EPISODE 6.
Chapter 5
The Uncomfortable Breakfast
There was some awkwardness at the breakfast table on Sunday morning. Edith made excuses for Bertie but she was so out of sorts that no one could believe there had not been some unpleasantness between the Pelhams, whatever the actual cause of Bertie's midnight flight.
"They've fallen out," Henry murmured to Mary. On his part this was merely an observation for he had fairly neutral feelings towards Edith and Bertie.
Mary raised her eyebrows a little. "It's very interesting. It seems that Bertie may be deeper than I thought." She saw the half-amused look of reproof in Henry's face and gave him a quick smile. Then, though she'd resigned herself to the fact, as she'd admitted to Anna the day before, that she and Edith would never be friends, Mary threw herself into the task of defusing the tension. She made no remarks about or allusions to Bertie and instead gave forth with an effusion of the kind of effortless and meaningless conversation that she had perfected on the dance floors of London during the Season. She even went so far as to declare that she was looking forward to Mr. Travis's sermon, though she had always found them interminable and pointless.
On any other day Edith would have called Mary out on such a blatant untruth, but this morning she was too preoccupied to listen, though at some level she appreciated the buzz of her sister's voice as a distraction for the others. Edith ate little and begged off early with the excuse that she had to see that Marigold was properly dressed for the church service. The others watched in silence as she left.
"I wonder what that's about," Cora said, as soon as Lewis had closed the door behind Edith.
"Why are you still bothering to try to understand her?" was Mary's immediate retort. When her father gave her a sharp look, she stared right back at him. "I promised to be pleasant to Edith, Papa. I didn't vow to abstain in all circumstances."
A growl of resignation escaped from Robert, but he averted his eyes, choosing not to fight that battle today. Instead he turned to Cora. "I hope it wasn't something I said."
Cora's eyes went round with consternation. "What did you say?"
"Only that Bertie was the Marquis of Hexham now and that he must get on with it and there was no good moaning about it all."
"Hear, hear," Mary said, echoing her father's sentiments more forcefully. She had no patience with people grumbling about their lives, especially marquises who got to live at Brancaster Castle.
Cora was less impressed with this argument. "Robert!" She was exasperated with him, but her dismay was tempered. They had made up after the fuss between them over the American Ambassador. Robert had conceded that Cora had the right to her own views on the subject and Cora had allowed that Robert was astute enough to recognize anti-semitism when he saw it and to deal with it appropriately. This truce had restored good humour between them and Cora did not want to disrupt it again.
Robert was as aware of the recent unpleasantness between them as she was and as anxious to avoid further aggravation. "But it is so, my darling," he said gently. "Bertie must accept his destiny." His gaze strayed to his eldest daughter. "Mary would have made a good Marquis of Hexham," he mused, with a smile.
"Thank you, Papa. I would have done," Mary agreed promptly. "Imagine having an estate like that and not being interested in it!" The possibility bewildered her.
Henry only laughed. In many ways he did not know Mary nearly as well as her family did, but he could easily see how the prospect of having Brancaster under her stewardship would appeal to his wife.
Mary, for her part, was gratified by his reaction. He had not drawn the conversation back to himself with some inane comment about being glad she was a woman rather that a potential marquis. Richard Carlisle had once done so in much more trivial circumstances and it had irked her.
Cora put her napkin on the table and made to get up. Barrow hurried to hold her chair for her. "I'm going to talk to Edith," she said. Her husband and daughter were only too willing to look the other way in the face of emotional upset and she had learned to affect a blind eye in many circumstances herself. But Edith was distressed and her mother could comfort her at the very least.
Mary's gaze fell on Barrow and her mind turned to other matters. She caught her father's eye and stared pointedly at him for a moment and then glanced briefly in the butler's direction. Robert frowned, puzzled, and then understanding dawned.
"It's your plan," Robert said, picking up The Times. "You tell him."
Mary smiled and then her eyes sought out the butler once more. "Barrow."
He had already returned to his post at the sideboard where he stood unobtrusively but always watchful, a more youthful shade of Carson. At her summons, he moved smoothly to her side. "My lady."
