Downton Abbey 1926
Episode 10 Chapter 7
Thursday November 11, 1926. Armistice Day
Mr. Molesley and Miss Baxter
It was a somber day. Nothing could change that. And yet the atmosphere in the crowd dispersing from the school hall was not a grim one. There was sadness to be sure. The memories of those who had given their lives were still so fresh. But there was a sense of satisfaction, too. Indeed, almost of gratification. The fallen men had been honoured and in a way that meant something to their families and friends and community. The effort was a healing one.
Mr. Molesley stood at the door of the schoolhouse and, in a manner reminiscent of the minister at the end of Sunday service, spoke to all who passed. He thanked them for coming and wished them well, and declined any credit for the success of the pageant, re-directing all praise to his students. Old Mr. Molesley was more receptive to such compliments, telling anyone who stopped for a word that his son was born to be a teacher and wasn't that obvious when he'd gotten the village children to turn their hands to such a moving production?
Molesley didn't hurry anyone along. The pageant had been cathartic even for him and he'd known what was coming. It was that alchemy between the players and the audience, the hallmark of any meaningful theatrical production, that had taken his breath away. The gravity with which he greeted all the guests was only a reflection of his own emotional reaction.
Speaking to the children who gathered backstage immediately afterwards, his eyes had been tear-filled, as were many of theirs. They, too, had been moved by the individual stories and the collective power of their raw performances. But he'd had only a few moments with them, thanking them warmly, and promising they would talk more about it at school the next day. They were proud of themselves. And he was proud of them.
And when it was all over and the children and the families and the other guests had left, he was so very happy to find Miss Baxter waiting for him in the dimly lit hall. She said nothing as he closed the doors behind the last of them and leaned back heavily into it. The experience had been exhilarating, but draining, too. He could not know that it would come off until it had.
For a long moment he let the door take his weight and stood motionless against it, his eyes closed. As a sense of equilibrium took hold again, he opened his eyes and sought out Miss Baxter, who was waiting patiently. But even when he'd found her, he did not speak right away, though he did push himself away from the door and step in her direction, his hands outstretched.
She smiled and held her hands out to him in turn. He clutched them, held them tightly, lifting them up and so drawing still more closely to her. And he smiled, too, though his eyes were suddenly wet with emotion.
"It was wonderful," she said, at last.
"It worked well," he agreed, with characteristic modesty and uncharacteristic brevity.
"They were each a little different and yet flowed together so smoothly." She sounded almost awed by this.
His smile broadened. "Parents, families who were reluctant to participate this year asked if their sons could be included next year," he said, and then added, "Next year. As though this might become part of the annual observance!" Oh! He was proud!
"Why not?" Miss Baxter said boldly. "It brilliantly achieved what you wanted to achieve – the remembrance and honouring of the dead. Everyone was moved." She paused. "I saw Mr. Barrow leave partway through." And before Mr. Molesley could offer an ungenerous interpretation of the butler's departure, she added, "He was almost crying."
Molesley was surprised, but he held his tongue.
"I'm glad you let the girls participate, too," Miss Baxter went on.
"Why not? They must remember, too. Truth to tell, it's girls – women, really – who do the remembering about everything. I wanted them to be involved, not just passive observers of the boys in action."
"Mr. Molesley, the suffragist." There was a twinkle in her eye and they both laughed. "You're a good teacher," she added.
He shrugged self-effacingly, unable to swallow compliments whole.
"I liked that you had a girl in the Elcot vignette."
"I had to," he admitted. "It was Victoria's idea. I could hardly shut her out of it. And Mrs. Elcot didn't mind. We asked." Of course he had.
"And what about you?"
The tenor of her voice had changed. He did not ask her what she meant, because he knew. It was a question that deserved a thoughtful answer, so he did not respond right away. "I don't think it can ever go away completely," he said slowly, speaking of his burden of guilt. "But … it's … shifted, I think. Instead of trying to put it away from myself or … or … wallowing in it in a way that does no one any good, I've … harnessed it, to some extent." He frowned a little, struggling to express himself clearly. "I can't erase what I did … didn't do. But I think I've found a way forward, to make it meaningful in an act … of service." There was a bit of wonder in his voice, as though he had come to this realization in putting it in words.
His attention riveted suddenly on Miss Baxter. "Thank you," he said.
