"'She knows that I know,' said the ever-restless voice within; but that increase of tacit knowledge only thrust further off any confidence between them. He distrusted her affection; and what loneliness is more lonely than distrust?" - George Eliot (Middlemarch, 1871)
By the time they returned to Grantham House most of the windows were dark, signaling the merciful end of the dinner party and the retirement of the family and staff upstairs for the evening that allowed them to slip in through the servants' entrance unnoticed. In fact, if it hadn't been for Anna Bates waiting up in anticipation of their return they would have made it upstairs unobserved as well.
"There you are!" Anna exclaimed as she put down the sewing she'd been working on to pass the time. "I was wondering when you'd get back. Miss Sybil was distraught after you left and Mr. Branson hasn't been able to get a word out of her. I helped him get her into bed with a sleeping draught a few hours ago and when I checked a bit ago she was fast asleep."
"Good. I'm glad to hear she's resting." Phyllis forced a smile as her daughter's hand tightened fiercely around her own at the report about Sybbie - serving as a painful reminder to them both of everything that had happened as well as how much her daughter needed rest as well. She gave a gentle squeeze of reassurance to her daughter's hand before quickly trying to wrap up the conversation. "I can't thank you enough for your help tonight, but I should really get Emma up to bed."
"It's no trouble at all." Anna dismissed her quickly as she eyed the obviously upset girl sympathetically. "It looks like I ought to fetch a dose for Emma as well?"
Emma paled at the offer but didn't say anything, simply staring blankly ahead as her mother and Thomas both shook their heads. "Unfortunately, sleeping draughts tend to worsen Emma's nerves when she's this upset." Phyllis stepped in to decline the offer on her daughter's behalf. "I think it's best that I just get her up to bed."
Anna nodded kindly, understanding the unsaid message that it was time to leave the Molesley family - something Thomas had come to widely be considered a part of over the years - to themselves for the night. "I need to get to bed myself, Lady Mary has an early morning planned. But do promise that you'll let me know if there's anything John or I can do to help?"
"Of course." Phyllis agreed easily, certain that she would likely be taking her up on the offer for one reason or another as they dealt with the fallout of the day's events.
It wasn't until Anna left the room that Emma began to cry again, her willpower to maintain a facade of composure running out the moment she wasn't at risk of exposing herself or Sybbie any further, and this time she broke down into full body sobs that in mere seconds had her knees buckling beneath her and sending her straight to the ground.
"Easy does it." Thomas scooped her into his arms, catching her just before she hit the floor and gently lowering her down to it as he sat down next to her to act as a support. "Just lean on me. I've got you Em."
It only took seconds for Phyllis to join the pair on the floor, her own eyes filled with tears she was fighting to hold back as she carefully began to examine her daughter. Unlike the dim light at the police station, the lamps in the servant's hall gave her the opportunity to assess her for the first time that night and she was horrified by what she saw.
Her dress was covered in dried mud and visibly torn at several of the seams. Phyllis gently pushed the sleeves up her forearms to reveal the bruises around her wrists from the handcuffs that she'd been expecting, as well as the purpling handprint around her arm that she hadn't been. Her stomach dropped at the first evidence of intentional harm to her and she met Thomas's eyes anxiously for a moment before returning to her examination.
"I'm going to turn you a bit my love." Phyllis explained softly as she reached out towards her daughter's shoulders, turning her just enough to see the small tear in the back of her dress that was saturated with blood. "Oh my God, she's bleeding."
Emma continued to cry, her face buried against Thomas's neck as she hiccoughed harshly in pain when she felt her mother's hand brushing gently across the injury.
"There's a bit on my shirt as well, but I don't think it's fresh." Thomas reported softly, doing his best to keep Emma calm while also helping Phyllis assess her.
Phyllis sighed heavily. The high neck and long sleeves of Emma's dress meant that she had only seen the most obvious injuries on her daughter's body and she was terrified of what else she would find underneath, but she couldn't put it off any longer. "I need to get her out of her clothes so I can see what's going on."
