Downton Abbey 1926
Christmas Special (Episode 12)
Chapter 5
Monday December 6, 1926
Mr. Barrow and Mrs. Carson
Before the ambulance arrived that morning, Dr. Clarkson had made one urgent request of Lady Grantham and that was to see Downton Abbey's butler. Thomas stood at rigid attention as the doctor imparted instructions, taking in the information but unable to remain oblivious to the currents of fear sweeping the gallery.
Master George. The infantile paralysis! Yes, the doctor impressed upon Thomas that the diagnosis was entirely preliminary and that it might not be that at all. But his instructions demanded that the Abbey be treated as a site of potential infection until further notice. And it was Thomas's responsibility to see that that was enforced.
The infantile paralysis.
"I'm confident you can manage this," Dr. Clarkson said, as an afterthought. "You've had practice."
So he had. Thomas had been the man-on-the-ground in charge of the Abbey when it had been a convalescent home in the last two years of the war. He, too, was confident of his capacity to manage what needed to be managed. But … a convalescent home was quite different from a quarantine, especially without an official declaration. He had been in no danger in the earlier situation. But now they are all at risk. This required a firm hand and a judicious manner.
Thomas caught up with Mrs. Carson as she was descending the stairs to the servants' floor. He had not passed a civil word with her in days unless related to work matters and then he had kept their exchanges as brief as possible. This was in consequence of his outburst in her sitting room a week earlier. She might have forgiven him that and even the things he said. Mrs. Carson had no blinders where Mr. Carson was concerned. But he could not forget the reason for it and to his mind she was tarred with her husband's transgressions and that put up a barrier between them. As they sat elbow to elbow at the staff dining table, this had made for a few awkward moments, but this didn't bother Thomas.
But the circumstances now demanded that even painful personal matters be set aside. Downton was facing a crisis that demanded all hands to the pump and Thomas felt the call of his position even above personal grievances.
"We've a task ahead of us," he said without preamble. "With a quarantine, even an unofficial one, we'll have to be finding accommodations for all the maids, and there'll be an uproar in the kitchen, of course. If you can let me know as soon as possible…."
"I'm sorry, Mr. Barrow. I'll not be managing the maids and the adjustments upstairs or down. I'm just going down to give Madge instructions."
"What?" Thomas stopped, one foot up, one down, in mid-stride.
Mrs. Carson stopped, too. "Lady Mary wants Master Stephen taken right out of the Abbey. I volunteered to take him to the cottage. I'll be gathering up his things and then Mr. Branson will take us away." She had the wherewithal to acknowledge his dismay with a nod. "I'm afraid I won't be at the Abbey at all for the next few days, not until this thing gets sorted."
He was stunned. Here was a calamity of major proportions and the butler's righthand support was withdrawing from action. "Bloody hell!"
She frowned at his words, as she always did at vulgarities. But then she tried to explain. "You saw Lady Mary, Mr. Barrow. You heard what Dr. Clarkson said. Lady Mary is about out of her mind with grief and worry. She's afraid her second child may become ill as well." She paused. "It may be irrational to send the baby away, but it gave her some small relief to know that Master Stephen would be out of things."
"Oh, I'm glad for her," Thomas said, almost indifferently, not that he wasn't concerned for Master George. Only he had a lot on his plate on top of his own worries on that score. "But what I'm bothered about is managing this staff without a firm hand on the maids. You know they'll all be in hysterics of their own."
"Madge will rise to the occasion," Mrs. Carson said.
"I doubt that very much," he said bitterly.
Great, he thought, watching her disappear into her office. We've got a contagious disease in the house and I've got to keep this lot in line. He squared his shoulders and headed for the servants' hall.
Tom and Edith
Tom had had a busy round that day. He'd taken Dr. Clarkson's warnings to heart: while the diagnosis had yet to be confirmed, they could not take any chances with anyone else's health. He'd kept Sybbie home from school and gone into York only to put a sign in the window of the shop suspending business until further notice and to collect the papers he would need to cancel expected deliveries. They might be days or weeks in isolation. Or there might be no restrictions at all. No one knew. There was some estate business to conduct as well, but he managed that from the estate office. He was worried about George, of course. And Mary. Oh, God, Mary! And all of them. They'd all spent time with the children over the weekend, even if George had kept to his bed above stairs.
The house was strangely silent when he came in. It was a huge house and there weren't that many people in it at the best of times, but it usually hummed with activity seen or unseen. But today it was silent. Barrow approached him in the Great Hall, almost startling him with his characteristically quiet approach.
"Would you like an early dinner, sir?"
They were all of them affected by what had happened to George, but before he answered, Tom gave a moment's consideration to Barrow. They were chums, Barrow and George. Barrow might affect the usual imperturbable manner one expected of the butler of Downton Abbey, but the man was clearly downcast. Who did he talk to about his woes? Tom wondered.
