Chapter 7 The Tragedies of Chesley Park

The Maid's Story

Barrow's first concern the next morning was to find a moment with Christopher. As intriguing as the human drama at Chesley Park was proving, his objective here was to secure information on Edna Braithwaite and Mr. Green, and the footman was his only promising lead. But that young man clearly wanted nothing to do with him and slipped away after the servants' breakfast before Barrow could exchange so much as a good morning with him.

The mood among the servants had not lightened with the advent of a sunny day, prompting Barrow to the conclusion that grimness was the natural condition in the servants' hall. It was an object lesson - the outward prosperity of Chesley Park did not guarantee domestic tranquillity. It was not, after all, a place where Barrow would like to work.

He wondered why Christopher was so adverse to him. Was it the association with Mr. Green, the mere mention of which had so rattled the footman? Or was it the other thing? Barrow didn't want to leap to conclusions there. He'd spent a lifetime studying and interpreting the signs, and though he believed himself adept at this, he'd made more than a few mistakes. But if he were right about Christopher, what was it that sparked such fear? Was he afraid of his own impulses? Or was he more concerned that Barrow might expose him? As he mounted the stairs to the gallery on his way to prepare Lord Gillingham's clothes, Barrow bristled at the whole problem. It was just damned unfair that people like him had even to think about this.

"Mr. Barrow!"

No matter what state of mind he was in, Barrow's ears were ever attuned to whispers and illicit communications so that the soft voice, emanating from the shadows as he approached Lord Gillingham's dressing room, brought him to a halt.

"Yes?" he responded quietly, looking around and wondering who had spoken. When no one appeared, he glanced over his shoulder, ensuring that the coast was clear.

"I'm alone," he said in a low voice, trying to sound encouraging.

"That'd be enough to get me in trouble." But despite these words, a slight figure stepped into view just behind him. It was one of the junior maids, quite junior as her position at the table had indicated.

Barrow, who had made a keen study of all the faces, recognized her as one of those who had shifted uncomfortably when he'd remarked on the transiency of maids these days. It might have been innocent discomfort, a reflection perhaps of the young woman's own plans to move on and her uneasiness at the stranger's apparent apprehension of her as-yet unstated intent. But clearly this was not the case or she would not now be standing here before him, shifting in trepidation. No. It was more than that. She was trembling.

"What is it?" he asked solicitously. When he wanted to, Barrow could charm a bird out of a tree.

She wanted to speak but speaking out at Chesley Park, as Barrow keenly appreciated, required a major effort.

"It's about Leah!" she blurted. "Only she never had anything to do with Lord Bracken. Nothing at all!"

Barrow took a step toward her, moving slowly. "I'm sorry?" he said, because he didn't understand.

"What you said yesterday, about maids leaving. She didn't leave here on her own account. They made her. After what happened. But it wasn't Lord Bracken did her, no matter what the family says. They blamed his killing himself on that, but it wa'n't right."

There were tears in her eyes and fear in her words. She sounded like Daisy - well, a younger Daisy, anyway - knowing that she knew something she wasn't supposed to and fearing the consequences when it was discovered she did. The tremors and the tears were means to mitigate the wrath she expected to break over her.

Barrow was thinking rapidly. "Go on," he said gently.

"But that's it," she said desperately. "Lord Bracken had nothing to do with what happened. He'd never have beat her or...or..." She had dissolved into horrified sobs now and put a hand over her mouth to stifle them. "But they think that's why he...shot...," she whispered the word, "...himself. And they made her go away. He was dead anyway, but she'd been... and she lost her position. It just isn't fair!" She turned on her heel and ran, leaving her final words hanging in the air.

"It bloody well isn't!" Barrow agreed fiercely, certain he grasped the overall injustice even if the details were still foggy.

