DOWNTON ABBEY 1926
Season 7 Episode 8
Chapter 3
Friday October 8
Thomas and Daniel
It was dark and cold before dawn, but it was the only time Thomas could spare for training. He could not easily shuck his butler's livery for running kit in the middle of the day even if his duties allowed for it. And racing on a full stomach after dinner was not on either. Nor did he want to do so after a long day. Mornings had their hazards, too, but he had the energy then and, though it was still dark, Thomas had the night vision of a cat.
And he had no time to lose. The race was in little more than a week.
So on Wednesday and Thursday and now again on Friday morning, he'd hauled himself out of bed even earlier than usual and propelled himself out into the chilliness of the pre-dawn, thankful that he had not had to face rain as well. He was focusing on endurance. The Trinity Court Run was about 400 yards. But the track that he and Daniel Rider had agreed upon was a circuit of the Abbey and it was, as they had laid it out, more than three times that long. Oh, there would be some tight turns, but the winner would outlast his competitors.
He went out onto the road beyond the gates of the house proper. It was a meandering course, but would take him in a large circuit. He had only just reached his stride when he heard feet pounding the gravel behind him. It was Daniel Rider.
Thomas was almost glad to see him. He'd hardly had time to think about anything but work since his return to Downton, but Daniel Rider seemed more distant than he had done the other side of Berlin. There had been a perfunctory greeting as they passed each other and no more. Admittedly Thomas himself had been short with almost everyone over the last few days, but Rider had expressed interest in his trip to Berlin and wished him well and, since then, nothing.
This unexpected strain became more overt now. As he came up alongside Thomas, Rider indicated with a jerk of his head an invitation to run together. Thomas nodded in return and they carried on, side by side in silence. It no more than a few seconds for Thomas to realize that they were not running together, but racing. Rider pulled ahead, Thomas sped up, Rider bolted forward once more. Thomas, ever sensitive to the emotional atmosphere around him, felt the hostility emanating from the other and it puzzled him. They had not fallen out. He could not explain it. But the feeling only spurred him on. Whatever was going on with Rider, this was no friendly exercise, but a preliminary test. Thomas ran faster.
It was not the best way to practice, this pell mell pounding over a slippery road in the dark. They ran until they could run no more, but it was Rider who gave up first. And Thomas, who might have carried on and taken up his own training plan where this distraction had left it, stopped, too. For a moment they both stood there, a few feet apart, bent over and heaving for air, catching their breath.
Then Thomas seized the initiative. "What is it, then? The fact that Mr. Talbot is going to run, too? Because that wasn't my doing." He couldn't think of any other reason for discord.
Rider coughed and looked up. Even without seeing his face, Thomas knew Rider was glaring at him. "I don't care who else races. You're the one I want to beat."
"That's not likely, is it." Thomas could not suppress the jibe. He could have run further this morning. Then he tried again. "I'd say you got up on the wrong side of the bed, but it isn't just today. Is it because I haven't sacked Lewis for being rude to Mr. Carson?" That was at least a possibility, given the cordial relationship between the old butler and his assistant.
"No," Rider snapped. "Though I'm hardly surprised you should make that decision."
"What then?" Thomas didn't even know why he was asking. What did Daniel Rider's opinion mean to him? "Have you been listening to what other people have said about me? I thought you made up your own mind." He'd lost any note of jocularity and now was simply annoyed.
"It's not what people say about you, Mr. Barrow. It's what you yourself say and do"
Thomas only stared at him, perplexed.
"It's what you said to Mr. Molesley."
Thomas had to think about that. Cowards have to soothe their conscience somehow.
"You know what I'm talking about," Rider went on aggressively. "He's put his heart and soul into this pageant. He's stirred a passion in the village children to learn and to remember. He's doing something worthwhile. And you ... you cut his legs right out from under him."
There was nothing so hard to swallow as an injustice. "Mr. Molesley." Thomas almost laiughed. "What I said to him was true. You'd think he'd have made peace with himself by this time, rather than still wallowing in guilt." His contempt was of the righteous sort. He despised Molesley and all who had taken a like path during the war.
"Not everyone is cut out to be a hero like you, Mr. Barrow, wounded in action on the Somme."
Though Rider could not have known it, that stung, for there was an uncomfortable truth to his own story as well. He responded with venom, the offensive defense. "A hero, no. But showing up would have been nice. Bad lungs," he snorted. "But there he was, just after the war, mending roads and working as a delivery boy, and then back at the Abbey as a footman. Oh, his lungs laid him low only long enough to avoid defending his country. If he can't face up to his cowardice, the least he could do is leave it in the past where it belongs." That was certainly where Thomas wanted it to stay. He never wanted to think of those times again.
