August Bank Holiday 1970
A car drew up the long gravel driveway. Not yet the church bazaar that Master Georgie had planned, his mother directing trestle tables and teapots, plants and women from the village for the bring and buy sale, but getting there. Lady Mary had estimated that the bazaar had run for at least a hundred years, excluding those with a war on.
Sybbie Masters came to the front door, almost unnoticed, and was in the library before her cousin's boy, George Crawley Junior noticed her. There was too much going on for her to be noticed, and she stood by the fireplace, an almost carbon copy of her mother.
"Cousin Sybbie! Oh, but I wasn't expecting you until this evening! And Howard? Is he at Catterick, or will he be coming later?" Georgie went to embrace her. Sybbie's long dark hair, cut into a bob, swept beside Master Georgie's face as he leaned over to kiss her. "Freddie! Get Mr. Barrow to me immediately!" A passing hall boy stopped quickly, carrying as he was a tray of plates.
"Very good, your lordship," he replied, and sped up his delivery. Barrow was on the field, directing operations. The games were to be one side, the tables all around, and chairs at sitting tables dotted around the amusements. Georgie nodded and gestured to Sybbie.
"And how long are you planning on staying? Has Aunt Edith left already? I was looking forward to seeing Marigold and Peter. But, they will be returning at Christmas?"
"Yes," nodded Sybbie, glancing around at the bookshelves. "Peter is training in the diplomatic service, why in heavens' name, considering the money they have. Marigold still isn't married. I don't think she ever will be, but she is a good egg, being secretary to Peter."
"It's the most we can expect of her." The voice came from beside the door. Both Sybbie and Georgie turned to see Lady Mary at the door.
"Grandmama!" Georgie broke into a huge smile.
"Aunt Mary!"
"Sybbie! This is a surprise!" With lightness of foot, Mary Talbot crossed the carpet and embraced her niece. "You came all this way in one day? Catterick isn't too far, but Scotland...?" Nothing could get past Lady Mary, and Sybbie Bell dipped her head slightly too far as Lady Mary kissed her on the cheek.
"It's...it's something, something and nothing," she said, and put her hand to mouth.
"Tell me the something - " Mary looked out of the window at the assembling church bazaar, "- later. You are staying, aren't you?" A look of worry passed over Sybbie's face. She nodded, awkwardly.
"Or, come upstairs, and tell me now," Mary told her, placing a hand on Sybbie's arm. Her niece flinched at the touch and shook her head.
"Now is not the time," she replied, then added with what Mary suspected was false brightness, "Besides, people are arriving now, and there is so much to do."
Mary nodded. It was one of those days. A day when, dawn to dusk, a mad pace was on, and at closing, the church collected money from the bazaar for the poor, to help those in need. Already, Flora Barrow and Daisy were setting up the refreshments tent, Johnny Bates and Larry Parker were erecting the marquees. Soon, tables would be set up with cakes and pastries, ice cream, homemade punch and a flower stall. There would be second hand books and, in this modern age, second hand records and electricals.
"Well, I shall see you later on," Lady Mary told her grandson and niece. "I do so love the church bazaar, it seems to herald the end of the summer season and the beginning of autumn."
"Another summer done. The birds will be flying soon," Sybbie remarked, her face somewhat severe for a brief moment, before smiling apologetically. "Dear aunt, I am so glad to be here, in the moment of things. How I feel safe here."
Safe, thought Mary Talbot as she crossed the field. If only Downton could remain safe for everyone. Even if Georgie were to find a millionairess, it isn't down to money, at least, not all of it. Some of it was her father's folly of promise, with goodness in his heart, without anticipating the ramifications.
Could it have been any different, even if he could have known? Somehow, Mary didn't think so. She would never change her papa to be someone else, and now Downton Abbey was to be sold, and they were to live a simpler life.
"Tie it up high, Johnny," Larry Parker encouraged. A basket of apples and a beam of wood were going to make a game whereby participants tried to eat all of their apple, hands behind their back, without losing any of the apple. They had already set up the shooting target and the hook the duck and the shove penny board and a man from Thirsk was coming with his Punch and Judy show. Anna had remarked the night before that she thought he had been coming to Downton for the church bazaar for over sixty years.
