A WEDDING IN THE VILLAGE

Some News

"What did you say?"

Even as the words crossed his lips Robert knew he had said too much. But Carson had taken him by surprise.

It was Monday morning and they were walking together, as they had taken to doing since Carson's retirement. There was an autumn breeze. Nature was readying itself for winter. Robert was always exhilarated to be enjoying his estate rather than worrying about it.

He enjoyed this time with Carson, too. They were companionable, thinking alike on most of the important things so as to get along exceptionally well and differing on enough matters to keep things interesting. And they were sources of information for each other. Robert kept Carson up-to-date on developments upstairs at the Abbey and Carson conveyed a diverse array of information from downstairs, refracted through Mrs. Carson, and what Carson himself picked up in the village. It was very satisfying for both of them.

Carson had been making just such a report on doings in the village when Robert interrupted him and then regretted doing so. Who! He should have asked Who? not What?

But Carson seemed not to notice Robert's distraction and repeated what he had said, maintaining the same neutral tone with which he had delivered the news the first time.

"Jane Moorsum is getting married." He paused and then added, "She worked as a maid at Downton just after the war. A widow for whom we bent the rules. She was only with us a few months."

Robert did not know what to make of this revelation or what Carson meant by it. One of Carson's outstanding virtues in his long career as butler of Downton Abbey had been his discretion. That and his absolute loyalty were characteristics that had made Robert mourn Carson's retirement. Such fidelity was rare. Carson's capacity for discretion was so refined that sometimes Robert wondered whether it was discretion, or that Carson just did not know. Jane Moorsum was one of those confounding subjects. What, if anything, did Carson know of Jane?

"It was a long time ago," Robert murmured and then caught himself. He hadn't meant to say that either.

"Seven years."

Seven. Seven years! Surely not, Robert thought, keeping his mouth shut this time. Could it really have been that long when the mere mention of her name set his heart to fluttering so? It was an effort for him to contain his feelings. Quite deliberately he changed the subject.

"Have you heard anything in the village about the new vet in Thirsk?"

Unease

The news stayed with him all day. He could hardly think of anything else and that in itself troubled him. Was he still carrying a torch for Jane somewhere in the hidden recesses of his heart? He did not think so.

Dinner ought to have been a distraction, but between perfunctory responses to the questions and remarks sent his way, he mused on his companions and on acts of indiscretion. He did not need to look far.

Mary had allowed herself to be seduced by the Turkish diplomat, Kamal Pamuk. Seduced. What a ridiculous way to put it. Seduction made a victim of a woman, infantilized her. Though he did not, thank God, know all the details, he was certain that Mary had been too active a participant in that incident to be so described. To his own surprise he'd been less shocked by that transgression, when he learned of it, than by Mary's week-long romp with Tony Gillingham. Though the Pamuk business might have brought down the house of Grantham, it was a youthful error. The deliberateness of the rendezvous with Tony had taken Robert's breath away.

Then there was Edith. She might at least claim to have loved the man she bedded without benefit of marriage, but the consequences of her lapse were far more severe. Robert loved Marigold, but there was no denying that her birth had complicated Edith's life. Mary's more clinical approach had precluded such difficulties.

He did wonder about Mama and the Russian, Prince thing-a-ma-gig. It was a preposterous idea and yet it wasn't. Was Mary not his mother in a more modern mould? It was at least possible that Mama had stepped over the line. And if Mama might have done so, what of Papa?

Did everyone fall?

No, said a voice in his head, firmly dispelling all doubt. They did not. Sybil, on appearance the most rebellious of his daughters, was the one who had played by the rules in love. He remembered her prim statement about living with Tom's mother in Dublin until the banns were read and she and Tom could be married. Isobel, too, that model of liberalism, was consistent in what Robert's mother would dismiss as middle-class virtues – among them chastity and respectability.

And then there was Cora. In thirty-six years of marriage the only occasion Robert had had to question Cora's behaviour had been that flirtation with the odious Mr. Bricker. And in that instance Robert knew that Cora was blameless and that he had been wholly in the wrong in thinking otherwise, even for a minute. The very manner in which Cora was able to speak of Bricker testified to her innocence. There was neither guile nor guilt in her tone. Robert knew he could not say the same of his flirtation with Jane Moorsum.

"You're in a mood tonight."

Cora's remark, as they were readying themselves for bed later that evening, drew him from his reveries.

"Am I? I'm so sorry, my darling."

