

She had passed her information about Mrs. Bartlett on to Mr. Murray, and there, too, she had to wait. Nothing could be done to hurry him in his investigation; he was methodical. Liked to take his time, be certain of his evidence.

It was a sunny day, but Anna could feel clouds around her anyway.

Behind her, Mrs. Hughes' familiar voice called her name, and Anna stopped in the middle of the stairs and turned. "Yes?"

And then Mrs. Hughes lifted her hand and Anna saw … envelopes. Dark grey, thick, boxy. Familiar. Her heart pounded, even as Mrs. Hughes said, "There's quite a packet of letters arrived for you earlier."

Anna hurried down the steps to take them, sorting through, holding her breath. He couldn't be pushing her away, not and have written her all these letters. Surely this must mean—

"Are they all from Mr. Bates?" Mrs. Hughes asked, as if she hadn't already looked for herself.

Holding back the tears and the shouts of hysterical laughter that wanted to come out, Anna nodded. "Looks like it."

"Why so many at once?"

Anna held the letters to her heart, as if that way she could be holding her husband, too. "Oh, I neither know nor care. Just so long as I've got them." Laughing, holding the letters close, she hurried up the stairs now. She could have taken them two at a time. Three!

She tucked the letters in her apron pocket, all but the first one. She just had to take a peek, just see the first few lines.

Dearest Anna,

You weren't here today, and I want you to know that I don't blame you for it …

It was enough. The rest could wait. That letter joined the others in her pocket, and she went about her work with a will and an energy that had been missing for far too long.

And that night, Bates in his cell and Anna in her little bedroom in Downton read, and read, and read, over and over, until they had practically committed each other's words to memory. Miles and walls might separate them, but they were one again, and for the first time in a long while, each went to sleep smiling.