A Long and Sordid Story

They'd left it there. After all, they did have to get up in the morning, and Mrs. Carson wanted to get it all straight in her head before they discussed it. She promised to explain what she knew - "Which is not very much, because I can't see how these things are connected" - the next night. When she returned from her rounds at mid-morning, checking up on the maids, she found the letter to Mr. Wendover on her desk. She glanced at the date, nodded thoughtfully to herself, and tucked it into a pigeonhole for later.

One of the very nice things about being married was that when they retired for the evening, their time together was not over. Indeed, they might have said, had they put it into words, that it was just about to begin. For years they had lingered on in his office or hers, enjoying a drink, unwinding a little, and reviewing the day. Now those evening hours together stretched into a whole night, in the more intimate retreat of their rooms upstairs. They could shed their formal attire for their comfortable night clothes, and sip their sherry curled together on the sofa, where they might intermingle conversation and consumption with a kiss or two. Or they could forego a chat altogether and go to bed, where even more enjoyable pursuits were permitted, although further conversation was always a possibility.

Tonight, however, the sitting room fire beckoned as the business of detective work demanded serious attention. They agreed that the sherry wouldn't detract from that and so Mr. Carson poured them each a glass before he took his place on the sofa beside his wife, his arm loosely around her, she turned a little, and with her legs drawn up beneath her, so that she could look at him as she spoke.

"Edna Braithwaite," he said, shaking his head a little. "I can't really picture a woman killing Mr. ... that man... though, for all his crimes."

"You can't see a woman killing anyone, Charlie. But the fact of the matter is, women are as capable of murder as men, and I wonder that they don't do it more often, given the provocation men give them. And I'm not saying Edna killed anyone."

He chose to overlook her initial comments. "Then why are we discussing her at all?"

"Well, I'll tell you, then. You'll recall that she came to work for us in the spring of 1921, and that it didn't work out and we dismissed her in September."

"Yes. Something to do with Mr. Branson, as I recall." There was a hint of disapproval in his voice. Five years on from Lady Sybil's death, Mr. Carson still had not entirely come to terms with the former chauffeur's change of status.

"More to do with her aspiring to a life beyond her station than anything to do with him."

"He got away with that."

"Never mind that now." Mrs. Carson was not at all sure she was going to be able to spare Mr. Branson in all this, but they weren't there yet. "Well, then she appeared again, eight months later, claiming to have had some training as a lady's maid and some experience, and was convincing enough to persuade Her Ladyship to hire her over my reservations. When Her Ladyship and I spoke about it, she told me that Edna said she'd worked for an old lady who died, leaving her unemployed again. She must have told me where Edna had worked, because obviously I spoke to you about it and you wrote that letter. Thank you for that, by the way. It corroborates our assumptions so far. It was dated the week Edna was hired."

"How did that happen, anyway?" Mr. Carson asked, reaching over to brush a straying strand of hair from her face. In all the years they had worked together, he couldn't remember ever seeing her even mildly disheveled. It was a small indication of intimacy that they could now be seen at something other than their best with each other. "I mean, why did Her Ladyship do the hiring, rather than working through you?"

"Oh, Lady Rose felt guilty about her mother poaching the traitor O'Brien and was distressed at Her Ladyship being inconvenienced for the period it would take to find a replacement through an ad in The Lady. I might have thanked her for her consideration myself, as Anna and I bore the greater burden of inconvenience, if she hadn't come home with Edna Braithwaite."

Mr. Carson was distracted for a moment, thinking of something that had not occurred to him in a long while. "Can you imagine a house with Miss O'Brien and Lady Flintshire in it? It makes Lord Flintshire's radical decision to seek a divorce a lot more understandable." This statement, issued with a palpable degree of distaste at the pairing of those two women, evoked a laugh from his wife. The women in question had few admirers. "Still, what about her references?"