One of the things he loved about Cora, and there were so many things he loved about her, was that she could let things go. He was acting out of sorts, she gave him an opportunity to talk about it, he demurred, and she accepted that. With a warm smile, one that let him know she was there and interested if he needed her to be, she picked up her book. He got into bed beside her and reached for his own book. When he realized he was only staring at the printed words, taking nothing in, he put it down again and reached to turn out his lamp.

"I think I'll just go so sleep," he said, sliding beneath the covers and turning on his side, away from Cora. He didn't know that he could sleep, not with the emotional maelstrom in his brain. But he knew he did not want a conversation with Cora. Not tonight.

"Shall I put out my light?" she asked solicitously.

"No. It won't bother me."

She read for only a few minutes more and then the room went dark. He suspected that she had acted thus on his behalf, a sacrifice to his discontent, but she said nothing more to him, only leaning over to kiss him gently on the cheek before settling in herself.

It was Robert's habit to put away things that made him uneasy or bothered his conscience. Usually he was very good at this. It ought to have worked tonight. He was done with Jane. It was years ago. And he hadn't given her a thought – well, not more than one or two – in all that time. That was as it should have been. But he found that he could not turn her out of his mind and there, so entangled with Jane that he could not unbind her, was Cora also. What he had almost done to Cora. What he had done to Cora. He closed his eyes firmly against it all, but it would not go away.

Had he really been so shallow as to resent Cora's desire for meaningful work? So selfish as to let such resentment prompt him to adultery? It was not adultery proper, not in a legal sense, but he knew that what he had done was that sin in intent, if not actual act. He had resented that his wife's attention had been taken up otherwise than with him. He had betrayed the fidelity of their marriage by allowing himself not only to desire another woman, but to fill up his heart with her as well. He had invested in the kisses he had shared with Jane a passion he should have reserved for Cora alone. And if this were not burden enough to bear, he had pressed the affair not when his wife was attending committee meetings, but as she lay stricken with the deadliest pandemic since the Black Death and on the verge of death herself. He despised himself when he realized this.

His guilt was not exclusive to his behaviour toward Cora, for he had betrayed Jane as well. He was the lord of the manor and she a lowly housemaid. He had taken advantage and the fact that she had welcomed his attentions – that she, too, was lonely – was irrelevant. It was the kind of behaviour that separated a gentleman from a cad in formal dress and more shameful even than marrying Cora for her money. Cora, at least, had gone into it with her eyes open. Such was the power imbalance between himself and Jane, however, that no such rationalization applied.

He owed her so much. She had been his solace in that cascade of emotional catastrophes – Sybil's defiant embrace of the chauffeur, the tragedy of Matthew's paralysis, and then the scourge of the Spanish flu. He cut himself no slack for having broken it off before it went too far, for having been as gentle as he could be under the circumstances, for she had made the harder decision. He had only retreated in a cowardly moment when Bates was at the door and there was a fright of being found out. It was Jane who had summoned the courage to make the real break, resigning a position she needed to support herself and her son; sacrificing her well-being for his honour. He had salvaged hardly a scrap on his own behalf by extending a helping hand to her son.

But she had done more still. She had suppressed her own emotional pain and accepted his decision not to take her as his mistress. What a degrading possibility. He brushed the thought away. She had stepped back and had asked for nothing in return – nothing beyond a final kiss, a bittersweet farewell for both of them. Even his last gesture – an investment in Freddie's future – had taken her aback. She accepted it because she loved her son, not because she felt he, Robert, owed her anything. How fortunate he was that she was such a decent sort. He did not deserve such consideration.

He wrestled with these agonies through the night, falling asleep at last in the darkness just before the dawn. Things always look better in the morning, Cora said. That wisdom was not original to her, but she had made it her own. And when Robert stirred, opening his eyes to a brilliant ribbon of sunshine streaming through a gap in the curtains, his mind had cleared. Cora was already up and gone, something which would have never been the case in the old days. Robert sat up, swung his legs over the side of the bed, and remained motionless for a long moment, thinking.

Guilt, remorse, self-flagellation and endless mea culpas were useless distractions, manifestations of still more self-absorption. He could not change the past. He could only go forward. He realized he must focus on what was, not on what had been. At the heart of Carson's news was a concrete fact – that Jane was going to be married. And this realization raised more immediate concerns. Did she love him? Robert hoped so. He hoped so very much. He ached for her to have found love again. But there was no way for him to know. With a sigh, he stood up. Best to get on about his day and to think of other things. Good luck.

He tried. But his mind kept turning over possibilities.

He thought about asking Bates for further information. The Bateses, like Carson, knew quite a bit about what went on in the village. And they had known Jane, at least somewhat, from downstairs. But Robert shied away from this idea. Bates was as discerning as Carson when it came to Robert's business. Neither man pried into his affairs, but they were privy to so much by virtue of their roles in his life that he dare not drop even a hint of indiscretion.