"I've ... we've a favour to ask of you, Barrow, a request we have no right to ask, but I hope you will consider. You must feel free to decline if it is not convenient."
Barrow inclined his head in acknowledgment of her words and waited for her to continue.
Mary tilted her head slightly towards her husband.
"It's my request, really," Henry said. "I'm taking a business trip to the continent and need a valet. I understand you have served in that capacity before for Lord Grantham. I'm hoping you might agree to accompany me as my valet for four days in early October."
The servants of a great English house, no less than their masters, were often skilled in maintaining an impassive countenance in the face of any unexpected development. Barrow was more adept than many at this and so the expression on his face remained neutral. It was an odd request to make of the butler of the house. No one - even Lady Mary - would have made it of Mr. Carson. But then he had never served as a valet.* Still it was asking much of a butler to step away from his privileged position even for a moment. Yet Thomas hesitated to decline. Out of the corner of his eye he could see His Lordship was only staring at the newspaper before him, not reading it, as though waiting for Barrow's reply. Mr. Talbot might look at him with an earnest look on his face, but Lady Mary had an almost mischievous air about her. There was something unsaid in this invitation. Barrow could only wonder what it might be, but doing so led him to hesitate in his rejection.
"It's only that the Germans are so very correct about these things," Mary said, almost indifferently, though her gaze did not waver from Barrow.
"The ... Germans, my lady?" This detail caught his ear.
"Yes," Mary said, without the trace of a smile. "Mr. Talbot must go to Berlin. On business. Have you ever been there?"
Barrow heard the words as though through some distorting fog. It took a few seconds for their meaning to sink in. "Berlin. No. I have not." His mind was awhirl. Berlin!
"I realize even to ask is an imposition, Barrow," Henry said in that off-hand way he had.
"But His Lordship won't part with Bates..." At the end of the table, Robert made a sound that might have been Ha!, but Mary ignored him. "And there's no one else suitable among the male staff."
Though it was a struggle to contain himself - Berlin! - and even though he suspected that Lady Mary knew more of what she was offering than the plain request suggested, automatically Barrow's gaze shifted to His Lordship. His butler could hardly accept such an offer without His Lordship's permission.
"Lady Mary has plans," Robert said, in answer to Barrow's unspoken question. He rattled his paper and went back to it, actually reading this time.
"If you're worried about how the house will function in your absence..." Lady Mary began.
"I am, my lady."
"I thought perhaps of asking Carson to look in and managing with just the footmen while you're gone. It's only four days."
Neither prospect was wholly welcome to Barrow. No one had challenged his assumption of the role of butler at Downton Abbey, but neither did he feel completely secure in the position. Having Mr. Carson look in struck him almost as a mid-term review of his work. And he was beginning to think that Lewis's perfection was a manifestation of ambition which might see an opportunity in the butler's absence. But ... Berlin! It was too tempting to turn down, no matter that accepting might amuse Lady Mary, annoy His Lordship, encourage Lewis, and disturb Mr. Carson. But he could not - and would not - overtly display his enthusiasm, no matter how excited he was about the journey. And he was excited!
"If His Lordship approves," Barrow said calmly, with a glance at the head of the table.
"I'm glad someone cares what I think." There was such an air of resignation in His Lordship's voice, though his eyes rested on his daughter as he spoke. "Oh, go on."
"Then ... I would be pleased to act in that capacity for you, Mr. Talbot." Barrow's tone gave away nothing of the exhilaration that was consuming him. Berlin! And Erich!
"Thank you," Henry said.
"Yes, thank you, Barrow," Mary added. "We appreciate your cooperation." She and Barrow stared at each other for a moment. Then he nodded and stepped back from the table.
"Well, we're done here," Mary declared, standing up.
Henry languidly tossed his napkin on the table and stood as well. "My darling," he said, holding an arm out to his wife. She took it and they made their way to the Great Hall. With the door closed behind them, Henry turned to his wife with a knowing smile.
"You enjoyed that," he said.
"Of course, I did."
"But ... why?"
Mary gave him an innocent look. "Is it not a good thing to keep the people in one's employ happy?"