"We can't stay down here. The scullery maids will be down in a bit to prep the stoves and the hall boy on duty usually stops in here throughout the night." Thomas reported regretfully. "We're going to need to get her upstairs before too long to avoid them."
Phyllis pushed the matted fringe away from her daughter's sticky forehead as she tried to get her attention. "Love, do you think you can manage the stairs?"
Emma's vacant stare in response did little to assuage her concerns and she was considering whether it was time to fetch her husband for help when Thomas adjusted his positioning to pull Emma gently against his chest. "I can carry her up." He offered readily, having easily surmised his friend's thoughts from the expression on her face. "Joseph will have a fit if he sees her like this. It's not wrong to get her cleaned up before we involve him, alright? You go on up and run her a bath. I'll give her a few more minutes to decompress before we come up."
Phyllis nodded, pressing her lips gently against her daughter's forehead before she hoisted herself up from the floor and began the journey up the back staircase to the servants' quarters. She tried to calm her racing thoughts as she climbed the stairs, hoping to quell the unanswerable questions that had been running through her mind for hours now, but step after step she found even more questions bubbling to the surface instead.
How long has Emma known? How long has Sybbie known? Is there even anything to know?
All she'd wanted to do in the Lambeth station car park was promise her daughter that she would love her regardless of who she loved, but she knew from experience that people rarely appreciated assumptions being made when it comes to matters of their heart, so instead she'd settled for a more generic reassurance.
But why didn't she think she could come to me?
This question haunted her more than she'd like to admit. Surely if Thomas knew, he'd told her that she was a safe person to tell, which meant that Emma had decided to keep her in the dark anyway, which quickly fed into another question:
Why didn't Thomas come to me? Should Thomas have come to me?
Deep down she knew he'd done the right thing. He'd kept her daughter's trust and prioritized her safety even though it meant he might have sacrificed his best friend's trust and support. He hadn't of course. , but he had no way of knowing that. She made a mental note to be sure to tell him when she all came to a sudden stop at the top of the stairs as a new thought abruptly surfaced:
Does Joseph know?
Despite the close relationship her daughter and husband shared, she dismissed the possibility almost immediately. If Joseph had known, he would have told her. Of that she was certain. However, the fleeting idea had brought with it the terrible realization that she didn't actually know how else her husband would react to any of this. The only gay person she knew her husband had had any exposure to was Thomas, and she had absolutely no idea how he felt about it. She knew that Joseph's disdain for Thomas early on in their relationship had stemmed from his entirely objectionable behavior when she'd first arrived at Downton - and as she'd come to understand since, his similar behavior for several years before that - and Joseph had come to appreciate the man's place in their family in the many years since, but there was always a bit of unease between the pair.
Her thoughts had consumed her since she'd left the servants' hall, but she had somehow managed to reasonably prepare for her daughter's arrival upstairs from muscle memory alone and she'd just finished filling the tub and gathering the necessary supplies from her room when Thomas appeared at the end of the hallway with Emma curled tightly against his chest. The sight of her lithe form against Thomas's strong one only accentuated how small and vulnerable her daughter was and it made her heart clench horribly. While this was far from the first time she'd helped her oldest daughter through a trauma, it never got any easier to see her in such a state.
When Thomas reached the bathroom doorway he grunted slightly as he lowered Emma so she was half-standing and half-leaning against him. He hesitated for a moment, clearly not wanting to intrude but also not sure he should leave them alone. "Do… Should I… Do you need any help?"
"Thomas, I've got her from here." Phyllis assured him softly as she gently helped Emma shift her weight away from him and against the door frame. "I've only got to get her across the hall from here. I can do that. It's time for you to get some rest yourself. Tonight can't have been easy on you either."
He shook his head firmly in disagreement, offering a soft explanation that, "I need to make myself useful right now. I'll make up hot water bottles and tea for you both and have it waiting for you." before heading back down the hallway towards the stairs once again.