Might he do something for Jane? A gift perhaps. He mulled it over. The family had heaped gifts on Carson and Mrs. Hughes – a wedding breakfast, the wedding trip. But that was Carson. And Mrs. Hughes. Now that he thought about it, he recalled that they had given Anna and Bates nothing but good wishes. There wasn't much marrying among the servants and Jane hardly qualified anyway. She had not been employed at Downton for years.

Money? But money was a tasteless gift in the best of circumstances. Had not Jane balked when he had offered financial assistance until he told her that it was intended for Freddie? And it would be difficult to explain on either side.

Then what about good wishes, expressed in a letter or a note. But what would he say? A conventional offering of good wishes, however sincere, would be sterile in the circumstances. Anything else was inappropriate.

Should he just ignore the news altogether? Jane had not told him, after all. But for Carson he would never have known about it. Perhaps no acknowledgment was best. He sighed. Yet another burden to carry on with.

Not By Chance

Three days that week he went into the village in the afternoons. It was not unusual for His Lordship to visit the village. His presence prompted no rash speculation. He doffed his hat to the women, chatted with the tradesmen and farmers he passed in the street, looked in on one or two old-timers who always cherished a kind word from m'lord. On the surface, there was nothing questionable about his behaviour. Nor did anyone at the Abbey query him on this. He liked to walk and he loved his village. Everyone knew that.

But Robert knew differently, knew that his casual forays into the village were not so innocent. Maids had an afternoon off and, on such leave, might be inclined to visit a parent. It was a hopeless enterprise. He did not even know if Jane was still working as a maid. Yet he plotted his casual strolls so as to pass within sight of her mother's dwelling, hope that chance might find favour with him. It did not and he abandoned that course. And so when he excused himself from the family after church on Sunday, he did so not in dubious quest of yet another chance encounter, but because he sought the solitude of the graveyard to set his mind at ease.

He did not often walk in the graveyard. Carson, he knew, was a frequent visitor, lingering over the graves of his own parents. Robert had noticed him there on several occasions and thought – though he might have been mistaken – that he had seen Carson speaking to them. Over them. How odd people were about the dead. Robert had no need to stare at a tombstone to feel his father's presence. Joseph Crawley was everywhere at Downton, in the house, in the grounds, at the hospital. There was no escaping him. Thus for Robert the graveyard was less of a place of pilgrimage than a quiet place to think.

"I was hoping to see you."

He had not so much heard her approach as sense suddenly that she was there. A dream. But he turned and she was there, the sun glinting off the reddish highlights of her shining hair, her small, fine face turned upwards to his, an enchanting smile on her lips.

"Jane."

He took a step toward her and then halted, stood there, staring. His eyes must speak for him. Only his eyes could speak for him, for nothing he might say would do justice to the feelings stirring in his breast.

"How are you?" she asked. It was the conventional question but her eyes, too, teemed with words that must go unspoken. How have you weathered the strains of the past few years? How have you managed the sorrows that beset you seven years ago when we knew each other? Have you ever thought of me? Are you happy?

He smiled now, too, only just realizing now that his jaw had gone slack as he stared. "Well. I am very well, thank you." The times have been challenging, but I have endured, and even changed a little. I've learned to bear my sorrows and to keep them in perspective. I am happy and every day I thank God for Cora, who is my rock.

"How are you?" he asked. Did you find a new place? A good place? Have you fared well? … Have you forgiven me?

The warmth that emanated from her, in the tilt of her head, the sunniness of her countenance, the very fact that they were standing here together because she had chosen to come to him, suggested that she had. Robert felt the burden on shoulders shift.

"I'm getting married."

Robert searched her eyes for what that meant beyond the simple statement of fact.

"I heard. My butler told me." And then he shook his head impatiently. What a stupid thing to say. Not least because Carson was no longer the butler at Downton Abbey. But never mind that.

Jane gaze glinted with merriment as he rolled his eyes at the fatuousness of his own words.

"Mr. Carson," she said, and there was laughter in her voice.

"Yes, Carson." He found himself again. "I had hoped…. I wanted to see you, too."

And then for a long moment they stood together in silence, watching, letting the tide of memories sweep over them.

