Chapter Text
2 Mar. 1925
Dear Jimmy,
Firstly— If you ever compare yourself to Alfred again, I’ll be forced to catch the next available bus to York to knock some sense into you. Being a waiter is decent work, and you’ve a rented attic all to yourself. The best Alfred can hope to be is Mrs Patmore in trousers, but you could be Hotel Manager one day, if you play your cards right. I’d offer advice on that front, but I suspect I’d only muddle your life as badly as I’ve muddled mine.
Secondly— The whole downstairs crowd knows about the letter you sent. Despite an admirable attempt on my part at keeping a straight face when the morning post arrived, Daisy waltzed in carrying a plate of toast and immediately asked what I was grinning for. I could have told her to mind her own business, I suppose, but I’m making an effort to be more agreeable these days. It’s a real bugger. I read aloud the funnier bits to the assembled rabble at dinner in the servants’ hall. Everyone had a good laugh at the image of a gang of stray cats pursuing you down the street, sausages nicked from your hotel stuffed into every pocket. The only exceptions were Bates, who pretended not to hear, and Carson, who grumbled about impropriety, so no surprises there.
Thirdly— As for your request, there isn’t much sordid upstairs gossip to share, I’m afraid. Lady Mary has a pack of suitors hovering about her at all times, but they are, to a man, dead boring. Not a single Irish Socialist or married Magazine Editor in the bunch. His Lordship has not yet managed to throw the estate into ruin. Lady Rose is married and living in New York now, so she can’t scandalize the Dowager nearly as well as she used to. And the most exciting thing that happens to Lady Edith these days is being stricken by the occasional papercut when she’s down in London fussing with her magazine.
Things are mostly the same as you remember downstairs. However, in Branson’s absence, our Daisy has become increasingly emboldened by a Revolutionary spirit. The other day, unprompted, she went off on a tear about the Labour Party as she put the finishing touches on upstairs dessert, nearly knocking over a meringue dish in her zeal. She’s even working to get herself an education. Good for her, I say—although don’t tell her I’m the one who said it. Somebody has to keep those toffs on their toes.
And fourthly— I do hope you won’t take another year to reply to this letter. (Ha-ha!)
Oh—I nearly forgot to mention—Carson has hired a new footman, Andy. I recommended him for the job, actually, after he came on as temporary help for Lady Rose’s wedding. He was only a hall boy at his last place, but he’s a quick and able learner, so I’m confident a man of experience such as myself can whip him into shape in no time. He’s nice to have around, besides. I suspect the two of us are going to get on.
That’s all for now. As always, I am
Your Friend,
Thomas
P S: Have you given any more thought to being a good boy and settling down? I’ll bet the girls in York are more to your liking than the ones at Downton. Just a thought.
Jimmy frowned as he reread the letter for the third time seated at his rickety desk up in the attic. Drizzling rain dripped in through a hole in the roof, pattering against the metal bottom of the bucket in the corner. Downstairs, a baby was bawling, two dogs howling to fill the silence of the ragged breaths between cries. The family who lived in the rooms below mainly consisted of a band of dirty, half-feral children and an even larger band of dirty, half-feral hounds. He had a standing invitation for dinner each night, which he had learned to avoid in favour of cold fish and chips eaten in the relative safety of his room.
As he slid the paper back into its envelope, unpleasantness prickled in his stomach. Guilt, perhaps. He hadn’t meant to leave writing to Thomas so long. But this was the first time since leaving Downton that he’d felt his life was on some kind of stable footing. Before he’d gotten this job, his missives would have been a long string of: Dear Thomas, got sacked again; Dear Thomas, gambled all me money away again; Dear Thomas, had to sell me cufflinks to buy food... again. He hated to think of Thomas worrying about him, or worse pitying him.
No, it wasn’t guilt that unsettled him. At least, mostly not. He lay down on his bed, still dressed in his clothes, metal springs creaking ominously beneath him. Day had bled into night; when the rainshower had died down a bit, when there was a moment of peace belowstairs, he’d sneak out for a bite to eat at the pub down the street. But his feet throbbed inside his shoes from endless hours bustling back and forth from the kitchen’s stifling heat to the dining room’s droning chatter, and he found he lacked the energy to rise from the mattress. Instead he rolled over onto his side, hands curled up on the pillow beside him. The fingertips smelled of ink, of cigarettes, of Thomas’ cologne. Familiarity lulled Jimmy to sleep.