Daniel Rider was not moved by these words. "You're a nasty piece of work, Mr. Barrow, and I'm disappointed. I'd hoped... I thought you were better than that." He took a deep breath and then turned into the darkness and walked away.
Thomas was incensed. How dare he! Disappointed, indeed. If anyone had cause for disappointment here it was Thomas, not Daniel Rider. He swore aloud and kicked at a stone in the road. And then turned and stalked off in the direction of the Abbey, feeling drained.
It wasn't about Molesley. Thomas was immune to those who would defend the Molesleys of this world. The loss he felt was for himself. Before he went to Berlin only Miss Baxter and Daniel Rider had really taken an interest. But when she had asked him, on Tuesday morning, how his trip had gone and whether he had enjoyed himself, he could respond to her only with meaningless generalities. She knew all about him - more intimately than most - but he could hardly have answered her in any detail. She wasn't a worldly woman, for all her three years in prison.
But he had ... hoped? Was that the right word? ... for more from Daniel Rider. Rider was sophisticated. He'd seen a bit of the world. Thomas would have had to be circumspect on the specifics with him, too, but he'd thought, wished, that Rider might be able to appreciate what Berlin meant to Thomas, in a general way. As Jimmy would have done.
Thomas hadn't thought of Jimmy Kent - a former footman let go for his own sexual indiscretions, though admittedly of the more conventional kind - in quite a while. They hadn't kept in touch. After a rocky start, which included Jimmy threatening to expose Thomas's private nature to an audience beyond Downton, they had become friends. They had crossed that great divide. Jimmy might not have wanted to hear all the details, but Thomas could have spoken more freely with him about it.
Somehow, on the scantiest of evidence, Thomas had begun to think that Daniel Rider might be another Jimmy, someone with whom he might talk about sports and sex and big city night life, those things that existed beyond the walls of Downton Abbey. His instincts in such matters were very finely honed. He still wasn't sure he was wrong about that.
But bloody Molesley had derailed it before it even got started.
All of which made Thomas even more determined to beat Daniel Rider in this race. If they were not to be friends, then they would be rivals. And Rider would find himself the loser in that.
He had almost reached the coal yard gate and was preparing to put the aggravating encounter with Rider out of his mind that he might focus on the busy day ahead when he ran Daniel Rider's last words through his mind once more. Disappointed...hoped...though you were better. He listened now for how the words had been said. Had Rider started to say something else...hoped ..? Hoped what? Then Thomas shook his head abruptly. Whatever he'd meant to say, what lingered with Thomas was disappointed. How dare he!
Upstairs Breakfast
"Of course I know the Darings," Tom said, in response to Mary's query. "Well, I know Frank Daring and I've met her ... Frederica? ... at least once."
"Did you like them?"
"I did."
"So did I," Henry put in, although he'd already told Mary as much. "They insisted on buying an English car and they bought it from us."
"I was thinking of inviting them for dinner."
"Oh, do," Cora said, lighting up at the prospect. "We haven't had company for a while and it'll be nice to see some fresh faces."
"Yes, some fresh English faces," Robert agreed. "You said they are related to Viscount Havermore?"
"Yes, Frederica Daring is his granddaughter. Her father is a younger son."
"I hope so," Robert murmured, catching Rosamund's eye. "Imagine a Viscount selling agricultural equipment."
Henry, and Tom exchanged resigned looks.
"What were you doing at a political meeting, Mary?" Rosamund asked.
"Getting out of the wet. I'm not a political animal, as you know."
"I think Frederica Daring may be," Henry said. "That may make for lively dinner conversation."
The silence that greeted this went on for just a second too long. The matter of Tom, the Drumgooles, and the Irish problem hung in the air.
"Are there any brothers to inherit the agricultural business?" Mary asked, discreetly re-directing.
"I don't know," Tom replied. "You'll have to ask Mrs. Daring."
"I wonder why I've never met her before. She would have come out at the same time as me. Where has she been?"
"I don't know," Henry said. "You'll have to ask Mrs. Daring."
"Or him. Why have we not heard of him? Frank Daring, that is. Who is he?"
"Ah. He's a Canadian, from somewhere out west, I think." Henry was glad to have an answer on at least one question. "He came here to go to Oxford. All Souls," he added for Robert, the only other person at the table to whom this was meaningful. The information elicited an approving sound.