"I'm getting to that. My own cleverness came back on me. The only reference letter Edna produced was one I wrote for her. After all, she was a good worker. We were only getting rid of her because she had designs on Mr. Branson, not because she couldn't clean a house properly. And my glowing reference was enough for Her Ladyship. But there was no letter from the house where she had worked as a lady's maid, which struck me as odd. That's why I wanted to make my own inquiries. But then she came, and Her Ladyship seemed pleased, and things picked up around here, and you didn't get back to me, because Mr. Wendover didn't get back to you. And you'll recall that we were all in a dither in the spring of 1922 because of the great house party."

"We hadn't had a house party like that since before the war," Mr. Carson noted, his voice tinged with sadness. "And even then it was a poor shadow of the old days." These sorts of things still troubled Mr. Carson, but Mrs. Carson was glad to see the end of them, although she was tactful enough not to mention it. "This still seems a long way away from our subject," he went on, "although that is the house party at which the ... transgression ...occurred. Do you think Edna had something to do with it? Some knowledge?"

She could understand his confusion. It was a twisted story. "No. There's a lot more to it than that, I'm afraid. The letter of reference inquiry tells me that I knew Edna had come from Chesley Park, but I didn't know until yesterday that Lord Gillingham had been there, and with him that man, at the same time Edna was there."

"So what?"

"So, she would have met him there, just as she did here. They'd have been in the servants' hall for meals and leisure, and she might even have met him upstairs as they went about their official duties. He was friendly, if in a predatory sort of way, and she was no shrinking violet either. And they were both senior servants, so they'd have been seated close together at the dinner table. And he was there three or four times overlapping the months she was there."

"And?" One of the things he had been liking about Agatha Christie's novels was that they were fairly short. He didn't have to wait very long to find out how the plot unfolded. He'd read many longer books, but murder-mystery stories, he felt, ought to get to the point.

"Calm yourself, Charlie, This is a twisted tale. It's more Emily Bronte than Agatha Christie."

He groaned. He hadn't liked the Bronte sisters' novels. Very murky affairs.

"But she left Chesley Park and came here and then a month or so later, doesn't he arrive for a visit. We sat at the table with them, Charlie. We mingled with them in the servants' hall, saw them together. And yet they gave no sign of having met each other before. Mr. ... you know who ... only met Anna when he got here, and yet it seemed that every time I turned around that weekend, there he was, flirting with her. I noticed it. Mr. Bates noticed it. But Edna, who he knew, he hardly spoke to."

"They were playing Racing Demon and screaming away at it."

"Yes, and that is the only time I saw them together, now that you mention it. But all the maids and Anna, too, were shrieking while they were playing. I can't recall anything out of place there."

"You don't think he assaulted her, do you?" It was bad enough that one woman had been attacked within the walls of Downton Abbey. The idea that a second might have been was not only repulsive, but disgraceful to Mr. Carson.

"No," she said firmly. "Nothing about her changed after that weekend. Not like Anna, anyway."

He flinched. "How dreadful that was," he murmured.

"Yes. And obvious, too. The change in Anna, I mean."

"I'm still not sure what you're driving at, love. Are you suggesting there is some nefarious reason behind the pretence between them that does have something to do with his murder?"

She sighed. "I think there may be a nefarious reason, but I'm not sure it has anything to do with the murder. Still... it troubles me."

He could see that. "Go on, then."

But she did not go on immediately, for they had come to the sticky part. She had never told him about Edna and Mr. Branson, and was wondering if there really was any reason to do so now. But if she were going to untangle the mystery of Edna Braithwaite, then it was difficult to see how she could do so without confiding in him.

"I'm going to tell you something because I think we need to get to the bottom of her story. And I'm not breaking a confidence in doing so, because I never promised to keep it a secret. But, Charlie, I must urge you to try to keep an open mind and not judge too hastily." It was a forlorn hope, really. Mr. Carson did not share her affection for Mr. Branson, and thus was not prepared to extend to him the latitude she exercised toward the younger man.

He hated conversations that included this kind of preamble. "One moment," he said, reluctantly drawing away from her and getting to his feet. "I think I need a refill on the sherry for this."

"What you need is a good stiff whisky," she murmured, under her breath. But she accepted another dollop of sherry herself, and then settled within the curve of his arm once more.

"You may recall that when Edna left, you expressed dismay, and I said I'd tell you the whole sordid story one day, and then you'd be less sorry about her hasty departure."