He laughed. "Possibly, but I doubt that either your grandmother or mine would have gone to such lengths."
"Possibly not," Mary admitted, "but," she added, with a meaningful glance over her shoulder at the dining room door, "it never hurts to have Barrow in one's debt."
Cora and Edith
"Edith?"
Cora had thought she would find her daughter in the nursery making adjustments to Marigold's Sunday best, but Edith was instead standing distractedly on the landing as though she had forgotten where she was going.
"Mama!" Startled, Edith flashed her mother a ghost of a smile and then her gaze became unfocused once more.
"Oh, my darling." Cora enveloped Edith in a comforting embrace. "What is it, Edith?"
Edith allowed herself to be held. "I don't want to talk about it," she said with a sniffle. She'd found breakfast excruciating even as she acknowledged to herself that Mary had done an admirable job of deflection. In another life, she might have suspected an ulterior motive, for Mary had always had an eagle eye for Edith's most vulnerable moments.
Cora sighed. "I won't ask what's come between you and Bertie, then," she said, alluding to the obvious. "But will you permit me to say, on the basis of my long experience with marriage, that it will blow over? No matter how bad it seems in the moment, Edith, it will pass."
"That's what you said when Anthony Strallan left me at the altar," Edith grumbled, without lifting her head from her mother's shoulder.
This remark almost drew a sigh of exasperation from Cora. Trust Edith to feel obliged to compound a present conflict of the heart with another painful one from the past. "Is it that bad?" she asked instead.
"Worse." Edith did straighten up now, though she did not withdraw her hands from her mother's. "Because it's Bertie. And I really love him."
"And he loves you," Cora said firmly. "So ...," she ventured cautiously, "it wasn't anything your father said to Bertie."
This elicited a slightly pained look from her daughter. "No, Mama. It wasn't anything Papa said. Although I don't know what he was thinking, pressing Bertie as he did."
"Papa loves you, too, Edith."
"Oh, I know. And I appreciate your support, Mama. It's just ..." But Edith could not say what it just was. "I must see to Marigold." And she turned and marched up the stairs.
Staring after her, Cora could only shake her head. She had begun to believe that Edith's life had really turned a corner and she still thought that was the case. But an episode like this did give her to doubt.
Edith and Granny
Edith had made the plans to visit her grandmother on Friday night in what now seemed like another world where all was right between her and Bertie and where Granny's health was her main concern. All had gone topsy turvy since then, but Edith was determined to ask the difficult questions that no one else seemed willing to raise.
"I tried," Mary had told her earnestly when they'd discussed the matter on Saturday morning, "but she kept turning my questions back on me and I concluded that if she could put that much energy into thwarting me, then she wasn't on the brink yet."
There was something to be said for that, but Edith had wanted to make her own attempt with Granny. It was supposed to have been a congenial visit, just the two of them enjoying each other's company as they often did, with a little investigative journalism thrown in.
But now Edith could hardly think straight. She was less concerned about this impairment of her faculties than irritated by the distraction. She would have postponed the conversation but for the fact that she didn't know when she would next be at Downton and Granny's situation really couldn't wait.
Spratt, with whom Edith exchanged only a perfunctory greeting, showed her into her grandmother's sitting room. Though they had seen each other the day before, Edith crossed the floor to embrace and kiss the older woman. Such expressions of warmth had always been part of their relationship. But it had its hazards, for touch was - if anything - a more effective conduit of an emotional state than was sight, and far more difficult to deceive.
"Oh, dear," Granny said, as Edith pulled back from her. With that almost unerring capacity for discernment that regularly alarmed all her relations, she demanded, "What is wrong?"
Edith sighed, both exasperated and resigned. "Bertie and I have fallen out," she said bluntly. Perhaps it would be well to get this out of the way. She could not deny her own preoccupation. "We had a row last night and he left."
Granny looked astonished. "What? In the middle of the night?"
Edith walked to the window and looked out, unseeing. Granny could only be herself and intellectually Edith understood that, but she did wish that her grandmother might occasionally think before asking such pointed and unnecessary questions. Once asked, however, all that could be done was to answer them.
"I expect he had Pratt drive him into York in time to catch the late train. He left the car for me."
