DOWNTON ABBEY 1926

CHAPTER 1

Robert and Cora

The Earl and Countess of Grantham were at table, seated across from each other as was always the case. Before them an assortment of food was arrayed on an eclectic - some might say mismatched - set of dishes. They were in the servants' hall at a table Cora had never graced in her life and Robert had not sat at since he was six years old.

Their plates were as yet empty, but Robert was taking in the feast before him with eager eyes. His wife was somewhat more hesitant.

"I don't think we should be doing this, Robert."

"Why not?" he demanded, looking up sharply. "It's our kitchen, isn't it? And our food?"

Cora gave him a look. "It may be our food, but it isn't our kitchen. I don't think Mrs. Patmore will be happy about this."

For a moment it seemed as though Robert were going to protest. And then the imperious set of his shoulders sagged and he grimaced. "I'll write her a note pleading extenuating circumstances. And there are extenuating circumstances. She'll understand." Robert began helping himself to the food. He paused in the middle of transferring a chicken leg to his plate. "I've never had...what is it? leftovers? before. Have I?"

Cora ignored this last and, referring to Mrs. Patmore, said instead, "I hope so."

"I could blame it on the Northrops," Robert mused. "Not on their cook, but on the Northrops for hiring such a dreadful cook. What a ghastly meal."

"It was a ghastly party," Cora said, with feeling. "What were the Northrops thinking inviting us to dine with the Drumgooles? And then putting me beside him at dinner? He didn't say a word to me, not one word. Awkward doesn't begin to describe it."

Robert commiserated. "No, he was saving all his words for me over brandy and cigars. And how could I respond? Fundamentally, I agree with him. I was repulsed by Tom's involvement in the violence against the Anglo-Irish landholders and I still shudder when I think of him standing by while the Drumgooles were turned out of their home to watch it burn. And I told Drumgoole so. But what can I do? Tom is our son-in-law, the husband of our dead daughter, the father of our eldest grandchild. And he...well, he's reformed."

"Is that what you said to him?"

"Something like that. And, oh, I bleated Tom's line about 'those places are different to me.' You know, that folderol about how he saw the great estates in Ireland as symbols of oppression. But I could hardly be convincing. I never swallowed it."

"I imagine it will be a long time before the Northrops have us back."

"I hope they get a new cook in the meantime. How did the Drumgooles end up there anyway?"

"Lady Drumgoole is Lady Northrop's second cousin."

"Mmm. Yes. I'd forgotten. I never got round to finding out how they've been surviving. Their whole living was in Ireland and they were completely dispossessed when Ireland became independent. It makes me worry about what's in store for us around the next bend." He sighed.

Cora smiled at him. "Then we'll certainly change the subject because we can't have you worrying." She'd stopped telling him to take it easy and she wasn't scrutinizing his food, or even alcohol, consumption any more. But she hadn't left all her concerns for his health behind.

Robert had taken a bite of the meat pie. "Oh, this is awfully good! Why don't we ever have steak and kidney pie upstairs?"

"Robert."

He grinned. "This is very good. I've always liked Mrs. Patmore's cooking. We should give her a raise as an inducement to stay with us forever."

Cora gave him a wistful look. "We could try, but I'm not sure we can stem those tides. I'm wondering how long Mrs. Carson will want to stay. She might have been with us forever if she hadn't married, but now another life is beckoning. How is Carson these days?" She rarely saw their former butler, but Robert walked with him every Monday morning.

"Do you know, he's really turned a corner. He enjoyed doing that piece for Edith's magazine. And Mama has got her claws into him about a Crawley family history. She's seeing him tomorrow about it. I don't think he can escape that." Robert finished off the remnants of his pie and took a sip of the wine he'd opened. It was the only thing he and Cora had brought to the meal. "I'm just hoping that the Carsons will stay in the estate cottage when she does retire. I've gotten accustomed to Carson being down the road a bit, but I don't want to him to move across the county. And then there's Bates."

"Bates!" Cora frowned. "Where is Bates going?"

Robert put down his cutlery and folded his hands. "Well, we can't expect Anna and Bates to continue in their positions for much longer. They have a child now, and while we've made accommodations for them, why wouldn't they want to be on their own, with more time to spend together as a family? I know lots of working class parents don't have all that much time with their children, but the Bateses will want to be together. They've had enough separation," he added, a reference to the tribulations the Bateses had faced over the past few years.

"Do they have any plans?"

"Oh, he's spoken of operating their own little hotel, here in Yorkshire somewhere. He's never given it any substance, but he gets a gleam in his eye. Bates would like to be his own boss and I don't blame him." Robert spoke with sincerity, if also with a tinge of sadness.