Phyllis sighed as she watched him depart, leaving her alone with Emma for the first time that evening. As she watched her daughter lean against the threshold of the bathroom she noticed that she was swaying significantly from the combined effort of standing upright and maintaining what little remained of her composure and Phyllis was certain if she stayed there much longer she would buckle under the pressure.
"Let's get you cleaned up sweetheart." Phyllis spoke softly, reminding her daughter of her presence as well as her plan moving forward, before guiding her daughter into the room and over to the tub. She easily unbuttoned the back of her dress with one hand and she gasped softly at the sight of the expected cut across her back, but it was the purple boot print on her side that prompted an incredibly strained question. "Emma, what did they do to you?"
Emma whimpered softly in response, which was enough to remind Phyllis that as much as she wanted to strangle whoever was responsible for the shape her daughter was in, now wasn't the time to push for details. For now, she needed to focus on making sure her daughter didn't need urgent medical attention as well as on getting her cleaned up and safely into bed.
Her practiced hands made quick work of the rest of her daughter's clothes and soon enough she had Emma settled motionlessly in the middle of the tub, her daughter's legs pulled up firmly against her chest as she hid her face in her knees. Phyllis did her best to work around the tense position - only pushing her to move when absolutely necessary, and always doing so as gently as possible - and she took extra care as she cleaned each of the injuries across her daughter's body that she hoped would prove to be mostly superficial.
The soapy flannel in her hand made quick work of the layer of grime on her daughter's skin, but it left behind the cuts and bruises that would serve as evidence of the ordeal her daughter had been through for some time yet. Despite all the visible injuries, it wasn't until she began scrubbing at the dried ink on Emma's fingers that she was struck by the thought that there were marks made on her daughter's mind tonight that wouldn't be as easily erased.
Once she was satisfied with her work, she knelt down next to the tub in her daughter's line of sight and gently cupped her cheek to get her attention. "Emma, I'm going to help you out of the tub now and then I'll wrap you in a towel and settle you on the chair over there." She paused to ensure her daughter had enough time to look where she was pointing and to see the chair that she'd brought in from her room down the hall. "I've got your nightgown ready for you but I want to tend to some of your injuries before you get dressed, alright?"
It took a moment for the words to register, but eventually Emma gave a slow nod of confirmation and Phyllis got to work. Another examination of her daughter's body revealed that as hurt as her daughter seemed, her physical injuries were fairly superficial, and the small first aid kit that was kept in the women's bathroom contained everything she would need to take care of her for now. She quickly set her focus on disinfecting and plastering several cuts before finishing off by gently rubbing arnica onto the bruises that littered her daughter's skin, softly narrating her actions to her daughter the entire time.
After that Phyllis carefully helped her daughter into her nightgown before settling her in the chair once again as she brushed and plaited her hair - actions that reminded them both of the years of her childhood when this had been a nightly occurrence - and before long there was nothing left to do but get her into bed. She waited for a moment to allow Emma a reprieve from the stimulation and movement before quietly asking, "Are you ready?" and waiting for a nod of assent before helping her daughter up from the chair once again so the pair could slowly make their way across the hall to Emma's room where she would be finally settled for the night.
It was as they approached the small bed that Emma stopped, turning to her mother with tears in her eyes as she finally spoke for the second time since her rescue in a whisper that sounded like a harsh croak. "Mum…I'm sorry."
"It's alright my darling." Phyllis reassured her quietly, moving to help her into the bed and settle under the covers with the hot water bottle Thomas had prepared pressed against her bruised side. "We'll talk more in the morning. But tonight I'm not going anywhere until you fall asleep."
Emma nodded, wincing slightly when her mother taking a seat next to her shifted the bed more than she was expecting, but saying nothing else. The room fell into an uneasy silence, the words that remained unsaid taking up more space than either of them wanted at the moment, but just as she'd promised Phyllis stayed exactly where she was until she recognized the familiar pattern of Emma's breathing as she slept.
Gently getting up from the bed, Phyllis pressed her lips against her daughter's forehead, whispering, "I love you so very much my precious girl." as she tucked the duvet tightly under her chin before carefully crossing the room and collecting the untouched tea tray Thomas had prepared before quietly closing the door behind her.
