I LOVED HER FIRST

Chapter 1 First Sight

It was love at first sight. That's what he's told himself over the years and how he puts it when he tells Mrs. Hughes, the only person in whom he ever confides it. But it's not quite true.

A Child Born

Mary Josephine Crawley. She was born in the small hours of a bitterly cold February night, inconveniencing everyone from her grandparents who waited up in the library, to the doctor who came to the birthing room exhausted from treating an outbreak of fever, to the Abbey staff who gathered below stairs, as anxious as the family for the news. Of those who waited through the frigid night only her father was unaffected by time of day or the weather. Robert Crawley was too consumed with the apprehensions of any man in those nerve-wracking hours of helplessness to notice or care about such extraneous details.

The birth of a first child was a momentous event in the history of any of the great landed families for much rode on it. In the servants' hall, no less than in the library upstairs, all were curious about the capacity of the young Viscount's even younger American wife to do her duty. Even Mr. Finch was caught up in the drama and in consequence took an uncharacteristically broad view of the whole situation, turning a blind eye to the pool some of the footmen started on the child's sex, weight, and time of birth. Charles Carson, now the senior footman of six, was more overtly disapproving of the younger men's distraction, for his dancehall days had taught him to beware gambling, but he was no less absorbed in the tensions of the moment. It was not every day that an heir was born.

The news of the child's birth sent a palpable wave of relief over the lot of them, followed by another of good cheer and warm words for the mother and her healthy baby.

"Bless them both," declared the cook, Mrs. Yardley. She was a sharp-tongued woman most of the time, but she'd known too many young women - and their children - to die in childbirth ever to be anything but grateful for the survival of both.

There were murmurings of agreement as the staff dispersed to their beds, with only a few hours' sleep ahead for the scullery maids who would be up before dawn. One of them would be lucky enough to be laying the fire in the newly-established nursery on the gallery and so the first to set eyes on the latest addition to the Crawley family.

Though expressions of relief and gratitude were offered in abundance, there was yet a limit to the exuberance of the staff's reaction. All was not quite as joyous as it might have been for the child was, after all, a girl. And whatever blessings she might bring down on her family in future years, she could not inherit the estate and the title. The succession was still not secure. The Viscount and his wife would have to try again.

Charles was as glad of the news as the rest. He and Viscount Crawley had long been familiars, having grown up in near proximity on the estate. They had become closer in the past year during a six-month stint in which Charles had served as the Viscount's valet. Such an association naturally fostered a greater personal amity between them. It was only ever a temporary assignment, part of some grand plan hatched between His Lordship and Mr. Finch, a plan that had also sent Chares to France for ten months the year before that for training in the wine industry. He was aware now, though neither men had made it explicit, that he was being groomed for a post as butler. Their confidence in him was gratifying, if a little precipitous. As confident as he was in his skills, he knew no other footman who had advanced so quickly.

Charles distinctly remembered from his own childhood the birth of Robert Arthur Joseph the Viscount Crawley and the joy that event that evoked on the estate and in the village, prompting celebrations to mark the birth of an heir. There had been fireworks. But he knew that as warmly as Robert Crawley would welcome his first child, there must be some element of disappointment. It was the first duty of the heir - and his wife - to produce an heir in their turn. The Crawleys would love their child, cherish the little girl safely born to them, but... Charles's thoughts drifted to His Lordship and Her Ladyship, who might be a little less than elated by the fact that their eldest grandchild was a girl. The pressure for an heir was so great.

Charles's attachment to the family heightened his sensitivity to this functional element of the birth. And so, although he was pleased for her parents, he was not initially moved by the sight of the little girl. She was a baby and he knew little enough of them, his only sibling having died when he himself was a small child. His first glimpses of Miss Mary - swaddled tightly and firmly held in nanny's experienced arms or, less confidently and more rarely, in the arms of her young mother - elicited from him only polite smiles and failed to provide any portent of things to come.