"And now he's selling agricultural machinery." Mary was an echo of her father.
"I went to Oxford," Henry reminded her, "and I'm selling cars. Not everyone wants a career in the Colonial Office or the Exchequer."
"Fair enough," Mary conceded. Her innate pragmatism sometimes gave way to the imperatives of the aristocratic culture in which she had been raised. "It was a stupid thing to say. On the subject of cars, Papa..."
Robert looked up from his eggs, but his eyes were already glazed over in defense.
"We need a second chauffeur. Yesterday I went into York on Mama's schedule and had to idle away most of the morning because I was too early for my own appointments."
"Even if we had a second chauffeur," Robert countered, "I should discourage the driving back and forth twice to and from the same places in the space of a few hours in the name of economic efficiency."
"It hasn't been two weeks yet, Mary," Cora added, just a little exasperated with her daughter. "Why don't we try to figure it out, rather than giving up from the start."
"It won't work," Mary said grudgingly. "Book the car early, Aunt Rosamund. Else you might find yourself walking a lot during your stay here."
"A walk to the village is well within my capabilities."
"Will you see Mama this afternoon?" Cora asked.
"Yes. For some reason Carson isn't available for their usual interview, so she's fit me in." She exchanged a discreet look with Robert.
As the conversation went on, the door opened and Barrow went to meet Andy who held out a note. Taking this, Barrow put it on the small silver tray used for the purpose, beside the letter opener, and approached Robert's side.
"My lord."
"Thank you, Barrow." Robert glanced at the hand-writing, expertly slit open the envelope, and extracted it, while Barrow withdrew to his post by the wall.
"Good news?" Cora asked.
"I couldn't tell you. But it is from Ambassador Houghton."
"Does this mean London?"
"Yes. Eventually. This is only a bit of a head's up. When the League sessions wrap up in Geneva, there's to be an Imperial Conference here, while all the Dominion ministers are on this side of the ocean."
"When did the Dominions gain such status?" Mary asked. The idea of the likes of Australia and Canada and South Africa, never mind Newfoundland and New Zealand, sitting at a table as equals with the Prime Minister of Great Britain was, in Mary's eyes, like the servants sitting down to dinner with the family.
"During the war," Tom said. She'd asked the question almost rhetorically, but sometimes Tom wondered what century Mary lived in. "It was the price of the fighting and dying for King George that went on. Gallipoli, Ypres, Vimy, Beaumont-Hamel.* Full independence for the Dominions isn't far off." Tom spoke in a clipped tone. The Dominions had eased into a quasi-independent status and though much blood had been spilled, it was on European battlefields in support of "King and country," not, as in Ireland, in revolution. And he resented that just a little. The Irish Free State was also to attend the conference. But to Tom's way of thinking, it ought to have a wholly separate existence.
"You know a lot about the Dominions' war record," Mary said, a little surprised by this.
Tom shrugged. "I believe in the importance of remembrance, too."
Cora was eager to avoid any subject that might bring the undercurrent of tension between Robert and Tom to the surface. "Well, the American ambassador won't be part of that. What does he want of you?"
"He's hoping to organize an informal get-together with a few of the Dominion ministers. Germany has just been admitted to the League and he's hoping to build on that good will."
"By soliciting the favourable feeling of the prime minister of Australia?"
Robert shrugged. "We're to have a preliminary consultation." He looked up at Cora. "I was going up to London next week anyway."
"But I've only just got here," Rosamund put in.
"It'll only be for a day."
"Isobel has invited us round for tea on Sunday, Aunt Rosamund. In your honour."
"Robert tells me that she and Lord Merton are to host a society dinner party. How will they manage?" The Merton resistance to a staff sufficient for their lifestyle was a fact known to all the Crawleys.
"Carson's helping them," Cora said.
"He seems to have become a jack-of-all trades," Rosamund noted drily. "Writing books, organizing dinners, and running Downton while your butler ... What was your butler doing in Berlin anyway?"
Barrow was standing only feet away, but Rosamund did not have such a familiar relationship with him that she could address him directly on this or anything else. She had always felt ill at ease in a face-to-face conversation with Carson, too.
"Accommodating me," Henry stated, and then pushed his chair back. "I believe I must get on." He glanced toward Tom, who followed his example.
Henry paused by Mary's chair and took her arm as they headed for the door. "I saw Barrow and the other fellow, Rider, on the road at dawn this morning," he murmured. "They were arguing."