And the morning would turn into the afternoon, Mary thought, and people would buy food and sit around in the warm sunshine. Children from the village would come and participate in the sack race and the three legged race, and shove their parents forward for the mum's and the dad's races.
"Oh my word, I think this has been at Downton since at least the turn of the century!" Lady Mary put a hand forward and touched the worn boards that held the bell ringing amusement in place. Thomas Barrow stopped in his traverse towards the refreshments stall, and gave Mary Talbot a smile.
"I remember it, Barrow," she told him. "I could only have been...seven, or eight - " her eyes roamed the weathered paintwork. "The...old queen was on the throne, we had not long had her diamond jubilee. And Carson, well - " she broke off and smiled at Thomas Barrow, " - he took up the hammer and asked if I wanted to hear the bell ring. I nodded." She looked to Downton's current butler. "He took up the hammer and struck it for all it was worth - the noise was tremendous! And all around, everyone applauded. And, do you know what he did?"
"No, my lady," Thomas replied, his form of address out of habit rather than formality.
"He nodded to me, and left the hammer with the stallkeeper." She smiled again. "No self-congratulation, just a little wink for me." Mary sighed, feeling her age. "It seems like a lifetime ago - " she jerked her head to Thomas, " - it was a lifetime ago, Barrow. And, look at the bazaar now, still carrying on, still making money for the needy - Barrow - "
Mary Talbot put a hand on Thomas's arm, for she suspected - rightly - that he was going to nod and continue with his duty. "I am...sorry...for your loss..."
"Loss?"
"Dr. Bragg...?" It was crossing a line, Mary knew. But Thomas had drawn in on himself since the academic had left, and looked, somehow, older.
"I need to look after my family; Ernest is growing up to be a superb father, excellent in all aspects - "
"And that can only be down to you," Mary Talbot reassured him, as a line of bunting appeared between the refreshment stand and the cake stall.
"Down to me, if you say so, Lady Mary," Thomas replied, acerbically. "But it is in the first dozen you learn to be the person you are." He dipped his head ever so slightly. "That was in Germany."
"And you wouldn't know it, there is nothing to put him apart from any other person of his age. No trace of - "
"No trace of Germanness, no, Lady Mary. Ernest takes a lot of trouble to make sure that's so. He is a model Englishman."
"Indeed," Mary continued, feeling compelled to keep the conversation going. Something didn't scan smoothly, something bigger than one or two people. It was probably Downton situation, she would think, later. But, nevertheless. "Indeed, Ernest and Johnny Bates are good friends now, their children get along with one another. Janet and Christopher grew up here and are part of Downton." She looked at the lawn and Thomas saw a flicker in her face. "What a pity this will be the last church bazaar."
"Will it?" The bunting flapped a little in the gentle summer breeze.
"If Georgie can't find the money, earn the money, or get out of the agreements. It's not like when my father was alive and Grandmama could just send him off to find a woman with money. No," she sighed, "We have other places, the land is worth more as a distribution centre and a place where people come to work. I am glad my father is not here to see such days." But Thomas Barrow's mind, so usually fixed on the business of Downton, was elsewhere.
"You think I am a good father?" Thomas looked at Mary Talbot, once Crawley, someone almost the same age as he was, and with whom he had shared so much life.
"I said "superb", Barrow, of course! Whyever would I think not?"
I have kept him too close, all of them," Thomas relayed, "Like a crab bucket. Philip said as much."
"Crab bucket...?" Thomas, despite his better judgment, conceded.
"When you collect crabs at the beach, and put them in the bucket. One always tries to escape, venture away from the rest. But others always pull it back down." Thomas curled his lips inwards. "I...suppose I have done that with my family. I have made it so it has been easy for Ernest to stay, have made it so he had no need to go anywhere."
"I think you don't think of yourself enough, you don't give yourself enough credit, Thomas. That boy arrived at our door with a scrap of clothing and some documents, and you took him in. Because of the love you had for his mother - the love you had," Mary repeated, to prevent Thomas Barrow from interrupting. "You could have left him to live with the policeman at Hull, but you decided to take him in, and give him a home. Why wouldn't you provide for him? You have done what a lot of fathers don't do for their children, and with never a complaint, or not one I've heard about."