She came over mystified. "I've done nothing. It was all your idea."
He shook his head. "The specific of it was my idea. But you showed me the way, encouraged me to seek redemption, when I thought I was beyond it." He took a breath. "You've changed my life."
She was pleased by this, of course she was. And didn't even think to deny it in her usual self-deprecating way.
They stood and stared at each other and then Molesley, who was notoriously tenuous about almost everything, came in that instant to a resolution, so clear and firm that he could barely countenance it.
Not now. Not here.
But soon.
He offered her his arm. "May I see you back to the Abbey, Miss Baxter?" he said formally, though with warmth.
She linked her arm in his. "I'd like that, Mr. Molesley."
Beryl and Kate
They'd no more time to talk until they were getting ready for bed. Beryl had prevailed upon her sister to spend the night at Downton, rather than at the bed and breakfast. "I see you so rarely," she'd said. Kate had obliged her. Beryl brought cocoa and biscuits up from the kitchen and they settled down together in their nightclothes and robes in Beryl's room for a chat.
"That were so nice of your Lord Grantham to put up the memorial to our Archie." Kate had said this before, but it didn't surprise her sister that she couldn't get over it.
"He's a nice man."
"Why would he do such a thing?"
Beryl was puzzled. "What do you mean?"
"He'd no cause. He didn't know Archie."
Perhaps the best answer to that remark, the one that might have shut down this perilous line of inquiry would have been Well, he knows me. But Beryl came over flustered. "No, but … well, Mr. Carson, he was in charge of the memorial and he wouldn't allow a name of someone … outside of Downton. And His Lordship heard about it and he did it for me." She ended this litany rather breathlessly. It was a somewhat spotty version of the truth, as Mr. Carson had rejected Archie because of how he had died, not where he was from.
Kate, sitting in the only armchair in the room – her sister sat on the bed – was fingering the upholstered seam and staring at it as though it was highly absorbing. "Does he know?" she asked at length.
"Know what?" Beryl's heart was in her throat.
Now Kate looked over at her. "Why didn't you tell the boy about Archie?" she asked. "He wanted to tell Archie's story and he needed your permission and he needed the story from you, like the other children had from the families of their soldiers."
Beryl was struck speechless, something that happened to her once or twice every quarter century. "What are you saying?" she said finally.
Kate heaved herself from the chair and went over to sit beside her sister on the bed. "When Archie died, we couldn't get any news about when and where. And your Lord Grantham got the confirmation for us."
"Yes. Yes, he did." Beryl's voice wavered.
"They must have told him," Kate said quietly. "Did he not tell you?"
"What? What are you talking about?"
"When they put up the memorial at home, I expected Archie's name to be on it, as a matter of course. Everyone who went to war and died would be on it, whether they were struck down by a wound or disease or even whether they'd found the body or not." Her voice was constricted but she pressed on, though she had dropped her eyes. Her fingers now were playing with the frayed edge of the top blanket. "But they wouldn't put Archie's name down. I asked and asked and … they told me."
"What! I mean…."
But Kate kept on talking. "The War Office made the decision. It were their policy."
"You knew? You mean, you've known right along?" This was an astonishing revelation.
Kate glanced at her sister, uncertainty in her eyes. "So, you do know."
"Know…." Beryl tried to regroup.
Now, Kate met her gaze full on. "That Archie was executed by his own people. Shot for … for cowardice." And then her voice broke and tears filled her eyes. "My boy, Beryl! My dear, dear boy!"
"Oh! He were a sensitive lad, Kate. And … and they know now about shellshock and such."
Beryl enveloped her sister in her arms and they cried on each other's shoulder for a time.
At length, Kate spoke again. "Then, you knew, when you told me about Archie."
The cat was out of the bag now. "Well, they told His Lordship," Beryl explained, "when he asked after Archie for me."
"And you didn't tell me?"
"How could I tell you that?" Beryl had agonized over it and the struggle still told in her voice.
Kate gave her an acknowledging nod. "And His Lordship put up the memorial, knowing?"
"He's a kind man," Beryl said again. "And he's been to war himself, in South Africa. He said, when he told me, he said, We cannot know the truth. We should not judge. And he's right." She paused. "Kate, why didn't you tell me, if you knew?"