"Good! Perhaps dissension will undermine their performance in the race. I wondered where you'd got to."
"I want to make a good run of it."
Mary smiled at him. "I have every confidence in you."
Barrow came to the table to attend to the ladies and paused by Robert's side.
"A word, my lord?"
"Of course." Robert led the way to the small library.
"It's about the new footman, my lord. Lewis."
Robert listened attentively and with growing consternation to the account Barrow related to him of the footman's behaviour the weekend before and frowned when Barrow ended with the information that he had decided to keep Lewis on.
"Are you certain that's a good idea?" Robert asked carefully, his tone indicating that he did not think it was.
"He made a mistake."
"Several of them, I should say. And serious ones at that."
It was a delicate moment. They both knew that Barrow, in his own footman days, had made like transgressions, but they had never spoken directly about them.
"I've read him the riot act, my lord. He's ambitious, but I let him know he was going to be a footman for a long time if he stayed at Downton. I would like to try to make it work."
"And you think you made an impression on him? That you can ...contain...his ambitions?"
"I believe I can. Yes. And I've told him he must apologize to Mr. Carson. I won't tolerate any disrespect at Downton Abbey."
Robert considered. He did believe a butler should have a free hand in all those matters that fell within his jurisdiction. He only wished he had as much confidence in Barrow's abilities as he had had in Carson's. "Fine. I hope we will not have to speak of this again, Barrow."
"Very good, my lord."
Violet and Spratt and Rosamund
"What are you doing!"
Violet sat in her most comfortable chair in the most comfortable room in the Dower House - the sitting room - with the latest copy of The Sketch in her hands. She did not look up from it, nor react in any other way to this wholly inappropriate ... question? demand?... from her butler. Spratt was something of a trial at the best of times. Were it not for his superior skills as a butler, she would not have tolerated his prima donna-esque behaviour which had, of late, only worsened. Perhaps he had sensed her growing weakness and was taking advantage? No. It seemed more personal somehow. Perhaps an unsavoury relative in difficulty. The incessant scrapping with Denker was beginning to grate on her very well-seasoned nerves. And now this impertinence... She marshaled her strength for the standard rebuke and finally raised her eyes from the page.
"Did you say something, Spratt?" It was almost always preferable to defuse a situation by letting the errant servant pretend the transgression had not happened than to confront him directly and have to take action.
Spratt had just come into the room and spoke from the door. He was clearly agitated. Had he been a cat, his hair would have been standing on end. But as she anticipated, her query, which left him in no doubt as to her disapproval, deflated him. "No, my lady. Nothing at all." He approached her in his usual deferential manner. "Surely your ladyship does not wish to demean herself by trifling with such low-brow reading. Might I perhaps bring up The Times or fetch a volume of ..." he scrambled for a moment, "Miss Austen?"
He was grasping at straws to suggest Jane Austen who was emphatically not one of Violet's favourite authors. Too much mixing of the classes and a penchant for treacle-sweet endings. That suggestion did not deserve comment. "I've read The Times," she said. "And as for low-brow..." Now she fixed him with a meaningful look and let him squirm under it. He wrote the agony aunt column. She knew he did. If he were still labouring under the delusion that she did not, then let him worry about the consequences of her finding out. "...my granddaughter publishes The Sketch."
His eyes bugged out at being caught in a different faux pas. "Of course! I did not mean to suggest..."
The door bell chimed.
"I'm expecting Lady Rosamund, Spratt. Please let her in."
He retreated.
Violet could only shake her head. And then she heaved herself to her feet and made her way across the room to her desk. From the bottom drawer she pulled a stack of back issues of The Sketch and laid them out before her. She was thumbing through them when Spratt announced her daughter.
"Rosamund."
"Mama." Rosamund came straight to her, holding out her arms.
She knows, Violet said to herself. The embrace went on for just that few seconds too long, the kiss was so very gentle. Or thinks she does. No doubt her children had taken advantage of her absence at dinner the night before to exchange assumptions. She did not blame them for doing so. Nor was she annoyed, though she had no intention of taking the matter up directly. Not yet. In the moment she simply enjoyed the warmth of this display of affection.
"It's so good to see you, my dear. Sit down." She gave Rosamund a warm smile. Like Mary, in whose character she best saw a reflection of herself, Violet was judicious in the bestowal of her favours, even so slight a one as a smile. Few truly felt the warmth of which she was capable. But she was pleased to see Rosamund and wanted to show it. Rosamund, almost unaware of this dispensation, shone before it.
