I LOVED HER FIRST

DISCLAIMER: I do not own, nor do in any way profit from the use of, the characters, settings, suggested plot lines, or ideas drawn from Downton Abbey. These belong to Julian Fellowes and Carnival Films.

Chapter 2 An Affection Takes Root

It seemed as though he'd only just gotten to sleep after an already late night when someone was shaking him awake again.

"Charles!" There was an urgency in the young voice that permeated his slumber and drew him back to consciousness. It was one of the hallboys, Geoffrey. In the other bed, across the room, Simon rolled over noisily and uttered an oath Charles had never heard him speak aloud, but did not awaken.

"What is it?" Charles pushed himself into a sitting position and squinted against the light cast by the flickering flame of the candle in the boy's hand. He wasn't pleased to have his sleep interrupted, but his tone was a polite one nevertheless. Civility was a necessity when so many people lived in such close quarters. And the boy would not be troubling him with a trifle.

"His Lordship wants you," the boy said agitatedly. "Right now!"

The words prompted Charles to action. He threw off his scratchy wool blankets and reached for his clothes, ignoring the shock to his system prompted by abandoning the warmth of his bed for the cool air and colder floor of the room on a night in late March. The candle offered little general illumination, but Charles did not need light to put his hands on what he required. His things were always neatly hung up or folded and ready to hand. As he pulled on his trousers, his attention turned to the messenger.

"What's it about, Geoffrey?"

"Don't know," the boy said, covering a yawn. He'd probably nodded off himself down in the servants' hall and even an invigorating run up several flights of stairs had not roused him entirely. "But His Lordship's awfully crabby. He said to get you straight away. Hurry!"

Despite the circumstances, Charles smiled at the boy's prodding. Hallboys seldom got any glory. In fact, they seldom got anything at all. During the day they did the trifling menial tasks that were beneath the dignity of the lowest footman, and then were obliged to stand the night-shift, in rotation, in the servants' hall, lest some member of the family need something in the middle of the night. It was a thankless job, the only reward being promotion - for the luckiest of them - to junior footman when they reached an appropriate age and if there was a vacancy. The less fortunate drifted away to labouring jobs elsewhere on the estate.

Although it took a few minutes, Charles dressed completely, if not entirely properly, making sure to put on his socks as well as shoes, but pulling his livery jacket over his pajama shirt. He did not know what task His Lordship might have for him and wanted to be ready for any contingency. If he was to run into the village for the doctor, or dash down to the stables, or any other errand that took His Lordship's fancy - although why he had summoned the senior footman at this hour, when he had a butler and a valet and several other footmen besides, Charles did not know - then he wanted to be prepared. In service, the family came first, but sick servants were of no use to anybody.

He did not light his own candle, but followed Geoffrey, who led him down the servants' staircase to the door that opened onto the gallery, and thence to the door of His Lordship's dressing room. Charles appreciated the boy's diligence, although it was not necessary. Such was the intimate knowledge he had of the Abbey that he could have navigated his way in complete darkness.

The gallery was astir with activity although it was past two o'clock in the morning. There was a flurry of figures at the open nursery door, their shadows flickering in the glow of the candlelight within. The baby was bawling, a sound to wrench any heart. When she paused to take a breath, Charles discerned the voices of the Viscount and Viscountess, hers a higher, strained pitch at odds with her usual more lilting tone, and nanny's, too, of course. He wondered at the parents being up with the baby. Caring for the child, especially at night, was nanny's job. Perhaps this was Lady Cora's influence. They might do things differently in America. But Charles had no time to ponder this mystery. His business was with His Lordship, so he tapped on the dressing room door and then went in.

Charles was not at all surprised that His Lordship was sleeping in his dressing room. Separate bedrooms were, he understood, a common practice among the aristocracy. It was a mark of rank to observe it. Commoners did not usually have the luxury of space to indulge themselves this way. There were, perhaps, practical advantages - a snoring partner did not disturb the other when a couple slept apart. But though he seldom questioned the eccentricities of the ruling class, Charles wondered if in this they somehow missed the point of marriage. Still, it was not for him to judge.

The footman was a little startled to find the usually imperturbable Joseph Crawley in a state of high agitation. His Lordship was pacing the room like a man awaiting execution, wringing his hands. On the bedside table an open bottle of whisky and a half-full tumbler gave further evidence of His Lordship's disquiet. Why, Charles wondered, had he not summoned his valet, Mr. Bevin?

