It all came out, the whole sad story. Standing in Lord Grantham's library after Anna's body had been cut down and Mr. Bates sedated, Mrs. Hughes admits everything: from Mr. Green's flirtation with Anna to the game of Racing Demon, straight through to Anna's return to the Abbey.
Feeling Mr. Carson's reproachful eyes on her, Mrs. Hughes explains how she had found Anna hiding in her office after the concert and how Anna had begged her to keep it secret.
"But why?" Lord Grantham asks.
"She was afraid she would be blamed," Mrs. Hughes admits. "And," she adds hesitantly, feeling guilty for saying this when Mr. Bates was not there to defend himself, "she was afraid of what Mr. Bates would do if he found out."
"She was afraid Bates would hurt her?" Lord Grantham asks disbelievingly.
"She was afraid he would kill Mr. Green and be hanged, milord," Mrs. Hughes corrects.
"I've called Tony Gillingham," Lady Mary, prepared for the day by the blessedly calm Miss Baxter, joins her father. "I've told him what happened, but not to do anything about his valet yet."
"Good," Lord Grantham said. "Best keep it quiet until I've spoken to Bates."
"Did Bates know anything?" Lady Mary asked, addressing Mrs. Hughes directly.
"No, milady," Mrs. Hughes says. "Anna couldn't bear him –or anyone else –to know. She was afraid she would be blamed."
"Maybe keeping Anna's confidence was a mistake," Lord Grantham comments, but says no more. Mrs. Hughes' own conscience will prove his point better than any lecture he or anyone else could give.
"What happens next, milord?" Carson asks.
"Clarkson will have to notify the police," Lord Grantham says regretfully. "I've asked him not to do so until Bates has come round and I've spoken to him. Then… the funeral, I suppose."
"And the valet gets away scot-free?" Lady Mary asks, an accusing note in her voice. "Tony will dismiss him of course, but after that?"
"There's nothing we can do," Lord Grantham says. "Anna, God rest her soul, was right: it would have been his word against hers, more so now."
"It's not right," Lady Mary argues. She dashes a tear angrily away from her cheek, and Mrs. Hughes realises that the unflappable Lady Mary is undeniably upset: not irritated, but genuinely grieving. For the first time, she wonders whether she should have gone to Lady Mary on the night instead of colluding with Anna to hide it. "The odds would have been stacked against her, Anna knew that –but what was the alternative? This? A woman is dead and no one will ever be brought to justice for it!"
"Mary, please," Lord Grantham rebukes her as she turns and flees from the room. "Carson, Mrs. Hughes, I trust there are no other secrets below stairs?"
"No, milord."
"I'll go and see if Bates has come round yet," Lord Grantham says, obviously keen to end the conversation. Privately, Mrs. Hughes doubts Mr. Bates will come to his senses in the next couple of hours: Dr. Clarkson had had to give him a hefty dose of sedatives, and the longer he remained unconscious the better, in her opinion. The sight of his wife hanging from a beam in her room was unbearable enough, but the news he would be faced with when he awoke: that the wife he cherished had been violently attacked and hidden the truth out of fear –that would be equally painful for him.
"You kept this from me?" Carson asks as they make their way down to the servants' hall.
"I had to," Mrs. Hughes answers simply, though she bitterly regrets doing so.
"You chose to," he points out, but she shakes her head.
"You would have too if you had seen her that night."
She is still wondering whether she ought to have gone to Lady Mary when she hears a light tap on her door.
"Come in," she calls reluctantly, fully expecting it to be Mr. Carson: she has no desire to be rebuked for keeping the attack a secret, though she fully accepts she deserves it.
"May I speak to you, Mrs. Hughes?" Lady Mary asks as soon as she steps into the room. She has obviously been crying: her eyes are red and her face shiny. For a brief second, she reminds Mrs. Hughes so much of Anna that the housekeeper has to resist a strong urge to reach out to her.
"I should have insisted that she tell me what was wrong," Lad Mary says, and Mrs. Hughes guesses that Lady Mary, like herself, is berating herself for what happened to Anna.
"She wouldn't have told you," Mrs. Hughes tries to reassure her that there was nothing she could have done differently.
"Then I should have guessed," Lady Mary goes on. "I keep wondering… did she not want me to know because the attacker was Lord Gillingham's valet?"
"I think she would have done the same no matter whose valet he was," Mrs. Hughes says, though privately she does wonder whether fear that Lady Mary's deepening relationship with Lord Gillingham would lead to more encounters with Mr. Green may have played on Anna's mind. There is no point in troubling Lady Mary with this, though.
"Mrs. Hughes," Lady Mary begins hesitantly. "There are no other victims of the valet in this house, are there?"
Mrs. Hughes freezes. The thought that Green may have assaulted other servants that night, possibly the younger girls who would have been too afraid to come to her, has never entered her mind, so concerned was she with Anna's plight.
"I don't think so," she says, though she knows she will have to make delicate enquiries-how she will go about it, she has no idea.
"Tony will dismiss the man, of course," Lady Mary goes on. "But Papa may be right: there's nothing we can do to bring him to justice."
"I'm afraid not," Mrs. Hughes agrees. "And Anna knew that."