"We missed you last night," she said.
Violet shrugged, determined to derail any probing questions. "There was a chill in the air."
"What are you doing?"
It was the same question Spratt had asked ...demanded...but Rosamund was merely puzzled, seeing her mother glancing at the covers of The Sketch laid out before her.
"I am...looking for last month's issue."
Rosamund studied them along with her. "Here it is." She pulled it out. "What are you about, Mama?"
"I will show you." Violet made her way gingerly back to her chair, aware of the pained look on Rosamund's face at this evidence of her infirmity, but ignoring it. She retrieved the issue she had been perusing earlier and handed it to Rosamund, open at a particular page.
"Read this. Aloud."
Rosamund had to fetch her reading glasses.
"Dear Mrs. Jones." She looked up. "Were you seriously reading this nonsense, Mama?"
"Go on."
"Dear Mrs. Jones, I have tried to apply the advice, so kindly given last month, to pay attention to my duties and to suppress any intimation of the admiration I have for the butler in the great house where I work. But I struggle. He charms me all the more for his indifference to my feelings, not least when he gives way to temper over a poorly dusted shelf or a misplaced fork. I fear that someday I may blurt out my feelings, but that would never do. Please advise."
Rosamund's eyebrows arched. "Why am I reading this?"
Wordlessly Violet handed over the previous issue, directing Rosamund's attention to another letter.
Her daughter's confusion persisted.
"Spratt is Cassandra Jones," Violet said flatly.
This elicited a reaction. "Goodness! Does Edith know? How did you find out? Why have you let him continue this ... vulgar pursuit?"
"Edith must know," Violet said. "She pays him for this tripe. Spratt is at pains to keep the secret from me, fearing dire consequences, but not so much as to prevent him writing it. Why do I put up with it?" She considered for a moment. "Perhaps it is because he is such an odd man and may require some means to manage his unruly inner self. He has no conventional sense of self-restraint." She sighed. Carson was never like this. "As for how I learned of this activity ... Denker told me."
Sometimes Violet thought Rosamund just a little slow to grasp a subtlety but this time the point she had made so obliquely struck home immediately. "Denker ... Wait a minute. Mama, do you think..."
Violet only stared at her. "I don't know what to think, but stranger things have happened, and they do rub on in the worst way together, in the manner of opposites."
Rosamund could not fathom it. "Spratt and Denker." The combination was impossible to conceive, but Rosamund was almost as shocked as her mother by the idea of relationships between the servants. Downton Abbey was rife with this sort of thing, but Rosamund had scrupulously discouraged it at her home in Belgave Square.
"And what is his reaction?"
"Well, as you see. In the earlier letter he advises ignoring and suppressing feelings. Admirable dispassion on the part of the ungovernable Spratt. But in the second..."
Rosamund read it aloud: "'Resign your post and leave the county! Return to London! Never mention this aberrant behaviour to anyone or write of it again here or anywhere else.' Well. She appears to have touched a nerve."
"Yes, vintage Spratt."
"I don't know why you put up with either of them."
"Because Robert kept Carson. It's very difficult to find competent people who are up to the mark in Yorkshire. My servants are not ideal, but they do know their jobs."
Rosamund thought otherwise on the latter point, but at that moment the door opened and Spratt came in with tea, preventing her from responding. Spratt's eyes darted in the direction of the magazines and he came over a little alarmed, but said nothing and withdrew quickly.
"Thank goodness you're here," Violet told her daughter, "else I might have been subjected to further unpleasant interrogations." This was not really very likely. "Let us have our tea."
Over the course of the next hour, Violet could see how difficult it was for Rosamund. Her daughter wanted to speak frankly. It was Rosamund's nature to be forthright and it took some effort to contain it. Violet appreciated the restraint. Their conversation was made no more awkward than usual by it. She and Rosamund had never quite seen eye to eye. At length, Violet decided on a more pleasant diversion.
"Have I ever told you about the night you were born?"
"What?" Rosamund was astonished by the question, as well she might be for Violet knew full well that she had not spoken of that event other than in the fact that it occurred.
