Title: Truth Coming Out of Her Well to Shame Mankind

Artist: Jean-Léon Gérome

Date: 1896

Medium: Oil on canvas

A few weeks after the surprise visits from Emma and Elise Carson the Molesley cottage received another unannounced visitor, this time Phyllis Molesley's best friend.

"What are you doing here?" Phyllis's voice cracked slightly as she opened the door to let him in.

"When were you going to tell me Lizzie's pregnant?" Thomas countered before instantly softening at the exhaustion that was visibly radiating off from his best friend.

"I… I don't know." Phyllis admitted quietly.

"You should have called." Thomas scolded her lightly before pressing his lips against her cheek. "I would have been here sooner."

"I asked Beatrice not to say anything." Phyllis sighed as she led him into the sitting room.

"She didn't." Thomas arched his brow in surprise at his friend's assumption. "Emma did though."

Phyllis sighed at the thought of the context he must have gotten from her older daughter, rubbing her hands tiredly across her face as she muttered. "Of course she did."

"I can only assume I haven't gotten the whole story from her letter." Thomas continued cautiously. "Would you like to fill in some details for me?"

Phyllis was debating how she was meant to handle the situation she'd been presented with when as if on cue Joseph and Elizabeth walked through the front door, the latter of which was obviously emotionally and physically exhausted by whatever they'd been out doing.

As soon as she noticed their guest Elizabeth leapt behind her father in an attempt to hide herself from the man whose judgment she feared almost as much as her parents'.

"Lizzie, he already knows." Phyllis informed her softly, prompting her daughter to angrily charge forward towards her.

"You shouldn't have told him!" Elizabeth sneered angrily, surprised to see nothing but agreement on her mother's face as she nodded in agreement.

"You're right. I'm sorry." Phyllis apologized readily.

Before Elizabeth could come up with a further argument , Thomas reached his arms out towards her with the offer of a familiar hug. "Come here, squirt."

Thankfully Elizabeth took his offered distraction leaving Phyllis and Joseph alone in the entryway to the room as Thomas led Elizabeth over to the settee where the pair began a tense but clearly caring exchange about her news.

"You didn't tell Thomas about Lizzie." Joseph observed quietly as he watched his wife waver slightly on her feet.

"No, I didn't." Phyllis confirmed with a slight nod as she leaned heavily against her husband's chest at his invitation.

Joseph shook his head as he looked down at his wife in confusion. "Why did you–"

"Because it was Emma." Phyllis stopped him gently. "I couldn't put anything else between them. Not with the way things are."

Joseph smiled as he pressed a kiss to the top of his wife's head. "You're a very good mother, Mrs. Molesley."

"Or a very cowardly one." Phyllis scoffed back.

"No." Joseph disagreed easily. "There are so many words I could use to describe you, but cowardly has never been one of them."

The couple was interrupted by Elizabeth walking through the doorway as she announced, "Uncle Thomas is staying for dinner and he's going to help me make an apple tart for pudding." which put an end to the tension in the room which thankfully lasted for the rest of Thomas's visit.

It wasn't long until Thomas Barrow returned to the Molesley cottage, this time with a small gray kitten in tow.

"I brought someone to see you." Thomas announced with a grin as he approached Elizabeth in the back garden.

At the sight of the kitten Elizabeth practically melted in adoration. "Oh my God."

"This is Pepper and she's the runt of the latest litter from the Ellis' farm." Thomas explained with a grin as he carefully transferred the wiggling kitten to Elizabeth's waiting arms. "She's had a bit of a hard time fitting in and needs some extra looking after."

"Oh poor little thing." Elizabeth cooed softly as she ran her hand across the kitten's belly before turning up to her father with wide eyes "Oh Daddy, can we look after her? At least for a while?"

"Of course." Joseph nodded in agreement, well aware that the kitten's arrival was planned by his wife and her best friend as a comfort for their daughter as they worked through what was sure to be a painful period for them all. "I'm sure we can find most of what we'd need to look after her around the house. Anything else we can pick up in town."

Elizabeth grinned back, clearly besotted by the small creature crawling around her lap before suddenly frowning as she asked, "Will Mum be alright with this?"

"You leave her to me." Thomas shot Elizabeth a grin of his own before winking to the other man as he gestured for him to follow him back into the cottage.

Joseph and Thomas managed to find enough to talk about as the former prepared them both a cup of tea before they settled in at the kitchen table. Their once uncomfortable relationship had grown into one of familiarity and mutual care. They both knew that even if they had nothing more in common, they both cared deeply for the Molesley women and that was more than enough for them to work with.

"Thanks again for bringing the kitten for Lizzie. We're really hoping giving her something to focus on other than the…" Joseph trailed off awkwardly before shaking his head and sighing tiredly.