Her sister looked wretched. "And how could I do that, Beryl? I were ashamed to tell you." And her eyes spilled over with tears again. She did not try to hide them from her sister.
"None of that, now," Beryl said firmly. "He were a dear boy, our Archie. I could never think ill of him. Or of you," she added.
Mary and Henry
Mary couldn't sleep. She lay very still so as not to waken Henry by tossing and turning. He lay beside her, on his side, his back to her, and she could only stare at the slope of his shoulder, at the fluid contours of his back, and wonder that she had married such a man. How was it possible that twice in her life she had had such good fortune?
She'd never been one to cry in public. In fact, she tried very hard never to cry at all. Doing so was a sign of weakness, a surrender to emotion, an abdication of the stoicism ingrained by family and national tradition. But she could not contain her tears when she saw her son on the platform, telling all of Downton how William Mason had sacrificed his life to save his Papa. How clear his voice had been! And how naturally the narrative had fallen from his lips. Mary had not told him the story, not in such detail. She didn't like to dwell on it. It had come instead from Isobel, and fragments even from Daisy and Mr. Mason, pieced together by Henry, and then simplified for George's digestion.
Henry. Mary remembered that moment, little more than a year ago, when Henry had come back to Downton and Mary had let him into her heart. She had affected a cool demeanour while he bluntly admitted to be trembling all over with the aching love he had for her, and then she had had to confess that she felt the same. Henry was not stoic so much as relaxed, and yet that day he had been visibly agitated, so overcome by his own feelings and so uncertain of hers.
He had looked exactly the same earlier today, after the pageant, when she had burst from the schoolhouse, her cheeks still wet with tears, searching him out. And when she had found him, hand-in-hand with George, looking for her, she could not immediately face him. Instead, she swept George into her arms and buried her face in her son's hair as he chattered animatedly about his own performance. Mary had had to take several deep breaths before she could look at her husband, and when she did, she saw him standing there with that same expression of almost apprehensive anticipation, not knowing how she would react. Gently she set George on her feet and then, with a deliberate decorum, she went to Henry, leaned into him, wrapped her arms about him. She felt rather than saw his relief.
Had she really been such a grump about the pageant that he had feared her reaction so much? No, it wasn't that. He had been afraid that he had guessed wrong about Matthew, that she would be angry at him bringing all that emotion to the surface. How could that be? Before she'd had a moment to say a word about it, Tom and Sybbie had sidled up and Mary could tell that Tom had been in on it and that he was almost as anxious as Henry. And then he announced that he would take the children home and he'd strode off with the two of them, holding a hand of each, into the darkness, and Mary and Henry were alone.
Well, alone amidst the crowd of villagers pouring from the school and milling about, discussing the pageant or buttoning their coats.
"Let's get out of here," Mary said.
Who knows what Henry had anticipated, but he had the car at hand and they got into it and drove away, Mary glad to leave it all behind, for the tears had begun again.
"Darling?" Henry was watching the road and glancing over at her.
"Find a quiet place to pull over," Mary said peremptorily, her tone not at all in tune with her feelings. "I want to speak to you," she added more gently.
It was another moment before he found an appropriate place and pulled the car right off the shoulder onto a sloping patch of grass. And Mary found herself grateful for this, too. She tried not to think of Matthew's death, willing her mind elsewhere whenever she got into a car because cars were here to stay and she couldn't avoid them. But every once in a while, the vision of Matthew's car colliding with a truck on one of the narrow lanes caught her unawares and chilled her to the bone. Henry had got them well off the road.
He turned to her and she melted into him, tears flowing freely. And that, too, was a sign to her. Only with Matthew had she ever been so free with her emotions. At length, she looked up.
"Thank you, Henry. Thank you."
At last, the tension in his body eased and he smiled. "I hoped you wouldn't mind," he said.
"Mind? Oh, Henry, I was moved. Transported. With one brilliant gesture, you united the men I love and my son, our son. Matthew's, mine, and yours, too. Darling." She stared at him, her large dark eyes brimming with passion and gratitude. "I love you so much." And in that moment, Mary knew it to be true. She did love him and that gave her more joy even than George's performance had done.
She loved her husband.
And now, lying beside him in the darkness, Mary was overcome with a fullness in her heart that she had not known since those last months with Matthew when they had often pondered the endless capacity of their love for each other. Perhaps she had loved Henry all along. Perhaps it was only, as Carson had said, that it was unfair to compare Matthew at the end, after all that drama, with Henry at the beginning, in quieter circumstances. Oh! To know that she had not, after all, made a mistake, that she would and could and did love Henry!