"And now it's time for the sordid story."

"Yes. But please try to be generous. You see, on her return to Downton Abbey, Edna immediately picked up where she had left off again in her pursuit of Tom Branson." His jaw went slack in anticipated disbelief, and she hurried on. "She concealed her designs much more effectively this time, from all of us. On the weekend of the house party, she saw her opportunity. Mr. Branson was very uncomfortable that weekend, what with the Duchess of Yeovil and all those other upper crust types ..."

"Which is why crossing lines is never a good idea," he interceded.

"And anyway, he was vulnerable."

"Really." He had a feeling he knew where this was going, and he was very unhappy about it.

There was nothing else to do but say it. "Edna took advantage of him. She got him drunk and then... paid a visit to his bedroom, and ..."

He drew away from her, almost as if she were tainted by association. "I cannot begin to express my disgust in words, and you..."

"You seem to be doing all right," she muttered, as he continued.

"...expect me believe Mr. Branson was seduced by a lady's maid?"

She wanted to take issue with him on that. What, precisely, made it impossible for a lady's maid to seduce a man? It was a fine situation where she was attributing devious motives to one of the female servants, rather than defending a young woman against unfounded accusations from some wolfish gentleman. That, after all, was how it worked nine times out of ten in the real world. But she'd challenge him on his archaic prejudices later. Right now she wanted to stay with the problem at hand.

"Yes, I do," she said shortly.

"Elsie," he said, in a patronizing tone, "men are not seduced."

"I beg your pardon."

"Men seduce. They aren't the victims or the targets. And as for being vulnerable because of his discomfort in a room full of gentry and nobility, he put himself in that position. He wanted to be there. I'd have thought he'd be accustomed to it by that time, or, more likely, impervious to the disdain around him. And as for Edna's role in this. She got him drunk? Did she have to force the alcohol down his throat?" He expected resistance to this observation. Elsie, he knew, had a partiality toward Mr. Branson, but this seemed to be carrying it a bit too far.

Well, of course, this is exactly why she'd never told him about the incident in the first place. She sighed. "You're putting a bad slant on this and it's not even what concerns us."

He laughed. "I'm afraid he put a bad slant on it, love. But you're right. Why are you telling me this?"

"Because what Edna was after was a way to coerce Tom Branson into marrying her. Every time she saw him for the next couple of days, she made it clear to him that she expected him to marry her if she were pregnant."

"What! This is sordid!"

"Yes. She pressured him to agree and, demonstrating some strength of will, I think, he resisted. But he was at his wit's end about it, and your reaction tells you why, and so he came to me."

"You?"

As if he didn't know that everyone, including him, came to her with their problems. "Yes. And to make a long story short, I searched her room, found evidence that she was practising some form of birth control..."

Another wave of disgust flowed over Mr. Carson's face. Mrs. Carson tried to ignore it. This was yet another topic they would have to debate some other time. No doubt Charlie was of the view that a woman ought to have as many children as God in His infinite mercy saw fit to bless her with, or that her husband ought to exercise forbearance in his demands that she might not enjoy childbirth so frequently. They had not had this conversation, as it had no relevance to their situation. But she did wonder what he thought the upstairs people did, them of their families of two or three offspring. Doubtless he believed honourable manhood was the prevailing practice. Not that she endorsed either Marie Stopes or her radical agenda for married love. She and Mr. Carson were as one on that, make no mistake about it. But neither did she attempt to ignore the reality that such things were gaining acceptance in British society and even upstairs at Downton Abbey. Disapproving of them did not make them go away. Again, however, this was not the time.

"...and I bluffed her into acknowledging that she was perpetrating a fraud on Mr. Branson. But the only way I could get her to go in silence was to give her a reference."

"Again."

"Yes, again," she said, with no little exasperation. He was looking at her as if she had had a choice in the matter, as if he would never abandon his high-mindedness to the petty blackmail of a disgruntled employee. She was tempted to remind him of how Jimmy Kent had thwarted his efforts to provide Mr. Barrow with a reference a few years ago. "She was willing to go, but if she hadn't gotten a reference, she was going to spill it all to Her Ladyship."

