7th August 1945
"Beech log fires burn bright and clear, though only if they're kept a year...Store your beech for Christmastide, with fresh-cut holly laid beside..."
It was a dull morning for August, the rain having kept up a steady shower all night, creating a dull humidity which Daisy was determined to eliminate. She had not slept well, because of the radio broadcast, and blunted thoughts of bombs and death and destruction had kept her from rest. On wakening, however, and knowing she must do the fires, an ancient feeling of familiarity roved her brain, of the tinder box and the wood smoke and the glimpses of fine furnishings and belongings in every room. This time, the wood song kept her going while Flora did her job and Daisy opened the windows and the song she was singing made her happy for she had learned, about which wood was best for a fire.
Flora, who had got up with her, carried the wood and coal, wondering what wood it was they were putting down, and she looked at the chunks, though what she might have thought it would tell her the girl did not know.
"Is this beech?" she asked her mother, and Daisy turned, giving Flora a broad smile. She liked singing the song she had been taught by Enid, who had the housemaid job before Daisy and sang it every day when she was laying her fires.
"It isn't," her mother replied, with joy in her voice, and turned it to more song, taking the wood pieces from the basket. "Chestnut's only good they say," Daisy sang, "If for years 'tis stored away. Birch and fir wood burns too fast, blaze too high and do not last..."
"Not birch," Flora said. "Larch?" Daisy smiled, and placed the piece back into Flora's basket, and continued to sing.
"Flames from larch will flicker up high, dangerously the sparks will fly. But ash wood green and ash wood brown, are fit for a queen with a golden crown!" Daisy pushed open the door of the library as her daughter brought in the wood basket and Flora crossed to the hearth, pulling out a sheet and dropping it on the floor.
"Oaken logs if dry and old, eep away the winter's cold," her mother sang, as she laid the sheet. Flora watched as Daisy, with a deftness coming from years of practise, placed all the wood in the grate.
"Poplar gives a bitter smoke," she sang, and even Flora began to hum the tune, "Stings your eyes and makes you choke. Elm wood burns like churchyard mould, even the very flames are cold. Hawthorn bakes the sweetest bread, so in Ireland it is said. Apple wood will scent a room. Pear wood smells like flowers in bloom - "
And, as Daisy was about to sing the las t words, a voice from the other side of the library finished, "But ash wood wet and ash wood dry. A king may warm his slippers by."
Both Flora and Daisy turned sharply. No-one should be up yet, and they should have been able to go about their early morning jobs with no Family or guests around. The window was hammered with more rain, and the singer approached them, looking into the basket, then taking out a piece.
"We have ash, of course," said Lady Mary, taking up the wood and putting it to her nose. I feel it in the grounds as I walk.
"Shall I fetch Anna, my Lady?" Daisy asked, for Mary Crawley, still in the clothes she has worn when she stood on the stairs and heard of the bombing of Hiroshima, looked as if she had been sitting in the library all night, her eyes had black smudges beneath them and her skin was so pale it looked almost translucent.
"No, Daisy," she said, putting up a hand. "It is all right. But, do you know what has happened to the electricity? And the hot water?"
"Both broken last night," Daisy told her, and she waved a hand to her daughter that she should be filling up the grate with the logs. "We tried to phone for someone but the river's burst its banks, and there are many roads flooded."
"Blast!" Lady Mary cursed, turning away. Then pragmatism overcame her and she said to Daisy, "I can see you have all adapted to the electricity situation. Pray, remind me what we did before we had a boiler in the cellar? To wash or get clean, I mean?"
"We used to boil water over the range and the maids would bring it upstairs in big buckets," Daisy told her, hoping it wouldn't come to that. "But Thomas, that is, Mr. Barrow and Mr. Branson were down there all last night working on getting it mended - he sent Andy, that is, Andrew, back home."
"Oh, I see," Lady Mary told her. Daisy turned to go, Flora having gathered up the dust sheet she had been kneeling on to keep the carpet free of ash and soot. "Well, bravo, I am sure they will have it mended soon, then. And the electricity?"
"We need someone to come up from Ripon, or from Haxby-way - there are not many electricians in the area any more. And we had a call from the post office again telling us that the village has been cut off. We can't get down there, but someone could walk to Haxby to us." Lady Mary nodded indulgently at Daisy's willingness to please.
"Yes, yes, I am sure we will have it sorted out soon. It's a pity we don't have Miss Ashby," she added. Lady Mary turned to go, but then turned back round and said to Daisy, "Can you bring hot water to my room just as soon as you are able? With the breakfast, and what not?" she waved a careless hand, a physical gesture equivalent to saying, "et cetera". And, can someone tell me the latest radio report? Of the war in the Pacific, I mean?"