And it took only an amateur theatrical to bring this on. No crisis necessary, Carson. She smiled and leaned into Henry, hugging his shoulder, and feeling content for the first time in a very long time.
Thomas
Thomas didn't know how he'd gotten through the rest of the day. It seemed to him as though some kind of atmospheric disturbance had set him apart from the people who surrounded him. He could hear them speaking, understood the words addressed to him, and even replied, but it all sounded as though it took place from a great distance. He wasn't numb. Would that he was! But no, his senses were not in the least dulled. He felt everything acutely. The pageant had shaken him and terrors he had long suppressed had been awakened by it. Then there were the powerful sensations of relief and gratitude that stemmed from being able to tell someone about it, at last. To speak of the horrors and the guilt. And to feel the apprehension leave his body as he was comforted by someone who knew, knew everything, and accepted. The brief moments when he had wept in Daniel's arms had given him something he had never known. And then, marring it all, the shock of discovery and, with it, the descent of danger, the shame of being ashamed. To have been confronted in that moment of all moments, when the soul that he had guarded so assiduously from just such exposure had been bared, by Mr. Carson. Thomas was sick about it.
Daniel had heard them first and reacted spontaneously, tensing with alarm, pulling away from him, and then standing guiltily there before the glare of affronted respectability. Thomas had involuntarily relinquished the arms that held him and then his own eyes had fallen on Mr. Carson and he understood. The reflexes of a lifetime overrode his feelings and like Daniel, he, too, stepped away. They were like truant school boys caught by the headmaster. And it was that feeling above all that made Thomas recoil in self-loathing.
Now he sat at his desk in the butler's pantry, the door closed determinedly against interruption. This was the last place he wanted to be. Although he had done much to make it his own over the past several months, Mr. Carson had inhabited it for too many years not to have left a permanent impression. He would always haunt the office. But Thomas didn't want to go to bed. Not yet. He wouldn't sleep, and if he could, then he knew he would only relive the nightmare of that afternoon. Nor did he want to go for a walk, for as vast as the Downton estate was, going outside carried with it the risk of Daniel, of seeing Daniel, of wanting to see Daniel. So he must stay here. For the first time at this desk, he lit a cigarette. Smoking always helped him clear his head.
So much had happened but, revealing that which was closest to his heart, he thought first of Daniel. In that moment, Mr. Carson had glared and then turned away. Thomas didn't have time to register Mrs. Carson's reaction, for she went immediately scrambling after her husband. And then there was Daniel.
Darkness was falling on them, but Thomas didn't need to see Daniel's face to gauge his reaction. His outline form was quite enough. Body language was often as vivid as words. Only a moment ago, Daniel's body had been comfortably contoured to Thomas's, an almost custom-made fit. And then he was all straight lines again, a rigid silhouette that prohibited, indeed denied any warmth at all.
"I must be going." Daniel's voice was devoid of feeling. He spoke as though to a stranger and he slipped away without another word.
Thomas had not been able to utter a word. The emotional turmoil of the day, layer upon layer of it – the cenotaph ceremony, the pageant, his confession, his relief, this exposure – stifled his tongue. More, they conspired to a stranglehold on his heart that swept him with defeatism. How carefully he had been cultivating his friendship with Daniel. How delicately he had drawn the other along, building trust one small step at a time, employing all the patience he could muster against a constant pressure to reach for all now. And see how successful he had been for, it appeared, trust must be a two-way street and today he had, in his confession, taken the ultimate step on his own part. Thomas had never confided his war-time guilt, knowing how truths which could never be taken back could ruin relationships forever. But now he saw that in opening himself to Daniel, by trusting Daniel, he had deepened their friendship, their relationship, in a way that guarding Daniel's confidences in him never could. Astonishingly, by making himself vulnerable, Thomas had immeasurably strengthened the bond between them. He had never had such an experience.
But it was all for naught. For Mr. Carson's good opinion meant something to Daniel that Thomas could not fathom and that was gone now. And Thomas knew there was not a damn thing that he could do about it. He could just cry.
Author's Note: As always, reviews make the creative juices flow more swiftly.
