April 1945
Her parents were the heart of Downton Abbey. She did not believe it could be replaced or replicated. Kate had seen her other siblings finding love, apart from Andy, he was hardly the type to be settling down right now, being only nineteen, and what he had been through with the war. It was clear he had to deal with some things. Not everyone can just jump right back into the life before. She had always thought that she wouldn't marry again.
Almost a year after Jack's death, she started nursing an old childhood friend of theirs. The Earl Wroughton, Roy Raynor. He had always had a thing for her, according to her siblings, that he was in love with her. Kate just didn't see it and thought they were having her on. She wouldn't say that Roy was strikingly handsome, while Jack had been average in looks. Jack had been a head shorter than her and had dark hair. Roy was tall and had blonde hair and grey-blue eyes.
She had gotten a letter from Roy's brother, Ivo, that he had been seriously wounded.
Matthew saw that whatever was in the letter was a bit distressing to his daughter. "What you've got there Katie girl? Is everything alright?"
"It's from Ivo Raynor, Lord Wroughton's brother. He's been wounded. He's in hospital in London. Roy. Ivo's thinking of trying to have him moved to Downton to further convalesce, once it's safe to move him."
"It must be very serious then." Her mother said.
"Of course we'll have him." Her father interrupted. "You did play together as children. This is as much his home as it is to any of us. I'd want him to be able to have the best comfort available."
"Thank you, Papa." Kate got up to kiss him on the cheek.
Once she arrived at the hospital, it was almost completely packed with soldiers, arriving in the hundreds, she was told. The Matron thought she wanted to volunteer as a nurse. She considered it. It would give her something useful to do.
"I'm actually here to see a friend. Lord Wroughton."
"Yes, this way."
She followed her through the wards.
"What happened to him? I heard it was severe."
"Shrapnel to both legs. He might be a little groggy. Shot him up with a lot of morphine."
Is it really that bad?
"He's just gotten out of surgery." Matron continued, having must seen her worried expression. "His second. He had one at the field hospital. Messed up one of his legs pretty bad. If it gets infected, we'll have to amputate."
Kate didn't ask if she meant one or both. She didn't want to know at the moment. It would get in the way of cheering him up.
They approached a bed at the end of the room, in the corner, directly below a window.
It didn't even look like him. Of course it wouldn't. The last time she had seen him was a year ago, before he left for training, the night of her coming out party. His head was wrapped in bandages, a little bit of blood had seeped through at his right temple. And there was a nasty cut that ran down his face, almost to his jawline. It would leave a white raised scar, and hair would scarcely grow back there. His left leg was incased in plaster, while the other was kept raised, the cloth of his pajama's cut away so it wouldn't touch the skin. It was yet to be bandaged. The flesh had been sewn and stapled back together like some Frankenstein's monster. The way it was patched she could tell a lot of muscle and tissue had been blown away. She fought the urge to cry. She told herself to pull herself together. She was a nurse for goodness sake. But it was different when it was somebody you knew.
"We're running behind on rolling bandages. We're so understaffed, the nurses are needed in the wards. But it will need to be covered and soon as possible to avoid infection."
"I'll do it." She volunteered. Matron looked at her suspiciously. A moment ago, the poor girl had looked about to faint, then again, she said that she knew the man.
"I trained as a nurse in Ripon." Kate added. "I helped with the soldiers there."
Matron called over a nursing sister to help her. The sister came back with the materials, handing them to Kate.
She wore a brave face as she went over to him, seeing that he was awake. Then she stopped. He was just staring up at the ceiling.
Was it just the shock due to the surgery? The sister suggested as such.
He remained quiet as she dressed the wound. Kate tried not to make it too constricting as not to hurt him. He wouldn't feel pain now but coming off of the morphine, that would hurt more than the Dickens.
Then, as if he suddenly sensed her, becoming aware of her presence, he said her name, "Katie."
"I just go by Kate these days."
"How good..." His brow pulled down as he frowned. There were more lines there than she had remembered. He was older. He was, twenty-nine, thirty? He looked puzzled, his speech a little slurred. It seemed to take him an age to find the words. The morphine was definitely working. "ell me. They've taken my leg. I know...they...'ave."