"And all this to protect Mr. Branson, who had proven himself so unworthy of Lady Sybil!" His disdain was evident.

"Yes," she said emphatically. "And Lady Sybil was dead, and had been for a year and a half at that point. All he was guilty of was bad judgment." This time the look of scepticism on his face was too much for her, and she leaned forward to poke him in the chest. "And don't get all high and mighty with me about Mr. Branson, Charles Carson. You might want to cast your mind back a few years earlier to an incident involving a Turkish gentleman!"

Of course, it was a mistake to bring that up. He bristled. His eyes grew wide with indignation. He went all stiff with outrage at this slur on his beloved Lady Mary. Mrs. Carson watched all this with perplexity. How he could be so hypocritical was something she would never understand.

"Lady Mary," he seethed, "was seduced. Which just proves my earlier point about men."

How easily he cast aspersions on his own sex. She shook her head. "Don't insult Lady Mary. She's much too intelligent to allow herself to be seduced, and you know it. And she wasn't forced, either," she added quickly, forestalling his next line of defense. "Any man that went into her bedroom against her will would've been crowned with a candlestick in short order and rued the day he came up against her."

His mouth was hanging open now, his shock complete. Mrs. Carson had no time for such a response. Thinking this the most favourable thing she'd ever said about Lady Mary, she thought he might've been more shocked at that. "Can we get back to the subject?" she said, with some asperity.

He hadn't recovered, but perhaps he did see discretion as the better part here, for he settled on a resentful look, and nodded.

"All right. Well, now I'm into speculation, so bear that in mind. You have to ask yourself why Edna pretended not to know ... the valet ... and kept so aloof from him. This is my explanation: she wanted to entrap Tom Branson so she had ... intimate relations with him...," she put this tactfully for Mr. Carson's benefit. He was quite conversant with marital relations, but he did not like to speak explicitly about such things, even to her, thinking it vulgar to do so, "...to have some grounds for waving the fear of pregnancy in his face. In her post- ... after they had been together, she repeatedly demanded that he commit himself to her, believing that if she could get him to make the promise, he would not go back on it, in the event that she actually was pregnant."

The conversation was uncomfortable for Mr. Carson, but he was trying to focus on her argument, rather than the details. "But ... you said she was taking measures..."

"Yes, and I won't go into that."

"Thank you."

"Had he ever agreed, she would have needed to get pregnant, however, in order to hold him to it."

"And you think she might have had Mr. ... the valet ...in mind as the instrument of that objective."

"As I say, this is rampant speculation on my part. But yes. She needed someone. She knew him from Chesley Park. And she couldn't ask just anyone. For example, if she'd enlisted Jimmy, then he'd have known what she was up to when she turned up married or engaged to Mr. Branson."

"But wouldn't ... the other one also have told the tale on her?"

"Why? I think that like attracts like. She might have recognized him for the opportunist he was. She could have offered him ... the act...," Mr. Carson winced, "...without any strings attached."

The fog was beginning to clear for Mr. Carson. "You don't think, perhaps, that she knew about his assault on Anna, or on the young woman at Chesley Park, and that that later led to some conflict between them?"

"No," Mrs. Carson said dismissively, "or else it would have been her who was dead, not him. And anyway, I don't know that this has anything at all to do with his death."

He rolled his eyes. "Then why are we pursuing this again?"

She frowned thoughtfully and, slipping her hand into his, she gripped him tightly. "Because she behaved in a way that has no reasonable or obvious explanation. It didn't matter to us that she knew him, so why did she disguise that fact? There's some reason there. And, let's face it, it's the only meaningful bit of information we've been able to wring out of the evidence we have. It probably isn't relevant at all. But I want to pursue it."

And then they were back to a problem he had pointed out when she had first raised the idea of an inquiry. "How?"

"We have to work with what we've got. And that means we're going to have to look into Edna's time at Chesley Park."

"Would you like me to write to Mr. Wendover again?"

"I don't think so."

"Why not?"

She sighed. "Because I don't think he'll know what we want to know, and he probably wouldn't tell you it, even if he did."