He stood still for a minute, trying to sift through the details. Clearly she was speaking of the elder son, Arthur St. Claire. Somehow Lord Bracken's suicide had been linked, by the family at least, to a scandal with a maid, a scandal that naturally must be kept under wraps, and so the maid had been dismissed. This made some sense out of the footman's attack the night before. He had interpreted Barrow's offhand allusion to maids leaving as some sort of dig at the late Lord Bracken.

But there was more to it than that. Something had happened. A maid had been assaulted, physically and sexually it seemed. Only, according to this maid, Lord Bracken wasn't involved. The family had employed an unrelated tragedy for their own purposes, perhaps using the more conventional (if unsavoury) story of a sexual escapade gone wrong to cover up for...what? evidence of mental or emotional instability in the line? Something worse? Barrow shook his head in disgust. Some innocent party, usually from among the vulnerable classes, always had to take the fall for these people. So the maid had not only been assaulted, but also maligned as the cause of His Lordship's downfall, deprived of her position, and seen her real attacker go unpunished...

Barrow paused. He was more capable than the next man of putting two and two together. And it occurred to him that he needed to have another conversation with Lord Gillingham. Fortunately, such an opportunity was at hand.

Upstairs, Downstairs

Lord Gillingham seemed in a more cheerful mood this morning, which Barrow hoped could be exploited to advantage. They exchanged cursory niceties and Gillingham even inquired whether Barrow was making any headway with his work at Chesley Park.

"To some extent," he responded noncommittally, but moved into the opening provided. "The downstairs seem to have been quite devoted to the elder Lord Bracken, my lord." This might, he thought, suggest less enthusiasm for the current holder of the title, but Barrow wasn't concerned about potential consequences. "They speak very well of him."

This was a bit of a stab in the dark. Michael was clearly prepared to defend Arthur St. Claire with more than words. And the maid thought it impossible for him to have behaved badly. Had the butler also seemed a little sensitive on the matter of the maids? But beyond this, Barrow had no evidence of what he had said. But he felt that discerning the real character of the dead man had some relevance here.

"They would," Gillingham said warmly. "You know how things can develop between the servants and the children of a great house. And Lord Bracken was a favourite with all of them. Wendover doted on him, practically brought him up." He caught Barrow's eye and smiled. "Rather like Lady Mary and your butler at Downton."

"Mr. Carson," Barrow supplied readily, although he accepted the general point. While Lady Mary had her fierce defender in the butler, Lady Sybil had been loved by everyone downstairs.

"Yes. And then, of course, Hambly was Arthur St. Claire's man before the war. He was so committed that they joined up together. Hambly was his soldier-servant in war, his valet in peace." Gillingham made a bit of a face. "He's had a bit of a comedown since his master's death."

"My lord?" Barrow didn't understand.

Gillingham brushed some nonexistent fluff from the sleeve of his coat. "Hambly was in a difficult position after his Lord Bracken died. Jonathan St. Claire assumed the title and brought his own valet to Chesley Park."

"Mr. Moore."

"Yes. Hambly was given a choice - leave the estate and the family he had been with all his working life and take his chances in an uncertain post-war world, or remain here, as a footman, which I believe he did."

Michael. Well, that explained the hostility between the footman and the valet.

"Well, Barrow, you've done me up splendidly. It's a real treat to have such a capable valet. I know it isn't kind to speak ill of the dead, but Mr. Green was not always up to the mark."

Lord Gillingham was being especially cooperative this morning, if inadvertently.

"My lord, on the subject of Mr. Green. Do you have any knowledge of his having ... transgressed...at Chesley Park?" Barrow didn't want to betray the maid's confidence. If pressed, he would, in this instance, cite someone at Downton as his source.

A distinctly uncomfortable look descended on Lord Gillingham. "As a matter of fact, yes, although, obviously, I didn't know about it at the time. He assaulted one of the maids here, as he had done at Downton. I feel quite the 'Typhoid Mary,' Barrow, having given the man access to these homes and put women at risk thereby."