"It was no trouble." Thomas stopped him knowingly. "You know Richard, Bea, and I want to do anything we can to help, and honestly that extends to the rest of the Ellis family."

Joseph nodded in acknowledgement, certain of the truth in the other man's words. The Ellis family had become an extension of their own over the years and that relationship had only strengthened since they'd reached out to Richard's sister Beatrice for help with managing the adoption and Elizabeth's care.

"Speaking of, I have some papers from Bea." Thomas continued as he pulled some lightly folded pages from his jacket's inner pocket. "They're not all urgent, but the maternity home needs to know about her dates in order to work with the agency."

"I'm afraid I can't help you with that and Lizzie may not be able to either." Joseph replied with a frown. "Phyllis has been taking her to the clinic and I can't recall a time when Lizzie's come back anything other than entirely distraught."

"That's okay." Thomas stopped the other man, his neck reddening as quickly as his own. "I've got some time before I need to head back."

Phyllis returned home within the hour and took over for her husband at the kitchen table with her best friend, her hand scribbling across various forms as she sorted through the stack of pages he'd brought with him.

It wasn't until she'd nearly finished that Thomas awkwardly cleared his throat before admitting, "This isn't on the paperwork, but Bea wanted me to ask you something."

"Of course." Phyllis replied distractedly as she scribbled hastily across another one of the forms before setting it aside.

"Phyl, can you give me a minute for this?" Phyllis looked up at him in surprise and Thomas had to steel his nerves before reciting the question his sister-in-law had drilled into him that morning. "Bea wants to know if there was any physical trauma to Elizabeth's birth canal that could cause complications with the birth."

Phyllis froze immediately, her gaze focused on the middle-distance before she shook her head angrily and muttered, "Oh, fuck."

Thomas cringed as he reached out to squeeze his best friend's hand in an attempt to keep her grounded. "I'll take that as a yes."

"Dr. Garreth knows the details, but if we're to transfer her care… she's right to have asked." Phyllis ground out as she held tightly onto Thomas's hand.

"She says that it's not part of the intake paperwork since it's not a part of a standard medical history, but from experience it's easier to go in knowing so that the…" Thomas cringed as Phyllis's grip tightened in expectation of his next word. "So that the victim doesn't have to relive it during what is already likely to be a traumatic experience."

"She can't go over it again." Phyllis agreed easily. "It's too much."

Thomas sat with her for several minutes, hopeful that with enough time his friend would explain further without prompting but eventually he softly asked, "Do you want to tell me or would you rather… write it down?"

"That devil put a palette knife in her." Phyllis spat out viciously, the ease with which she'd said the words surprising both of them.

Thomas felt his stomach flip harshly as the meaning of her words registered. "I'm sorry?"

"He wanted to kill the baby." Phyllis explained tiredly. "I don't know what he thought would happen if he'd succeeded as Elizabeth would've bled out in his classroom–"

"I'm sorry, what? " Thomas sputtered at his friend's accidental revelation. "Surely you didn't just say his classroom?

Phyllis buried her head in her hands with a groan as she muttered, "God, I shouldn't have told you that."

"I'm going to fucking kill him." Thomas replied firmly, his hands both clenched into white-knuckled fists on top of the table in front of him.

"No you're not." Phyllis stopped him tiredly. "What you are going to do is ask Bea to call when she can so we can discuss the possibility of the vaginal lacerations causing issues during the birth."

Thomas balked slightly at the frankness of her words before taking a deep breath and nodding in agreement. "Of course. I'll do that as soon as I'm back in York."

"I don't know how I didn't…" Phyllis trailed off tiredly before pulling the last of the forms towards her and trying to skim the words in front of her through her now teary eyes.

"Hey, it's okay." Thomas tried to comfort her once more only for her to pull her arm away harshly.

"Nothing about any of this is okay, Thomas." Phyllis snapped back. "Just… let me get through this. I need to be able to do this for her. I have to."

Thomas nodded as he shifted back away from her, not saying a word as he watched her finish the paperwork as an all-too-familiar sense of dread surrounded them both.

Elizabeth had been in better spirits ever since Pepper arrived at the cottage, but there were still moments that seemingly sent them back in time to the first weeks after Elizabeth's return home. Those moments seemed to come in the mail all too often.

"What's that?" Phyllis asked cautiously as she watched her daughter stare blankly at the envelope in her hands.

"Huh?" Elizabeth looked up to her mother slowly before shaking her head slightly and adding, "Oh… nothing. Just another letter from the school."

"Would you like me to contact the office for you?" Phyllis offered gently for what must have been the hundredth time. "We can simply say you've taken ill and that you won't be able to return until the fall. No one has to know what's truly happened."