If it had been put to him in those first few weeks that this wisp of a being would mend his heart and teach him to love again, he would have dismissed the notion as a preposterous one. And he would have been quite wrong.

A Heart Touched

The bell rang for the library. The three junior footmen gathered at the foot of the table were enjoying a rare moment of calm and the bell startled them. They looked at each other and then at the senior footman who sat by himself farther along. Without waiting for a direction from him, all three leaped to their feet.

Charles waved them down and went himself. The task upstairs was probably more appropriate to one of them, but they'd spent every spare moment of the past week polishing the endless array of silver dishes and utensils that would be employed on the great occasion of the baby's upcoming baptism, and they were tired. Mr. Finch had impressed upon him that effective leadership included mucking in every once in a while. He was attentive to such lessons.

As he climbed the stairs he wondered why they had rung at all. It was the 'family hour' above stairs, that single hour of the day when the child was brought down from the nursery all starched and polished to spend time with her parents. And grandparents. It was a topic of some discreet discussion downstairs, largely between the housekeeper and the cook whom Mr. Finch did not often cross, about the advisability of the Viscount and his wife living at Downton Abbey instead of taking up residence at one of the smaller houses on the estate or in the village, such as Crawley House. The received wisdom suggested that it was never good for a couple to live in such close proximity to the parents of either, no matter how big the house. A mixed marriage - between a British aristocrat and an American nouvelle riche - was already complicated. But the Viscount had insisted. He didn't want to leave his home. This only contributed to speculation over the nature of the marriage, which was largely seen - if rarely openly commented upon - as a union of status and wealth, rather than love.

Charles pushed thoughts of that kind from his mind. Although he knew more than most about the subject, his term as valet having fallen during a crucial moment of the Viscount's marital negotiations, he believed it was his duty to forget such delicate details. He sought a mental distraction and found it momentarily in the contemplation of this concept of the 'family hour.' It was the peculiar practice of the aristocracy, this distancing from their own children, leaving their upbringing largely in the hands of a stranger. The children of commoners grew up under their parents' feet, attending the local parish school, and following, more often than not, in their parents' vocational footsteps. Charles's own path had diverged from this a little, in terms of both education and life's work, but he had spent a lot of time with his parents.

So far as Charles could tell, from conversations overheard and observations made, Lord Grantham was benignly indifferent to this addition to the family. It was doubtful whether he would have been any more demonstrably interested had the child been a boy, at least at this point. His Lordship appeared to adhere to the maxim that children were to be neither seen nor heard until they were old enough to learn to ride. Her Ladyship showed more interest, but this manifested itself more in kind words than any hands-on involvement. And she frowned just a little at the vocal enthusiasm of her daughter-in-law who, she had murmured to her husband, had not yet learned to control her emotions. The young parents were both attentive to their daughter, so far as the strictures of their world permitted, and Charles had seen them both stopping her carriage in the park and cooing over her as nanny kept a careful watch. It certainly was not the way he had been raised.

And yet the hour after tea was sacrosanct. In that hour the family fended for themselves, giving their servants a late-afternoon break and a moment for their own tea. Even nanny enjoyed this brief respite. But someone had rung the bell so they wanted something.

He could hear the baby bawling well before he opened the library door. She had powerful lungs. He found His Lordship and Her Ladyship ensconced, as they usually were at this time of day, on the sofa by the fire. His Lordship was concealed behind a newspaper, possibly hoping that this might distance him from the caterwauling child. Her Ladyship was staring across the room at her son with an expression that combined indignation and alarm, neither of which had moved her to action.

Charles observed his employers only in passing for his attention was drawn more immediately to the other occupants of the room and, in particular, to the child who sounded wretched unhappy and seemed determined to inform the world of her dissatisfaction. Nanny was not present, which was no surprise, but neither was the Viscountess anywhere to be seen. Instead, the poor child squirmed in the arms of her father, whose awkward grip on her indicated how little practice he had had of this particular task and who seemed likely to drop her at any moment. Robert Crawley's face was as flushed as that of his child's and as agitated. This was understandable for was there anything as harrowing as the screams of a distraught child?

