nineveh_uk (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
nineveh_uk) wrote2013-01-30 01:20 pm
nineveh_uk) wrote2013-01-30 01:20 pm
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Unfinished Wimseyfic: Nobody’s Business but the Turk’s
This is perhaps not so much a fic as a thought-experiment: how would Bunter have resolved the Dead Turk Incident at Downton Abbey? This also explains why it has been languishing on my hard-drive with no idea as to what to do with it; there isn’t really anything to do with it, because I’m not interesting in writing more of a story around it. I have tidied it up a bit so that it sort of concludes, but I think the real story is probably the next bit that I’m not going to write, which I’ve just decided is told from Thomas’s POV and is the story of two decades of seething envy of Bunter for getting the posh footman job now, a better job in the war, and then being valet to a London bachelor with ample opportunity to blackmail people as well as live the high life a bit himself.
For proper fic on the DTI I once again recommendexecutrix’s Maiden Overs.
Thomas Berrow was not having a good week and it was all William’s fault. Unfortunately he was unable to follow his usual remedy and take out his temper on the second footman, as William was no longer at Downton. William was in Northampton, preparing to sail for Australia from whence his long-lost uncle had suddenly return to reveal himself not lost at all, but a wealthy sheep rancher inviting his sister and her family to come and share in his good fortune. William, who was that sort of person, had expressed his regret to Carson and worked his week’s notice, but he had gone without a backward glance nonetheless.
And then the agency had sent Mervyn Bunter. Thomas had quite looked forward to asserting himself over an agency chap, but Mervyn wasn’t like that. Carson had proposed that he stay on his second day in the house, surely some sort of miracle, only to be told that, “with regret, Mr Carson, I must decline. I have been offered a post in Sir John Sanderton’s household from the next quarter.” Sanderton! Thomas would have given his right arm to work in a place like that. It wasn’t the largest house, nor the oldest family, but everyone visited. There was a place that a man could make connections that lead places, and Mervyn Bunter was taking Thomas’s rightful place in it. Then there was the rest of the man, who was not only a dab hand with a pair of boots, but appeared to be doing a very good impression of the Ideal Footman, when he was not holding forth with his impressions of music hall artists and chatting up the maids. Thomas had had to raise his game and regarded the man with an intense dislike that was the more fuelled by the fact that Mervyn didn’t seem to notice him at all.
Thomas would have been surprised, therefore, to learn that on the night he was escorting Kemal Pamuk along the hallway to her ladyship’s bedroom, he was not unobserved. Bunter had had no difficulty in identifying the first footman with the dark young man who rumour had it had been rather indiscreet in company with the Duke of Crowborough the previous year, and had stationed himself in the shadows at the top of a small staircase leading up to the attics in expectation of possible events. Mr Pamuk was not himself unknown in London servant circles, and Lady Mary might be a singularly unendearing young woman, but Bunter held firm opinions on blackmail. The footsteps passed to the end of the hall, and then Thomas came back alone. Bunter left him to deal with later, and settled down to await events. On balance, he was inclined to think that Pamuk’s advances might not be unwelcome to the young woman, Lady Mary appearing to have an opinion of her own worldliness and unshockability possible only in someone extremely naïve. Even so, initial negotiations might take a little time. Bunter adopted a comfortable corner dozed off.
He was woken by footsteps hurrying along the carpet, and reached the bottom of his staircase just in time to see the hem of a long nightdress whisk around the corner in the direction of the maid’s quarters. He caught the scent of candlewax. The Turk? No, he had worn a dressing-gown and silk pyjameas. Lady Mary then, heading for the maid’s quarters where even Mervyn Bunter considered that he would be ill-advised to follow. The bedroom door was closed, but not locked. Bunter slipped inside.
*
In later years, in the course of what would become a rather more famous case, Bunter would remark he had seen diamond necklaces that would have been called “Wages if Sin” if their stories were known. A healthy young man laid out far too literally on a young woman’s bed was surprising, but not beyond his capabilities. A brief examination showed that he was beyond all doubt deceased, the manner of his passing all too obvious. It was not, perhaps, the moment to be discovered in her ladyship’s bedroom, but there was always the window, thoughtfully hung with heavy curtains and, a swift test revealed, a well-oiled sash. Bunter applied himself to wait once more.