And with that, Lady Mary Crawley had picked herself up and was striding in yesterday's evening clothes to the door at the far end, back in charge, just as she liked to be.
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There were more reports of the bad weather as the day went on. Mr. Mason's farm, being higher up, was well, and Andy reported that they were well enough. Other farms were saying the same, though lamenting the lack of "put by" food, not put by due to the war. Lady Mary and Tom Branson spoke to each of their tenant farmers and put them at their ease, assuring them that there were plans in place to get to Thirsk or Dalby to help them if the rain continued.
But there was one farm who had not called through: Morgan Davies, the Welsh sheep farmer, had not been heard of, and Lady Mary told Tom Branson that they would send someone over that day if no news had been heard of him.
His farm was lower lying, and even though the sheep were in the hills, his farm buildings may be in difficulty, or Davies himself. A message had gone from Branson to Thomas Barrow, and it was the reason that Barrow was now knocking at the bedroom door of the under-housekeeper, lately Ernst's room. It was nearly eleven, but the boy had not come out.
"Come to the door, at least," he called through, "I know you had a late night helping us, and - " But when Thomas sensed that he had been talking to the door, he pushed down on the handle and peered around. Ernst was not there.
"Seen Ernst this morning?" Thomas asked Daisy, pushing the concern of his mind deep back into it. There might be any number of places he could be, Thomas told himself. But, just then, he could not think of one.
"Not this morning," Daisy told him, then called out down the passage. "Flora?" Minutes later, the girl, who looked so much like her mother, was standing at the threshold eyes wide, questioningly.
"Yes mother?"
"Have you seen Ernst this morning?" Flora shook her head - a little too vigorously, Thomas thought to himself - it was clear to anyone that the pair got in well, and he wished just then that they got on well enough that they were in each other's company, and that Ernst appeared next to Flora, a smile on his face as much as to say, "What's all the fuss about?"
"Go and check with Larry, please," Thomas asked, his heart beating a little faster than normal. He waited at the door until she returned, and Flora simply shook her head.
"He'll be here somewhere," Thomas said, briskly, turning on his heel, then he turned back. "Daisy, do you have all you need for the day; when Anna comes through, she will tell you what the Family and their guests need.
Along the corridor, towards the door that led to the yard, and Thomas trod the steps feeling anxious. Ernst always came to speak to him, always. And now, no-one knew where he was? He was about to step out into the yard, when the door burst open, Johnny Bates, almost as tall and broad as his father, entering with what seemed like most of the North Sea behind him.
"Mother is on her way," Bates junior told him, making to stride past Thomas, who took a step to his right, blocking his path.
"Again, Bates," he told the boy, "We are not a soup kitchen."
He was annoyed, annoyed that Ernst was not to be found, annoyed at the arrogance of John and Anna's son. He could have been better turned out if he had not had his mother who had spent her life making excuses for him. Johnny was about to step past him, but thought better of it when he saw Thomas's face.
"You may come into your mother's sitting room," Thomas conceded, "You might want to consider she would not want it to be drenched." He walked in front of the boy, who knew the way well enough, having been throwing himself through the back door since he was old enough to be able to open it. It was a pity his father had died, Thomas thought, not for the first time; John Bates would have set him right. Anna had, in her way, spoiled Johnny out of her own grief.
Grumpily, Johnny followed Thomas, throwing himself into his mother's chair. He looked up as Thomas, with his hand on the door, made to close it again. "I'll send some food in," Thomas told him, "Get dry," he added.
"Out all night," he conceded to tell Thomas. Thomas nodded, wondering whether the Everall farm had its electricity still, but the boy seemed genuinely exhausted, so he closed the door, telling Flora to give the boy a plate of meat and bread. And then he strode next door, hand on the handle, giving a cursory knock on the wood.
No answer, and Thomas tentatively opened the door.
No Ernst.
Thomas sighed, his heart racing again. Did Johnny know where he was? He still felt aggrieved that the Bates boy had been so cruel to Milo's son. Yes, he spoke German, yes, he was born there and...Heisenberg...was German, too. But anyone to look at Ernst could see whom he resembled. It was no excuse, no matter what Anna said in her son's defense.
He was about to turn back, and go in to ask the boy when Thomas noticed the wardrobe door. It was slightly ajar, not fitting back together at the latch. An image of Milo appeared in his mind, of his wife filling it with her brother's suits, and then a dress that Mrs. Hughes had bought on her. The room had always been neat, starkly tidy, with the exception of the dressing table, which used to be heaped with her work, and recently, Ernst's.