Barrow thought the man looked genuinely distressed at this. But he had other concerns. "Do they know about Mr. Green here, my lord?" It was his impression that they did not.

"Of course," Lord Gillingham said briskly. "When it...after Green's death, when the police began to investigate it as a possible murder, they discovered a number of victims, including a young woman who had once worked here as a maid. I told Lord Bracken - the current Lord Bracken, obviously - about it myself. I apologized for having brought such a man under this roof and facilitated his crimes."

Some of Barrow's newly-cultivated regard for Lord Gillingham slipped. Gillingham was, no doubt, a good and kind man. But he had apologized to Lord Bracken for sullying, perhaps, the good name of Chesley Park. He had not, Barrow suspected, apologized to the woman concerned.

"Didn't the police make inquiries here?" Barrow was still confused as to why downstairs remained wedded to the idea of the dead Lord Bracken's involvement in the maid's scandal and the need to cover up for him.

"I shouldn't have thought so," Gillingham replied. "She'd left service here and, I believe, she had an alibi for the time of Green's death. The only known victim who didn't was the maid at Downton." He paused. "Thank you, Barrow."

Gillingham went off to breakfast, leaving Barrow in a stew. So His Lordship Jonathan St. Claire had learned that the maid's misfortune had not been his brother's doing, but this information had not been communicated to the staff. It would be awkward, Barrow supposed, to announce to them that His Lordship, the much-lamented elder son, had not beaten and raped the maid as previously assumed. But if this is what the thinking had been upstairs and down until that point, then surely some means might have been found to convey the truth. They should know.

In fact, Barrow thought, running his fingers over his still-sore throat, he might even enjoy telling at least one of them.

A Bitter Revelation

Christopher was still eluding him, but Michael didn't know that Barrow was even looking for him, despite their encounter the previous evening. Nor would he have expected an ambush in mid-morning. Seeing the footman with a pair of muddy boots in his hands, Barrow made an assumption and took up a position in the boot room. When the footman entered unawares, Barrow moved on him from behind, twisted his arm behind his back, and crashed the man into the closed door. Surprise robbed Michael of the advantage of his superior strength.

"Turnabout is fair play," Barrow hissed in his ear.

"You're done for it now, you bastard," Michael snarled right back at him.

"You might want to hold your fire," Barrow warned, "until you hear what I've got to say about Lord Bracken. Your Lord Bracken."

Michael was as still as a statue in Barrow's grip. Either he was listening hard or he was waiting for a moment's advantage.

Barrow saw no reason to drag this out. "He didn't touch the maid Leah. She was attacked by Lord Gillingham's valet, Mr. Green." As he spat out the name, Barrow pushed away from the footman and moved back a few steps, not exactly sure what he would do next if the man didn't listen to him.

But although Michael whirled to face Barrow, he did not advance on him. "What?" He spoke almost dully, as if he didn't quite comprehend.

"Mr. Green was a predator. He attacked one of the maids at Downton Abbey, and a few at other houses besides. Our maid's under suspicion for having murdered him because of it."

"But...what are you saying?"

Barrow supposed he could understand the man's confusion, his difficulty in taking in this revelation. He'd probably spent months reconciling himself to this aberration in behaviour on the part of his favourite and couldn't quite manage the shock.

"I'm saying that whatever drove your Lordship to put a bullet in his brain, it wasn't anything to do with the maid."

Repetition appeared to have had an effect and, for the first time since Barrow had set eyes on him, the glowering look on Michael's face faded into incomprehension, and then distress.

"But...Leah. She turned up...and then His Lordship...shot...," he choked a little on the word, "...and then they sent her off straightaway."

"Yeah," Barrow said coolly, committed to the truth but not that interested in sparing the man's feelings. "Lord Gillingham was here for the NewYear's shooting party. Mr. Green did his work. It was your maid's misfortune to be assaulted just as your Lord Bracken was going off his head." Michael scowled at these words, but Barrow ignored him. "What a price she's paid for working in this lovely house."

