Chapter 21

For a rather posh establishment, the quarters for the valets at Lord Grantham's London club resembled a barracks with walls between the beds. The place had a smell. It didn't smell as bad as prison, but it had the distinct aroma of men living in close quarters. The rooms were small, cell-like almost, with tiny windows near the ceiling that showed nothing but darkness at all hours. The beds were low and narrow, not much better than cots. Each room had a small chest of drawers and straight back chair. That was it. John didn't mind too much. He could not sleep anywhere, though he longed to see sky and trees and have a bit of fresh cool air.

John was accustomed to being older than most of the other men, but this time he encountered more of his contemporaries, the younger men having answered the call of their king. John was sad for these younger men. Being a valet wasn't John's ideal career, but it was a good, respectable job with a future. War had no future. So many of the younger men he knew from staying at the club with Lord Grantham would never return. Many were too young to face the horrors of war, too ignorant to understand the years of failed diplomacy that led to the war. All were too young to die in someone else's fight.

The older men John now encountered were happy to have the work. Some of these men were former soldiers, some had been in service since their youth. Some had aspired to this position their entire lives, others couldn't believe their luck at having such fine employment. John was of two minds. He was grateful for the chance Lord Grantham had given him. He knew the Earl felt guilty about John's injury. John had never blamed Lord Grantham for what happened; it was part of war. John had applied for the position on a whim soon after his release from prison as part of his plan to rebuild his shattered life. He did not expect to be hired, not realistically, knowing that Lord Grantham knew of his disability, but John was surprised, humbled, when he received the Earl's response. John considered himself lucky. He was very good at his job, and it carried a certain amount of status, and paid well, but was also fairly silly. Helping a capable grown man to dress. Selecting his cuff links. Making travel arrangements.

The barracks was noisy at night, even with the younger men gone. The walls were thin, the lavatories were at either end of the hall, and there was a large common room in the middle of the hall were the men gathered in the evenings to drink and play cards. John rarely spent time there. He talked to the other men when they met in the halls, and was generally cordial, but he preferred to stay away from the nightly gatherings. As a reformed drunk, being around while others were drunk revulsed him. The others thought him haughty, thought that Lord Grantham's man, the one with the cane, thought he was better than them. John heard them talking. He didn't care.

They had been in London three days. After seeing to the Earl's business after he left for Parliament each morning, John dealt with pressing business of his own. He was looking for Vera. The first day, he had checked in with the man who was running advertisements inquiring as to her whereabouts. They hadn't received any reports in six months. The second day he visited her last known address. No one there knew her. The third day John sought her in her former haunts. These were depressing, sordid places that stank of filth and booze and smoke. Vera had not been like that when they married. She hadn't exactly been a nice girl, but she was respectable. These places were full of whores and gamblers and drunks and drug users. No one admitted to knowing her, or where she was. John scarcely dared hope she might be dead. He wasn't that lucky. John bathed when he arrived back at the club, and settled in with Paradise Lost while he waited for Lord Grantham.

After these disheartening days of looking for Vera, John wondered if it might be more fair to Anna, and to himself, to attempt to end their involvement. He was disturbed by their last evening in the garden. He had been so close to losing control, and he couldn't bear what that might bring to Anna. The problem was the more he was around her, the more of her he kissed, the more he wanted. She had so many other parts he'd like to kiss, to touch. His concern was that one thing did tend to lead to another rather easily, and after their goodbye, he wasn't sure he should trust himself. Her response, her eagerness for him, only inspired him to go farther.

John wasn't sure he liked Milton. An awful lot of religious despair masquerading as poetry. Ending things with Anna was unquestionably the right thing to do. If they kept this up, she would be shamed by the world. It would be his fault. She would hate him. They would have a child. The child would come to hate him for not making an honest woman of its mother. If Anna ever let the child know who he was. He would never see her again. Of that forbidden tree, whose taste brought death into the world….1It was better to just work with her, just see her every day, the way things used to be. Safer. He would be miserable, but Anna would be miserable if this continued.