"But Mrs. Talbot knows that's not true." Elizabeth protested angrily as she shoved the envelope into her mother's waiting hands. "There's no point in it anyway, I can't get my degree without his approval and I… I'm never stepping foot in a room with that man again."

"And you never have to." Phyllis affirmed easily as she sat down at the table across from her husband.

Elizabeth followed suit, eating her breakfast quietly for some time before quietly asking, "You're not upset I won't finish the program?"

"Of course not." Phyllis assured her once more, this time giving her husband's leg a slight kick beneath the table to ensure he was paying attention to the conversation. "We're very proud of your work and we don't need a piece of paper to prove to us how far you've come."

Joseph's teeth ground down firmly as he did his best to keep his anger in check.

Elizabeth noticed his clenched jaw and stared down at her plate, clearly ashamed of herself as she asked, "Daddy?"

"I'm not upset with you." He managed softly as he watched his daughter attempt once again to keep her emotions in check. "I'm frustrated by the situation."

"Joseph." Phyllis snapped at her husband as she stood from the table, motioning for him to follow her into the sitting room where she instantly launched into a chastisement that he'd heard dozens of times before. "I know you're frustrated, but you can't take that out on her because I'm not letting you–"

"God, don't do this today." Joseph snapped back immediately.

"Whoa." Phyllis immediately put her hands up in surrender, her eyes wide with surprise at his harsh reaction. "What on earth is going on with you?"

"I can't do this today." Joseph shook his head as he moved towards the front door to retrieve his shoes. "I should have told you earlier, but I'm going to take the train into London this morning. I'm sorry to leave like this but I just… I can't do this right now."

"You're allowed to need space and time to process this too." Phyllis replied patiently. "I'm sorry if I pushed on something that was too much for you right now.."

"It's not–" Joseph shook his head in frustration before sighing and pressing his lips gently against his wife's. "I love you."

Phyllis bobbed her head in agreement before softly asking, "Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Take care of her." Joseph replied simply. "I'll be home tonight, I promise."

Phyllis nodded as she reached for his summer coat, handing it to him with a soft squeeze to his hand "We''ll be waiting for you."

Joseph had been honest when he'd told his wife he was going into London for the day, what he had managed to get away without telling her was exactly what he was doing there, which was certainly for the best as she certainly would have stopped him if she knew he intended to spend the afternoon in the office of Dr. Richard Fox at the Royal College of Art.

"Thank you for taking the time to meet with me Dr. Fox." Joseph reached his hand across the large desk in front of him to shake the man's hand before taking a seat across from him.

"Of course. I'm always happy to discuss our students with those interested in taking them on for apprenticeships." The man replied with an infuriatingly charismatic smile. "I'm sorry but I don't remember Mrs. Talbot giving me your name or gallery affiliation."

"Oh, she wouldn't have." Joseph replied calmly. "I insisted on remaining anonymous."

"Well that's certainly out of the ordinary." Dr. Fox straightened his posture slightly in a move that Joseph couldn't discern as either distress or curiosity.

Regardless of the other man's demeanor, Joseph was more than sure that now was the time to let the other man in on the purpose of his visit. "My name is Joseph Molesley and I'm here on behalf of my daughter Elizabeth Molesley."

Dr. Fox's eyes widened slightly, but his reply was smooth. "Ah, yes. Such a shame." He paused only briefly to give a slight cough before continuing. "The loss of another brilliant pupil to more traditional routes is truly a disappointment."

"You would know smart when you saw it." Joseph remarked pointedly. "Certainly you'd consider yourself to be a smart man."

Dr. Fox chuckled at that. "Well I wouldn't say that multiple doctoral degrees in fine art is something that they'd give to a man who wasn't smart."

"A fair point." Joseph replied with a polite smile. "But there's a thing about smart men like yourself. You only bother to be smart enough to outsmart people who you've already tricked into your scheme or frightened into submission. You're not prepared for someone even remotely competent who doesn't have a shred of respect for you and has absolutely nothing to lose."

Dr. Fox's neck began to turn bright red and he tugged at his collar as he began his angry response. "I don't know what that girl of yours has said happened here but–"

Joseph cut him off, entirely uninterested in what excuses the man was prepared to offer. "You rely on young women like my daughter being too afraid of you to ever say a word about what you've done to them, and that's worked for you until now. But you made a mistake with my daughter."

"I'm afraid I haven't the slightest idea of what you're talking about." Dr. Fox replied slowly, his expression giving away his obvious attempt to buy himself some time.

"My daughter grew up in a home that was different than the homes most girls grew up in." Joseph continued icily. "She's known since day one that there is absolutely nothing she can't tell us. But perhaps more importantly, she knew we would never judge her for what you've done to her because her sister is the product of the same vile behavior."