She kept herself from being shocked, her nurse training finally kicking in. "No. They haven't."
"Tell me...the truth. I can take it."
"They didn't take your leg. Look." She urged him. He hesitated, fearing to. After a second he did. "See. Both legs."
He gave a sigh.
"How good..." He said again. "too see you...am sorry about Jack."
"I'm coping. Life must go on."
"Yes. Especially..."
She felt the grip of his hand loosening as he drifted off to sleep. She'd stay till he woke again.
She would often visit him. They'd just talk and play card games and chess, when he didn't want to talk. She would read to him, and the paper, though sometimes when it had to do with the war, he'd pretend to be asleep.
The next month, the war was announced over. She had run through the ward, almost scolded by matron, paper in hand. Like always he tried to ignore it. But when she repeated, "it's over. It's actually over!" His eyes had snapped open, unbelieving.
"It really is, Roy!" She held it out to him but he wouldn't take it.
His eyes began to water and he started to sob, his body shaking.
"Oh, Roy, don't cry." She sat on the bed and put her arms around him.
"It's just...I'm having a hard time believing it. You wouldn't lie..."
"No. I wouldn't."
"I believe that." He smiled and laughed. It was good that he was. "But I find it hard to rejoice."
"Yes. A lot must feel that way." He was right. As she answered him, the euphoria was already starting to fall away. The wounded were still wounded. The dead were still dead, and her brother was still missing.
"It's wonderful news of course it is. But look at me, and all the other poor chaps. Well, at least there won't be any more dead or wounded."
"No. No, of course there won't." Not only him, but her brother, and so many others would bare the reminder of it.
Roy's leg still constantly caused him pain. He joked about how he'd have rather had his leg amputated rather than dealing with the pain. But she knew that he was actually terrified of the idea. And rightly so. Amputation was drastic and risky even with today's standards and anti-biotics.
When she came back to visit him, the weekend before they'd be moving him to Downton, they put him on something else to ease his discomfort. It had made him act more strange and out of it.
"Katie...Katie..." He'd say her name and squeeze her hand. She thought he wanted her to do something for him and he was too tired or it was too hard for him to think of the words.
"Yes?"
"So glad...it's wrong."
"What's wrong?"
"Thinking about you a lot. I'm not...'s not proper...I am.. when I first saw you..." His eyelids were dropping. "Everything...I loved about you..."
"You're sick." She got a wash cloth to wipe his forehead. He was asleep. Or so she thought.
He was sick. He had spiked a fever in the middle of the night. They moved him so they could keep a closer eye on him, in case the fever turned out to be something more.
Her heart almost stopped, skipping an earth shattering beat, when she didn't see him in his bed when she came the next morning. She felt as though someone was squeezing her throat, that she barley seemed able to get the words out, stumbling over her them, anxiously. "Lord Wroughton..when...when did it happen? When did he die?"
"Die?" The nurse looked frightened as a mouse to match her mousey features, "Oh, no. He's not dead. He's just been moved. The doctor wanted to go over what was best for his leg. Got a fever in the night, he did. We don't know if it's septic or just a normal fever. Unpredictable these things. So he's been moved to keep an eye on."
"Where...?"
"He's in ward D."
She was already running. He looked so pale and weak. She felt a hand on her arm. Sister Raylan.
"I think you should prepare yourself. I'm sorry. He means a lot to you, doesn't he?"
"We...we're just friends."
The next day he was much better. The fever had broken. Though he was still a little weak. They were playing a game of chess.
"What I said the other day, I was rather quite out of it, what ever I said, I was probably talking nonsense. Can't remember."
"Yes." She was utterly hurt but for the life of her she didn't understand why. He loves me as a friend. That was all he had meant in his fevered state. Yes, that had to be it. If he remembered any of it at all, there was no need for him to feel embarrassed. She wanted to tell him that but devised against it. She didn't want to ruin it, what ever this was they had, by making things more complicated.
It's not like she was in love with him. The way he said her name made her insides quiver with something warm and scary. She played it off.
