Downton Abbey Comment Ficathon
With the new season upon us, and fandom all extra-enthusiastic, I figured now would be a great time for this. Because there can never be enough Downton Abbey fic, and there certainly isn't enough now!
( Read more... )
( Read more... )
The Unexpected
It’s not what she expects.
The Cottage Hospital is hardly a familiar place to her, though she knows Major Clarkson somewhat. And how different it is to see him from head to toe a military man. Rather like Papa, but with only the King’s and Queen’s South Africa ribbons and none of the coronation ones.
He frightened her, at first, with the way he framed his requests as orders. They made her think she’d done something wrong. But she came to see that he only wanted a task finished and didn’t care how she felt about being asked.
Was this what it was like to have a trade? See that this gets done, no excuses. It made her almost giddy, during her training, to comply. And Major Clarkson’s praise, when she got it, lit a fire under her heart.
When the first soldiers arrived from Bazentin Ridge, that fragile satisfaction deserts her. For here are young men undone, as she has never seen them. Who have been damaged, messily rather than romantically, and are afraid of dying.
She touches a man’s leg for the first time within a day.
She gently removes a shirt within two, having never before seen more of the bare male anatomy than a bit of throat.
Within three days she sees a man cry for the first time.
To glean satisfaction from helping them would be barbaric, she thinks, and is vigilant about it. She shall help them because they deserve it and she’ll never enjoy it.
When she meets Lieutenant Edward Courtenay, her detachment wavers. He has bandages around his eyes that Major Clarkson alone may remove-it is specialized work, and a mere nurse is not up to the task. She brings him his pills and talks with him, for that much she can do.
“I’ve never seen Downton,” he says. “I daresay I rarely get this far north, but that is what I said about Pas-de-Calais.”
“It’s very beautiful,” she says, and thinks about it. “It is in the Renaissance revival style, from the Jacobean phase, and it is made from Bath stone so it is the color of honey, though the parapets are darkened. It was originally granted as an abbey… I’m sorry. I’m not doing much good, am I.”
“A very clinical description, but then you’re a nurse,” says Lieutenant Courtenay. “I wish I could have seen it. Is the hunting much good?”
“Very,” says Sibyl. “My sister Mary rides out more often than I. I like the way the fields look and I like to ride, but it is hard for a hunt to keep my attention.”
She winces after she speaks; obviously a hunt can keep Lieutenant Courtenay’s attention perfectly well. And he will likely never see a field ever again.
“I’m sorry,” she says, “I’m boring you.”
“Absolutely not. You have a pretty voice, Nurse Crawley. I mean to become an expert in voices.”
She smiles, and when he can’t see that, she says: “Then I shall help you.”
“Nurse Crawley,” Major Clarkson calls, and expects her to move out of the way so he can replace the bandage on the lieutenant’s eyes. “I don’t know if you’ve heard, we’re to get a medic tomorrow. He’ll be able to take over this task and much of my nonsurgical work-there shall be a new schedule by tonight. I should mention, he used to be a footman of your father’s. But from what I’ve seen, we’ll have no problems from you with respect to rank.”
Reply
Leave a comment