While We Were Watching Downton Abbey

by Wendy Wax

  Founder? Jesus. Samantha focused on keeping her breathing regular and the fear off her face. Had Jonathan told his mother he was unhappy? Had he confided his feelings in her? Or had his extended absence and the vagueness of his return sent her on this fishing expedition?

  She looked her mother-in-law in the eye. Samantha had no idea what to say any more than she knew how to rectify the situation. But one thing she was not going to do was discuss her marital problems with Cynthia. That would be way too much like inviting the fox into the henhouse. “Thank you for your concern and for brunch,” Samantha said. “Everything was delicious.”

  With what she hoped would pass for a gracious smile, Samantha let herself out. But all the way home she replayed her last conversation with Jonathan. He’d said he wanted to know what he was to her, how she felt.

  Samantha would have laughed if it hadn’t been so tragic. The thing was she’d just begun to realize what she wanted from Jonathan, was almost shocked at how much she wanted it. But she wasn’t at all certain what he wanted from her.

  Or if, in fact, he wanted anything from her at all.

  * * *

  THAT NIGHT WHEN THE FIRST EPISODE OF SEASON two ended Claire, Brooke, and Samantha picked up plates of raspberry tarts and snifters of brandy and joined the rest of the group around the table.

  “Thank God Bates proposed to Anna,” Brooke said as they took their seats.

  “And I love that Branson proposed to Sybil!” Samantha added.

  “That was so Ashley Wilkes of Matthew to ask Mary to look out for Lavinia if he dies,” Claire observed. “Do you think they mean for Mary to be an Edwardian version of Scarlett O’Hara?”

  Edward Parker looked on like a proud father as the group debated this question without his prompting.

  “I can’t believe Thomas intentionally shot himself in the hand so that he could leave the front,” Brooke said, squinching her face in disgust. “Ugh.”

  “I guess he didn’t think of dressing up like a woman to try to get a discharge like Corporal Klinger did on MASH,” Claire said. “I used to love those reruns.”

  “The British think dressing up like a woman is funny, not crazy,” Mimi Davenport observed. “My husband loved that English comedian Benny Hill’s show. He used to dress up all the time.” She looked at Edward. “No offense intended,” she said with a bob of her white head.

  “None taken.” Edward smiled. He waited while the conversation played out, then motioned to Isabella and James, who began to hand out sheets of paper and pencils. “Now that we’ve all had a bite and quenched our thirsts I think the time is ripe for a little quiz.”

  There were groans at this.

  “Oh, no, I always freeze up on tests,” Brooke said.

  “I guess it’s a good thing we had our marathon last weekend,” Claire said. “It’ll be fresh in our minds.”

  “I don’t think anyone’s going to be flunking out of Sunday-night screenings,” Samantha said.

  “No, no one will be flunking out,” Edward said with a smile. “The quiz is quite clever. I found it posted on the WETA Television website. It’s designed to tell you which Downton Abbey character you are. The results can be quite . . . surprising.

  “Please let Isabella and James know if you’d like more to eat or drink as they come around. Then I’ll give you time to take this small, but illuminating quiz.”

  Edward began to pass out the questions and Claire felt Brooke relax beside her. There were giggles as the tongue-in-cheek nature of the quiz became apparent.

  “As you can see it’s impossible to fail this quiz,” the concierge said with a smile. “But I’ll read the first question aloud, just to help you get started.” He held up the list he’d printed from the WETA website. “All you need to do is fill in the correct bubble.”

  “I have a whole weekend to myself!” he read, “I’m going to:

  What’s a weekend?

  Find some poor soul to help

  Attend a political rally

  Make plans to ruin my rival’s life

  Stay alone in my room and read

  Attend a jolly good foxhunt, followed by billiards and cigars

  Get ahead on next week’s work.”

  They laughed as they filled in the bubbles and chattered amongst themselves. Edward, clearly pleased, watched from the head of the table. When the majority had finished, he asked for a first volunteer. Mimi Davenport raised her hand, then handed him her sheet.