Six months after his recovery, he asked her to marry him. They were having a party at Downton, celebrating George's return (he had spend those six months in a hospital, his injuries to his right leg severe that they had to amputate it. He had been found in a German prisoner of war camp that had been liberated. They had gotten the news on the day her sister Carrie had given birth) and with the few soldiers that remained. Their big send off before the Abby returned to a private house again.
He walked outside with her, using his crutches.
"You're the only one I can marry. It wouldn't only be suitable but people would expect it. And in time, I hope we can get to know each other again and come to love one another. I've always admired you and we are friends. What best way to start?"
She was considering his proposal, telling him that she'd think about it. In truth, it wasn't that she didn't want to, or that she wanted to wait for something better to come along, (she thought that maybe she could fall in love with him in time) she didn't want to let go of Jack's name yet, although, she never really had known him. She voiced her worry and concern to her mother.
"You're afraid of your feelings for him."
"I know it will be a big change. The challenges..."
Not just coming from same backgrounds (she had wanted something different) and having different interests. There was an oddness about Roy but it was a comfortable oddness, it made it easy to be around him. She supposed most of it was the war. And then there was his injury. It was as hard on him, almost as it had been for George. But Roy still had his leg. That was the other thing. She appeared to be coping with it, not letting it hinder him, but she just didn't now. If it was a play, all just for her. She did feel something for him.
One day when she saw him sitting in the garden, observing the way the sunlight shown through his hair, she suddenly thought, he really wasn't that bad looking.
From that moment, she was in love.
But now, while she was sitting in the drawing room with her mother, she was having second thoughts. Maybe it had been just that, just the trick of the light, the war having ended, emotions still running high. Things had seemed to start dwindling down. Being his care giver. Rose colored glasses, one of the other nurses had called it.
"Don't you think it's just the war?" She had asked him. "Taking care of you. Being dependent on one another."
"It brought us closer together. It doesn't necessarily mean a bad thing."
"Of course we'd move to his estate." She was telling her mother. "But I don't feel like I could ever leave here or give up my nursing. He feels that I should have to, as my duty as a countess. If I truly love him, I would follow him wouldn't I?" She asked her mother.
"I can't answer that for you. Falling in love is a risk that only you can decide when you want to take it."
He said he'd wait for her, give her a little bit more time for Jack. He understood.
"Your mother tells me you've been drinking." Andy let out a sigh of relief as his father said the words, that he didn't have to confess to his father. "You mind telling me why. Why you would?"
"It's just grabbing some drinks with a few mates, for some fun."
"There's nothing fun about it. When you come in, falling over drunk."
"I wasn't...I was hung over."
"And that makes it any better? My father came back from the war, took to drink."
"Wasn't he a doctor?"
"Doctor, soldier, stretcher bearer, ambulance driver, they all saw what we saw."
"It's for the nightmares. It helps me sleep."
"If it's more than that."
"It's not."
"You can tell me."
"That's all it is."
"I'll understand."
"No, you won't! Just because we were both soldiers, not all our experiences were the same. There are things we can't speak of. I'll stop drinking. It doesn't make me feel that great anyway. It just makes things worse."
Matthew came into the sitting room, where George spend most of his evenings. He no longer occupied it. He and Olivia had their own room.
"How are you doing?"
"I'm all nerves as any first time father would be." First time father, sounded false to him. All those times he had lain with Sophia. He had to have been with her for months. Before the Germans had found them, the had begun to suspect that she was with child. When they had been found, she had told him to keep running and not look. That was when he had heard the two shots. Germans rarely wasted their bullets for warning shots, didn't they? He'd rather not know and believe they were out there somewhere, safe.
"When you were born, the first moment I held you, I fell in love. I still love you."
"Dad!" He felt embarrassed. It wasn't something that was really said. Their mother had never said it.
"You're my first born. The first I held. There were no words to describe what I felt other than the joy, that I could allow myself to be happy again. I hope you get to experience that."
"I want to be a good father. But no one could replace you."
"I'm sorry if I ever seemed cold to you."
"You never were. But sometimes, you seemed far away. Did you ever still have nightmares, during this one?"