"Who else is about?"
"Lady Hexham is in the library with the children, sir. No one else is back from the hospital yet."
They exchanged a look at that.
"Any news?" Tom asked, dreading the answer.
"Lady Hexham had a phonecall an hour or so ago."
"Ah. I'll not trouble Mrs. Patmore for anything more than a few sandwiches, please, Barrow. And I'll have them in the library."
"Very good, sir."
Edith was sitting on the sofa by the fire, her arms wound about Marigold who sat placidly on her lap. Edith looked drained. Sybbie was sprawled on the floor, reading by firelight though there were lamps nearby. She got up to give her father a hug, but her face was solemn.
"Daddy, George went to the hospital and he's not come back yet."
"I know, darling." Tom looked over at Edith. "Any news?" What he meant to ask was Any news you can tell me in front of the children?
"Nothing to report," Edith said. "We're to follow isolation measures, but Dr. Clarkson won't declare a quarantine and nail a sign to the gate until they know for sure, which they don't. Yet."
"Will he really do that?"
"I doubt it. I remember people in and out of the Abbey without restriction during the Spanish flu. And it is only one case, not like New York in 1916. We wouldn't have even known there were cases in York but for Dr. Clarkson being unusually attentive to such things. Mama and Papa will be arriving shortly. They'll bring Isobel. Mary can't be dragged away and I don't blame her. Henry will stay with her."
"And your grandmother?"
"Rosamund has taken charge. Well, as she must. She's the only one left. We'll have to rely on Denker, after all, I suppose. I've been with the children most of the day." She read something in his expression. "They're fine. Everyone here is fine. It smells rather strongly of antiseptic on the gallery, though. Heaven couldn't be any cleaner."
"Well, let's hope heaven smells of fresh flowers, not antiseptic," Tom said, feeling a little lighter. "And no cries for help from the Carsons' cottage?"
Edith managed to smile at this. "I'm sure they'll get along famously with Stephen. The only trouble there will be Carson never letting Mrs. Carson hold Stephen. He's quite a hand with babies, is Carson."
"The least of our worries, I suppose." Tom flung himself down on the sofa opposite Edith. His eyes followed Sybbie, who was sprawled once more on the floor.
"I telephoned Bertie," Edith said. "It's selfish of me, perhaps, but … I've asked him to try to come down."
"It's not selfish to want to be with your family in hard times, Edith. We must all hang together in this."
"I would so like to be with Mary," Edith murmured. "Why is it that only in a crisis can we bury the petty antagonisms that separate us in our everyday lives?
Robert and Cora
They were exhausted. The only thing that kept them both going through that long day was the fact that the toll of events had been even greater on Mary, and they were not insensible either to the impact on Isobel.
Dickie had not come to Leeds to join Isobel in the vigil. He'd wanted to, but Dr. Clarkson had advised against it. Though much recovered from his bronchitis, he wasn't so robust as to tempt fate with exposure to another serious illness or to the myriad bugs that circulated in a hospital. The infantile paralysis, the doctor had informed Isobel, hit adults harder than children despite its name. Mary and Isobel gravitated to each other and, bytimes, Mary leaned into her husband as though to draw energy from him.
Seeing George offered them no respite at all for it was, as Dr. Clarkson had warned, deeply disturbing in so many ways. The glass window that kept them well away from the boy imposed an unnatural barrier between mother and child. All Mary wanted to do was to hold her son and she was prevented from doing so. But it was agony to see and hear him, for he was so clearly in pain, crying out almost constantly when conscious – from the headache, from the fire in his limbs, from the fever. To watch the carefully covered nurses attend to him and be unable to play a part was wrenching, but when Mary tried to plead with Dr. Clarkson to let her be among George's attendants, it was Isobel who drew her back.
"This isn't like your grandmother, Mary. And that was hard enough. Let the nurses do what they must."
When finally it was clear that there was nothing to be done, Robert, Cora, and Isobel made the difficult decision to go home for the evening. Mary refused to budge and Henry refused to leave her.
Isobel declined Cora's offer to escort her into Grantham House, and Robert and Cora watched as she made her way up the walk to the door where the lights were on and Dickie there to greet her. She moved like an old woman broken by grief.
On reaching Downton, it was necessary for Robert and Cora to brief Edith and Tom on the day's news and to update Barrow as well. Then Robert put a call in to Rosamund who had struggled through the day with the least information, always a trying position. And then, finally, Robert and Cora were alone.
Robert sat on the edge of the bed, his shoulders bowed under the strain. "How did this happen?" he asked, bewildered, echoing Mary's question from hours before. "I can hardly believe it." In truth, he couldn't believe it at all and kept thinking it a nightmare from which, he prayed, someone might soon awaken him.