  “All right then, let’s see about you, Mrs. D,” he said as he scanned her answers and compared them to what looked like some sort of answer key. “My goodness, Mrs. Davenport. You’re apparently Bates, valet to Lord Grantham.”

  He smiled wickedly while laughter filled the room, then read the description from a sheet of paper. “You probably have a secret identity or are lying about your past to someone you care about, but at least you feel really bad about it. On the plus side, you’re loyal and hardworking and you’d never rat anyone out to the boss, even when they really deserve it. Noble and a bit mysterious, you’re a genuinely decent person—and everyone’s wondering when you’re just going to tell that nice Anna girl how you feel.”

  The group erupted with laughter as Mimi Davenport stood and took an exaggerated bow.

  “Not my words, mind you.” Edward raised his hands in disclaimer. “I downloaded these character descriptions from the WETA website.”

  They passed their tests toward Edward, all of them eager now to see which character they were. “It’s all right, Mrs. D,” Edward said as he sorted through them. “I’ll confess I wasn’t who I expected to be. I assumed I’d turn out to be Carson, but I could hardly have been further off.”

  “Who were you?” Samantha prompted.

  “I don’t know if I should say.” Edward feigned reluctance. “It is a bit embarrassing.”

  There were hoots of encouragement.

  “All right then. Here it is word for word from the WETA Television site.” He cleared his voice dramatically, amping up his accent. “You are Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham.”

  He raised an eyebrow in elegant imitation and waited for the laughter to die down.

  “You’re the imperious, aristocratic head of your family who (almost) always gets her way, and you don’t suffer fools gladly,” he read. “Though you’re often bossy and arrogant, you’re surprisingly adaptable and exceptionally loyal to the people you love. By the way, you also get all the best lines, so we hope you’re ready for immortality, but you should really look up the definition of ‘weekend.’”

  * * *

  CLAIRE SIGHED AS EDWARD PARKER FINISHED reading the description, which was wonderfully phrased and hysterically funny. She felt total envy for whoever had penned it and the other character descriptions, which Edward began to read aloud as women handed in their papers. But then at the moment she envied the person who’d written the advertising copy on her box of Frosted Mini-Wheats. It seemed that everyone could express themselves better and more rapidly than she.

  “What’s wrong?” Brooke asked as the evening came to an end and they left the clubroom together.

  “Hmm?” Both Claire and Samantha looked up and answered at the same time.

  “You’re both off,” she said as they lingered in the hallway. “And I don’t think it’s because you ended up as O’Brien and Thomas.”

  “Easy for you to say since you got to be Lady Cora,” Samantha said, but there was something in Samantha’s voice that Claire couldn’t quite identify.

  “Well, I might have fudged the answers just a little,” Brooke admitted.

  “Me, too,” Claire admitted. “But I still ended up below stairs.”

  “Well, at least you were female,” Samantha said. “I mean Thomas is a fascinating character. But he hasn’t got a shred of moral fiber or anything that resembles a conscience.”

  The hallway had cleared. Edward Parker locked the clubroom door and said his good nights. They continued to linger.

  “W
hy don’t we go outside to the pool?” Claire suggested. “It’s really gorgeous outside tonight.” She led them out the door and over to a trio of chaises. The pool’s surface rippled under a light breeze. A large magnolia tree that rose near a corner of the pool deck swayed softly. The night sky was dimpled with stars. “The neighborhood pools out in the suburbs are emptied after Labor Day. I like that this one’s heated and maintained year-round.”

  They sat in the silence with just the occasional car horn or traffic noise to remind them that they were in the city.

  “All right.” Brooke sat up straighter in her chaise and folded her arms across her chest. “Are either of you planning to tell me what’s wrong?”

  Surprised by the note of command, Claire turned to look at Brooke. Samantha did the same. Neither of them spoke.