The truth he had spoken sapped Michael of some of his defensiveness. "Do they know upstairs?"

Barrow almost felt sorry for him. Instead he laughed, a humourless laugh. "Oh, yes. His Lordship Jonathan St. Claire has known for months. Lord Gillingham rushed over to apologize as soon as he learned about Green's other offenses." He'd thought breaking the bad news - especially this part of it - would give him some satisfaction, but when Michael's face went ashen, Barrow had a moment's concern. "Maybe you ought to sit down."

The footman did so. "Lord Bracken knows? You mean, he's let us believe that his brother did such a terrible thing to a young woman, and he never said?"

Barrow found this incredulity a little hard to take. Hadn't Michael dismissed Jonathan St. Claire as no gentleman only the night before? "Why would you ever have believed that about him anyway?" Barrow didn't know this elder Lord Bracken from Adam, but he wondered at the depths of loyalty involved if there could have been a doubt. Although he supposed he could see Mr. Carson emphatically denying an indiscretion on Lady Mary's part and then, if forced to acknowledge it, dedicating his life to covering it up, as was the case here.

Michael looked up sharply. "Because there was a woman. He told me as much. He'd been fretting over Christmas. I thought...I thought maybe he'd had a fling with someone unsuitable, gotten her pregnant. He was an honourable man, Barrow," Michael spoke earnestly. "He would have felt obliged to do the right thing by her, no matter what the penalty. It would have broken his mother's heart, made a pariah of the family, perhaps, because he wouldn't have had the strength to face down the disapproval. And maybe that was it. Maybe that's what he couldn't face. But then Leah turned up battered and..., well. And then His Lordship...died...and she was gone the next day."

"I didn't want to believe it," he said hollowly. "But it was the only story we had. And the family took pains to hush it all up."

Barrow remembered that Lord Gillingham had not seemed to know the details.

"And that bastard upstairs couldn't be bothered with clearing his brother's name!" Michael had gotten around to anger now. "Well, that doesn't surprise me in the least, the jumped-up little money grubber!"

"I'm sorry," Barrow said, and managed to sound sincere. To some degree he was sincere, sympathetic to the situation at least, if not to the man involved.

The other acknowledged him with a flicker of his hand. "I'm sorry," he echoed Barrow. "For last night. Lord Bracken, Arthur St. Claire, was my gentleman. We went through the war together." He nodded in the direction of Barrow's sheathed hand. "You know how it was."

Barrow did not know, had never known the communion of comradeship-in-arms of which this man spoke, or which Mr. Bates apparently shared with Lord Grantham. He had made no connection with an officer while he was in the trenches. But he was gratified that Michael had included him in the war generation, as Lord Gillingham had not.

"I want a few things from you," he said after a moment.

The footman looked up at him, puzzled.

"First, I want to know everything you know about Edna Braithwaite and Mr. Green."

"Why?"

"It's my own business," Barrow said shortly, but added, "That's the reason I'm here."

"That's peculiar."

Barrow shrugged.

Michael nodded. "She was only here a few months," he said slowly. "Seemed a bit of a forward piece of work, ambitious I think, in an off-putting way. She'd been hired as a lady's maid and didn't know her business, but was keen to get as much as she could out of it. No appreciation for service, really."

Barrow smirked. There was an indictment straight out of Mr. Carson's book.

"I don't know that I exchanged more than a few words with her. I was...valet...then." He looked up at Barrow sharply. "To His Lordship." He cleared his throat. "Anyway, Mr. Wendover and Mrs. Plant didn't much like her, but she was available and inexpensive. Spent most of her free time chatting up the footmen. Sorry," he added, acknowledging his feeble contribution.

Barrow pressed on. "Did you ever see her with Mr. Green?"

Michael thought about it. "He was here several times while she was with us, and yes, they chatted at mealtimes. They were social, both of them, and they seemed to get on. And he was more open to her silly chatter than the other senior servants were. But I didn't see them lurking in any dark corners, if that's what you mean."