His Lordship looked up sharply as the footman entered the room.

"Charles! Thank goodness. Forgive me for prevailing upon you at this ghastly hour..." The footman's quiet protest that he was at His Lordship's service went unheard as the man forged ahead. "It's the child, Charles. Be a good chap, see if you can do something."

Charles wondered if he had heard correctly. Of all the tasks he might have anticipated from His Lordship and at this hour of the night, he would never have imagined this. In fact, he was not really clear on what he as being asked to do. "My lord?"

Joseph Crawley made an impatient gesture toward the door. "It's been almost three hours, Charles. Three hours!" He combed both hands through his wavy grey-brown hair, a sign of some consternation. The disheveled state of his hair suggested that he had done this more than once already.

It was difficult to ignore the wailing. Even with the nursery several doors down the corridor, the sound carried. Charles briefly wondered at the child's staying power. No one could go on like that forever. Surely she would eventually cry herself to sleep.

"I cannot bear it any longer," His Lordship went on, a note of desperation in his voice. "I never could." He sat down heavily on his bed, staring into a dim corner of the room. "I remember it from school days. Children crying... All the small personal agonies." He looked up at the footman. "Do something about it, will you?" His tone was almost plaintive.

Well, now he had some explanation for His Lordship's distress. Charles had attended Ripon Grammar School as a boy and had to board there during the week. He had not liked being away from his parents and his home, but it had been quite bearable and, for an eleven-year old, a bit of an adventure. But His Lordship, and his son the Viscount, had been sent away to school at a much earlier age, another of those eccentric practices of the aristocracy that commoners could neither afford nor understand. And one seldom heard happy tales from such places. Some twisted logic held that a superior education involved isolation, deprivation, and bullying, the theory being, one supposed, that having survived school, a British aristocrat could take on the world. The Empire was arguably tangible evidence for this approach. Yet cracks appeared suggesting that it was not quite such a perfect calculation. And His Lordship's almost nervous collapse here in response to a baby's cry spoke to this.

Charles remained perplexed as to the meaning of His Lordship's directive. "My lord?" he said again, seeking clarification.

Lord Grantham made an impatient sound. "What you did in the library. Last week. Just...quiet her."

Ah. Now he understood, although this hardly erased his unease. "Surely nanny can manage..."

"Three hours, Charles!" His Lordship interrupted him. "They're all hopeless. Poor thing is exasperated with them all, and I don't blame her one bit! Give it a go, man. Please."

There was nothing for it but to try, no matter how awkward and inappropriate it was to do so, and Charles knew that it was both. He was also a little alarmed at His Lordship's faith in his abilities. He had done nothing in the library. He had no skills, no magical abilities. It had been a matter of being in the right place at the right time. Yet he believed his first duty lay with His Lordship and whatever he might ask, and though this request exceeded reasonable demands - and was something he could legitimately refuse to do - his allegiance to His Lordship was such that he would not decline.

Still, he walked down the corridor with more than a little reluctance. As he approached the nursery, he could heard the voices more clearly and they all sounded in a right state. But above them all were the still-powerful cries of the unhappy little girl.

Three hours! Who could maintain such an expression of distress for so long? And what was wrong that she was so unsettled? He wondered that they had not called the doctor long 'ere this. Better a doctor than a footman. Yet he felt a wave of compassion for the child and this, more than anything else, gave him the boldness to step up to the door where he almost collided with Robert Crawley who emerged suddenly from the room.

They were both startled.

"What...?" Robert spluttered.

"His Lordship sent me to ask if I might be of any assistance, my lord." The peculiarity of the circumstances could not shift Charles from the formality that relations between master and servant demanded.

Robert Crawley's face, already flushed with agitation, darkened still further. "Bloody hell!"

Charles knew the Viscount to be one of the most even-tempered of men and recognized this display of anger as evidence that he was coming to the end of his tether. That the words were accompanied by a sharp glance down the corridor told the footman that the younger man's irritation was focused elsewhere.

Charles could do nothing - notwithstanding His Lordship's direction - without permission from the Viscount, not that he had any idea of what he could do. But he felt he had to say something.

"Is Miss Mary ill, my lord? Should I summon the doctor?"

The practical questions, put in a dispassionate tone, pulled Robert out of his distraction. "No, not exactly. It's colic. She's had it several nights past, but this is the worst. Apparently lots of babies get it. It makes them miserable. It makes everyone around them miserable. The doctor says there isn't anything that can be done about it."