They had only ever had fragments of time… a melancholy conversation on the lawn; his impetuous and uninvited kiss in the pantry; a more passionate and mutual, if furtive, communion in his dressing room, arrested inadvertently by Bates and the sudden return of sense. They had shared something that went beyond the physical, both of them blindsided by that age-old scourge of loneliness. It wasn't an original excuse, however unique their individual experiences of it. Jane was floundering in grief for her husband, dead on the Somme. Robert's sorrows were not quite so visceral. The war had cut him adrift. He had been the only member of his family not to have found meaningful employment in the crisis. He had found himself superfluous. They had come together as at a crossroads, two travellers on different roads, who in that brief window in time needed something and found it in each other. How wonderful it had been, however fleeting.

"I've not … seen you," he said at last.

It had been an awkward possibility. She had resolved their impossible situation by leaving her position at the Abbey, but her mother lived in the village. He might well have expected to set eyes on her from time to time, but she had disappeared. He'd been relieved. And ashamed.

"I stayed away."

He nodded, understanding, and smiled gratefully. Again, she had played the better part. And he realized, too, that it was no accident that she was here now.

"I wanted to tell you," she said.

He could only stare and stare at her, but he got no satisfaction from that. "Will you be happy? Do you love him?" He blurted out the questions and then flinched. "I am sorry. It's none of my business." But he could not look away and the questions remained in his eyes.

But Jane was not offended. Indeed, she beamed indulgently. "I will be," she said. "I am. And I do. And he – Michael Sterling – he loves me. We're going to be very happy together."

The sudden garrulousness was in character and, more, it was genuine. Robert had heard her gush in a like fashion over her son, Freddie. These words spilling out of her, they were the outpouring of a joy she could not contain. He heaved a sigh of relief and felt a well-spring of good feeling wash over his heart.

"I'm so happy for you." Why were words so inadequate?

She nodded, that swift, single acknowledging tuck of her chin.

Then suddenly the tension evaporated and there was between them the ease of old friends, good friends who, though not having seen one another in a while, had history on which to fall back. Jane tilted her head to one side and her eyes ran over him. Robert stood taller beneath this scrutiny. His shoulders straightened, then relaxed.

"Freddie?" he asked, so many more questions embedded in just the name. There was an eagerness in his voice. Robert had never met Freddie, but he had an interest in the boy all the same. All our lives are lived around our children.

Jane glowed. "He graduated from Ripon Grammar and he's got a place in the accounting office of Crumby and Sayer. In Leeds. He can advance there. He's already had one promotion. Of course, I don't see him as much as I like, but he's on his way." Again the effervescence of information, insufficient to express her elation. She paused. "Thank you," she said. "For Freddie."

But Robert would have none of it. "An opportunity is nothing without the will and the talent to make something of it. Well done him!" He was smiling now, too. No, not just smiling, but almost quivering with reflected joy. "That's simply wonderful."

"And Her Ladyship?"

Had he been directing the conversation as though it were a play, Robert would have cut any reference to Cora. There were too many pitfalls there – guilt, grief, shame. But he realized that as much as he had needed to know that Jane would be happy, was happy, that she wanted reassurance from him, too.

"She is well," he said. "We are very well." He considered for a moment. "I am a very lucky man."

They spoke for several minutes more, catching up. Jane told him where she had been working – Foxtail Manor; where she had met her fiancé – he was a blacksmith with his own forge and had done some work on the estate; and where and when she was to be married – St. Andrew's Church, Aysgarth, in three weeks. And how Freddie and Michael got on – famously.

Robert caught her up on Downton, upstairs and down. She knew about Sybil and Matthew and he accepted her condolences. He told her about Sybbie and George and Marigold – the joys of his life. He told her, too, about the Carsons marrying. And they exchanged a few words on the Bateses. Jane had heard of their tribulations, but did not know that things had turned out happily for them.

"A boy!"

"Robert John Bates," Robert told her proudly. "They call him Robbie."

They might have gone on, now that they'd gotten started. But, at length, Jane drew them up.

"My mother's expecting me," she said, with a shrug toward the village.

"Well. It was good to see you. Thank you for seeking me out."

She gave him another little nod. Of course. You're welcome.

"And…" He held out a hand. She gave him hers and he held it unselfconsciously, put his other hand over it, absorbed the warmth emanating from it. "Thank you." He could only hope that his eyes told her what he could not say in words.

It seemed they did, for her own eyes glistened in response.

"Goodbye," she said, and then turned away.

He stood still, watching as she picked her way among the gravestones and markers until she had slipped through the iron gate and disappeared behind the stone wall. His vision had blurred a little – he, too, was overcome by emotion in the moment. Gratitude flooded his heart. The news of her engagement had unsettled him in so many ways and once again Jane had comforted him and eased his way forward. He loved her for it and now he knew that was all right, too.

Author's Note: I am trying to get back into the writing habit. Robert has been trying to help me with that.