"Not nearly for twenty years. I had a dream that you were lost, that you were hurt. Your mother didn't believe me. When you were missing. They almost had given up hope. I would have never. I would have looked for you for the rest of my life."
"I know you would have. But I'm here now. I'm not going anywhere. Olivia and I want to make our home here at Downton and raise our children at the Abbey. If you'll allow it."
"Of course! This will all be yours one day."
"One Day. Hopefully not for another twenty years. You're going to be a grandfather again! And if I had any say in it, you'd be a great-grandfather someday."
"I hope not!"
"You didn't come in here to just ask how I was? It's about Andy, isn't it?"
"I'm worried about him. He's taken to drink."
"You're always worried about him." He felt a bit of jealousy but snapped himself out of it. He was twenty-four, almost twenty-five. "He's still having nightmares. It's his way of coping. I'll give him a talking to." George took a moment, wondering what to say next. "I barely have any. I mostly dream about her. Isn't it wrong? I should be dreaming about my wife."
"No. Of course not. You were dreaming of simpler times while going through all that."
George nodded. He knows his struggles were nowhere near his father's but if he could share his experiences maybe it could help. "Last night I had a dream, well it was more of a memory really, of the day we were captured. The convoy ahead of us caught fire. I was searching for people to save." There were people screaming, dying around him. One man was holding his intestines like he was cradling an infant. "There was a man that was trapped. Have you ever seen a man being burned alive?"
Matthew shook his head. "No. After they were dead." George was thankful that his father had been spared that horror. But he had not escaped the horror of having to relive the memories, being trapped in them.
"I know it wasn't just the nightmares for you. There is also something I remembered recently, I was about four I think, we were playing and you shouted for me to get down, and pulled me under the table. I thought it was a game."
"You were four years old. You didn't know. How could you have known?" That day had almost been as frightening as when Jo had witnessed on of his silent episodes. He hadn't remembered how he had gotten under the table. He had crawled out from under it, over to the sofa. It took a long time to pull himself up, but he finally had managed, his energy spent.
"I still could have done something."
He doesn't remember that he had. He had comforted him as a parent would a child having a nightmare. It had been hamulating for him, but it had been his son that had brought him back from the brink, being surrounded by his children, as they had all curled up next to him on the bed. He missed those days. Perhaps someday with the grandchildren. Also that day had been a painstaking reminder; it would always be there, lurking in the background.
"It doesn't go away. Maybe for a time, months, years. Then you hear a balloon pop at a kid's birthday party and it all comes back."
"Oh God, dad. I'm so sorry. Andy's birthday. You were sick. It was also Beth's." A year after their baby sister had died, he had been lied up for a bit. Stillborn. Born without taking a breath. He was told when he was old enough to understand. His father had been the only one that had seen her. He had taken charge, had been the energetic and strong head figure, as he always had been. He remembered seeing him lying in bed, his strangely still form but couldn't see his face. His mother had blocked his view, between the bed and the doorway. He put the picture together in his adult mind, what expression he must have had. After they had finished with their 'game' his father had crawled out from the table and managed to make it onto the sofa (even as a young child it had been hard to watch him, to refuse help) he had had this blank vacant stare. That had been what his mother had been trying to shield him from that day.
"It was a combination of things."
Sensing the anxiousness coming of his father, he changes the subject. "I'll talk to him."
Andy was surprisingly a cautious driver after he had a few drinks, Cindy discovered as she watched the stretch of road before them. She was one of his many weekly girlfriends, but he had kept her around longer than most. He drove slowly, reducing his speed round every curb.
"I don't understand how everyone can come back from the war and just sit there with a gin and tonic, playing bridge. Playing house." It's like the whole world's gone to sleep. If I was born five years earlier, I could have joined the war effort, seen the world."
"War isn't an adventure, Cind. It was hell. People died."
"I'm sorry. You and your friends talk about it like it was."
"It helps us cope."
They pulled into the circle drive of Downton.
His mother was in the foyer as if she was waiting for him. He had come in before Cindy, not opening the car door for her, like she'd been expecting. She was probably taking a few seconds to pout.