He had not long to wait. He had thought Lady Mary might return with one of her sisters, probably the youngest, a specimen of the romantic idealist type. Instead, and with unexpected judgement, she was accompanied by Anna, the head housemaid, a girl tolerably proficient in her role if sadly misguided in her passion for the Earl’s limping valet. Unfortunately she could hardly be considered capable of either raising the dead or of carrying her end of a twelve stone six-footer through the hallways. Nor, judging by the panicked conversation, did she or her mistress appear much of her hand at dealing with an undoubted crisis.
Bunter cleared his throat decorously and stepped out from his hiding place.
‘If her ladyship will permit me to contradict her, I do not advise that the Countess be disturbed. Lady Grantham is, after all, an American, and it has been my experience that the United States, whilst an admirable nation, has inherited a rather Puritan view upon certain subjects that might render the present situation a little difficult. If I may be so bold, I suggest that if Anna will assist I deal with Mr Pamuk myself.’
‘How dare you enter my room? Get out at once!’ Lady Mary, recovering her composure rapidly in the face of a wrong that she had not herself committed, brandished an arm in the direction of the door. ‘I suppose you mean blackmail? You wouldn’t get aware with it. You might ruin me, but you’d never work again. Mr Carson would see you in the workhouse first, if not in prison.’
Bunter raised a placating hand. ‘I am very sorry, my lady. When I took the liberty of entering the room, seeing the door open as I was passing with the intention of obtaining a glass of milk to help me sleep, and concerned that perhaps your ladyship was in need of assistance, I was naturally surprised to find the young gentleman here and in this condition. But shocked as I must confess myself that a guest of your father’s should so far forget himself as to cross the threshold of a young lady’s bedroom in her absence with the intention of waylaying her upon her return, I cannot imagine that any man of honour would cast aspersions upon the lady. Naturally your ladyship was shocked upon the discovery, and sought the assistance of your maid to eject intruder. I can only suppose that Mr Pamuk’s exertions in the hunt, combined with rich food and an excess of drink, proved too much for his heart. I have known of it before, and I believe that Oriental gentlemen are particularly prone to the condition.’
Lady Mary, rapidly assimilating a narrative that it was evident she wished she had thought of first, looked at Bunter through narrowed-eyes.
‘That’s right,’ said Anna. ‘Her ladyship was dreadfully shocked. He had no clothes on.’ The latter remark being accurate but unnecessary.
‘Well you’re here, what are you going to do about it?’
Bunter assessed the corpse. Pamuk had been a strapping young man, too strapping too be carried single-handedly back to the distant bachelors’ quarters. Mary wouldn’t, Anna couldn’t, and the Countess undoubtedly mustn’t be co-opted in the venture, and the male staff were variously unsuitable.
‘I think, my lady, it would be best if I were to dress Mr Pamuk and carry him to the nearest lavatory.’
‘The lavatory?’
‘Yes, my lady. It is only a short distance, and if Anna were so good as to act as herald, there would be little risk of the transition being discovered.’
‘But you can’t intend to leave him there all night, surely!’
Bunter, uncertain as to whether the remark displayed an unexpectedly sentimental side or mere concern for propriety, decided not to consider further.
‘Certainly not, my lady. I shall then proceed to discover Mr Pamuk in the lavatory, where I had noticed the light burning. No doubt being unfamiliar with the house he became lost in pursuit of his goal and missed the facilities of the gentleman’s wing. Upon discovering him, I shall wake Mr Carson and request his assistant to remove the unfortunate gentleman to his own room before summoning the doctor. It can make little difference to him, and men of his religious persuasion have a great respect for, ahem, cleanliness. Mr Carson will doubtless agree that it would not do for the cheaper newspapers to report on the death of a man in a lavatory when he might be respectfully laid in his own bed.’
‘Why Carson? Wouldn’t Thomas be better?’