"Of all people, it had to be Anna," Lady Mary sighs.
If only it had been someone else… that scheming little witch Edna –but Mrs. Hughes won't let herself start thinking like that. She would rather it had been anyone but Anna, but there was no way of changing the past.
"Dr. Clarkson will be with Bates when Papa breaks the news –just in case," Lady Mary says, wiping her eyes with a handkerchief.
"How will I ever face the poor man again?" Mrs. Hughes asks, half to herself. She knows that had she told Mr. Bates, Anna would have been livid and Mr. Bates would have been out for blood –but she also knows that Mr. Bates would never have let Anna out of his sight once he'd found out. Suddenly, her acquiescence with Anna's wishes seems foolish: wouldn't it have been better to have Anna angry at her but still alive?
"You weren't to know what would happen," Lady Mary says. "You were all the support Anna had over the past few weeks, that has to count for something."
"I wasn't enough," Mrs. Hughes says as Lady Mary leaves. She knows someone ought to be with Mr. Bates while Lord Grantham is telling him the story behind Anna's suicide, but she can't bring herself to go and watch as Mr. Bates' world is shredded.
"Mr. Carson is with Mr. Bates," Dr. Clarkson says as he stops by Mrs. Hughes' sitting room on his way to the hospital.
"How is he?" Mrs. Hughes dares to ask.
"Distraught," Dr. Clarkson answers. "With good reason, of course."
"What will happen now?"
"To Bates?" Clarkson asks, mystified, but Mrs. Hughes shakes her head. "To Anna."
"Her body will be taken down to the hospital. After that… I don't know about a funeral or burial. It will take a lot of persuading by Lord Grantham to convince the church authorities to permit her to have a church service or burial in the churchyard, but he'll do it. He feels terrible that this happened undetected under his roof."
"I helped to hide it," Mrs. Hughes admits.
"Anna would have hidden it anyway," Clarkson says. "At least she had you to confide in." His answer is scant comfort to Mrs. Hughes, who cannot stop wondering what would have been different if Anna had also had Mr. Bates and Lady Mary on her side.
On his way out, Clarkson hesitates.
"You can expect a visit from the police," he warns her, "but it's just a formality. There's no doubt Anna died by her own hand."
"No, Doctor, she didn't," Mrs. Hughes corrects him. "Mr. Green as good as killed her."
The servants' hall, although packed with people, is eerily subdued when Mrs. Hughes walks in. She wonders how much of the story the staff have pieced together. Miss Baxter looks lost in her thoughts, most of the younger maids have tearstained faces… and Thomas? Thomas has evidently been crying and isn't ashamed to show it. She notices that a number of black armbands have surfaced and wonders idly whether Mr. Carson will insist that the staff remove them or whether he will turn a blind eye.
Mrs. Patmore bustles in with a tray of food for Mr. Bates, but Mrs. Hughes reaches out for it.
"I'll take it up to him," she offers. It will give her some reason to see him, though she has no idea what she will say.
As it turns out, she has no need to worry about that. Mr. Bates, although conscious, seems in a trance. Previously a giant compared to tiny Anna, Mr. Bates looks shrunken, broken under his burden of grief.
"Lord Grantham and Lady Mary are taking care of all the arrangements," Mr. Carson tells her in an undertone, and Mrs. Hughes nods her understanding. Mr. Bates is obviously in no fit condition to deal with any of the formalities of death and funerals, and equally obviously, the family feels in some way responsible –not as responsible as she is, though no one appears to be acknowledging that.
"Anna?" Mr. Bates asks, breaking his silence. "Where is she? Have they taken her yet?"
"She's in one of the bedrooms," Mrs. Hughes answers. She knows, for Miss Baxter has told her, that Thomas helped Clarkson carry Anna down while all the other servants were in the servants' hall and she and Mr. Carson were with Lord Grantham.
"I need to see her," Mr. Bates says. "Please."
She cannot deny him this, not when she knows that had she done what she knew she should, his wife might still be alive.
"Come with me," she says gently, ignoring Mr. Carson's glare. Mr. Bates rises unsteadily, leaning heavily on his cane.
It takes longer than usual to descend the stairs, and she is relieved that Anna has only been brought one flight down.
"Thomas?" she asks in surprise when she sees the under butler sitting on a chair outside the makeshift morgue.
"I thought someone should be marking the room," he explains defensively.
"Thank you," Mr. Bates says as he approaches the closed door.
Thomas and Mrs. Hughes watch in silence as he enters the room where Anna lies covered by a sheet.
"If Mr. Bates gets his hands on him, that valet is a dead man," Thomas says quietly as the door closes behind Mr. Bates.
"Killing the valet won't bring Anna back," Mrs. Hughes says –and she knows that without Anna, Mr. Bates is a broken man. Possibly too broken to contemplate revenge.
A/N: Thank you all for your reviews :) I'm planning a possible chapter from Anna's POV, ending where chapter 1 stopped, or would that be too macabre?
Also, I'm doing a 50k in September challenge (NaNoWriMo warmup), and I'd like at least some of that 50k to be Downton fanfiction, so Anna/Bates prompts will be gratefully received. Although all I've written so far is angsty, I don't mind trying something a little lighter too