"You were premature, by some three weeks and more." This was not the kind of detail that the well-bred discussed, but Violet had a tale to tell. "Your father was going up to London for an important debate in the Lords on Lord Carnarvon's plan to reform the London workhouses.** Your father was expected to take part. But the ... labour ...," it was a delicate subject, "... began shortly before he was to set out and, fearing for our lives - yours as much as mine – he sent word to Viscount Cave*** and had his bags unpacked. It was...," she sought circumspection, "... an arduous night. He paced in the antechamber, just outside my room, the whole night through. I knew he was there. Your father could not bear to hear a child cry, but in all other things he was stalwart. And when he heard your voice for the first time he ... he did not wait to be summoned, but burst through the door. He took you from the nurse and handed you to me himself."
She might have said more, but they were not given to effusion, any of the Crawleys. Instead she only smiled at Rosamund again.
It was just as well, for a more explicit statement might have undone Rosamund completely.
"Oh, Mama."
Isobel and Carson
Lady Merton and Mr. Carson were at odds. This was apparent immediately after their initial cordial exchange. Having opened the door to him. Isobel led him into the library of Crawley House. It was small when compared to its counterpart at Downton Abbey, but Isobel had never found it wanting. It suited her purposes today for it had, along with the requisite walls of books and comfortable chairs, also a good working table where they might examine all the organizational aspects of the dinner in an orderly fashion.
Isobel had known Carson since arriving at Downton Abbey with her son Matthew in 1912 and she had always found the butler somewhat disconcerting. He did not intimidate her. Almost nothing intimidated her. But she simply did not see the point of a butler and had never really come to terms with the word-made-flesh, as it were, in the form of Charles Carson. Robert Crawley had hired Molesley as butler and valet to serve Isobel and Matthew and his presence had perplexed them both, for Isobel had no use for a butler, nor Matthew for a valet. But Molesley had made himself useful and he never got in the way and they had gotten used to him. This could not be said of Carson who, to Isobel's mind, had always been in the way at the Abbey and she was flummoxed when she had realized that that was his job.
Still, he knew that world and as she aspired to success in some small corner of it - though she loathed the idea that she had to 'aspire' at all – she knew he could be useful. And he was prepared to help. And then, as Dickie rose at their entrance, Isobel bid Carson to sit down, and there the trouble started.
She sat. Dickie sat. Carson did not sit.
She thought perhaps he had not heard her and so spoke again. "Perhaps you might sit here," she said, directing him to a chair.
He nodded to her. "Thank you, my lady." But he did not sit.
Isobel hesitated and then carried on. "We've drawn up our guest list and Mrs. Cullen has made up a menu and Lord Merton and I have made wine selections." As she spoke, she pushed the various papers across the table to the place she had assigned him, thinking he would have to sit down to examine them. And was even more agitated when he picked up the pages and began to look them over while remaining standing.
"I've also drawn up a seating chart."
He picked that up as well and in perusing them apparently remained oblivious to her dismay.
"I'm sure you will be more comfortable sitting down," she said, glancing at Dickie for help.
He only shrugged, clearly out of his element.
"Thank you, my lady," Carson said again, without looking up from the papers and without sitting.
It occurred to Isobel that perhaps she had not taken the right approach. He had worked as a servant, never as a colleague. An order rather than an invitation might suit him better. "Carson," she said, in a voice calculated to draw his attention."Please sit down."
He met her gaze then, staring down her wide-eyed insistence with an unsettling stoicism. "I cannot, my lady." And when she continued to stare at him, her eyes bugging out with indignation, he seemed to relent and added discreetly, "It is not done."
Of course she knew that. Isobel was not wholly devoid of class consciousness and the application of it to social relations. She would not, for instance, have invited the maid, Ellen, to join her for tea. But she did not hold rigidly to such rules when they impeded practical needs.
"You can't juggle all those papers standing up," she said.
Carson's eyes dropped to the guest list and ran quickly over it. Then he moved that page to the bottom so that the seating chart now rested beneath his gaze, and looked up at her again.
He was determined, but Isobel had not yet exhausted all her cards. "Surely there are exceptions. You can't tell me that you conduct all those interviews with the Dowager Lady Grantham while standing up!"
He did not reply, only continuing to meet her gaze with an expression that though impassive yet communicated a sense of disdain for her obtuseness. She had seen that look on his face before.
"Oh, for goodness sake!"
'Perhaps we should move on," Dickie put in diplomatically.
They did, but things did not improve. Forty minutes later Isobel was beginning to think that she would prefer the contempt of Larry Grey and, indeed, the disapproval of the whole county, rather than work with Carson.
"You've challenged the guest list, rearranged the seating plan, altered the menu, and scrapped the wine list."
Carson did not shrink before her irritation. Why would he? He had half a century of experience in having it all his own way.