Bunter adopted a deprecating air. ‘Mr Carson will expect to be told first, my lady. I expect he may ask Thomas to assist in Mr Pamuk’s removal, but it would hardly be my place to require it myself.’
If Mary was less than convinced by this sudden show of deference, she did not say so.
‘Well, all right, then. You’d better get his clothes on.’
‘Very good, my lady. It would be as well to proceed before rigour sets in.’
For proper fic on the DTI I once again recommend
executrix’s Maiden Overs.Thomas Berrow was not having a good week and it was all William’s fault. Unfortunately he was unable to follow his usual remedy and take out his temper on the second footman, as William was no longer at Downton. William was in Northampton, preparing to sail for Australia from whence his long-lost uncle had suddenly return to reveal himself not lost at all, but a wealthy sheep rancher inviting his sister and her family to come and share in his good fortune. William, who was that sort of person, had expressed his regret to Carson and worked his week’s notice, but he had gone without a backward glance nonetheless.
And then the agency had sent Mervyn Bunter. Thomas had quite looked forward to asserting himself over an agency chap, but Mervyn wasn’t like that. Carson had proposed that he stay on his second day in the house, surely some sort of miracle, only to be told that, “with regret, Mr Carson, I must decline. I have been offered a post in Sir John Sanderton’s household from the next quarter.” Sanderton! Thomas would have given his right arm to work in a place like that. It wasn’t the largest house, nor the oldest family, but everyone visited. There was a place that a man could make connections that lead places, and Mervyn Bunter was taking Thomas’s rightful place in it. Then there was the rest of the man, who was not only a dab hand with a pair of boots, but appeared to be doing a very good impression of the Ideal Footman, when he was not holding forth with his impressions of music hall artists and chatting up the maids. Thomas had had to raise his game and regarded the man with an intense dislike that was the more fuelled by the fact that Mervyn didn’t seem to notice him at all.
Thomas would have been surprised, therefore, to learn that on the night he was escorting Kemal Pamuk along the hallway to her ladyship’s bedroom, he was not unobserved. Bunter had had no difficulty in identifying the first footman with the dark young man who rumour had it had been rather indiscreet in company with the Duke of Crowborough the previous year, and had stationed himself in the shadows at the top of a small staircase leading up to the attics in expectation of possible events. Mr Pamuk was not himself unknown in London servant circles, and Lady Mary might be a singularly unendearing young woman, but Bunter held firm opinions on blackmail. The footsteps passed to the end of the hall, and then Thomas came back alone. Bunter left him to deal with later, and settled down to await events. On balance, he was inclined to think that Pamuk’s advances might not be unwelcome to the young woman, Lady Mary appearing to have an opinion of her own worldliness and unshockability possible only in someone extremely naïve. Even so, initial negotiations might take a little time. Bunter adopted a comfortable corner dozed off.
He was woken by footsteps hurrying along the carpet, and reached the bottom of his staircase just in time to see the hem of a long nightdress whisk around the corner in the direction of the maid’s quarters. He caught the scent of candlewax. The Turk? No, he had worn a dressing-gown and silk pyjameas. Lady Mary then, heading for the maid’s quarters where even Mervyn Bunter considered that he would be ill-advised to follow. The bedroom door was closed, but not locked. Bunter slipped inside.
*
In later years, in the course of what would become a rather more famous case, Bunter would remark he had seen diamond necklaces that would have been called “Wages if Sin” if their stories were known. A healthy young man laid out far too literally on a young woman’s bed was surprising, but not beyond his capabilities. A brief examination showed that he was beyond all doubt deceased, the manner of his passing all too obvious. It was not, perhaps, the moment to be discovered in her ladyship’s bedroom, but there was always the window, thoughtfully hung with heavy curtains and, a swift test revealed, a well-oiled sash. Bunter applied himself to wait once more.
He had not long to wait. He had thought Lady Mary might return with one of her sisters, probably the youngest, a specimen of the romantic idealist type. Instead, and with unexpected judgement, she was accompanied by Anna, the head housemaid, a girl tolerably proficient in her role if sadly misguided in her passion for the Earl’s limping valet. Unfortunately she could hardly be considered capable of either raising the dead or of carrying her end of a twelve stone six-footer through the hallways. Nor, judging by the panicked conversation, did she or her mistress appear much of her hand at dealing with an undoubted crisis.