  “I mean, you’ve both been holding my hand since Ken and Barbie moved into the building. Samantha took care of my children at a moment’s notice and, I think, told Zachary off on my behalf. While you”—she nodded at Claire—“have offered to help, given me advice, and propped me up in general.” She paused, but she didn’t stop. In fact, she seemed to be gathering steam. “I’m not a charity case. And I hate that now when I can see that you’re both struggling in some way, you’re just blowing me off. I mean it’s insulting. I appreciate your friendship and your support. But those things don’t work when they’re one-sided.”

  Brooke stopped talking but her words hung in the October air as if written there in capital letters, impossible to ignore. Claire cut her eyes to Samantha, who had gone still, the expression on her face far less certain than Claire had ever seen it.

  “Nothing’s wrong in my world,” Claire finally said, feeling oddly protective of Samantha. “If you don’t count the fact that I’ve started dodging calls from my agent and my editor, which believe me is unheard of for someone at my lowly rung on the publishing ladder. I’m also lying to my daughter—who has her act far more together than I do. I’ve been pretending I’m actually writing a book when I haven’t written the first word. In fact the only thing I’m writing in is my journal—lots of Claire Walker and friends present day—and almost no great love story in the Scottish Highlands. It feels like ancient history . . .”

  This got a laugh as she’d intended. She only wished that it was actually funny and not so frightening. “I just don’t seem capable of doing what I came here to do.” She hesitated. “And I’m not even sure anymore that I want to.” The truths spilled out of her mouth without benefit of editing. “I’m running through my money twice as fast as I expected. And I have absolutely nothing to show for it.” She was embarrassed to feel tears gathering behind her lids. All those years of staying strong for Hailey blown to bits.

  “You’ve got us,” Brooke said quietly.

  Samantha nodded. But she didn’t quite make eye contact.

  “Thanks.” Claire expelled a breath of air, drew one in. “That would make you my silver lining.”

  Their eyes turned to Samantha, who shifted uneasily on her chaise. Her forehead creased slightly as if she were conducting some sort of internal debate. In the end she shrugged. “Sorry,” she said apologetically. “All I have to throw in the pot is that Jonathan’s out of town a little longer than usual.” She looked out over the wall at the magnolia while the two of them waited for her to go on.

  “That’s it?” Brooke asked. “That’s all you’ve got?”

  Samantha shrugged, but Claire couldn’t help thinking that the casual gesture seemed to take an awful lot of effort. “That’s it.”

  “So, it’s just Claire and I who are battling right now? Everything in your world is just hunky-dory?” Brooke tried again.

  “I didn’t mean it like that,” Samantha said. “I just wasn’t raised to air my dirty linen in public. And believe me, there’s been plenty of it.”

  “Oh, so you’re above all that?” Claire asked.

  “I didn’t mean it that way, either,” Samantha said.

  “Why don’t you tell us how you do mean it,” Brooke said. “So we can understand. And maybe even help?”

  “I appreciate the offer, but . . .” She shook her head. “Sometimes putting things into words makes them almost too real, you know?”

  Claire did. “Yeah. At the moment I’m pretty horrified at all the things that came out of my mouth. I mean, I turned my whole life upside down to come here and write this book. I have the gift of a year—a chance to finally fulfill a dream—and I can’t even seem to get started.” She looked straight at Samantha. “I may not be able to summon them at will, but I understand how potent words can be.”

  Brooke smiled sadly and looked down at her watch. “Well, I guess it’s getting kind of late. We should probably head in now.”

  As they rose, Claire studied Samantha, she of the perfect life and the marriage that had lasted for more than a quarter century. She wasn’t sure what “longer than usual” meant and couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen Jonathan Davis in the building. But Claire didn’t want to pry into something Samantha so clearly didn’t want to talk about. Life in a suburban swim-and-tennis neighborhood had often felt like living in a fishbowl; that constant scrutiny had been one of the things she’d been eager to escape.