John couldn't believe he had actually had his hands inside her dress in what amounted to a public place. He was embarrassed. She deserved so much more. Another few minutes, and his trousers would have been at his knees and her skirt above her waist and the front of her dress undone. That would have been shameful. Her legs around his waist, her hands at his shoulders, his hands…John closed his eyes and leaned back his head. John was embarrassed just thinking about it. No dignity at all. Anna deserved more. He didn't deserve Anna, but he deserved more than frantic partially-clad groping in the garden. Anna….Anna deserved warmth and a bed and light and a man who could be there with her every night and every morning. Not a married man. She was an experience to be relished. She deserved time and privacy to revel in the experience, and John didn't want to encourage her to settle for anything less. Anna could never be cheap, but he would not sully what they had by turning it into something sordid.

To be weak is miserable, doing or suffering.2 Maybe Milton had a point. John was weak, at least when it came to Anna. His willpower was insurmountable in every other regard, but with Anna he always teetered on the edge of weakness. Her eagerness for him didn't help. He didn't want to deny her, but he had to. It was the only way she could remain safe. John thought the idea that women should be virgins until married a little boorish, a little hypocritical. He didn't even know for certain if Anna was a virgin. The issue was Vera. He would never live with the woman again, hopefully he would never see her again, but until he was free of her, he could have no further intimacies with Anna. The consequences were too dreadful.

It had been so different with Vera, but then, he had not loved Vera.

The noise from the hall was picking up. How did men in their forties and fifties manage to turn into loud boisterous youths when in close quarters? Someone had a new lady friend. Apparently she was quite comely. She was probably tall and curvaceous, not dainty and slender, perfectly proportioned, a waist made for his hands, a large mouth and wide-spaced eyes and golden hair and breasts that he suspected would just fill his hands….John shut his eyes. Round his parted forelock manly hung clust'ring but not beneath his shoulders broad. She as a veil down to the slender waist her unadorned golden tresses dishevell'd….3 Maybe there would be no consequences, no physical consequences. Vera had never conceived; maybe the problem was him…Maybe he couldn't….No. John opened his eyes. The social consequences would be just as bad, worse, than the physical ones, and again, only Anna would suffer. Like when he kissed her at the ball but worse. People would know, people would talk, no matter how discreet they were. He would suffer if Anna suffered. He would suffer more if Anna suffered because of him. He would be like Lucifer, thrown from the gates of Paradise.

John groaned and ran his hands through his hair. Couldn't those men leave off singing when his head was pounding? Gentlemen's gentlemen indeed. The only path was to end it. Tell her he loved her, dearly, loved her too much to hurt her and all this path would lead to was ruin. Tell her his time with her was the only time in his life he felt alive, peaceful, and he would treasure it, but that for her own good he must remove himself. In a just world, all that would matter would be love, but the world was a cruel place. He wanted more than stolen moments in the grounds, and she deserved more. All he could offer was adultery. It wasn't enough. It would never be enough. He would then leave his job. Return to London. And if he was lucky, he would die.

John felt sick. Cold. Sweaty. He would die. Inside. Nothing would be left inside for all the time his heart would be with Anna. It was with her now. She was getting Lady Mary ready for bed, and hopefully she would soon follow. John hoped she could catch up on her sleep while he was gone. The days he had been gone she had never left his thoughts. It was like they were bound by some invisible thread near the heart. Leaving her would be the hardest, the cruelest thing he'd ever done, but she was young and resilient. She would move on soon enough. Or take over from Mrs. Hughes. John always felt a twinge when she said that. It would be an excellent position for her, but she never convinced John it would make her happy. John would spend his days thinking about their time together, their walks, their conversations, their stories. He would spend his nights thinking about her warmth, her scent, her kisses, her softness. He would imagine her asleep next to him, asleep in his arms, each night. The hollowness in the pit of his stomach would never leave. Would Anna understand? Would she understand that love brought cruelty? Would she understand that her love had brought him a bit of life, and for that he wanted more for her? Would she believe that there was no happiness for him without her, but that he had to sacrifice it for her? Would she? Would it be better if she didn't?

John thought he might be ill.

The bell rang. Lord Grantham was back and ready to be tucked in. John put down the book, realizing he hadn't turned a page in over an hour and hadn't taken in any of what he'd read. He pulled himself to his feet, sighed, and put on his jacket. He hoped the Earl went right bed. He didn't think he could talk politics or about the family when his heart was being ripped from his chest.

1 Milton, Paradise Lost, Book I, lines 2-3

2 Ibid., Book I, line 157

3 Ibid., Book IV, lines 302-306