That wasn't much help to Barrow. "And Mr. Wendover didn't put a stop to this idle conversation at the table?" He asked this only because he knew how irritating Edna's voice could be and could not imagine the intolerant butler indulging it.

The footman slowly shook his head. "Things were different around here, then. Mr. Wendover has been here for decades. He was always firm, but not...unkind. My lord Bracken was his favourite. When he...died, Mr. Wendover sort of turned. I hardly notice his behaviour now, because I can still remember what he was."

This made some sense to Barrow. He could imagine a deep melancholy settling over Mr. Carson were tragedy to overtake his Lady Mary.

"Is that all?" Michael asked.

"No. I also need to speak to Christopher and he seems to be avoiding me. Can you fix that?"

"And what do you want with him?" The footman spoke in a neutral voice but Barrow could see a different sort of question in his eyes.

"The same thing I wanted from you. Information."

Michael relented. "At your convenience."

"Good. And one more thing. Did you ever see Edna Braithwaite with Lord Bracken?"

Barrow had shaken the man again. He was no fool and like Barrow he made a quick calculation of the facts. "Do you mean to suggest...?"

But Barrow only shook his head. "It's not for me to say."

The Last of the Tragedies

"Look." Christopher was highly agitated. He paced the boot room like a caged animal, an analogy that, with Barrow in front of him and Michael keeping watch beyond the door, was wholly appropriate. "I don't know anything. I don't want any trouble. Could you please just stay away?" There was a pleading note to his voice.

Barrow found such a level of anxiety disquieting and the vulnerability in this young man made him want to be helpful, but he couldn't while away the afternoon on tea and sympathy either. He decided to try a bit of honesty, hoping that that would have a disarming effect.

"I've come to Chesley Park to make inquiries about Edna Braithwaite, Christopher. I need to know anything you can tell me about her. Anything at all. Beyond that I have no interest in the troubles or the gossip or...or anything else about the place. Please."

Christopher didn't seem entirely persuaded, but he was distracted. "Miss Braithwaite?"

"Yes. Did you know her very well?"

Still a little wary, Christopher nodded. "Yeah. Well, yeah, sort of. She was pretty nice to me." He said it as if he wasn't quite sure. "I mean, she was a lady's maid and all. Didn't have to notice me. But we got on. For a while."

"She talked to you more than she talked to Michael? Or to the housekeeper?"

"Well, Mrs. Plant hardly talks to no one except about business. And Michael...he was Mr. Hambly then. But no, she didn't talk much to the upper servants. She talked more to me."

Barrow wasn't surprised. He knew Edna to be a sharp and manipulative woman. She would have seen that she rubbed the senior staff members the wrong way. Much easier to befriend a gullible young footman.

"And she knew about you?" he asked abruptly.

Christopher blanched and went into denial. "What do you mean? Knew what? There's nothing to know about me!" His barriers had gone right up.

"Your secret is safe with me," Barrow said soothingly.

His words had the opposite effect to that intended. It was as if the phrase were a trigger of some sort to Christopher. His manic pacing accelerated. He looked like he might cry. "I don't have any secrets! I don't want to talk to you!"

"It's all right," Barrow said quietly. "I'm like that, too. And that's not why I'm talking to you. That's not why I asked. You can relax. But I do need some information and I'm pretty sure you can help me."

"But I don't know anything!" he persisted.

"Look, Christopher, I saw your face when I mentioned Mr. Green at the table last night."

The young man almost staggered at this. Good God, Barrow thought. What other damage had Mr. Green wrought here?

"I don't know anything about him! I didn't do anything! I was nowhere near London!"

Barrow frowned. "He's dead. Whatever it was, he can't hurt you now."

The face that turned to him was filled with fear. "Can't he?"

"What did you mean, you weren't near London?" But Barrow could add these fragments effectively, too. Was the lad afraid he was going to be accused of murdering Green?

