Downton Abbey - The Story of Emma Barrow

Rights, Soap & Soup (Summer 1914)

The door slammed against his elbow and the tea sloshed over the newspaper, onto his shoes, and finally onto the floor.

"Can't you be careful, you clumsy oaf?" Thomas exclaimed.

"I'm sorry," William said politely.

"You'll be sorry when I'm finished with you. Look at this!"

"Leave him alone," Bates intervened.

"Anna, Lady Sybil is back from Ripon. She's in her room," William relayed the message to her. Anna thanked him and immediately set off.

"Why does she waste her precious time on politics?" O'Brien wondered.

"Hear, hear," Thomas agreed, taking a sip of his cup to finish off the remaining tea.

"Oh, aren't you for women's rights, Thomas?" Bates asked amusedly.

"And what's it to you?"

"You have a daughter," and he fixed his gaze on the girl who was kneeling on a chair, scribbling with wax crayons on a blank paper, "Isn't it in your interest that Emma gets more rights one day?" The little girl looked up from her painting. At first, she looked at the older man opposite her, then glanced behind her, where the dark-haired man immediately averted his gaze.

"So what?" Thomas said.

"I know you're not for property rights. I believe that could interest some people," Bates chuckled.

"Who will tell them? You?" and he threw the newspaper onto the table. Emma flinched. There was a certain tension in the air, which caused the two-year-old child to unnoticedly slip under the table. She crawled away on all fours. Meanwhile, Bates' eyes sparkled triumphantly, which raised Thomas' concern that the valet would follow through with his threat, but then the gong sounded. Thomas sighed. It was time to prepare and serve dinner for the upstairs. In an instant, the servants' hall was empty.

"Thomas," called Mrs. Hughes after the upstairs dinner, "if I may ask, where is your daughter?"

"She's drawing in the servants' hall."

"I'm afraid not."

O'Brien put on a sly grin. "I warned you. Children only cause problems."

He found her curled up like a hedgehog in the linen basket. The child lay peacefully in the basket, and as soon as he touched her, she stretched out. "Daddy's here, my little dwarf," he spoke softly and lifted the child into his arms. She nestled her head comfortably on his shoulder. Holding her tiny hand in his, he stroked her back with his finger. "Did you play hide-and-seek with someone?" he wondered. If so, that someone certainly didn't try hard to find the child.

"Me tired," she spoke.

"I'll put you to bed soon, but first I have to settle something, and then you're probably still hungry, huh? You haven't eaten dinner yet, have you?" and the child confirmed his suspicion with a shake of her head.

"Are you telling me you saw him take the cellar key?" Carson asked and paced back and forth in his office. It was all taking too long for the little girl. So she wriggled a little in Thomas' arms, but he made no attempt to put her down on the ground. She was infinitely tired and hungry.

Unable to express her will quietly, the young girl decided to resort to the option of screaming, yet once again the adults ignored the little child. She merely shifted from one side of her father to the other, and he had probably hoped in vain that changing the carrying position would finally calm the child down.

"Not directly. But I saw him with it, and the key was swinging on the hook. I just wondered if you noticed that some wine bottles were missing?" he continued with his story. Carson's face said it all, and Thomas was sure that Bates' dismissal was only a matter of time.