Golly, What A Night

Chapter 4

Another week had passed by, and he had finally managed to get out of his meetings for the day, which meant that he could finally set about his plan out and about in London. He had had Bates wake him up early every day in the past week, hoping to find the time to make the journey. Yet, every day he stayed at Downton, disappointed that another meeting with a tenant had come up that could not be pushed to a later date, keeping him from finalising the last missing things in his plan. It must have all seemed so strange, but Bates never said a word and Robert never felt the need to explain.

He could see it in her eyes that it pained her, the whole debacle with all it entailed. He could all too vividly imagine the look of disappointment every morning when she woke up and his side of the bed was already cold. He had moved into their bedroom again, but things had still not been like before. She looked at him all throughout the several shared luncheons and dinners and he still avoided her gaze, barely engaging in any talk at all.

He did not know what to do, he couldn't just return to living his life the way he did before without apologising to her first, and he wanted to do that properly. And he wanted to do it before Rose tied the knot with her darling Atticus later that week, nobody wants to overshadow such a joyous occasion. That was the reason for their journey to London in the first place.

Today. Today would be his one and only chance, he was sure of that, and he had to take it. He got out of the cab and briskly walked to the jeweller he usually only went to when they had another anniversary coming up, or a special birthday, or Christmas was just around the corner. He looked around the shop, at the luxuriously blinking and gleaming displays. He first thought about getting her a beautiful silver necklace with a diamond pendant, and right when he was about to ask the shopkeeper to take it out of the glass box, he saw it.

A beautiful set of pearls.

Her voice rang out in his head. And what about Lady Ingleby's pearls? I was so jealous I wanted to snatch them off her throat.

Maybe that was it.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I would actually rather purchase the pearls in the display over there. I remember my wife mentioning how beautiful she thought they looked when she saw them a while ago." Oh great, so now he even lied to strangers, but he couldn't very well tell him the truth.

"Certainly, sir."

After a quick lunch in a small restaurant around the corner and a stop at Sotheby's, he made his way back to their London residence, back to his home away from home. Robert just hoped he would have enough time before dinner, nothing would be worse than being late when all he wanted to do was apologise to his dear wife. He knew he wouldn't have the time to do so in words before they had to go down for dinner, but he wanted her to know how much he loved her. So, he took out a small piece of paper and a pen and thought about scribbling a hasty note as he sat in the back of the cab he had hailed. He couldn't however think of what he could possibly write to make her realise how sorry he was, at least nothing that he could fit on the small piece of paper.

He arrived home mere minutes before the dressing gong was rung and he still had one task to fulfil before he could even think about enjoying his dinner. Hastily scribbling the note in the even smaller dressing room than the one he was used to, he waited outside her door for her maid, Baxter, and asked her to put the box on her bed and make sure she saw it. Oh, how he wished that this would do the trick for now.

Nervously he awaited the arrival of the rest of his family in the smaller drawing room, seeing as he was the first of them to come down. But if he was completely honest, he was really only anxiously waiting for her, and if it was up to him, the rest of them could just as well be absent, for the night, that was.