Bunter cleared his throat decorously and stepped out from his hiding place.
‘If her ladyship will permit me to contradict her, I do not advise that the Countess be disturbed. Lady Grantham is, after all, an American, and it has been my experience that the United States, whilst an admirable nation, has inherited a rather Puritan view upon certain subjects that might render the present situation a little difficult. If I may be so bold, I suggest that if Anna will assist I deal with Mr Pamuk myself.’
‘How dare you enter my room? Get out at once!’ Lady Mary, recovering her composure rapidly in the face of a wrong that she had not herself committed, brandished an arm in the direction of the door. ‘I suppose you mean blackmail? You wouldn’t get aware with it. You might ruin me, but you’d never work again. Mr Carson would see you in the workhouse first, if not in prison.’
Bunter raised a placating hand. ‘I am very sorry, my lady. When I took the liberty of entering the room, seeing the door open as I was passing with the intention of obtaining a glass of milk to help me sleep, and concerned that perhaps your ladyship was in need of assistance, I was naturally surprised to find the young gentleman here and in this condition. But shocked as I must confess myself that a guest of your father’s should so far forget himself as to cross the threshold of a young lady’s bedroom in her absence with the intention of waylaying her upon her return, I cannot imagine that any man of honour would cast aspersions upon the lady. Naturally your ladyship was shocked upon the discovery, and sought the assistance of your maid to eject intruder. I can only suppose that Mr Pamuk’s exertions in the hunt, combined with rich food and an excess of drink, proved too much for his heart. I have known of it before, and I believe that Oriental gentlemen are particularly prone to the condition.’
Lady Mary, rapidly assimilating a narrative that it was evident she wished she had thought of first, looked at Bunter through narrowed-eyes.
‘That’s right,’ said Anna. ‘Her ladyship was dreadfully shocked. He had no clothes on.’ The latter remark being accurate but unnecessary.
‘Well you’re here, what are you going to do about it?’
Bunter assessed the corpse. Pamuk had been a strapping young man, too strapping too be carried single-handedly back to the distant bachelors’ quarters. Mary wouldn’t, Anna couldn’t, and the Countess undoubtedly mustn’t be co-opted in the venture, and the male staff were variously unsuitable.
‘I think, my lady, it would be best if I were to dress Mr Pamuk and carry him to the nearest lavatory.’
‘The lavatory?’
‘Yes, my lady. It is only a short distance, and if Anna were so good as to act as herald, there would be little risk of the transition being discovered.’
‘But you can’t intend to leave him there all night, surely!’
Bunter, uncertain as to whether the remark displayed an unexpectedly sentimental side or mere concern for propriety, decided not to consider further.
‘Certainly not, my lady. I shall then proceed to discover Mr Pamuk in the lavatory, where I had noticed the light burning. No doubt being unfamiliar with the house he became lost in pursuit of his goal and missed the facilities of the gentleman’s wing. Upon discovering him, I shall wake Mr Carson and request his assistant to remove the unfortunate gentleman to his own room before summoning the doctor. It can make little difference to him, and men of his religious persuasion have a great respect for, ahem, cleanliness. Mr Carson will doubtless agree that it would not do for the cheaper newspapers to report on the death of a man in a lavatory when he might be respectfully laid in his own bed.’
‘Why Carson? Wouldn’t Thomas be better?’
Bunter adopted a deprecating air. ‘Mr Carson will expect to be told first, my lady. I expect he may ask Thomas to assist in Mr Pamuk’s removal, but it would hardly be my place to require it myself.’
If Mary was less than convinced by this sudden show of deference, she did not say so.
‘Well, all right, then. You’d better get his clothes on.’
‘Very good, my lady. It would be as well to proceed before rigour sets in.’
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I think Helen is secretly rather afraid of Bunter, whose grasp of protocol is even finer-tuned than hers.