Thomas moved his head, stiffly, but said nothing. "And you will miss Downton as much as any of us. The cottages are staying, and they will be ours. Don't think that you won't be left with money, nor Daisy, and I am convinced Florrie will get a job somewhere else. Larry has Cherry Tree farm in his own right with Andy Parker; Johnny Bates is to be taken on over towards Thirsk."
"It's...a great deal of change for me, my Lady," Thomas told her, watching Janet scurry Milo-like across the lawn towards her mother, bringing a basket of things. He also saw Georgie Crawley watch her go.
"Mr. Barrow," Mary Talbot continued. "We have seen some times. I remember a summer's day like this, oh, in the twenties...we still have the same things as then."
"People like it," Thomas thawed. "It's predictable, familiar. We have drink and food from fifty years ago."
"I hope not, for our constitutions," Lady Mary replied, joking in her inimitable way. "Every year, it was. Mama would caution that we mustn't spoil the lawn; someone would find the chairs and tables."
"He has been invited to Birmingham to see some people about watches and clocks, has a new design for one. Precision timing." Thomas felt he had to tell someone. Lady Mary had more secrets than MI6 in her head; one more - and it wasn't really a secret - wouldn't make any difference.
"Nothing like the Germans for their precision - " she saw Thomas's face, "I am sorry, just a little joke. I barely even remember where he was born, except sometimes when he talks about Downton "willage". He is a credit to you, Thomas, you did the right thing by his mother.
"Did I, Lady Mary?" He glanced over, saw Miss Sybbie taking a cup of tea from the trea tent "Florrie is going with him; Daisy and Janet are going to keep the kitchen going; I will make sure nothing goes amiss."
"I am sure nothing will. Ernest has his mother's intelligence. And your sense." Mary put a hand on Thomas's arm again. "Thank you for everything, Barrow. You have shown loyalty beyond measure to Downton Abbey. I am glad I am here with you, at the close."
With that, and the almost invisible shudder she gave at her final words, Mary Talbot made her way steadily to the flower stall.
It wasn't just him who was taking the end of Downton with difficulty. But his interest was for a different reason. He knew, he knew, in the deep, dark depths of the night, that his interest was because the place was intertwined with his love of Ernest Ashby, Milo's brother, and his own determination to fight. On two fronts.
With Downton gone, an easy cover would be blown. And less than a week would pass, sometimes, between people finding things that belonged to Milo, or were associated with her.
Dear Melusina.
It had taken Thomas a long time to find the letter that Janet had been showing to Master Georgie. He had sent it into the fire in the butler's room, not before his stomach moved with uneasiness, like a snake trying to digest a rodent. Dated June 1923, Harold Levinson had written, shortly after Lady Rose's ball and had, from what Thomas could tell, "wanted to get to know her better".
Maybe Milo had never received it. And it was gone now, both parties being dead and the letter in ashes. That Larry had encouraged Janet, and given her a focus was a double edged sword. The girl had come out of herself, asking people as she had been doing about her grandmother, and filling notebook after notebook with stories about her.
Thomas has made the point of telling Janet, with Florrie and Ernest present that he thought it was a splendid idea.
But, what if it turned up some of Milo's sectets? Thomas knew would have to use all his guile to guide control the information. It was his "obsession", or so Philip had told him. Questioning him about Manchester might have been taking it too far. But the last few years being filled with news of spies and traitors "living amongst them", both in Britain and on the continent - but he owed it to Milo to defend her reputation when she cold not defend it herself.
Ernest was not going to Switzerland now, that was one relief.
But...Miss Sybbie was back. What did that mean? For Thomas had been ultra careful with the information, the most with the scant news he had gleaned over the years...
Thomas continued with his trolley of homemade wine that was going to the refreshments table, and nodded with a smile to Daisy.
Branson was still alive, that Patrick Neale was in Boston. And neither were going to destroy Melusina's name, not if Thomas had anything to do with it.