He remembered when he had come to speak to Ernst, a few days after he had arrived. He had found the boy looking at his meagre belongings: his birth certificate, his adoption certificate and, when Thomas had looked more closely, turning over and over in his fingers Milo's wedding ring, once her mothers, that Thomas had placed on her finger in the Edinburgh registry office when they had married one another.
"Can you of her tell me?" Ernst had asked, his words a little jumbled. And Thomas had sat on the bed and Ernst had sat beside him, and he told the boy more of Milo, of her loyalty, and reverence for truth, and her electrical skill, and her preference to work alone and be alone where she could.
"She would always come to me and tell me things," Thomas told Ernst, "Even if she had refused to say a word to anyone else. We understood one another; we are both different."
And Ernst had sat and thought about those words, close-budded like a flower at dawn, which yet, slowly but surely, would unfold and showing all its petals to the world. Ernst came to life just as his mother did.
No ring lay on the table now, or the floor or chair. Ernst must have it with him, Thomas supposed. He looked back over to the desk.
And that was strange, too - it was neat, all right, but the wrong kind of neatness, too tidy, too "put away". Thomas turned back to the wardrobe, then pulled open the door. It was empty. Not that it had been abundant with clothing in the first place; Ernst's clothes that he had worn when he had first come had been ragged to make cleaning cloths for he had swapped them very gladly for had been given two better sets, and a pair of shoes, having been put away for the refugee appeal from those now too small for Master George.
But now nothing hung on the coathangers, nothing sat at the bottom, not shoes, not Ernst's bag that he had arrived with.
Anxiety struck his stomach, and Thomas thrust the door open. He hurried past Anna, who had just come down from upstairs, but then turned and spoke to her.
"Johnny's just come through," he told her. "The floods are getting worse." He hesitated. "All organised for the day?" Anna paused, and then nodded.
"Andy's just taken up the elevenses; they wanted a brunch today, so Lady Mary tells me." Thomas raised a hand, nodding.
"Yes, yes," he told her, desperate to begin his search for Milo's son, and then added, "Just - just - " before darting from her.
"Mr. Barrow!" Anna exclaimed, but Thomas was on his way towards the door. But, where to look? Where to begin?
His haste to find Ernst was thwarted, however, when the telephone rang in the butler's office, and Thomas tore back towards the door, throwing it open. He pulled the receiver down from the hook, and took up the stand, holding the mouthpiece near his lips.
"Downton Abbey, the Butler speaking," Thomas managed, correctly addressing the caller though his mind was on Ernst. He relaxed bit by bit as Farmer Davies, who was calling from the Baker's farm, told Thomas that Ernst had come over at first light and had helped him to move the sheep to higher grazing, his cottage having flooding overnight.
"And, what about yourself, Mr. Davies?" Thomas asked. "Do you have somewhere to stay? We could - " But the Welsh farmer cut him off, telling him he was going to the bothy that night, the stone, single-roomed hut that stood between his farm and the high hill to where the sheep had been taken.
"That is good news," Thomas told him, figuring that explained where Ernst and his clothes were, and asked whether he had enough food for the both of them.
"No, just me," the farmer told Thomas. "The boy went back after breakfast - I don't mind telling you I could not have done it without him."
"And you're sure he's not there?" A pause, and then the farmer told him not.
"He was heading back over the fields, to Downton, I am bound, about eight. Mucky old weather, did he get back all right?"
"Not yet," Thomas admitted, though he wished he did not have to. For in saying Ernst was not back was like admitting he was gone, and it was that thought that was gnawing his stomach. "I am sure he will be back shortly, or else taken shelter."
"Aye," Mr. Davies replied, and then said a short goodbye. Thomas held onto the receiver and mouthpiece, one in each hand as he thought. Had he got his belongings with him, did Thomas think, at the farm?
But a knock came, and with it Andy through the butler's office door, telling Thomas that more candles were needed.
"We need to conserve what we have got," the Downton butler told his first footman. "I don't know when we can get to town and some of these - " He sighed. "Or the electricity mended, or the boiler repaired. The rags Mr. Branson used won't last too long."
"I can go to town," Larry told his dad, appearing at his side. And beside Larry appeared Johnny, the boy's worst influence.
"You can go," Thomas told Johnny. But Johnny Bates shook his head. folding his arms over his damp pullover.
"Oh please love!" Anna begged, and Thomas really wished he could give the spoiled brat of a boy a damned good hiding for sneering at his mother.
"I can go," said Larry, looking betwen his father and Thomas.
"No I will," said Johnny, not wanting to be outdone.
"Wear the wax jacket," Thomas told him. "It'll prevent too bad a soaking. Take a stick and don't try to cross any flood water that's taller than knee height, or is travelling fast. I'd send Ernst, but - have you seen him?" Thomas couldn't help himself - he needed to know the truth. Then, his heart sank as Johnny Bates looked first at his mother, and then to Thomas.