She was debating whether she had the energy to take the unused tray down to the kitchens tonight, or if she might even have interest in a couple of cups of tea herself, when she noticed her best friend seated on the floor across the hall.
"Thomas." Phyllis whispered sadly at the sight of the tears on his cheeks. "You should be in bed."
"God Phyl, I'm so sorry." Thomas choked out. "This is all my fault."
Phyllis sighed heavily as she walked towards him, sliding slowly down the wall to join him on the floor and carefully placing the tray in front of them before taking a cup for herself and pressing the other into his shaking hands. "Thomas, how could this possibly be your fault?"
"I knew but I didn't tell you." Thomas admitted angrily. "I thought I'd done the right thing by telling them what to do but I should've stopped them. I could have told you what was going on and Emma never would have–"
"Thomas, you did the right thing." She stopped him gently, retrieving the cup that was threatening to spill from his hands and placing it back on the tray. "I want you to know I don't blame you for not telling me, but we can't talk about this now. I can't know anything else about this until I've had the chance to speak with Emma about it. You've kept my daughter's trust in you and I can't tell you how much that means to me. Let's not ruin that now."
Thomas nodded in agreement, pressing his palms against his eyes in an attempt to stop the tears that had been nearly constant since he'd left Emma in Phyllis's care. He flushed with embarrassment when he felt her arms gently wrapping around him but he leaned into the embrace for only a moment before in one of the smallest voices Phyllis had ever heard from the man Thomas quietly admitted, "I was arrested once. Just like this."
"What!?" She shouted in shock before immediately covering her own mouth in an attempt to moderate her own response. She stared at him in desperate confusion for several minutes before softly asking, "Thomas, when did this happen?"
"In York." He explained softly, tears now streaming readily down his cheeks. "During the royal visit at Downton."
"Oh, Thomas." Phyllis leaned against him tiredly, relaxing against his side in a dual-intentioned effort to keep herself upright and offer her friend some comfort. "What happened?"
"Was at a bar, got invited to a dance hall by a bloke I'd just met." Thomas explained bitterly. "I shouldn't have gone, I was meant to be waiting for Richard, but I got swept up in it all. It'd been years since I'd met anyone like me and suddenly I had two handsome suitors competing for my interest."
Phyllis smiled slightly at that, but pressed for more information anyway. "So you went to the dance hall?"
"I did. Got arrested right quick as well." Thomas reported with a rueful laugh. "Not even ten minutes of fun for a lifetime of nightmares come true. "
Her stomach was in knots at the thought of Thomas going through anything like what her daughter had been through tonight by himself. How he'd managed to get out without her knowing - not to mention how he'd kept it inside all these years - seemed impossible, which was how she found herself asking again, "What happened?"
"Richard got me out." Thomas continued, his head hung in shame. "Flashed his credentials and that was the end of that."
Phyllis smiled sadly, taking his hand gently in her own and beginning to rub circles in a familiar pattern across his glove. "You never said."
Thomas shook his head. "I suppose I was embarrassed, that I let it happen to me when I should have known better. Only got more embarrassing when I realized that Rich was the one, ya know? Bit awkward to have him bailing me out of jail after I went off with another man be the story of our first date."
Phyllis smirked at that. "If I'm not mistaken, the first time Joseph and I spent time away from Downton together was in York trying to prove Mr. Bates didn't kill a man." She recalled softly. "Not exactly the most romantic story either."
"Yeah, alright. You've got me there." Thomas agreed. "But I still wish it were different."
Phyllis nodded in understanding, but didn't say anything else. There was nothing else she could say about this. Not tonight. The pair sat quietly for a long time after that, Phyllis drinking her tea while Thomas tried with limited success to process everything that had happened.
Thomas was the one to break the silence, suddenly desperate to vocalize the one thought that kept running through his mind. "She's so incredibly lucky to have you."
Phyllis smiled slightly, reaching over to take his hand in hers again. "I just want what I've always wanted for you for her. I want you both to be safe and happy, no matter what anyone else thinks."