"I wasn't! I can prove it!"

This was getting complicated. "What are you saying, Christopher? Why would anyone connect you with Green's death? Was it...was he...?" He left the question hanging.

"God, no!" Christopher looked appalled at the very thought.

"But he knew about you." Barrow didn't like putting the fellow through the ringer, but he felt like this had something to do with his own concerns.

"Yes." As suddenly as his defenses had gone up, they crumbled, and Christopher flung himself into a chair and buried his head in his hands.

Barrow knew enough about the perils of Christopher's predicament and, he supposed, about Mr. Green, too, to venture an educated guess. "And he threatened you."

"Yes!" Christopher's shoulders shuddered.

"Who was he going to tell?"

Christopher looked up at him tearfully through a screen of spread out fingers. "Anyone. Mr. Wendover, I suppose. I'd have lost my job! You know how it is."

Barrow paused. "Well,...yes and no. I know how it can be."

This ambiguous statement distracted Christopher. "Does anyone know about you? Where you work?"

Barrow gave it a moment's consideration. "Just about everyone."

"What? And it isn't a problem?"

"I wouldn't go that far," Barrow admitted, but no, it wasn't really. There was a significant degree of indifference, from His Lordship to Mr. Bates to Mrs. Patmore. Miss Baxter was very sympathetic, Anna reasonably so, even Mrs. Carson to some extent. And though Mr. Carson was disgusted, it didn't seem to get in the way of their working relationship, although this might not be the case entirely with Molesley, if and when he ever figured it out. "But no, not the way you mean anyway."

"You're lucky!" Christopher was astonished.

Barrow shrugged this off. He didn't consider mere tolerance good fortune. "What happened with Green?"

The confidence had calmed Christopher and, it seemed, opened him up. Barrow could see why Edna would have targeted him for exploitation. He was easily won.

"Blackmailed me. I gave him every penny I had. I was sending him money every month. Piddling little amounts. What did he want with that?"

What indeed, Barrow thought savagely. What except the exertion of power over a weaker person.

"I thought maybe they'd find an envelope from me and trace it back," Christopher said nervously. "I never wrote my name on it, but there's always the postmark."

"You'd have heard by now," Barrow said shortly. "Besides, they're pretty sure it was someone else." He didn't go into the details. "What else can you tell me about Edna Braithwaite?" He thought perhaps that Christopher might have more to say now that he'd loosened up a bit.

"What do you mean?"

"Did she get on with Mr. Green?"

"She did." Christopher said this a little guardedly and Barrow sensed resentment, perhaps at being elbowed aside when a more significant fish entered the pond.

"Anything going on between them?" This, after all, was really what Barrow had been sent here to find out.

"No." Christopher said this more confidently than he had anything else. "They were friendly, all right. But she wasn't interested in him in that way." He seemed oddly pleased about this, as if Mr. Green being denied something was satisfying. "She told me she wasn't going to be a lady's maid forever. She had plans to move up. She had her eye on His Lordship, if you can believe it, though how she was going to manage that was beyond me."

Barrow smiled gently. He thought that probably quite a lot of things were beyond the young man. "Thank you," he said quietly. "You've been a great help to me, Christopher."

The sudden conclusion of this interview startled the footman. He seemed to have pulled himself together. "Is there anything else, Mr. Barrow?"

Barrow thought about it. "How did Mr. Green find out about you?" he asked, just out of curiosity. Green was a perceptive observer and Christopher was rather transparent. Barrow thought that his secret might not be as well kept as he thought, even in the servants' hall, as Michael had almost intimated. But Barrow was playing a hunch here.

A crestfallen look came over Christopher. "She told him."

AUTHOR'S NOTE: These last two chapters have been plot-heavy and shifted the focus away from the Carsons and from Downton. The next chapter will bring the story back to Downton and restore the Carsons to a central role.

Thanks to readers for persisting with this drawn-out drama. Plotting is difficult work...