There was a flicker of irritated dismay on Granny's face. That the Marquis of Hexham drove himself about was not something the Dowager Lady Grantham thought proper. Having servants to attend to the mundane and functional aspects of life was one of the marks of the aristocracy. But that was a battle Edith had won against her grandmother. She had been driving for a good ten years and was proud of the fact. It was her single achievement that seemed to have impressed Mary as well. And it meant that Bertie's fit of temper had not left her stranded helplessly on her parents' doorstep.
"Whatever brought that on?"
It was to inquire after her grandmother's health, not to recount her own woes, that Edith had come to the Dower house. And there were those who might have hesitated to burden a frail old woman with such a tale. But Edith knew that Granny would have the story out of her one way or another. Better to forego resistance altogether and get it over with. So Edith told her.
Granny listened keenly, even leaning forward a little in her chair, as though to ensure that she caught every word. She did not interrupt. It was her habit to get the whole story before commenting.
"You don't look shocked," Edith observed, seeking some kind of sign. "Or surprised."
"About what?" Granny responded abruptly. "That Mrs. Drewe should feel aggrieved? That Bertie should be shaken by the details? That facing this again has made you very angry? It's all very predictable, my dear."
"It's infuriating is what it is," Edith said grimly. She stalked across the room and then turned and retraced her steps to the window. It was impossible to remain physically quiet when she was so emotionally stirred. "That foul woman. Why can't she just leave me alone?"
"It appears that Mrs. Drewe thought much the same about you and with some justification."
Edith whirled on her, her face darkening with indignation, but before she could utter a word, Granny was speaking again and in a tone that brooked no interruption.
"You did what you had to do for yourself as a mother and for your child as you saw fit," she said firmly. "It was ugly. These things are by nature messy. Now you must go forward." There was a note of authority in Granny's words.
"But Bertie..."
"Bertie will reconcile," Granny intoned with a gravity that suggested that if Bertie did not do so of his own accord, she would see that he did. "I'm far more concerned about you."
"I'm not the problem," Edith persisted. "The problem is ... that woman. If only she would just go away." She stopped pacing and stood very still, her arms wrapped about herself. Although she always hoped that her grandmother would throw her formidable moral weight into the balance on Edith's side, Granny's support was never a simple thing.
"There is no wishing away a problem, my dear. Maturity requires that we confront our mistakes and set things right as best we can."
Edith flared again. "Mistakes! The only mistakes I made were to trust Marigold to the Drewes to begin with and in not taking charge of my life sooner!"
Her grandmother's brow arched sceptically at these words and Edith knew why. She was as aware as her grandmother that this whole episode in her life had begun with that unforgettable and much-cherished night of passion she had shared with Michael Gregson. In the several trying months that followed, when she had confronted both his mysterious disappearance and the reality of her pregnancy, Edith had sometimes lapsed into a melancholy that led her to believe her tryst with Michael had been a mistake. Then she had given birth and everything had changed. No one could look into the face of a newborn child and see a mistake. Since that time, the only errors Edith acknowledged were those she had made in response to the pressures of society and of her family to put Marigold away from her - in Switzerland, with the Drewes, and that last alarming but not implemented suggestion by Aunt Rosamund to place her in a school in France.
"Set things right!," she added acidly. "I'm not giving her back, Granny!"
"Of course not," Granny scoffed.
Given her grandmother's attitude thus far, Edith had almost been expecting a fight on this and such a sudden affirmation took her breath away for an instant.
"Marigold is your daughter and she is - now - secure in her rightful place with you. But you must come to terms wit the repercussions of your actions, Edith, if you are ever to have peace. Your indecision over Marigold caused grief, tremendous grief, to Mrs. Drewe, as this letter you read indicates. She was Marigold's mother for some time. And once you've loved a child, there is no going back."
But Edith was not swayed. "Well, she'll have to get past it," she said coolly. "Because there is nothing to be done about it."
"Oh, there's always something," Granny said flatly. "Give it some thought. When you can honestly face the implications of your actions for Mrs. Drewe, and perhaps for her husband - though I've less sympathy there, the man ought never to have made such a pact - something may come to you."