"If I may, my lady." His voice betrayed none of her aggravation. "The numbers don't balance. Lord Metcalfe is the social superior of Sir Evan Fares." She rolled her eyes at these words, but he carried on. "Hollandaise gives Lord Grantham indigestion. And as for the wines..." Here his affectation of dispassion cracked, but he did not seem able to find words to express his dissatisfaction.
When in desperation she looked to Dickie once more, he only shook his head. "I never had much to do with the planning of a dinner, my dear. Ada and the butler managed it all. "
"I thought Mrs. Carson was going to help you with this," Isobel said sharply, seeking an ally wherever she could.
"Mrs. Carson is at work this afternoon, my lady," Carson responded. "These matters would be outside her purview even were she to be associated with this occasion in any formal sense."
"And whose purview are they within?" she demanded. Clearly not mine, she thought acidly.
Before he could respond, the door bell rang and Dickie sprang up to answer it.
The frost in the library remained undisturbed until a child's voice rang out in the passage. Both Isobel and Carson recognized it as belonging ot Master George and they both smiled.
George burst into the room, a lithe, blond ball of energy in short pants. He hurtled toward Isobel. "Grandmamma!"
Isobel was transformed as she gathered the sweet little boy into her arms. "George!"
"Carson!"
Carson had been looking at grandmother and grandson with a benevolent smile, but at the sound of his name in a voice he cherished, his eyes glowed.
"Lady Mary!"
For a few minutes Dickie Merton stood in the doorway relishing the scene of the two women he most loved glorying in the attentions of a favoured male. He knew, of course, what George meant to Isobel. In that child Isobel invested the treasure hoard of a grandmother's affections, but intermingled with this was the bittersweet echo of her own beloved son. And like everyone else who knew Mary well, he was aware of the special bond she shared with the former butler of Downton Abbey.
"We're early, I know," Mary said at last. "An unforgivable social sin."
"We're not terribly concerned with social sins in this house," Isobel responded, with a dark look in Carson's direction.
"But we're interrupting." Mary glanced sidelong at Carson.
"We weren't getting very far."
"My lady," Carson began, addressing Isobel, "perhaps I could taken these items and ...review them at home."
"Very good, Carson." It was a bit of a defeat for Isobel, but for the moment a strategic retreat seemed the best option.
He nodded formally to Isobel, smiled warmly at Mary, cast a fond glance at George, and followed Dickie from the room.
"How is the dinner party coming along, then?" Mary asked, innocent of what had come before.
"He is a tyrant!" Isobel declared, pointing to the door just as Dickie came through again. "Oh, not Dickie, Carson!"
A smirk flashed across Mary's face and Isobel sighed. She might have expected as much. She knew, too, that Mary and Carson had been as thick as thieves throughout Mary's childhood and that vestiges of that relationship persisted. He might not sit in her presence either, but there were liberties aplenty there, including an alarming tendency to speak his mind. And Mary only indulged this, as she was doing now.
"Carson had ... questions ... about a few of our decisions," Dickie explained more tactfully. "The guest list, the seating plan..."
"The menu! The wine list! He'll be telling me what to wear next!"
This time Mary contained herself. "I should give in if I were you," she said earnestly. "Except possibly in the matter of your own dress, although even there Carson has a discerning eye." She hurried on as Isobel's eyes blazed. "Papa says one should almost always yield to the butler in the organization of a major social event. Overruling him ought to be the exception, not the rule."
"Your father had the same butler most of his life, so in his case the principle of yielding to the butler is tantamount to giving in to Carson. I won't be ordered about by an imperious butler!"
"I thought...," Dickie began cautiously, "I thought that we had engaged Carson for that very purpose."
She gave him a narrow-eyed look. "You weren't much help."
Mary was perplexed. "Really, Isobel, I should leave it all to Carson. After all, what you want is a successful dinner party. He will deliver."
"At the cost of our dignity."
Mary's expression indicated she did not think this an unreasonable price to pay.
"And he wants to hire too many footmen and additional maids."
"Oh, but that is emphatically his area of expertise. I shouldn't cross him there."
Isobel shook her head., unconvinced. "I shall speak to Mrs. Carson."
Mary and Dickie exchanged a look.
"What are we going to do tonight, Grandmamma?" George had been ignored too long.
Isobel's attention riveted to him, her irritation dissipated, her eyes round and sparkling . "First, we're going to have tea with your Mama and you are to join us with your very own tea cup and some of those biscuits you liked so much the last time you were here."