Cora knelt on the bed at his side and stroked his face. She didn't answer the question he posed. He didn't want an answer, was only vocalizing his shock. Cora was not immune to the emotional tidal waves that had swept over them that day. George, their beloved grandson. Mary's child. The infantile paralysis.
There were many ramifications. The succession. Cora was not so bothered by this, for she believed innately that that sort of thing worked itself out in the end. But it must and always did prey on Robert's mind. Mama. What a castle in the air the ladies of Downton had built to encompass Mama's last weeks on earth! And now it was all dashed away in an instant, made a shambles by the intrusion of this calamity. Mary was out of the equation entirely and there was the possibility of contagion to consider. Could any of them now attend at the Dower House? They would work that out.
And then there was Robert. Gently, almost absently, Cora ran a hand through his hair. She knew she would have to pay particular attention to Robert through this crisis. Of course, Mary was a major concern and Cora must be there for her, too, for it was always the darkest hour for a parent when a child was in mortal peril. And her own heart was stricken for George. She knew well enough not to discount her own grief and the toll it would exact on her.
But Robert needed her desperately. It was remarkable to think how fearlessly he had gone off to war and met the trials of the battlefield. Not that he had never been afraid, but only that he seemed able to meet that kind of challenge with an uncommon courage. In wars, medals and commendations and mentions in dispatches attested to a man's performance under fire and Robert had his share of those. Catastrophe on the domestic front staggered him, however. She had seen as much in the great tribulations they had known – his father's death, the loss of their unborn child, Sybil, Matthew. The financial disaster. And the Spanish flu…. Cora knew that she must be especially attentive to Robert. It was in such times that he needed her most.
"You should see Mama tomorrow, Robert," she said.
He raised his head a little. "She knows. Rosamund told her."
"She will want to see you."
He shifted his gaze to look at her and his eyes were red-rimmed though he had not cried for some time. "How can I go to Mama like this? How can I add to her burden in this moment? It wouldn't do her any good at all to have me blubbering at her knee."
"I disagree," Cora said calmly. "It won't surprise Mama in the least that you are distressed. And your mother isn't carrying a burden, Robert. She's dying. Being a comfort to you will comfort her." She paused. "I don't know that it will be possible for us to be shuttling back and forth between your mother and the hospital, not with … if George has what Dr. Clarkson thinks he has."
"The infantile paralysis," Robert said, still in a tone of disbelief. "What are you saying?"
Cora did not answer right away. She was trying to think how to put this. Robert was, of course, in a state of agitation over George and in agonizing empathy for Mary. But he had a deep-seated aversion to all things related to human frailty and a visceral discomfort with the realities of physical needs. A hospital was no place for him, certainly not an endless vigil watching over a child in pain.
"I must be with Mary, Robert. She's facing the crisis of her life. But what is happening to Mama is every bit as momentous, if not unexpected. I'm only suggesting that we divide our attention for … a few days." George's affliction might well extend to months. They had no idea. But Mama's was a condition whose end was in sight.
"What can I do there?" Robert felt wretched and his tone reflected this.
"Do? There's nothing to do for your mother. But you can be there. That's all she wants, Robert. You and Rosamund by her side. Rosamund will manage anything that needs managing." She turned his face to hers. "And you and I, Robert, we've got to make time for us each day of this. We both know that the way through anything that's thrown at us is together. We learned that the hard way." It was an allusion to the falling out they had had in the wake of Sybil's death, a falling out that had almost broken them. The loss of Sybil had been no less excruciating once they had resolved their conflict, but somehow they were better able to face together what had been crippling when confronted separately.
"No matter what happens, Robert," Cora added firmly, "I am here, right by your side, ready to hold you in my arms and to be held by you."
He buried his face in her neck and she felt his warm tears. "What a mess I am. I should go all to pieces without you, my darling."
Isobel and Dickie
Ellen brought them tea and a bowl of soup on a tray for Isobel and they sat together in the sitting room with the lamps on but amidst a gloom that had nothing to do with the darkness that had descended on an early December evening.
Isobel did not touch the tea or the soup, though she had eaten nothing since breakfast. The news Robert had brought to the Dower House that morning had numbed her. If she'd been asked, she might have mused that she couldn't imagine ever wanting to eat again.
Dickie sat beside her, holding her hand, his countenance, his whole bearing an echo of the grief and apprehension that had settled on her with those fatal words: infantile paralysis.
"I've seen cases of it," Isobel said hollowly. "Children with twisted limbs. Men and women with arms or legs wasted away from muscular atrophy, as their healthy bodies grew around them. It's worst, of course, when the paralysis affects the chest muscles and impairs breathing. Then death by suffocation follows." She spoke in a calm, quiet voice as though reciting dispassionate facts to which she was indifferent.