  They walked inside and stopped in front of the elevator. But this time as Samantha pressed the elevator call button Claire knew that Brooke had been right. Like a duck who appeared to float serenely on the lake’s surface, there was a lot of frantic paddling going on beneath Samantha Davis’s perfect surface.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  EDWARD’S OFFICE PHONE RANG AT PRECISELY FIVE fifteen p.m., which made it ten fifteen in England. Edward didn’t need the caller ID to know who was calling. Leaning back in his chair, Edward propped his shoes up on his desk and answered.

  “Hello, lad,” his great-uncle Mason’s voice sounded firm and fine with no hint of the number of pints he might have consumed at the Hungry Fox that night. “How are things?”

  “Good,” Edward replied. “Almost too good.”

  “No such thing.”

  “No, but I’m scrambling to keep up. And I’m not a happy scrambler,” Edward replied.

  Mason laughed. “That you’re not. You’re a damned planner just like your grandfather, always so meticulous, dotting all those i’s and crossing all those t’s. I’m exhausted just thinking about it.”

  “You’re exhausted because you’re eighty-eight and you’re still helping out at the pub every night,” Edward said reasonably.

  “Don’t even like to think of the place having to get by without me,” Mason replied. “Your brother’s always happy—and grateful I might add—to see me. Unlike some people I know.”

  “How many plane tickets have I sent you?” Edward countered as he always did to this jibe. “And how many times have you actually come over here?”

  “Once was enough, thank you very much,” Mason grumbled. “Can’t follow those damned accents. Every word stretched out into infinity. They talk so slow down South a body could drop dead from boredom waiting for a sentence to end.”

  Edward laughed. He’d had to interpret for both sides of a conversation during Mason’s only visit to Atlanta.

  “It would be better if you came home for a visit,” Mason said. “In fact, an old friend of yours was in the Fox tonight asking about you.”

  Edward closed his eyes, knowing from his uncle’s attempt at nonchalance exactly who he was talking about.

  “She looked fine. Beautiful really,” Mason said. “Her husband’s died, Eddie.” His great-uncle used the nickname when he most wanted to make a point. “Almost a year ago now. She’s come home to take care of her mother. This could be your opportunity to win her back.”

  Edward sighed as a picture of Julia Bardmoor formed in his mind. She’d been tall and lithe and beautiful in her wedding gown, which was what she’d been wearing the last time he’d seen her. Her blue eyes had shimmered with tears when she’d left him at the altar all those y
ears ago; as unable at the last to commit to a nomadic life of hotel postings across the United States as Edward had been to give them up to have her.

  “I saw the look in her eyes when she asked about you, lad,” his great-uncle said softly. “It’s not too late.” He hesitated. “It’s never too late for love,” he said quite dramatically.

  “Said the confirmed bachelor as if he had a clue what he was talking about,” Edward said. “Have you started writing Hallmark cards on the side?” He laughed, trying not to notice the hollowness of the sound. “I’m a lot more likely to listen to your advice if you choose a subject you know something about. Say drinking. Or causing trouble. Or . . .”

  “Fine,” Mason said. “So tell me how things are going with that Hunter person you’ve taken on.”

  “Oh, I’m working on whipping him into shape,” Edward replied. “He’s bright and so far he’s taken what I’ve dished out. At the moment he’s focused, though I’m not sure he’s grasping the reasoning behind things. Between his sister and her mother-in-law’s referrals business is booming. Hence the scrambling to add staff I mentioned earlier.”

  “And the screenings?” Mason asked. “Have you started season two?”

  “Yes,” Edward said. “We’re two programs in and the group’s grown even larger.”

  “Well, season three is a corker. In the episode last night Shirley MacLaine told Maggie Smith to—”

  “Oh, no,” Edward cut his great-uncle off. “Don’t do it. I am not listening to this. I’ve forbidden the ladies to skip ahead. I’m not going to betray them by getting a blow by blow from across the pond or anywhere else.”

  “Ach. You and your straight and narrow,” Mason complained. “It’s just a television program. I really don’t see the harm.”

  “It’s not about the program,” Edward said. It’s about keeping my word. And not taking shortcuts. Who was it that taught me that ‘a good name is better than bags of gold’?”