"Why should I do anything?" There was more than a trace of petulance in her voice and Edith was irked at herself for this. The sentiment expressed, however, was an honest one. She met Granny's gaze almost defiantly and was a little discomfited to see in those aged eyes something unfamiliar. Was it ... hurt? Sorrow? Regret? Edith's own feelings were momentarily derailed. Was Granny so distressed for Edith herself, or was there something else?
But whatever it was that had passed through Granny's mind, she recovered herself quickly and the self-assured woman Edith had always known re-emerged. "Leave it now, Edith. You are naturally overwrought - the issue itself, Bertie's reaction, your own sense of injustice that others have not rallied unthinkingly to your side. You need time to think about it all quietly. And, while I do not agree with your husband's actions - no personal matter should ever manifest itself in a way that is apparent to others, even to family - putting a little distance between you in a fraught moment is a viable strategy. That is why dressing rooms and large castles were built!" She giggled at her own humorous aside.
It was not a prescription that Edith would have accepted from anyone else, but in this moment she yielded to her grandmother, at least in part because of that discomfiting glimpse into Granny's inner world.
"Let us have our tea and discuss more pleasant things," Granny said with a sudden vigour, ringing the bell for Spratt. "Sit down and tell me how you are negotiating married life with your mother-in-law in an apartment within Brancaster Castle." Granny said this as though she anticipated that such an arrangement might be a challenge, which was, it occurred to Edith, a bit rich on her part, as Granny had insisted that her own son and his wife reside at Downton when that couple was first married.
The subject of Bertie's mother was neither what Edith want to talk about nor a subject she considered 'pleasant,' but it was a topic that could be mulled over in front of Spratt. So until he had set out the tea and ensured that all was well with them, she went along with it.
But when the butler had departed and Edith, somewhat calmed by the trivial conversation, could focus on other matters, her mind returned to the reason she had arranged this visit with Granny in the first instance. And while she could sometimes still be cowed into submission by her formidable grandmother, Granny's guarded response to the latest Drewe crisis only encouraged Edith to be bold in her own agenda.
"How are you, Granny?" she asked, a soon as Spratt had closed the door.
"Not much changed since last evening," Granny replied, a deft deflection.
Edith fixed her with an unforgiving eye. "I mean it, Granny. Tell me the truth."
But her grandmother only smiled disarmingly. "That is the truth, my dear."
Edith had a dogged streak in her character. It had often irritated others and gotten her into trouble. She remembered - as she remembered all slights and reprimands - once interrogating Mary on why she had taken the Duke of Crowborough on a tour of the Downton attics, earning a rebuke from Mary, a look of disapproval from Papa, and a lecture after the fact from Mama about avoiding sensitive subjects at the dinner table. And anywhere else.
But her tenacity had proved a worthwhile trait once she found an application for it beyond needling Mary. In the professional world of publishing that she now inhabited, it was reckoned a virtue. She would not take it to an extreme in the same way Sir Richard Carlisle might have done, but she had nonetheless built herself something of a reputation for persisting in her goals.
Now she continued to stare at her grandmother. "I don't want to become vexed with you, Granny, but it is quite important to me that you respond frankly."
"My dear," Granny said mildly, "there is nothing to say."
This was the stalemate Mary had described and which had defeated her. Edith sat very still for a moment and then leaned forward to take her grandmother's hand.
"If you won't be frank, I shall be," she said in a voice of quiet authority, though she spoke with kindliness, too. "I've noticed how you've changed the last few times I've been to Downton and I'm worried about you. I'm not here every day like Papa and Mama and Mary. I can't afford to play cat-and-mouse with you about this. If there's something wrong, I need to know. Now."
*Author's Note. It might be argued that Carson served, however unwillingly, as a valet on occasion during the war when Robert was between valets. And though it is not supported in canon, my own backstory for Carson involves him having served in every male role in the house, including a ten-month stint as valet to the Viscount Grantham prior to Robert's marriage. But Barrow may not be aware of either of these instances.
Gratitude: Thanks to imnotokaywiththerunning. I think you may have gotten me started again.