Thomas smiled back as he rested his head on her shoulder, content to sit in silence once more until Phyllis yawned heavily and whispered, "What time is it?"
Thomas checked his watch before sighing heavily at the realization that in the chaos of the evening he'd missed his normal watch winding and was now without a reliable telling of the time. "I can't say for sure, but it's almost certainly gone two or three."
Somehow knowing how late it must be made her far more exhausted than she'd been moments before and "We really should get to bed."
"I suppose so." Thomas agreed. "At the very least we need to get out of here before the maids catch us together. What would people think?"
She snorted slightly at the joke before following with a quip of her own. "All sorts of sordid things, surely."
With that Thomas groaned heavily as he rose to his feet, reaching down to help Phyllis up with a quiet promise of, "I'll see you tomorrow." before slowly making his way down the hall towards his own room.
Phyllis watched Thomas lock the door to the men's side before sticking her head into Emma's room, and then the room Elizabeth and Annabeth Bates were sharing, to verify that both of her daughters were safely asleep in their beds. Content that there was nothing left she could do for her eldest daughter tonight and suddenly overwhelmed by her own exhaustion, she decided to leave the tea tray where it was for the night. One of the housemaids would take care of it in the morning, and if she didn't prioritize getting to bed herself she wasn't sure she'd make it.
She opened the door slowly so as to not disturb her husband who she'd assumed must have gone to bed hours ago, only to find the light still on and her husband wide awake in bed with a book.
"There you are!" Joseph looked up from his reading as his wife entered the room. "Elizabeth told me you'd gone out with Thomas, but couldn't tell me more. I was starting to wonder if you'd run off togeth—"
His joking stopped instantly when he saw his wife's expression as she turned around from closing the door. While to the untrained eye Phyllis's carefully constructed facade rarely betrayed her true emotions, Joseph was well-versed in the slight tells of his wife's face and it was clear that she was on the edge of breaking down.
He scrambled to perch at the edge of the bed at once, his book now long forgotten as he carefully searched her expression for answers. "Love, are you alright?"
"Joseph, I need you to not ask me that right now." She bit down anxiously on her bottom lip, silently willing her husband to care for her just a bit less than usual this evening.
He shook his head in confusion as he tried to wrap his head around the change in his wife since he'd last seen her earlier that evening. "Something's changed. What's happened?"
"Joseph, please." Phyllis shook her head in warning, her teeth cutting slightly into her bottom lip as she tried to hold herself together. "I don't think I can talk about this."
Joseph's brow furrowed, her caged response only serving to confuse him further. "I'm sorry to ask given this conversation so far, but why ever not?"
"I just can't." She replied, her frustration and exhaustion visibly rising as she sat down next to her husband on the bed. "Please don't press me tonight."
"Alright." Joseph relented, gently wrapping his arm around her lower back before he changed his approach. "If you can't tell me everything, what can you tell me?"
It took a few minutes, but eventually Phyllis spoke again. "I'm only telling you this because I believe you have to know in case anything else comes of it, but I've been to the police station to collect Emma." She explained hesitantly, her back stiffening under her husband's touch as the tension she'd been holding in her shoulders began to ripple down through her back in uncomfortable waves. "She was arrested this afternoon. I can't tell you the particulars right now as I'm not entirely clear on them myself, but believe me when I say she's done nothing wrong."
"What?!" Joseph cried in shock, jumping up from the bed to pace the small space between the two beds in the room. "Is she alright? Has she been hurt?"
"She's asleep down the hall." Phyllis assured him, grabbing his wrist to keep him from heading to check on their daughter for himself. The last thing they needed right now was for him to scare her awake in a frenzy of concern. "She's been hurt. I'm not sure how badly for certain, but she seems stable enough for now. She's quite shaken and scared, and she got a bit sick in the car on the way back, though whether that was from the nerves or the pain I'm not sure."
Joseph looked green as he absorbed his wife's words. "You said she's done nothing wrong." He recalled suddenly. "If that's the case, how did she end up being arrested in the first place?"
