"Miss Baxter!"
She had the sense that Mr. Molesley had called her name several times, but she had not heard him over her own weeping until now, and she realized with a start that he had taken a seat on the crate next to her.
Baxter had come straight to the courtyard after leaving her ladyship, hoping that the morning's light drizzle would give her some degree of privacy outdoors, but of course Mr. Molesley would come looking for her. He was the last person she wanted to know any of this, but what did it matter now? She'd be declaring it in court someday soon, and the tale of the lady and her maid who had both been taken in by the same man would be splashed across the papers for all to read.
"Come now, what's all this?" he asked softly.
"She wants me to testify," she gasped. "Her ladyship wants me to testify."
"Well, of course she does," he said, not unkindly. "You knew she would. You were the one who found her that night; of course you've got to testify."
"No, no," she shook her head. "Not about that, not about her." But another wave of sobs swept over her before she could bring herself to say more.
He did not say anything, but after a second he reached for and pulled her towards him. She had bent forward in an effort to breathe easier, and thus she did not end up with her face pressed against his chest—and she was glad of that; she would have found it too painful to be so near to his heart—but with her head in his lap, so that she was half lying down across the wooden crates.
It was a relief to cry as she had not for years. For whatever she had told Lady Grantham about how her ladyship would recover, and her life would go on, and things would someday be all right again, the truth of the matter was that Baxter's own assault was like a knife that had been buried in her stomach: the wound had seemed to have healed, and she could go weeks without noticing it or thinking of it, but one wrong move and the blade would stab her again. She had felt in the last week as though she would die of the internal bleeding.
Molesley's hand was tentatively stroking her hair, and she sensed his awkwardness at this, but somehow his shyness only made his desire to comfort her that much sweeter. Still he did not speak—perhaps if he had, she would have been able to control herself better and would not have spoken herself. But in the silence, the story came pouring out of her between sobs, the story she knew the entire household—nay, the entire country—would know soon enough. The hand stroking her hair did not falter as she spoke, although it began to shake as she told him how she had been caught in a dark hallway after dinner by the young man whose lingering glances had chilled her for weeks, how she had dared not scream during the rushed and hurried business against the wall, how her hands had shaken for months in his presence until she'd found a new position, how her blood had run cold when Mr. Carson had mentioned the dreaded name Simon Bricker as an overnight guest.
And how she'd wanted to drown herself when she'd realized what he'd done to her ladyship. "I didn't think he'd dare to touch a countess!" she sobbed, and she hadn't. She had not told her ladyship of her history with Mr. Bricker out of her own humiliation, and because she did not think she could afford to tell her mistress of yet another scandal and black mark against her reputation when she had been retained solely because of Lady Grantham's kindness. But it had not occurred to her that there was any danger in not telling her ladyship. She did not believe the female servants in a house unknown to Mr. Bricker were in any danger from him, and even when Lady Grantham's growing fondness for him had become clear, Baxter had been relieved to think that her ladyship was quite safe in her position, as surely he would violate only women significantly below him.
The moment when she'd found her ladyship sobbing in her bedroom, her clothes torn and her hair undone, had been second only to her own assault as the worst of her life. How many times in the last ten days had she asked herself why, why, why she hadn't seen this coming? If only, if only, if only she'd spoken up in the beginning!
"I begged her to forgive me," she went on, her tears still soaking into his knees. "I begged for her forgiveness!"
"But surely her ladyship is not angry with you?" Molesley said, the first interruption he had made.
"No," she gasped. "No, not at all." Somehow that made it worse, that she had not been immediately dismissed or at the very last chastised, that there was no look of betrayal on her lady's face. On the contrary, Lady Grantham had readily understood her hesitation to speak and could easily agree that surely her maid would not have imagined that she herself was in any danger. She'd assured her there was nothing to forgive.
"But I've known–I've known all along that this was my fault!"
"No," he said firmly, his hand pressing her shoulder. "It isn't. None of this has ever been your fault. You were both attacked by a monstrous brute."
Slowly, she sat up, wanting to look him in the eye. Baxter had told this story to a man once before, and the experience had only hardened her vow never to speak of it. She'd only done so now because she knew it would be public knowledge soon.
She had accepted Peter's demands early in her time in the Benton household and given him her body behind the stables one night. It was not, she had reasoned, as though she had any virtue left to lose. Yet he had inquired immediately afterwards why she hadn't been a virgin, and when she'd confessed the story to him, he'd replied that he wasn't surprised to know she'd been seduced so easily by an employer, as she'd barely blinked before giving herself to him. It made him suspicious, he'd said, and her desperation to prove her loyalty to him had made it easy to accept the bruises she'd steadily received from him from there on out. Indeed, she told herself she deserved this treatment, filthy as she'd been made by Mr. Bricker all those years earlier.
And so when she looked up to see such sympathy in Mr. Molesley's eyes, with no hint of disgust or blame, it only made her cry harder.
"There now, Miss Baxter." He passed her his handkerchief. "You've done nothing wrong, and you've been very loyal to her ladyship."
"But now she's asked me to testify about all this! And I understand, I do; I know how much easier it would be to convict him if they could establish a history of assaults. But I can't…I can't face him…" She could not imagine telling a jury what had happened with Mr. Bricker sitting across the room from her.
Molesley did not say anything, and she was glad of it, for there was very little that could be said.
"And I don't want the whole world to know this, nor do I want my reputation ruined in a legal record of the court proceedings…"
"Why is she making you do this?" he said suddenly, his eyes sharp. "Why make you testify, if it's so hard for you? They'll still have the same case they had yesterday, before she knew anything about you. Tell her you won't!"
"Oh, I can't do that, not after I didn't prevent this from happening to her in the first place! She doesn't blame me, but I do, and I can't bring myself to refuse, not when I know it would help. And I don't blame her for asking me—she doesn't know what she's asking; she can't imagine what a virtuous reputation is for a maid. She doesn't come from such a harsh world." Baxter drew a shaky breath, trying to calm herself. "And I wanted all this—I wanted her to go to the police because I wanted him in gaol. Not just for her sake, but for mine! I thought I'd finally have justice, and she would get it, too; I thought her husband would take care of it; I thought the title would be enough to give them an open-and-shut case; I didn't think they'd drag me into it. And I know how selfish all that sounds!"
He laid a gentle hand on her arm. "You are not selfish, Miss Baxter. There is nothing selfish in you, nothing selfish in how you've spent days on end fussing over her ladyship while you're breaking inside yourself."
She said nothing, drying her eyes and trying to steady her breathing. She wanted to tell him how much his kindness had meant to her, but she couldn't find the words.
"We'll be missed soon," she said eventually, standing. "We should go in."
"I wish I could change this for you," he said, and she heard the longing, and the pain, and perhaps even…the love?…in his voice.
"There's nothing to be done for it," she said. "I'm going to testify. It's the only thing I can do."
"Miss Baxter—"
"Thank you," she said softly, passing him back his handkerchief. "And I do mean that—you've been very kind."