In his dream, Thomas stood in the Abbey’s courtyard at midday, sharing a smoke with a stranger wearing a footman’s uniform. The man looked somewhat like Jimmy, although he was younger and handsomer and blonder and perhaps a bit taller, as well. Their fingers—that is, those of Thomas and his annoyingly perfect companion—brushed as the smouldering fag passed between hands. Two heads, one dark and one fair, bent near to one another. The footman whispered as if imparting a thrilling secret, although Jimmy—who was a mute, motionless spectator to this scene—couldn’t make out precisely the words. Thomas laughed, a low, pleased sound, fingers curling around the other man’s upper arm to pull him closer still. A rough, scratching sensation slid across Jimmy’s cheek, a wetness on his skin so much like tears—
He woke to a dog licking his face.
“Gah!” he said. He bolted upright and attempted to shoo the mutt away with wide, sweeping gestures of his arms. Staring up at him blankly, the horse-sized creature sat back on its haunches, tail thumping against the wooden floorboards. A line of drool dripped from its jaws.
Suddenly, Jimmy’s sleeping thoughts collided with his waking ones, and he realised— “It’s Andy.” The dog cocked its head. “No, not you,” he said. With a whine, the dog trotted out the door.
This Andy bloke was the irritant that lay at the heart of Jimmy’s riled-up feelings. He’d known that a new footman would be hired eventually, but he hadn’t expected Thomas to take such an interest in the fellow, at least not so quickly. Thomas didn’t like anyone straight away—aside from Jimmy, but that was a different sort of matter. Their true, proper friendship had come with time, the result of trust and compromise on the part of both men, and… and… what was so bloody special about a recently-promoted hall boy, anyway?
Jimmy stood up and threw on his coat, tiptoeing out onto the landing. It wasn’t that he was jealous, that would be silly. He was suspicious. Some chappie from God knows where befriends Downton Abbey’s under-butler, then suddenly he’s a footman in the great house? Jimmy knew ruthless ambition when he saw it. He’d be keeping an eye on that one and no mistake.
Hours later, he sat slumped over so his elbows rested on the long, sticky bar counter, the remainder of ale from his umpteenth pint forming a thin, amber ring at the bottom of his glass. He’d consumed an unquestionably unwise amount of alcohol, and the bright, noisy atmosphere of the tiny pub whirled around him in a dizzying carousel. A hazy thought rose from the miasma of his mind to the forefront of his consciousness, floating just out of reach. Something important—something about how Thomas had written of this Andy person just before pivoting to talk of romance—
But then Jimmy dashed to the washroom to be sick into the toilet, and by the time he came stumbling back out again, the thought had vanished.
In his next letter, Thomas wrote something truly shocking. Hidden though it was in a sea of bland updates and anecdotes, Jimmy could read the words plainly enough in Thomas’ tall, spidery hand: Apparently Andy is quite experienced with clocks already, so that’s one less concern on my plate. Not that Jimmy realised the indiscrete nature of such a statement at first; he was much too distracted by his usual morning dash, a piece of toast clamped vise-like between his teeth as he did his level best to tug on his trousers without falling over.
Only when he unloaded a heavy tray for a luncheon party of six did the sentence return to his mind, channeled through the ungentle drawl Thomas used with those he thought beneath him—Andy is quite experienced with clocks already. Jimmy returned the empty tray to the kitchen, emerged with another full one. Andy is experienced with clocks. In his little notepad, he wrote down the orders of a blandly smiling couple, one of whom had a bit of lipstick smeared on her front tooth. Andy is experienced with clocks, Andy is experienced, Thomas’ voice chanted now, repeatedly, with the malice of a particularly cruel nursery rhyme. Jimmy trod the familiar path back to the green, swinging doors, his hands sweating in their white gloves.
It was hardly his fault that he’d had no prior experience with clocks before arriving at Downton. There’d been no opportunity to learn at his old place, nor in his life before service. Then when there was a chance to truly learn the ins and outs of clocks—with a willing, able teacher, even—his other duties were always drawing his attention away. Mr Carson glowering and sputtering, the eyes of the other servants forever watching, meant that Jimmy could never do the things he really wanted to do. By the time he’d worked up the nerve to gain a more intimate understanding of the delicate mechanisms, to dip curious fingers in amongst cogs and gears, he’d been given the boot, hadn’t he? Now he worked in a hotel, and if there were clocks about, he certainly wasn’t allowed to touch them.