Colic.

Although he knew nothing about babies, Charles had grown up around horses and watched as his father soothed and comforted animals afflicted with the various forms of this ailment.

"Have you been walking her?" he asked.

Perhaps there was an inadvertent note of confidence in his voice that caught the ear of the desperate father. Robert would have had to be desperate indeed to turn for help to an unmarried and childless footman with no record of experience in this area. "No," he said. "Lady Cora has been rocking her. And nanny has tried warm milk and even a little brandy. And God knows what else." He winced as the baby's wails suddenly reached a crescendo again. Robert closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Then he turned back into the nursery again and indicated that Charles should follow him.

It was a scene that spoke of tension and fraught nerves. In the blaze of several candles, Charles quickly took in the exhaustion and despair on the faces of the two women, an all-too-common sight in the late-night world of novice parents and untested nannies. Lady Cora held the baby tightly in her arms and had the rocking chair moving rather frenetically. Her eyes were as tear-filled as the child's. Nanny hovered helplessly at her side, clearly at a loss. Robert Crawley went to stand by his wife, his frustration evident in the clutching and un-clutching of his hands. There was nothing wrong. No one had made a mistake. They were just over-tired and frustrated, driven to the edge by their inability to make things better for the child they all longed to relieve.

In years gone by, Charles had encountered the same sort of atmosphere in the stables when a horse had failed to respond to cursory remedies for colic. He'd seen a few men reduced to tears in frustration, and at least one resort to brutality. His father was a different sort, exhibiting an infinite patience with the animals within his charge and demonstrating the curative power of tranquillity when nothing else could be done.

To Charles's mind, untutored as it was in the ways of babies, this situation demanded just such a calm hand more than anything else. And it was difficult for anyone to remain unruffled when they were worried and frustrated and, most of all, tired. This lot, Viscount, Viscountess, and nanny, looked done in. They were all of them, baby included, in need of some respite. Without thinking, he held his arms out toward the baby who twisted uncomfortably in her mother's grasp, her back awkwardly arched, her little face convulsed in protest. It was a mark of Lady Cora's despair that she obligingly gave up her baby into the hands of this untried servant.

There was no immediate, magical transformation in the child's bearing, but there might have been a collective sigh of relief on the part of the other three adults. Their nerves had all been stretched to the breaking point and the mere presence of someone with a calmer demeanour brought the level of tension down a notch.

Charles did not know what to do with a baby. He only knew what he had seen his father do with the horses. How often had he watched his father leading a horse in soothing circles, keeping the animal moving, encouraging it with quiet words or a calming tune. It was the only time he ever heard his father sing. Turning away from others, he propped the child upright on his chest, so that her little face was under his chin. She was so tiny - his great hands engulfed her whole body. Because he had not donned his formal dress shirt, she lay against the softer, thinner flannel of his pajama shirt and he was much more conscious of both the warmth of her as well as the beating of her heart and the flailing of her small limbs. He moved automatically into the corridor where there was little light and quiet prevailed, and he began to walk, having the wherewithal to head away from the direction of His Lordship's room.

Miss Mary Crawley did not go quietly. She struggled against him as vigorously as she had against her mother. There was a renewed burst of yowling and she butted his chest with her head, indicating that she was no so easily pacified. But he did not give her the satisfaction of responding with agitation. Instead, he began softly to sing.

"As I was out walking one morning in spring, I spied a young maiden..."

Though he knew a legion of songs, this one sprang naturally from his lips. It was one of his mother's favourites and it had always warmed his heart to hear it. In his dance hall days, Charlie Grigg had almost ruined it for him with a bawdy version that he had to work to suppress even now. As the sweeter words tripped from his tongue, it occurred to him that his mother - dead some twelve years now - would be smiling down on him, crooning this old tune to a babe in his arms. She'd have been sad that he would never have children - sad, not disappointed, for she'd never been that when it came to him. His mind filled with a picture of her cradling this little dark-haired girl, and he smiled around his song.

And as he walked the circuit of the gallery, his voice and stride and the vibrations in his chest aligning in a soothing rhythm, Miss Mary's cries gradually subsided and the tension in her small body began to ease. She did not favour him with the miracle of her wide-eyed stare, as she had the last time he had held her. She was far too tired to do so. But he was even more aware of the delicate perfection of this scrap of humanity. Had he really ever been this small?