Cora remembered that she had not always thought Bates an asset to Downton, but there was no denying that he had become an important person in her husband's life. "You've always gotten on so well."

"We've gotten on extremely well," Robert agreed, and then sighed. "There'll never be anyone else like him for me, even if I do hire another valet. Just as Carson has been irreplaceable. I mean, Barrow is a competent butler, but he will never be Carson. Not to me."

"He's doing just fine," Cora said firmly. "And you ought to tell him so, on occasion."

"Why? I didn't congratulate Carson on a job well done at every turn."

"Yes, you did," Cora reminded him. "And in any case Carson was always confident of your good opinion. It was inherent in the relationship you had with him. You should be more explicit with Barrow."

"Hmmm." For a moment they ate in silence. "Did I see the remains of a treacle tart in the back of the refrigerator? I haven't had a taste of that in ages."

Cora obligingly got up to get it.

"At least everyone's reasonably happy," Robert said, and then his eyes went round with anticipation as Cora put the treat before him. "Mary and Henry are happily married, George remains a delight, and Stephen is a healthy little boy. Edith and Bertie are set to formally adopt Marigold and then that will be off our plates, forever, I hope."

Cora was not quite as convinced by this blissful picture. "Tom's not settled," she said.

"Oh, Tom's happy in his work," Robert said dismissively.

Cora chose not to challenge him. "I suppose you're right." She took up the litany. "And Isobel and Dickie are living happily ever after."

"Yes," Robert mused. "Lord and Lady Merton. Except he's not really Lord Merton any more. He's an ex-pat aristocrat living in his wife's house while his son lords it over the county."

"When you're Larry Grey, that's a lot of lording to do. But he doesn't have the title."

"Fortunately Dickie's not conveniently accessible or Larry might...what is that American term? bump him off?" There was a glint of mischief in his eye.

"Robert!" Cora said reprovingly. "What a thing to say! And not all Americans talk like gangsters, you know."

For a moment Robert savoured the sweet pie. "Try this," he insisted, pushing the plate across the table to her. Sharing food from the same plate was a vulgarity neither would have indulged in anywhere but in the solitude of the servants' kitchen at midnight. But Robert thought nothing of breaking the rules here, having already transgressed several, and Cora blithely joined him.

"That is delicious!" Cora declared. "I think it's a good thing we don't have that upstairs! Think of the dentist bills!"

Robert groaned. "I'd rather not think of the dentist, thank you. Another horror." He forked the last piece of pie but his hand stilled in mid-air as another thought occurred to him. "Cora." There was a sudden earnestness in his voice and he looked at his wife with an eager, almost shy look.

Her eyes came up to meet his and she smiled uncertainly at the intensity there.

"What do you say we give it all up? Hand it over to Mary, lock, stock, and barrel. We could move to the south of France, live a simpler life, enjoy ourselves."

A smile returned to Cora's face at his words. "You're not at all like Dickie Merton, Robert. You could never abdicate Downton." She began to gather the dishes together. "Besides, what about my hospital work?"

He watched her construct a delicate pile of dishes and then retreat into the kitchen with them. He had smiled at her words, which were true enough, but there was a wistfulness in his own suggestion that she had not discerned. "Yes," he said quietly, "there is your hospital work."

Charlie and Elsie

Elsie reached up to brush away that wayward strand of hair from her husband's forehead. It was there. She knew it would be even though she could not see it, nor even make out his face in the almost total darkness of their bedroom. The soft grey-black lock was damp from his exertions. She combed it back gently so as not to awaken him, for he was asleep already. It was always so. It usually took her a little longer.

Slowly she extricated herself from her husband's arms, extending a hand out on her side of the bed in search of the nightdress she had slipped out of some time before. Finding it, she pulled it over her head, her fingers lingering for a moment over the symbols embroidered on the breast. The gown was a wedding night gift from Charlie and she cherished it.

She left the bed and the room and headed for the bathroom at the end of the hall. The electric bulb in there was dim, but it was more than she needed. She ran the water until it was warm and then wet and rinsed a cloth. Drawing up the hem of her gown, she tidied herself up, the final act for her of a night of intimacy. They had become proficient at ... making love - it was a term she had never said aloud and even only whispered in her head - over the past year. It had been awkward at first, of course, and they'd both been clumsy and hesitant. But those old standbys - laughter and love and patience - had seen them through that phase, and now their couplings were smooth, fun, exhilarating even. And a full evening's entertainment.

And therein lay the problem, if problem it were. Practice had shown that a leisurely approach suited them. They relished the means as much as the ends and indulged themselves at every stage in this game of intimacy. But it did take time.