Gregory, who’d been passing by with a laden tray, stopped dead. “Something the matter, Jimmy? Your face has gone all red.” A Waldorf salad tipped dangerously close to the rim before Gregory hastily adjusted his hand position. Jimmy was the only fellow in the place with any sense of balance or poise. But Gregory was all-right; he lended Jimmy fags sometimes.
“Right as rain, me,” Jimmy replied. He put on his best drawing room smile. “Don’t you worry.”
As soon as Gregory was looking the other way, he made for the washroom with all possible haste. He bolted the door and wet his face with cold water. That was better, a little. Still he had a tired, grey, deflated look about him, but such was his appearance more often than not these days. There was nothing for it.
When he arrived back in his attic room come evening, Jimmy found Thomas’ latest letter lying open on his desk, where anyone might pop in and read it. Embarrassment prickled along the nape of his neck. He slid open a locked drawer and pulled out the first note, wrapping the two together with a green, silk ribbon that had belonged to his mother. Thomas’ words needed to be kept in a safe place, because… because they were proof of his illicit affair with footman Andy.
That was the obvious conclusion here. Thomas may not have penned soppy paragraphs detailing stolen kisses in shadowy corridors, but even a foolish romantic like him would have to exercise some restraint, given the nature of his situation. People read mail that wasn’t meant for them all the time. Clearly, Thomas had been itching to share his joy with someone; Jimmy had simply been the most suitable candidate. They were close friends, Jimmy was well aware of his invert tendencies, and—while they’d never discussed it at length—Thomas knew that Jimmy didn’t think it a sin or any such rot.
Jimmy settled into the wobbly desk chair to pen a reply. Nib scratching against stationery, he wrote Dear Thomas—then stopped short. This letter needed to communicate—secretly, of course—that he understood his role as Thomas’ confidant, and he took the responsibility seriously, and he wished Thomas every happiness. But also he couldn’t leave out the matter of Andy’s motivations. If anything, they seemed even more questionable now. Probably Thomas was so wrapped up in the notion of having acquired a… companion, he’d given no thought to what might happen when his fellow had scrambled up to the top of the career ladder, and Thomas had ceased to be useful. Hypocrite or no, Jimmy ached at the idea of Thomas’ heart being broken all over again.
He scrapped one draft, two, seven. His sentences kept coming off as rude or bitter or miserable, although of course none of those could be further from the truth. In the end, he found himself writing, I’ve realised I never answered the question from your first letter. I’ll not lie and pretend I haven’t noticed two of the hotel maids eyeing me up, but I’ve decided to stay away from women for the time being. As far as I’m concerned, they’re more trouble than they’re worth. Which wasn’t what he’d meant to say at all.
On the other side of the door, a few of the children were playing a sort of game that involved dashing up and down the stairs at top speed. Thunderous, tiny feet kept pace with Jimmy’s curiously pounding heart.
The chill greyness of early Spring gradually surrendered to the heat of late Summer. Along the way, Thomas and Jimmy exchanged a fair number of letters. In the brief hours between work and sleep, Jimmy read about Branson’s venture into the car business (He’s taking to it like a monkey to organ grinding), and the Abbey opening its doors to the villagers (You’d have thought they were turning up with torches and pitchforks for all the fuss the Family made), and the wedding of Mr Carson and Mrs Hughes (Oh, she seems happy enough, but I keep expecting her to slip me a note saying, ‘Help! I’ve saddled myself with a grumpy, old bugger for life!’).
The messages cheered him to no end, but when the sun went down, each one brought with it a fresh round of distressing dreams. The scenario was always the same—Thomas and his Adonis footman being… intimate in increasingly exposed locations. One night, Jimmy jolted from a particularly vivid vision of Mr Barrow bending Andy over the dining room table as the Crawleys kept right on chatting and sipping bowls of cucumber soup, to find a wet, clinging spot on the sheets he’d not felt between his legs since he was a hall boy. Creeping down the stairs shortly before dawn, arms full of bed linen, to wash out the offensive stain in private, he knew that his youthful lapse was the result of his frustration at abstaining from the pleasures of the fairer sex, and had nothing whatsoever to do with the actual content of his dream.