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I will not comment on Bates, as you have lots to come!
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I'm quite prepared to believe that there is a know-your-place ideology guiding the storylines, but it annoys me less than the dreadful plotting. I am currently trying not to be REALLY IRRITATED by the everyone-knows-about-the-DTI-except-Lord-Grantham crap. And I simply refuse to believe that IRL Bates would have taken his wife's word that Anna was involved without asking Anna herself, so therefore he must obviously be a psychopath who has Ulterior Motives in buggering off.
I liked the idea of Bates in S1, though I do wish we had been spared having to watch him and Anna snogging (Wolfgang said "It's a hard life being an actress." He has been watching with me and considers the real flaw in the series to be the shockingly low number of moustaches amongst the generals - possibly too much of his knowledge of the Great War is derived from watching Blackadder, but he does have a point).
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The actor who plays Bates appears to be making a career out of moralising. What on earth is Anna supposed to see in him? A psychopath who has hypnotised/terrified her with his evil wiles makes the most sense by far.
*Or with Carson, a relationship that's a great idea, but never quite developed enough.
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Just after I started watching DA, I watched Conspiracy, which is about the Wannsee Conference of 1942 at which it was decided that the best way to solve the Jewish Question was to use gas, and it featured the actor who plays Bates as one of the characters who didn't have any objection to this at all, not even of the "But you promised us you would get rid of our Jews first" variety". I can't say that he was so totally different from Bates that I would never ever in a million years have confused the two. This is not fair, of course, and of course, the real reason I went right off Bates was his pathological devotion to secrecy, even when it seems a really STUPID idea, which is the fault of the writer and not the actor, but still. One can't help looking for some kind of in-universe explanation for dodgy behaviour. That is what being fannish means.
I'm afraid I cannot take Carson seriously. Ever since his Terrible Past as a music hall actor was revealed, I haven't been able to see him as anything other than an old ham performing a role. I do like his relationship with Lady Mary, but I think it's best left underdeveloped!
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[adds Conspiracy to Lovefilm list] While Bates as evil Nazi isn't perhaps entirely fair, at the same time I don't think we ever see him being morally wrong, or acknowledged as such, so the concept of his sense of his own unchallengable rightness leading him to make terrible decisions isn't inherently implausibe though in terms of scale I think the psychpathic murder of Anna is probably more likely. As you know, one would have to go a long way to find an in-universe explanation for dodgy behaviour that I would consider to unreasonable to contemplate for a moment for entertainment value!
I had forgotten Carson's Terrible Past, or possibly my mind had repressed it as too awful to contemplate.
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I was quite happy with Bates in S1, when he was engaging in skirmishes with Thomas and keeping his mouth shut for what were at least Reasons, even if we didn't know what they were, but in S2 he just appears pathologically addicted to secrecy, because I cannot for the life of me see why he wouldn't discuss his wife's threat with Anna (or, for that matter, Lord Grantham although perhaps that was the sheer embarrassment factor of bringing up his daughter's sex life). And since the wife's threat seemed entirely non-credible anyway ("I'm going to reveal what half of London society already knows and everyone will believe me because I'm married to a disgraced ex-sergeant") it kind of seems like Bates must have wanted to go with her. It would be different if he'd felt some kind of responsibility for her - if she'd been mentally ill, or had cancer, or something that imposed an obligation on him - but she was just a cardboard cutout member of Team Evil.
Oh well, I suppose I don't watch it for the plots.
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Part of my problem with Bates is transference from the same actor's role in "Lark Rise to Candlefod" in which he is the benign patriarch of the heroine's family, prone to doling out slightly socialist - but not too threatening - wisdom and being long-suffering and ultimately morally right. I spend most of the time wanting to boot him up the bum. Though Bates isn't helped by plotting - being all long-suffering because the Earl is apparently incapable of telling his butler to manage the staff properly, or the demented assumption that in 1912 you could publish "Turk Takes Earl's Daugher from Behind" on the front page of The Times and not be bankrupt the next week. The end of S2 Christmas special is particularly enjoyable on a "this is just bonkers" POV.