"Mother, I'm having a guest for dinner."
"That's lovely." Her eyes sparked with interest as a woman with auburn hair walked in. The other feature Mary noticed, other than the pale, porcelain skin, just like hers but with that youthful hue. She had very long legs and green eyes. She could definitely see why this woman would appeal to him. Hopefully she could be the one.
"Cindy Jenkins." She introduced herself. There was a hint of a Scottish accent.
"I'll have Morrison set another placing for you."
Dinner was rather quiet except for Cindy who kept talking rapidly about everything and nothing. Andy kept his head down, looking at his plate, glancing up every so often. Matthew didn't take his eyes of his son, who seemed to be avoiding any eye contact. He did catch a sliver. Were his eyes bloodshot?
Suddenly Andy shouted, "Shut up! Get out. Just get out! If you don't have anything interesting to say, just shut that hole in your face!"
"What do you suppose that was that about?" Jo leaned in next to her older brother, their eyes all on Andy as he stormed out, all except Cindy who sat frozen. Hers held a look of bewilderment and fright.
George simply shrugged, not looking at his sister. He didn't want to worry her or bring her into this. He had told dad that he would talk to him. " Don't know. It was no worse than with Sophie."
Apologies were made to poor Miss Jenkins by their parents. Mary offered to call her a cab.
As it had arrived, Jo was thinking long and hard. Something wasn't right. The way Miss Jenkins had been talking at dinner, like she normally didn't talk aimlessly. She seemed rather smart. Maybe she was afraid to voice her true opinions. She wasn't like any other women, their heads full of sawdust. No, Miss Jenkins was anything but that.
She was snapped out of her thoughts as the car door opened. Before Cindy could get in, Jo called to her, 'wait!"
"Look, it's not him. Really. My dad used to drink a lot. Ever since my mother died, he blames me. I can't go through that again. I'm sorry." She hurriedly got into the cab and it drove away.
Jo found him at the stone gazebo, drinking another beer. The structure had always been there, even when their mother had been a small girl. Generations of Crawley children must have played here, running around, hiding behind the pillars.
"Most girls are ridiculous, nothing in their heads but fluff, with no interest in the way the world works than a rabbit has being pulled out of magicians hat does. No," He said solemnly, almost to himself, "No girls for me."
"I don't think she's like that at all." She was sort of hoping that they would think things through and try to work things out. That's what she gets for trying to play matchmaker, and she hadn't even planned on being one. She had thought maybe they could do good in each other lives. But the truth was, Cindy was going through a lot as well, growing up with an alcoholic father, tonight was proof of that, that she couldn't let herself get dragged into that again. Jo didn't see her brother as one. She'd only seen him drink the occasional drink. Shows how much that woman knew. She probably would have ended up bailing on him anyway, in the end, if they were to stay together, have a family. It would have been worse. Maybe it was for the best, before they really started something. She felt somewhat relieved, especially when her brother said,
"I've got other plans." That meant he was moving forward with his life.
I did it again, drank way too much last night. Deserve it. I feel she should be with someone else, someone who doesn't have this problem. This is how I always feel after I drink. But why do I keep doing it? I'm afraid of hurting someone or myself.
To escape and when you do that frequently, you forget that the real world is actually pretty great! You also kind of forget how to just be in the real world without the assistance of alcohol.
It's a very liberating feeling! I was tired of myself. I wanted to see if I could reawaken, not that person I used to be, but what I felt, over there, that rush, living on the edge. I want to be that person.
I also keep doing it because I keep telling myself that this time I'll keep control and a few drinks won't hurt. But once I have a few I keep telling myself one more won't hurt. Eventually it got to the point where I would keep drinking even though I knew I would regret it.
He could quit anytime he wanted to, if he wanted a family someday, he would have to. If he was out getting a drink every night he wouldn't be there for his wife and kids. He'd waste so much time. But first, he wanted to go back to school, maybe become a lawyer like his father.
It was embarrassing, having his brother call him out on it. His older brother showed genuine concern but when Andy put a wedge between them, he grew frustrated.