Dr. Fox's gaze narrowed slightly before he hissed, "What did she tell you?"

"Oh she's told me everything." Joseph shook his head with a confident smirk. "I know that you cut her off from everyone else before making a single move. I know that you threatened her place in the program to keep her quiet after you started using her for your own perverse pleasure. I know that when you found out about the all too predictable consequence of your actions that you sliced the inside of her in an attempt to cover up your own embarrassingly sloppy mistake."

"I think it's time for you to leave, Mr. Molesley." Dr. Fox quickly stood from his chair.

"Oh I don't think so." Joseph replied without moving from the chair across from the now visibly sweaty man. "I expect you'd quite like to hear the rest of what I have to say."

"I'm not interested in any more of your lies–" Dr. Fox tried again only to be cut off once more.

"Something occurred to me as my daughter detailed your actions over the last several months. They were too intentional. This couldn't be the first time you've done something like this." Joseph explained easily, his certainty in his accusation preventing the usual nerves that would accompany such a confrontation from the man. "So when I arrived this morning I spoke with your lovely department secretary and got access to your students' thesis files on behalf of the alumni association. It was easy enough to sort through the files and find the women you've worked with and I noticed an interesting pattern. Nearly half a dozen women over the last decade with you as their thesis mentor, but not a single degree among them."

Dr. Fox scoffed dismissively. "That proves nothing."

"No it doesn't. But what you don't know - or what I suppose I assume you don't know, given how obvious it makes your little scheme - is that the college alumni association surveys students after they leave the school." Joseph explained patiently. "One thing that the association is particularly interested in is why students terminate their studies early and when looking through these student's files I noticed the most peculiar thing."

"And what would that be?" Dr. Fox asked as his hands splayed across his desk to support him as he leered over the other man.

"That every single one of them left to have a baby." Joseph replied easily, entirely unphased by the anger seeping across the desk from the man across from him. "Now to anyone with less information than I have, this wouldn't cause any suspicion." He continued confidently. "Otherwise promising young women drop out of their careers to raise children every single day. There's no reason for anyone to suspect foul play - that is unless they knew that each one of those women were unmarried at the time that they left the college and that coincidentally each one of them worked for you as a model for your introductory figure model course."

Dr. Fox's brow was dripping sweat as he began to protest, "It's still not enough proof to–"

Joseph didn't let him finish once again. "Oh you're quite right. I don't have any proof with me here today - but it's only a matter of time before my daughter will give birth to a child that just might have the right blood type to incriminate you, not to mention the seven other children we both know you fathered." He paused for a moment to watch the other man squirm before continuing. "Now, I think it's time we get to why exactly I'm here."

Dr. Fox shook his head angrily before hissing, "What do you want?"

"You will do two things for me." Joseph replied calmly. "Elizabeth, and every other woman you've pulled this abusive scheme with, will have their degrees conferred immediately."

"I can't make that happen." Dr. Fox replied nervously.

"Oh yes you can." Joseph corrected immediately. "Each and every one of them were in their final semester of their studies and they all only needed one signature to approve their completion of their programs. I know you don't need me to tell you that."

After a long silence Dr. Fox quietly asked, "You said you had two demands?"

"I do." Joseph said as he stood from his chair to give him leverage enough to lean across the desk and grasp the other man's collar as he whispered, "If you value your life you will never, under any circumstance, find yourself within arm's reach of my daughter ever again."

"You drive a hard bargain Mr. Molesley." Dr. Fox sputtered as Joseph let go of his shirt.

"I suppose if you're unwilling to meet my demands I can go ahead and take these files over to Scotland Yard and request that a case be opened investigating you as a serial rapist." Joseph offered with a feigned smile.

Dr. Fox quickly shook his head. "I never said that I wouldn't meet your demands."

"Ah yes. We both know that regardless of how such an investigation turned out it would ruin your pristine reputation." Joseph continued to smile. "And we both know that you're not above breaking the rules to get what you want."

Dr. Fox sighed deeply before reaching his hand out to the man in front of him. "You have a deal, Mr. Molesley. Your daughter's diploma will be mailed to your residence in the next few weeks."

"I'll happily wait while you find the paperwork and diplomas you've stashed away somewhere." Joseph replied as he sat back down. "If it's all the same to you, I'd like to ensure they get delivered myself."

NOTES:

Content Warnings:
Descriptions of Abuse & Rape/Non-Con; Pregnancy; Medical Trauma; Abuse of Power; PTSD/Panic Attacks

Chapter Recap (Contains Spoilers):
Thomas visits Phyllis and they discuss the situation between Emma and Elizabeth. Thomas brings a kitten for Elizabeth from the Ellis farm. Joseph makes a trip to London to confront Elizabeth's teacher and rapist about his actions.