She rinsed out the cloth and then adjusted her nightgown once more. There were only the two of them in the cottage, but she could not contemplate the prospect of walking from the bedroom to the bathroom unclothed. Nakedness might be natural, but it wasn't comfortable, not for her. She readily conceded the necessity - and the desirability - of it in the pursuit of intimate pleasures, but welcomed discretion otherwise. Even as she pulled the folds straight, she was overcome by a wave of exhaustion and stifled a yawn. She was tired. It was past midnight now and she had to get up in six short hours. At one time six hours was sufficient, but she was finding it more and more difficult to get through a day with a such a short night. Catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror over the sink as she reached up to turn off the light, she saw the tiredness in her eyes and nodded at her image. Something was going to have to change. They couldn't go on like this.

John and Anna

John Bates was lying on his back, perfectly still, in his own bed in the cottage a few doors down and across the lane from the one occupied by the Carsons. He was alone. Anna was in the next room with the baby. Their son. Robert John Bates. Robbie.

Anna had insisted on John as a middle name. She believed, she said, in sons being named for their fathers. He agreed reluctantly and only because it was a middle name. They'd pondered first names - for both a boy and a girl - for months. Family was the conventional source for such things and they'd examined the possibilities carefully. Anna had rejected her own father's name.

"I hardly knew him," she said.

He had flatly vetoed his father's name. "Cecil," he had said, shuddering. "What parents do to their children!"

They'd moved on to grandfathers and even considered cousins, but he'd dismissed them all.

"I don't know any of those people," he'd said.

It was Anna who'd suggested Robert. John agreed with enthusiasm. It did mean something, but he'd insisted on Robbie, so that their son would have his own identity. John very much doubted that anyone had ever called His Lordship Robbie. He loved the way the name rolled off Anna's tongue.

They had both come awake immediately at Robbie's first cry and both of them scrambled to sit up, eager to attend to him.

"I'll see to him," Anna said, squeezing her husband's arm before reaching for the housecoat draped over the foot of the bed.

John nodded, accepting, and then realized she couldn't see him in the darkness. "All right," he'd said, as if his getting up really had been an option. He waited until she'd left the room and then fell back on his pillow, listening.

He listened to the fretful cries of their son who had what John thought must be a powerful pair of lungs given the volume of his voice. His listened to Anna's quiet tread, following her in his mind's eye out the door of their room, down the short passage, into Robbie's room. And he strained his ears to hear the transformation in Robbie's voice from plaintive cry to comforted coo as his mother took him in her arms and offered him her breast.

These sounds, now so familiar through the many nights they had spent together under this roof since Robbie's birth on New Year's Eve, soothed the father. And yet John could not help but shift restlessly. Of course it was natural and necessary that Anna should go to their son. Only she could feed him. John acknowledged this reality, but it frustrated him a little, too. Having a child had touched him in ways he had not anticipated and he yearned for some way to act on these feelings. He knew that at this stage his role was largely external - ensuring that their home and circumstances were the best they could be - while Anna saw to the baby's more personal needs. Oh, he held Robbie and awkwardly changed a nappy every once in a while. He was even losing some of his inhibitions about making funny faces and ridiculous sounds so as to evoke a smile of delight or a peal of laughter from the boy. But it surprised John how impatient he was to be a more active father. He knew it was only a matter of time. When baby Robbie became toddler Robbie, well...then John would come into his own in the role.

Time wasn't the only challenge. As it now stood, the Bateses rose early every morning - all three of them - made their preparations for the day, and then set off for the Abbey where Anna and John took up the work they performed as lady's maid and valet, and Robbie went to the nursery where someone else - a nanny - cared for him all day. His parents dropped in on him frequently. It was an advantageous arrangement and superior to that of most working families. But it wasn't how John had envisaged the life of his family, of his life with Anna and their child (or, hopefully, children). In broad daylight, with all the positive aspects of their situation before him, it was difficult to challenge their good fortune. But at night, when he lay in the dark, alone in their bed, listening to the sounds of his wife and child, he did wonder.

At length Anna returned to bed and John drew her into his arms, just wanting to hold her closely. Anna obligingly snuggled into him.

"How is he?" he asked eagerly.

"He sends you a kiss!" Anna replied, leaning up to deliver it. They both laughed when her lips met the side of his nose. "He's fine," she added. "He's wonderful."

John was swept with a cascade of feelings - love, pride, and gratitude. He was very, very grateful. His concerns for the future subsided. For a moment he was content once more.