"He's the butler, Elsie. He'll know anything we want to know." He spoke with such confidence. She wondered how he could possibly think that after the conversation they'd just had.

"I hate to tell you this, Charlie, but there's quite a lot that gets by the butler. Besides, we're not interested in any official story. We need to know everything there is to know. For that, we need someone who can bluff, and lie, and think quickly on his feet. Someone who has a natural talent for rooting out information and doing so expeditiously. And also someone who won't be telling anyone else what we're up to."

"So, not Molesley, I presume," he said. She gave him a look. He was hard on Molesley. "Did you want to put an advertisement in The Times?" Now he was just being sarcastic.

"We don't need to do that. We've got just the kind of person we're looking for here. The problem is going to be persuading him."

"Oh?" He raised a sceptical eyebrow.

There was no way around this. She just stared at him and after a moment understanding descended and he looked crestfallen.

"Couldn't we just hire a private detective?" he asked plaintively.

"Let me rinse out the sherry glasses," she said, taking his from him and rising from the sofa. She thought perhaps he needed a few minutes to make his peace with this. When she came out of the bathroom, he had already retreated to the bedroom. She turned out the lights and followed.

She was a little surprised to see that although he had taken off his robe, he was sitting in his pyjamas on the edge of the bed, oblivious to the chill of the bedroom floor on his feet, staring intently into a dark corner of the room. It made her look, wondering if he'd seen a mouse. When he did not move, even to acknowledge her presence, she went to his side and slid a hand over his shoulders. He was tense. She worked her fingers into the muscles of his neck and he leaned into her appreciatively. Yet another of the advantages of marriage was that a remedy to various physical aches lay so close at hand.

"What is it?" she asked softly, recognizing symptoms of unease. She hoped he wasn't going to launch into a lecture about Mr. Branson's moral laxness.

"I was thinking about Mr. Bates."

"What about him?"

"About what an admirable man he is."

However much Mrs. Carson might agree with that characterization, it was nevertheless a thought out of the blue. "Why?" she asked.

"I was thinking of his response to the ... the crime ... against his wife."

She still was unsure where he was going with this. "What part?"

"Two things, really. The way he responded to Anna so lovingly, and then his...restraint... toward the man who perpetrated the act. He has proved himself a man of great sensitivity and wisdom. I admire that."

This was no less than she thought herself, but it was still odd that he should suddenly be dwelling upon it. She ran her hand through his fine, soft hair, a gesture that gave her great pleasure. "How do you think you would have responded?" she asked, just wondering.

But he only shook his head. "I don't want to think about that."

They got into bed then and he turned off the light. She waited for him to move toward her that she might curl into him as she usually did, her back against him. But he drew her into his arms before she could turn around, and buried his face in her neck, so that she couldn't even kiss him. He seemed distressed. If holding her was the antidote to that, she was more than willing to provide it, slipping one arm around him in his turn and sliding her other hand up the back of his neck to hold him more firmly against her. She didn't know what part of their conversation had driven him to this.

After a while, his grip relaxed and she thought perhaps he had fallen asleep. But then he moved back from her a little and in the darkness, he reached out to stroke her face with a gentleness in that great hand that always surprised her.

"To my wife who had been so wronged, I would respond as an honourable man should, with tenderness and understanding as she recovered, however long that might take, and with the assurance, always, that she was wholly blameless and not diminished by it in my eyes." He said this softly and she was touched by the emotional force behind his words. "As for him." His voice hardened suddenly. "I'm not a violent man and I've always been satisfied to leave justice to the laws and the courts, trusting that all would come right in the end. But in two circumstances, I don't think I would have the strength of character to resist baser impulses. Were a man to do such a thing to a woman I loved, it would not be enough for me even to shoot him or put a knife into him. I would want to beat his brains out." There was a cool deliberation in the way he spoke. "Not that that would solve anything," he added, almost as an afterthought.

She snuggled into him a bit. He was selling himself short, she thought, knowing him to have every bit as much forbearance, if not more, than Mr. Bates who, it seemed to her, was less stoic than simmering.

"What's the other circumstance that would drive you to that?"

"If the victim were a child, of course."

Well. She was with him there.