Thank you, so much to all of you, for your kind reviews of this story so far. This is the first LONG fic I've ever written and an aspect of Anna and John's relationship I really wanted to explore. As someone said in a review, the focus on their recovery as a couple after Anna's attack has been very lightly handled and so this is my attempt to redress that balance. My husband suffers from PTSD and depression, and I have been treated for PTSD and anxiety, so it was extremely important to me that these aspects of John and Anna's relationship should be tackled, and yet still have it be shown that they are in love and have a strong marriage worth fighting for.
I love the character of Mr Mason. The first time Daisy went to see him, I loved his sage advice, generosity and calm manner and have thought, repeatedly, that while Robert is the man that John looks up to, he's not very good in the marital advice department. Mason has known heartbreak and sorrow and still managed to rebuild a life for himself and has a heart that welcomes others, like Daisy, without question. At this point in their lives and marriage, Anna and John could really use a wise parent-like figure. So I decided to give them one.
There will be smut later, I've no doubt, but this chapter was something that needed to be tackled first. I hope that it isn't too jarring.
It had all been going so well, John thought as he looked back on the evening.
Bill had been a marvellous host. Genial, generous and good natured. The food was superb; a thick juicy lamb stew, with warm brown bread and farm butter. Big wedges of heavy cake, spread liberally with Daisy's bramble jam. Wholemeal biscuits, with a good Wensleydale cheese. All washed down with copious cups of strong brown tea. Towards the end of the meal, Mr Mason produced a bottle of cherry brandy and did not blink when John refused in favour of another cup of tea.
"Ah well, it doesn't always agree with folk. But if you fancy a drop, it's in the sideboard there. Now, shall we go and be more comfortable?"
Bill showed them into a nook just off the kitchen, with two battered old armchairs and a wide sofa, grouped around a large low table, scattered with farming magazines and the day's paper. The fire burned bright in the grate.
"This is me snug," Bill explained. "There is a parlour, just the other side of the hall through that there door, but I ain't had much call to use it since the wife died. Don't get as many visitors now, she were the social one of us all. But it's aired and cleaned up if you want somewhere private to sit without me falling over you. People are in and out of here all day as you might expect."
As he spoke, Bill had settled himself into what was clearly his habitual chair. A small stool stood to one side, upon which sat his pipe and baccy tin and current copy of Farmer's Weekly. He re-stuffed the pipe, struck a match and companionably puffed away.
Anna was enchanted.
"You've such a lovely home Bill."
"Ah well," Bill glowed quietly at the compliment. "It's perhaps not so fine as the likes of Downton Abbey, but it does me grand. I only wish I could persuade Daisy to come and live here and help me run the place."
"Do you have many workers here Bill?"
"A fair few, more than usual at this time of year. Sheep dipping happens on Thursday, so that'll be a busy day. You're welcome to stay and watch, I'd say pitch in but it's a nasty and dirty business."
"Sheep dipping?"
"Aye. Couple of times a year we bring the flock in and get them to swim down a trough of antiseptic. Keeps their fleece clean, no lice or bugs in their wool. It's needed, even legally mind, but the sheep don't like it one bit, and the stuff does make a stink."
"Sounds like hard work."
"It is John, it is. But I think farming's a bit like being in service. Only we serve our animals instead."
Bill grinned at Anna.
"I bet there's times you take care of that fine lady of yours and you have to persuade her to do stuff she doesn't want to, just because it's best for her, right?"
Anna pealed with laughter and John coughed into his handkerchief.
Bill grinned, placing the brandy glass off to one side.
"Right. It's past my bedtime. Early rise for me."
"What time should we be up?"
Bill guffawed. "John, yer here for an 'oliday, not to work. Don't try to match me for getting up, I see the dawn from the seat of me tractor. Hetty, the daily kitchen maid, will sort you our with a spot of breakfast when you're ready. She's in here most days, she knows you're coming."
With no further ado, Bill heaved himself to his feet, gave them a jovial nod and a swift goodnight and took himself off up the front stairs.
"Bedtime?"
Anna's eyes were bright.
John took her hand.
"I think so."
Yes. It had all been going so well.
…
"I'm sorry."
"Don't apologise."
"But I must..."
"You must do nothing of the sort."
John sat very still on the little bench, pulled up to Anna's side of the bed. She was hunched up, her knees drawn up to her chin, a rug wrapped around her shaking shoulders.
"You do not need to apologise for this Anna, none of it is your fault."
Her tears started again.
"Anna?"
She nodded.
"Anna, I'm going to take hold of your hand. Nothing more."
She nodded again, shaking like a leaf. John reached out and took her icy, stiff fingers in his.
He bitterly regretted how this had come about. Getting ready for bed, emboldened by her earlier flirting, he had stepped behind her to plant a kiss on her neck. Unfortunately, Anna had not heard him move behind her, and her reaction had been extreme.
After ten patient minutes trying to coax her out of the corner of the room, John had managed to get her into bed, and she was now able to hear him and speak to him.
"I ruined everything."
His heart lurched. If anything, it was him who had ruined the evening.
"Anna, you have ruined nothing. So we need to slow down, and take our first night in an unfamiliar place more slowly. That's all. Now just sit and be calm, I am here and I will hold your hand until you're ready for me to let go."