He clapped his hands in anticipation.
"Then, we've got a new ball to play with in the garden."
"New, but not unused," Dickie confided to Mary, sotto voce so as not to interrupt the conversation. "I've been kicking it about in practice!"
"And then we have games to play – board games, card games..."
"Mr. Barrow taught me to play a card game," George piped up, eager to prove himself capable. "It's called poker."
Isobel was momentarily taken aback. So was Mary, though she quickly recovered. Mr. Carson had told her stories and taken her on voyages around the world via an atlas he had bought for her. Barrow was a very different kind of person, but no doubt George gained more than he lost through that relationship. And a practiced hand at poker might someday be useful.
"Yes, well," Isobel went on, "I had other games in mind."
"Charades," Dickie intoned.
"Charades! That's ambitious," Mary said.
"Suited to the participants," Dickie assured her.
"And I've got two new books we can read together," Isobel continued.
"And a story from you, Grandmamma! I like your stories best!"
"Of course, George."
"Oh, dear," Mary murmured. "I think I hear the guillotine in the distance."
Dickie laughed. "Nothing of the sort. Isobel doesn't even knows the words to the Internationale. I asked!"
Mary laughed with him. She knew that Isobel was a liberal, not a revolutionary, and not even a socialist as Tom professed to be.
"I think she has in mind to tell him about Matthew – his childhood and such."
Though Matthew was there every time she looked at her son and was never far from her heart, this reference to him especially in such a context brought tears to Mary's eyes. She hastened to master them. If once Isobel caught sight of this, she would tear up, too, and then they'd both be done for.
"Goodbye, George," Mary made her voice as gay as possible. She almost thought to say "Be good," but he was always good. And besides, he was visiting with Grandmamma and Grandfather and might be free to do as he liked, within their more relaxed boundaries. They had settled on "Grandfather" as a proper form of address for Dickie. He would have been Matthew's stepfather, after all. Robert had reserved Grandpapa for himself in the unlikely case that Sybbie and George and even the more pliable Marigold ever gave up on 'Donk.' A lost cause as far as Mary could see, but there was no harm in indulging Papa in it.
"We'll bring him back to the Abbey...sometime tomorrow," Isobel said vaguely.
Mary knew that George would be dining with his grandparents that evening and probably cuddling up between them in their bed at the crack of dawn, demanding another story from Isobel. There was neither nursery nor nanny at Crawley House and no distinctions drawn between children and adult. It was all very middle class. George loved his sleepovers here and Mary encouraged them. And though George had a particular hold on Isobel's heart, she had informed Mary that she hoped Stephen would make like pilgrimages to Crawley House when he was old enough. This was unlikely to happen in the case of little Edgar Grey, as Dickie alluded to in walking Mary to the door.
"We both enjoy George so much," he said with feeling, taking Mary's hands to say farewell. "He's a delightful boy. Though I daresay most little boys are delightful. Ada held a strict line on interaction with our sons and I never challenged it. How much I missed!"
Knowing the Grey boys, Mary was not sure it was such a loss, but she understood the point and it saddened her. Dickie Merton was her god-father and another of the men in her life with whom she shared a warm relationship. His first marriage had not been a happy one and thus Mary was gratified by his late-in-life discovery of love with Isobel. He was a kind and loving man and he deserved the happiness he had found in Isobel.
In the library George shrieked with laughter.
"Dickie! You're missing all fun!"
Dickie exchanged amused glances with Mary, saw her out the door, and then returned to the fray.
*Author's Note 1. Gallipoli was the agony of the Australians and New Zealanders. Canada's glory moment was Vimy Ridge, a victory; Ypres was a Canadian tragedy. At Beaumont-Hamel, the Newfoundland Regiment - 700 strong at the opening salvos, 68 showing up for roll call the next day - was devastated. South Africa also took up arms on Britain's side, an astonishing development given the bitterness of the Boer War only 14 years earlier, and fought mainly against the German colonies in southern Africa.
**Author's Note 2. Aw, I just couldn't resist. Henry Herbert, 4th Earl Carnarvon, and real-life resident of Highclere Castle, sat in the House of Lords as a Conservative and served as Secretary of State for the Colonies twice, in which capacity he furthered the confederation scheme of Canada and supported the same in Australia and South Africa, among many other accomplishments. He did also support a bill for the reform of the London workhouses, the issue referred to here.
*** Author's Note 3. Viscount Cave was the Lord Chancellor and thus the Speaker of the House of Lords at this moment in Crawley history.