Thomas

Thomas had had a long day and he would have another one tomorrow. But the prospect of retiring to the servants' quarters at the top of the house depressed him. When he had completed his final tour of the house for the night, he slipped out the servants' entrance, closing and locking the door behind him, and then strode off into the darkness. A good brisk walk before bed helped him to relax. It was not something he could indulge every night, but he did it when the weather was agreeable and when he could not bear the silence of the Abbey.

The crunch of his highly-polished shoes on the finely cut gravel of the path made a pleasant sound in his ears. He was hardly out the door before he had lit a cigarette and he enjoyed the warmth and stimulus of drawing the smoke into his lungs and then breathing it out again. He did not smoke in the butler's pantry. Mr. Carson never had, but then Mr. Carson didn't smoke. Thomas didn't know why he adhered to that custom when the pantry was all his now and when, furthermore, as the butler he could do whatever he wanted, but he did. He had come to enjoy his cigarette breaks all the more because of this small denial.

There was no set pattern to his late-night rambling, at least not in his conscious mind, and yet it seemed that inevitably he ended up at the lane of cottages inhabited by a few of His Lordship's elderly tenants and the married members of staff. Thomas tried not to pay particular attention to any of these dwellings, although he knew well enough where the Bateses and the Carsons lived. In the darkness, he paused and drew another breath of smoke deeply into his lungs before expelling it in an artistic series of rings.

The Bateses. Snug in their cottage, the happy little family. And the Carsons. How was it Mrs. Patmore referred to their cottage? The lovenest. The term revolted Thomas a little. And irritated him. All around him, men and women living in blissful conjugal love, sanctioned by the state and society, and indifferent or oblivious to 'others' who inhabited the fringes of this cozy world.

Thomas drew a deep breath, burning off his cigarette to the tail end. As he exhaled, he tossed the glowing stub onto the lane and ground it into nothingness with his heel.

"Alone and lonely," he announced to the night. "Again." He stared at the dark windows of first one cottage and then the next. "You know, I'm getting tired of this."

*AUTHOR'S NOTES.

On a Season 7. I had no intention of writing a "Season 7" for Downton Abbey. It was too ambitious a project and would, I thought, eat up storylines I would prefer to pursue individually in more manageable pieces and which might, as separate entities, elicit more reviews (because, yes, that's why we're here, isn't it.) But then the ideas began to multiply and it occurred to me that I wanted to give it a try.

Each "Episode" will consist of two or three chapters depending on how many "scenes" there are. Each chapter will include more than one scene. The result may be a bit choppy, but I hope the narrative structure will smooth that over. I have planned seven episodes plus a "Christmas Special." It may even work out that way or perhaps there will be eight regular episodes. Almost all of the characters get a look-in somewhere - I'm not promising anything for Denker or Andy... - but my emphasis on them depends on whom I like best and the plot ideas that occurred to me. Some characters are inspiring, even if I don't much like them. (Yes, I mean Thomas here.) Others are just hopeless plot-wise and the attention they get will reflect that.

I'm not going to adhere to a "season" schedule of posting only on Sunday nights. I haven't got that much discipline. All of this requires a diligence and discipline I'm not sure I've got. So...fingers crossed.

On Some Subject Matter.

In the tradition of Julian Fellowes, and also in keeping with my own inclination, there are "historical" plotlines as well as dramatic plotlines exclusive to the Downton Abbey universe. I have chosen to incorporate into my Season 7 the issues surrounding the Treaty of Versailles and the attitude toward Germans and Germany in the post-First World War era. Britain was deeply divided here, with some supporting the Treaty of Versailles and the penalties it imposed on Germany and others believing the Germans had been harshly treated. A range of perspectives will be presented in this story. I have also chosen to allude to the currents of anti-semitism that existed in the elite circles of western nations. It is my intention that these elements should accurately reflect the spirit of the times and that they should be appropriate to the specific character who espouses them. As such, the views presented here belong to the characters in question and ought to be read that way.

On Titles.

I couldn't think of anything imaginative to call this story, let alone any clever headings for chapters and sections, which is too bad, because I like interesting subheadings. But the text is absorbing all my creative energy.

On Gratitude.

All writers know it, but all readers should hear it: the audience has a great part to play in the production of any piece of writing. Thank you, in advance, to all readers of this story and many, many thanks to those who pause to review. An internal impulse drives writers to write, but everyone works better with encouragement.

I would especially like to thank a cadre of writers/readers/reviewers with whom I have had more extensive "conversations" about Downton Abbey: lemacd, imnotokaywiththerunning, dustnik, suzie, Manygreentrees, and BorneToFlow. Your comments and questions and musings have stimulated my creative impulses, and made me think more deeply about characters and plots, and helped me to improve my writing, both in terms of plot structure and presentation. I have benefited greatly from your interest.