Mr. Finch stood beside the father and daughter, although he was not really standing so much as fluttering, and was clearly out of his depth. He had faced a myriad of challenges in his time as butler of Downton Abbey, and conquered them all, but there had not been a child in residence in decades and an aging bachelor butler was of even less use in such a circumstance than a novice father. For Charles, the vividness of Mr. Finch's discomfort was as startling as anything else.

It was not immediately clear who had rung the bell or why, so Charles advanced to Mr. Finch's side for direction.

"How may I help?" he inquired softly. He spoke to the butler, but his presence caught Robert Crawley's attention.

"Here!" he said, the desperation in his voice umistakable. "Take her. Please! I don't think she..." He did not finish his sentence but, without waiting for a response, thrust the child into the arms of the footman.

Charles was not at all prepared. Nor could he ever have been, for this was a wholly unprecedented development. The tiny bundle of squalling humanity roared her fury, perhaps at the indignity of being handed off, or perhaps instinctively apprehending that she had been relegated to even less competent arms. The footman had no idea what to do. He had never held a baby. Her fragility frightened him out of his wits.

There was no time for rational judgment, which was probably just as well for, like the two overwrought men beside him, he would only have over-thought it. Instead, he gave way to instinct. He tightened his arms around the twisting tot, drawing her close to his chest to ensure that he did not drop her. At the same time, he moved away from the blazing fire and the array of flickering candles on the mantlepiece and retreated into the shadows by the windows. Without thinking, he also began to hum, though he couldn't have identified the tune.

And in the diminished glow of the now-distant firelight, he looked at her for the first time.

Two tiny, perfect hands, now clenched, now waving even tinier, perfect fingers - the perfect number on each hand - captured his gaze. His thumb was bigger than one of her hands. Her nose was a work of art. He was given to noticing noses as he had, as a youth, been only too aware of his own which was outlandishly large. He could not help but notice her tongue, a little pink sliver that quivered in the rage to which it gave such full voice. An elegant little white cap covered her head, concealing what hair she might have, but it lay askew on her head, the result of her fierce struggles, and this gave him a glimpse of one ear. Could any craftsman born have formed something so exquisite?

And then her mouth closed abruptly and the eyes that had been screwed up in indignant wrath unexpectedly opened. The suddenness of her gaze - though she could hardly really be focusing on him, could she? - fairly took his breath away. He was not aware that he had stopped humming, that his mouth had fallen open, and that he was staring at her.

He had fallen oblivious to everything - to her screams, now faded to an almost imperceptible lip-smacking, or to the agitated conversations of the harried adults behind him. He was, in fact, no longer aware that there was anyone else in the room until he felt a presence at his side. It was Robert Crawley, looking vastly more relieved and rather more like himself. His eyes, too, were fixed on the child's mesmerizing countenance.

"She is lovely, isn't she," he said softly, an awed note in his voice. It wasn't a question.

For a long moment, the two men stood shoulder to shoulder, transfixed.

And then, their minds working in unconscious tandem, the one held out his arms and the other handed into them the now placid child.

Reality descended on them abruptly. Behind them the voices were raised again and there was a bit of a rush. A flustered nanny, summoned from her tea, was there, and father and daughter and attendant drew away. Charles was aware of animated exchanges - why nanny had been interrupted, how the Viscountess had been taken ill, why the baby had erupted so dramatically, what on earth were they feeding her to have precipitated such an outburst (this from Her Ladyship) - but he heard none of it. None of it mattered. The only thing that meant anything in the moment was that small face turned up to his, those captivating eyes that had not even really focused on him.

He was smitten. And they had not even been properly introduced.