"This isn't about alcohol. This is about you feeling superior and entitled to something."
"Oh, yes, this all has to do with your title that I could never have been less interested in." He would only have taken it if George hadn't wanted it. For his father. He confronted him calmly later that evening. He knew that he had meant well, though he felt like a small child being spanked on the wrist. A puppy with it's tail between it's legs.
"You didn't have to send him on me."
"He offered to talk to you. You won't talk to anyone else."
"Was this how it was for you?" He had never spoken to mother a lot about the war. He hardly expected him to tell him about it now so he wasn't surprised when his father changed the course of the conversation, that Andy was trying to distract from.
"I stayed away from drinking, apart from occasionally. I even refused any drugs for the pain."
"You smoked a lot. Smoking is just a much a vice as any." A slight tension was building between them.
"Alcohol convinces us of things that aren't true. It tells us we are worthless, unworthy of the love of others. Alcohol lies. I saw what it did to my father, but I also saw him over come it and rebuild his life before he destroyed it. You can choose whether you allow those lies into your life every day. But first, you must equip yourself with the right tools. Take it one day at a time. It will take some planning. And it will be a lot of hard work. You can make a list."
Andy nearly laughed, half scoffed at the idea. "About what?"
"Anything. That's what I did."
"Did it help?"
"Mmm." His father replied with a nod. "It somewhat helped me come to terms with the circumstances I would have to live with after my injury."
He wanted to ask what he had done to cope with the shell shock. He never spoke of that either. Had what he done, not just what he seen maybe had resulted in it. His father would never tell him those things. He would shut him down the moment he'd ask. This was some dark secret part of his father's life, a secret part of him, that he would never know. "I try to stop but either way, I still feel terrible."
"Don't beat yourself up about it. You will only start that awful spiral. Next time you are tempted just remind yourself that you don't want to feel awful. And do something that makes you feel good. Let go of who you think you're supposed to be and embrace who you are."
"Did You?" He hadn't meant for it to come out a bit condensing.
" I accepted."
"Did you accept what it made you? Who you are now?"
"I am a husband, father, and grandfather, that I am grateful for."
To Andy it sounded like a rehearsed statement. "I mean, do you know who you are, because of it?"
Matthew had to stop his mind in its tracks and really think. He had never really asked himself that question. A soldier, a murderer. But that wasn't the question. Who was he really, at the core?
"I felt completely disconnected from who I had been before and who I had never had the chance to be because of it. I grieved the husband, the father, he might have become. I resented what it had taken from me. What I had taken from so many others." He paused, then continued on. "Then, one day I noticed that while I wasn't who I was, or could have been, there were some good things about who I had become. In fact, there seemed to be a self that was wanting to come out but I didn't know how to let him become who he wanted to be. After the fog clears, you'll suddenly realise you have no idea who you are anymore. You cannot go back to who you used to be. I spent a long time trying to go back; when that failed, I tried to imitate who I had been."
"You talk as if you were two different people."
"In a way I was, still am. You lose who you are and you ask yourself, is there any part of you that you can bring back? If you can remember who you used to be then you can identify what you valued back then and see how that aligns with what you value now. It leaves in its wake many losses; but you also gain something." He smiled at his son. "I might not have been an easy man to love at times but I have my flaws. I'm a man who will fight for my faith, what is right and for my family."
It wasn't quite what he was expecting. He didn't know exactly what his father was talking about and could hardly say he understood it all. He was inspired that he had the courage to talk about it, what the invisible battles in his mind, and the real physical battles of what had done to him. Even though his father would not disclose what he had seen or done, one could only imagine. But Andy didn't need to. He had been through war, not his father's war but they had all done things, just the same or no worse.
"Wouldn't that have been the man you'd have become anyway?"
"No. According to your mother, I always tended to see things in black and white." He smiled again and they both laughed. "You see, not everything is lost. I have many hopes for you, my son." He clasped his son's hand. "You're still young, you will find who you're supposed to be."
Not knowing what to say, he simply squeezed his father's shoulder, putting all his love behind it. He truly was a remarkable man. The world would weep when he was gone.