He was loathe to give her up when it came to it. No one had ever spoken to him of the mystical power of a baby - of the miracle of those perfect features and appendages, the power of those diminutive lungs, the incomparable warmth of such a tiny body. The endless crying took a toll, but oh, was it not worth it?

Nanny waited at the nursery door as he came around again. For a moment he thought the Viscount and Viscountess might have gone back to bed, but then he heard them within. Glancing into the room, he saw Robert Crawley kneeling by his wife's side, holding her hands in his, speaking to her in a comforting voice. And someone had put out a few of the candles so there was only a soft light flickering now. Nanny held out her arms to take the baby, but Charles thought better of it. Instead he held the now sleeping little girl out to her mother and Lady Cora, looking much more tranquil, eagerly reached for the child. She took baby Mary gently, held her closely, and pressed a few tender kisses to the child's downy cheek. And then Lady Cora gave Charles one of her own radiant smiles.

"Thank you so much, Charles," she whispered. In her voice he heard her relief, felt the dissipation of the wretchedness that had gripped her earlier.

A little embarrassed by the whole episode, Charles only nodded and withdrew from the room. Robert followed him.

"You've a magic touch," Robert said, his voice its normal timbre again, his lined countenance now smoothed over once more.

Charles shook his head. He did not want to take any credit. "A different touch, another voice, I think, my lord," he said modestly. "Or perhaps she simply cried herself out."

"A calm presence, I think," Robert said. He ran a hand through his hair, his gesture an unconscious reflection of this habit of his father's when agitated, and glanced back at his wife, now the picture of maternal bliss in the lamplight. "I'm very grateful for your intervention, Charles. But my father had no business dragging you from your bed in the middle of the night. I'm very sorry for his presumption."

"I was pleased to be of service," Charles said diplomatically. "And His Lordship was concerned for you all, my lord."

This elicited a derisive snort from the Viscount. "His concern only exacerbates the problem," he muttered. The slip was one he could make only in exhaustion and he quickly caught it. "Lady Cora was feeling the frustrations of a new mother. And," he admitted, "I was a little anxious myself. Thank you, Charles."

The footman took this as a dismissal and he was glad of it. He was tired, too, but he was also relieved to escape the generational tensions among the family. The Crawleys did not often quarrel among themselves, something that made working at Downton Abbey more pleasant than similar situations at other houses. His concern for the dissonance among the adults dissipated as he climbed the stairs to his room, his mind drifting in a different direction. He appreciated their gratitude, but it was superfluous. Screaming her lungs out or sleeping placidly, Miss Mary Crawley charmed him.

As he made his way down the corridor to his room, a door opened and Mr. Finch stepped out. His dressing gown was already securely tied. It seemed he had been waiting for Charles to appear.

"What was that about?" he inquired peremptorily.

Charles stopped and swayed a bit on his feet. He was feeling the lack of sleep now. "Miss Mary had a bout of colic. His Lordship thought I might be able to help get her to sleep." He had enough of his wits about him to realize how foolish that all sounded. The idea of His Lordship summoning a footman to soothe a cranky baby was quite ludicrous.

"And?" Mr. Finch asked. "Were you successful?"

"Well, I walked her a bit and she fell asleep. I think it was more exhaustion than anything else," he added.

Mr. Finch stared at him for a minute. "Do not deny your skills or talents, Charles. Calming a crying child is not, perhaps, one of the essential qualifications of a footman - or a butler," he added pointedly, "but it is a valuable life skill. And the way to any parent's heart is through a kindness shown to their child. Well done."

The butler gave praise sparingly, making it all the more welcome when he did bestow it and Charles was alert enough to be pleased by it. Mr. Finch was an incomparable teacher, knowledgeable in the ways of service and in life generally. He reviled boasting and vanity, but he dismissed false modesty as almost equally repugnant. Charles nodded in acknowledgment of the lesson imparted and the commendation.

"I hope you found a more appropriate song to sing the child to sleep this time," Mr. Finch said suddenly.

"Beg pardon, Mr. Finch?" Charles did not follow the older man's thoughts.

Mr. Finch, who so rarely smiled, smiled. "In the library last week, you were humming 'Two Little Black Eyes.' You're in danger of betraying your dance hall past, Charles. If you're going to make a habit of comforting Miss Mary, you might want to learn some lullabies instead."