Of course, Thomas never wrote anything nearly so explicit. Mostly he included Andy in his letters to mention how well the footman was taking to country living. Apparently he had developed a habit of taking solitary strolls deep into the woods, and he spent his half-days helping Mr Mason with the pigs. Jimmy, not blinded by affection the way Thomas was, suspected this innocent, farmboy act to be a ruse, but he didn’t worry. And he knew from the occasional mention that Thomas was looking for work outside of Downton, but he didn’t worry about that either.
He worried a little when, in the midst of August, Thomas’ steady stream of letters dried up. But then Baxter sent a brief note, obviously dictated by Thomas, which explained that he was laid up with the flu, and she, Anna, and not-to-be-trusted Andy were taking good care of him. He was fine. And—while a part of him wished he were there to read Thomas the paper and to make certain he didn’t slip away unexpectedly in the middle of the night the way Jimmy’s mother had—Jimmy was fine too. Fine, fine, fine.
At least, until September rolled around.
On an unseasonably warm, wet evening directly following the end of Jimmy’s shift, he hunched under the shelter of a dripping awning at the staff entrance so his cigarette did not go out. Thomas’ most recent letter was tucked into his inner jacket pocket. Usually they came in the morning post, but Jimmy tended to save reading them for later. It was something to look forward to at the end of a long day that wouldn’t leave him with a dreadful headache in the morning.
Thomas didn’t have much to share, evidently. He commented a bit on Carson spilling wine at dinner and Lady Edith’s millionth go-round of her “downtrodden spinster” act before closing with: I’ve discovered that, in his off-hours, Andy’s written a whole stack of romantic poetry. He finally decided to let me have a look at them. You hardly need to read a word to see how hopelessly smitten he is. It’s too early to say if his affections are returned, but do you know I’m hopeful. For the first time in ages, I’m hoping for something.
Inside of Jimmy, a light unceremoniously flickered out. He’d been holding on to the possibility that this was an affair of convenience, that Thomas had merely taken advantage of a young, handsome opportunity. Perhaps it had indeed been only a bit of fun at first, but the man Jimmy knew would never refuse an offer of love so tenderly given.
When Thomas left—and he wrote more and more about it every day—Jimmy had no doubts that Andy would be going with him. Thomas would be a butler, finally, in Monte Carlo, Berlin, somewhere absolutely thrilling, and the two lovers would zip off on adventures all the time. But then Andy would become bored, because he was a foolish boy who didn’t appreciate that there was only one Thomas Barrow in all the world, not until it was too late. He would abandon Thomas for a younger man or a better job, probably taking all the money to boot.
Sorrow sank like an anchor to the pit of Jimmy’s gut... on his best mate’s behalf, of course.
The clatter of boot soles echoed against the cobblestones. Three men in rumpled suits stumbled into view, one of them with a half-empty bottle tucked under his armpit. Jimmy watched them, wide-eyed, although the fellows seemed even more surprised than he. “It’s the wrong alley, innit, Ern?” said the tallest one to the man with the bottle. The other piped up, “Should’ve listened when I told you to turn left, you daft sod!”
The one called Ern rolled his eyes. “Yeh, I worked that out for meself, funnily enough.” That dark, beady gaze landed on Jimmy. “Say, you wouldn’t happen to know how to get to The Red Dog from here, would you, mate?” Jimmy did. The men thanked him and shuffled away, except for Ern, who treated Jimmy to a lopsided grin that shot a cold, creeping sensation up his spine. “Care to join us for a game of cards?”
Thomas would have told Jimmy not to be such a fool. But he wasn’t there, was he? And he was happy, whereas Jimmy…
Jimmy nearly threw the letter into a filthy puddle, but the mere thought made him feel as if his lungs couldn’t get enough air. So he put Thomas’s words back in their proper place, the pocket close to his heart, before wandering off with strangers into the night.
A week later, another message arrived from Thomas, this one undated and very short:
Jimmy,
I’ve gotten a new job. I’ll be leaving in a few days. Once I’m settled, I’ll send the new address on to you.
Thomas
Months passed, and no more letters came.