"Joseph, I can't." Phyllis shook her head again. "I need you to trust me on this for now and not ask questions I can't possibly answer."
"That's not a claim that holds when our daughter's been arrested!" Joseph argued back, his fists clenched tightly in frustration. "I'm her father and I've a right to know–"
"No." Phyllis stopped him angrily, her eyes filled with a fire he hadn't seen from his wife in years. "You don't have a right to know this. Frankly, I don't have a right to know anything about this, but I do because the situation necessitated it. What happened to our daughter tonight was abusive, period. She's experienced countless violations of her privacy and safety and I couldn't protect her from any part of that, but I can protect her from it going any further. So please, stop asking me to make this worse for her."
Clearly shocked by both the content and intensity of his wife's outburst, Joseph stood quietly for several moments before nodding and retaking his seat next to her. "I feel the need to repeat that I'm not entirely comfortable with this, but I do know that I trust you implicitly to care for our girls. If you say it's for the best, I shouldn't be questioning you. I'm sorry to have pushed." He apologized before pulling her gently into his arms. "Now tell me, are you alright?"
"I thought I told you not to ask me that." Phyllis laughed weakly before giving in and fully relaxing into her husband's arms. "Truthfully, I'm a bit shaken. Tonight has brought up memories you know I'd like to have lost, and I am worried our daughter will be facing more than she's ready for in the morning."
"Unfortunately I think that's a bridge we'll have to cross when we get to it." Joseph replied quietly, dropping a kiss to the top of her head. "Is there anything that needs to be done tonight?"
Phyllis thought about it for a moment, clearly struggling to come up with an answer before asking a question of her own. "Can I talk myself through what's been done already?"
"Of course." Joseph agreed immediately.
"She's bathed and I've done what I can for her injuries tonight. Anna offered to fetch a sedative for her, but we both know that we should avoid that unless it's truly necessary. She has a glass of water and two packets of Beecham's next to her bed for when she wakes." Phyllis reported carefully. "I've left her clothes to soak in a washtub. I'm not sure if they're salvageable, I'm sorry about that. It was that blue dress of your mother's, I know you'd hate to see it gone. Though on second thought, Emma may not even want it back after–"
"The dress doesn't matter." Joseph stopped her gently, his hands wrapping around hers. "We can replace it if needs be, but I don't want you worrying about it."
Phyllis continued her report, detailing what she could remember of the care she'd given their daughter that she was willing to share. It wasn't until she began struggling to remember anything more that Joseph stopped her gently. "I think you've done everything, my love."
Phyllis shook her head in protest. "There must be something else."
"Emma's asleep?" Joseph asked, gently pulling his wife back with him as he laid down on the bed.
Phyllis nodded tiredly in confirmation. "I helped her to bed myself and she fell right asleep. She's beyond shattered so I don't think it's likely she'll be up until late in the morning."
"Good." Joseph pressed a kiss to her cheek before pulling his previously abandoned blanket up to cover both of them. "That means it's your turn to be taken care of."
Phyllis yawned as she settled into her husband's arms. She was fading fast, but she managed to return his kiss with a final tired murmur, "Thank you for trusting me…for being on my side." before giving in to the exhaustion and falling asleep herself.
"I'll always be on your side my love." Joseph promised softly before reaching over to turn off the lamp and settling in for what he was sure would be for him, a sleepless night worrying about his wife and daughter.
NOTES:
Content Warnings:
Homophobia (Period-Typical, Internalized); Anxiety/PTSD (Panic Attacks, Triggers); Laws Criminalizing Homosexuality (Aftermath of Police Raid/Arrests); Police Violence (Aftermath, Descriptions of Injuries)
Chapter Recap (Contains Spoilers):
After returning to Grantham House Phyllis and Thomas care for Emma - assessing and treating her injuries as well as getting her cleaned and settled into bed for the night. Thomas and Phyllis talk about what happened and Thomas tells her about his own arrest. Joseph finds out about the arrest, though not the reason behind it.