"But George has experienced none of that," Dickie said hopefully. "You said there was pain, but no paralysis."
"Well, we might wait to see what tomorrow brings," Isobel said listlessly. "It unfolds progressively and usually rapidly. So there may be … worse … tidings, or he may be spared." She paused. "I saw him on Friday afternoon, you know. He had symptoms then."
Dickie gripped her hand more firmly. "You mustn't blame yourself for not raising the alarm," he said.
Isobel turned wide eyes on him. "Oh, I don't. It's devilishly tricky to diagnose and is frequently missed, even in a state of heightened awareness. That Dr. Clarkson discerned it at all is much to his credit. He's made a special study, you see. It may … it may make a difference with George that it was identified so early, although it may also be that it will have to run its course regardless."
"Then Dr. Clarkson is to be commended."
"He was so very kind to Mary today." Isobel frowned a little and looked to him in the manner of a bewildered child. "I don't know that I can bear it, Dickie, if something happens to George. I've become reconciled to Cousin Violet. It's hard, but neither unnatural nor unexpected. But George, after Matthew," She shook her head slowly. "I think this might be one loss too many."
There was nothing he could do, either for George or for Isobel, other than to hold her tightly and murmur, "Then we must pray that nothing does happen, my dear."
Anna and John
Anna and John stood in the doorway of their son's room, peering into the darkness and listening hard.
"What are the symptoms? Do we know what the symptoms are?"
Anna groped for John's hand and held it fast. "We don't know what it is yet," she reminded him, "let alone what the symptoms are."
"Dr. Clarkson said it was the infantile paralysis."
There was panic in John's voice. Anna recognized it because she felt it surging through her own chest, catching in her throat, blocking all rational thought from her mind. Those dread words – infantile paralysis – were pounding in her brain, too. But if John, her rock, was panicking, then she must not allow herself to do so. She took a deep breath. "He said it might be, but they couldn't be certain until they'd done the tests. He could be wrong. He's been wrong before."
"Rarely. The tests are just for confirmation. Dr. Clarkson knows what he's about." He pulled his hand away from Anna and wiped his palms on his trousers. They were slick with nervous perspiration. "Anna." His voice was so low that only the silence of their house allowed Anna to hear him. "I've been on battlefields where bullets and artillery shells were flying all around and men were dying left and right of me. I've stood in a courtroom and been sentenced to death. But I've never been as frightened as I am right now, for our son's life."
She found his hand again. Sweaty or not, she wanted to feel his touch, as much for her own comfort as his. "Imagine how Lady Mary and Mr. Talbot are feeling."
"I can't. And I don't want to. I just want my son, our sons, our children to be safe and healthy." He sighed and it was almost a sob. "The infantile paralysis, Anna."
For a long moment, they stood in silence.
"What are we going to do tomorrow? About Robbie?"
Anna had been thinking of this, too. "They've been scrubbing out the nurseries all day. And they've moved the children altogether. Miss Sybbie's going to stay home from school for a few weeks, probably through Christmas now, for the peace of mind of everyone in the village."
"But they all might be infected already, the children," John said heatedly. "Nanny and her assistants have been there, with the children all day. Nanny was caring for George all week, breathing the same air…."
"Robbie has, too," Anna said faintly. "If there was anything to be exposed to, he's already been. But," she added, "he doesn't play with the older children."
"Are you saying we should take him back there?"
Anna shook her head. "I don't know, John. But what choice do we have? Do you think anyone in the village would keep Robbie, knowing he's been up at the Abbey? I could stay home with him. That would be the best thing. But …." She turned to him.
"We've our baby to think about, too," he said firmly, fiercely. "They'll understand that at the Abbey. Lady Mary certainly would. She's sent her own child away."
"Not exactly away. Just with the Carsons. Miss Sybbie and Miss Marigold are still there. Robbie will be all right." If she spoke with confidence, she might feel it also.
"What about you? With Lady Mary at the hospital, right there with Master George. I'm worried about you and the baby."
She turned to him. "I think we should carry on as usual. Master George is only one case. We haven't even read about it in the newspapers, so it's not everywhere. Everything went on just the same with the Spanish flu and people were dropping all over with that." He was not convinced, she knew could tell that. "Are you going to abandon His Lordship, then?"
"I'm not abandoning anyone," John snapped, but that seemed to quell his objections.
"I wonder what they're going to do about the Dowager," Anna said. "As if there wasn't enough already going on."
Reluctantly, they withdrew from Robbie's room and retired to their own. In silence, they got ready for bed. Then Anna held her hand out to her husband. "We must pray for Master George," she said, and there was a shakiness in her voice now. "If it's … he may be crippled for life. If he lives."