It was March 1926. Gregory had stopped asking Jimmy what the matter was ages ago. Ernie and his mates had vanished into thin air, although Jimmy reckoned they would return next time they fancied taking him for all he was worth. As he handed menus to a severe-looking older man, his even sterner wife, and a frightened rabbit of a woman who could only be their daughter, he noticed the manager glaring at him. He must have been a dreadful sight. He’d hardly slept the night before, his skull felt two sizes too small, and the black eye he’d gotten last week had faded to a sickly yellow.
He’d be out on his ear before too long. Once, he’d taken a certain pride in his work, knowing that Thomas was, from afar, taking pride in him. Now, he didn’t feel much of anything. He won at the racetrack, and he felt nothing. He drank so much his head spun, and he felt nothing. Sometimes he felt things in his dreams. He’d dream of Thomas—without that Andy, thank God. Instead, he and Jimmy sat alone in a quiet, private place. He smiled the way he did when Jimmy played his favourite tunes on the piano, and spoke softly for a long time. Jimmy could never remember what was said, but he often woke to the cold light of morning with hot tears tracing down his face.
As he filled sweating water glasses in the loud, over-lit dining room, the daughter bunched and unbunched the cloth napkin on her lap. “It was just terrible of that butler to leave you in the lurch, Papa,” she said, “but it’s been two months, and you’ve found a new fellow. Must you go on about it so?”
“Yes, I must!” her father blustered, jowls quivering. “A servant wouldn’t have done a thing like that in my day. I hired the man for a high position in a good house—which he was lucky to get, mind you—and just when we’ve gotten used to him, he buggers off back to the house he came from.”
“Language, dear,” said the wife as she buttered a roll.
“Downton Abbey is a very grand house.” The daughter addressed her empty plate rather than look at anyone’s face. “I suppose they offered him a larger salary.”
“That shouldn’t matter! It’s the principle of the thing!” The old man pounded his fist against the table. Several other patrons turned to stare. From across the room, Jimmy’s manager appeared to have swallowed a live hornet. But for Jimmy, the world had narrowed to two words, swirling around his brain—Downton Abbey, Downton Abbey.
“I think it’s for the best,” the wife said. Ice cubes clinked against her water glass as she raised it to her lips. “I much prefer our new man. That Barrow always put on airs, as if he thought he was better than us.” She chuckled at the notion, a horsey, tuneless bray.
Hearing Thomas’ name aloud for the first time in two years was like… like the sun coming out from behind a cloud. Jimmy stopped mid-pour, setting the jug down beside the daughter’s half-empty glass. Gradually, the conversation petered out as, one by one, they noticed him standing there motionless, failing to play his proper role. Whether in a hotel or a great house, toffs were all the same—they’d stare at you like your hair had caught fire if you so much as dared to be something more than another piece of furniture, another useful thing.
Jimmy let them raise their eyebrows at him, not because he didn’t care, but because he did. He cared that Thomas was, for the time being, at Downton Abbey. He cared that there was still time to save… Thomas, to save him from the clutches of a vain, flirting footman.
How Jimmy would save him, he hadn’t quite sorted out yet. But he knew what he had to do first.
He turned on his heel, and he walked away from the table, out of the dining room. The manager said something as he passed, then called out to him when he realised Jimmy wasn’t stopping. More people yelled, gesturing angrily as he stepped out of the sweltering kitchen and into the embrace of a cool, Spring breeze. Their words didn’t reach him, the sound nothing more than gnats buzzing in his ear. Gregory emerged from the crowd. He grabbed Jimmy’s shoulder, but—upon catching sight of Jimmy’s expression—he let go, and the heavy, metal door slammed shut.
Jimmy found that he could fit everything he owned neatly in his one valise. Or at least, everything he needed. This included the stack of Thomas’ letters, which he hid beneath a pile of shirts. The rest of his possessions he left behind with his waiter’s uniform for the family downstairs to do with as they wished. He would not be coming back for them. On the desk, he left—reluctantly—a dispiriting chunk of his meagre savings to cover the rent.
When he crept out onto the landing, the sky was black as pitch, but morning would be breaking soon. The mother was already in the kitchen, humming over the clatter of pots and pans. A baby gurgled. Jimmy tiptoed around them so he wouldn’t be seen. At the feel of a cold, wet snuffle against his trouser leg, he nearly jumped a foot in the air, but it was only one of the dogs, angling for a scratch behind the ears. He nudged the creature away with the toe of his shoe and picked up the pace. He had a bus to catch.