Anna gave enormous shuddering breaths and slowly, her shoulders began to lower.
"That's it darling, just keep breathing. I'm right here."
John fumbled in his pocket for a handkerchief.
"Here."
One elephantine blow later, Anna was looking a little more like herself. Only with red eyes and a wet face.
"I'm so..."
"Don't." John smiled, placing a slow and careful finger to her lips. She relaxed at the touch. This was John, she was safe with him.
"I look such a mess."
"You look beautiful. Always."
"I should wash my face."
Helping her up on her unsteady feet, John guided her over to the basin and poured some cool water into the bowl. Anna freshened up and retied her hair.
"Now. Back to bed Mrs Bates. You need to sleep."
Settling her in, tucking the covers around her, John leaned down to stroke her hair and drop a gentle kiss on her forehead.
"Are you not coming to bed?"
"I will. But I could do with some water. And a few minutes walk about to ease my knee."
Crouching on the floor, coaxing her out from her corner, had done him no good. But John also needed a few private minutes to deal with the cold flood of disappointment in himself which he dared not show to his wife.
Anna was already dropping asleep.
"Wake me when you come to bed?"
He knew what she meant. She just wanted to know it was him, so that she didn't wake in a panic.
"Of course. Now go to sleep. And find lovely dreams."
Ever so quietly, John closed the door and went back downstairs.
…
The fire was dying down, but a rummage with the poker and a fresh hunk of wood brought it back to life. There was no need for a candle. Pulling his dressing gown around him, John sat with his mug of water before him and quietly put his face in his hands.
How was he ever going to help her get past this?
He heard footsteps in the room and turned expecting to see Anna.
"John, tell me if I'm in the way, and I'll leave you be, but would you like to reconsider that drop of cherry brandy?"
Bill stood in the doorway of the snug, an oddly comical figure with his old fashioned bed cap and long striped gown.
"Oh Bill, I am sorry, did we wake you?"
"Doesn't take much to wake me lad, slightest whinny of distress from the stables and I'm on my feet."
That's exactly how Anna must have sounded, thought John. Like a mare in distress, kicking out and whining to be left alone. Bill fetched two small glasses and the bottle and sat opposite John, slowly pouring the drinks.
"Now," he spoke calmly, measured and gently. John was reminded of his own tone of voice to Anna just a few minutes earlier.
"Perhaps it's none of my business, but would you like to tell me what happened?"
The sip of hot, sweet cherry warmed John's throat and loosened the knot in his stomach. This wasn't the Irish flame he had grown to need and crave during his dark hours. It was sweeter, cleaner and far more pure.
"I did something that frightened Anna."
"But you didn't mean to?"
"No, I would never..."
"I didn't think you did. What I meant was, you tried to do something nice, and it turned into something dark for her."
John nodded.
"And by my reckoning, this happens more than it should."
John met Bill's eyes.
"Did Daisy tell you?"
"Not a word. She said Mrs Bates were awful tired, and you stretched to breaking point trying to hold her up. But I saw in the paper about a Mrs Bates being arrested for the murder of a rotter called Green... but she were released..."
John's face and shoulders clamped up.
Bill suddenly drained his glass and reached for the bottle.
"So it was you two. And that's what he did."
"Yes, that's what he did."
"And now when you reach for her, she thinks..."
"It doesn't always happen."
"But you can't tell when it will."
John's face crumpled and for the first time since Anna had confessed to him what had happened to her, he began to cry.
"Let it out John. The more you hold it in too, the longer it will take for both of you to get rid of it all."
Bill sat peacefully with John while the big man cried for the cracks and chasms in his marriage.
"It's alright John."
"That's funny," he gulped. "That's what I say to her when she cries. But it isn't alright at all."
"P'raps not now. But it will be. You've still got her, and she's got you. And your love for each other is like sun from dark clouds."
"Sometimes all I can see are the dark clouds."
"Mebbe it feels like that. But behind all that, the sun's still there."
John wiped his eyes and face, hearing rather than seeing Bill move beside him, water splashing in the background.
"Here."
Bill handed John a damp cloth.
John took it gratefully.
Bill placed a hand on John's shoulder.
"You just take yer time lad. You let her take hers, you take yours too. Lord knows that no man can be expected to accept that happening to his Missus without feeling summat down to his core. It makes you human son. Makes you not like him."
"But I have to be strong for her."
"And you will be. You have been. But we all need time to put down our weights. Old Marigold out there can pull carts of turnips around all day with no complaints, but if I don't let her rest now and then she'd soon go lame and be no use for anyone. Not even herself."
Bill's calm and measured voice, the good sense he spoke and the cherry brandy had done their work. John was starting to unwind.
"Now. Why don't you take yourself back to bed? Just speak gently and she'll know it's you, even in her sleep. And if you need to talk further while you're here, I'm willing to listen. Goodnight lad."
John watched Bill go back to bed, drained the rest of his water, and went back to his and Anna's room.
"Anna sweetheart, it's only me," he said softly, climbing into bed.
"John?" she murmured sleepily.
"That's right dear."
Half asleep, Anna turned over, snuggled into his arms. Holding her close, John marvelled at her beauty for perhaps the millionth time since he had known her, and knew that there was a way through this. They just had to find it together.