"I saw him over at Davies' farm," he said, his words tumbling over themselves in their haste to leave his mouth.
"Oh?" Thomas had caught the intonation, and had deliberately slowed his own speech. What was this boy trying to conceal?
"And he was walking away, and I called to him, and he called to me," Johnny rattled, "And I asked him where he was going, and he told me "Back to Germany", and I said - "
"Something rude, no doubt?" Thomas hadn't the patience for games, and ignored Anna's look of outrage.
"He was about to call me something, so I did," Johnny admitted, as if admitting to a lesser thing got him out of a greater guilt. Thomas could tell all this from the boy's manner, and fell silent, waiting for the boy to continue. And, under the pressure of the silence between them all, Johnny Bates broke.
"He was pulling a sheep out of a gap in the rocks for old Davies," Johnny continued, a look of pain on his features, for the boy knew he was heading for trouble. "Davies had told him he was courageous, but he didn't seem to understand, stupid foreign beggar," Johnny added, for good measure. This was greeted with a slap across the back of his head from his mother, and Thomas was glad that Anna had done that, for he had been about to, and it would have been much harder.
"Yes?" Thomas prompted, when Johnny had fallen silent.
"Hero, Davies had called him," Johnny continued, slower and more deliberately, delaying the inevitable. "He was wet through, but when Davies asked, he said he had a change of clothes in his bag. Davies watched as he went off across the fields, but I chased him, stupid boy, who didn't understand anything old Davies was telling him." He glanced down, but not out of shame, and glowered, "How can he be a hero? He's German!" And when he saw the faces of the people around him, added, "A stinking German going back off to Germany. So, I said to myself, if he wants trouble he can have it. So I followed him."
"Yes?" Thomas felt white hot with rage, but a steadying hand came to his shoulder. He glanced across and saw Master George.
"Yes?" George Crawley continued, echoing his butler and long time friend. "Answer Mr. Barrow, Bates."
"So I clobbered the stupid bugger, and tore off his bag, and threw it down into the valley," he went on, his voice shaking, but his will granite-like. He really thinks he's in the right, thought Thomas.
"And Ernst?" he asked, getting to the point. "Where's Miss Ashby's son, Johnny Bates?"
"Down the ravine with his belongings," Johnny told them all. "And I 'aint sorry I did it, German bastard," he added. And that's when Thomas hit him, his arm swinging back, landing a punch that might even have floored his father. Johnny Bates went sprawling, but Thomas had turned, and was even now hurrying up the passage.
"Where are you going, Barrow?" Master George called.
"Out," Thomas replied, reaching for an oilskin. Then, remembering he was talking to his employer, added, "If I may be given leave. The boy may be injured, dead, even." Thomas glanced back towards Bates junior, who was now back on his feet, nursing a bruised face. Outside, the raindrops hammered on the door like hundreds of minuscule impatient visitors.
"I can't believe you did that!" Johnny's mother wailed, and even Larry looked abashed. He looked up to Johnny, but now he was standing by his father.
"Get ready, and tell your mother Mr. Barrow has sent you for candles," Andy Parker told his son. "And mind you get a stick, and mind you mind Mr. Barrow," he added, for good measure. But Thomas was still making it to the door. However, George Crawley slipped in front of him.
"Barrow," he said to Thomas, but this time, he ignored the current Lord Grantham, and reached for his coat. If he were going to be given the sack, then he would get the sack - he had to go out and look for Milo's son - she was alive, for heavens' sake!
"I am sorry sir," Thomas told him. "A boy has been injured, might be in danger, somewhere on the hills. I must - " But George Crawley held up a hand.
"I was only going to say, Barrow, that we will all go, Peter and Harry, and myself. We cannot leave him. Only, give me five minutes," he added, and paced back along the passageway. As he passed Johnny Bates, he turned, bodily, and with eyes cold as ice.
"We will talk about your employment at Downton at a later date. Now, you will be coming with me, Bates, to the place you last saw the boy Ernst Scholtz. Do I make myself clear?" Johnny gaped, and could do nothing but nod.
"Oh, and another thing, that young man is a guest in this house, my guest. So, I am sure, the punishment for this will be in keeping with the despicable behaviour you have shown to him and, by extension to me."
"But - " Johnny had dared to open his mouth to argue. Anna gripped his arm, and shook it roughly for a second. And this time, she did something that no-one expected.
"If that boy is dead, or in any way harmed, Johnny Paul Bates," she told him severely, "I will be handing you over to the police myself." And, with one final shove, added, "Now go!"
