Chapter Text
"I think I'll run up to London on Thursday," Lady Mary informs her mother over tea on the first Monday in November. "Anna has an appointment with Dr Ryder on Friday morning."
Thomas serves them mechanically, barely listening, his mind far away. That happens rather a lot lately, but they've yet to catch him at it.
"Oh?" Lady Grantham replies somewhere on the very periphery of his awareness. "Nothing to be concerned about, I hope?"
"No, no, just the routine second trimester check-up."
"Ah, good."
"And I'll try and get some early Christmas shopping done, so I was thinking of taking Barrow, too," Lady Mary continues, causing Thomas to jerk back to the present and look up in utter surprise.
"You're not thinking of opening up the house just for a shopping trip?" Lady Grantham asks with a frown, as there's no conceivable other reason why her daughter should deprive the rest of the household of their butler's services for two whole days.
"No, I'll stay at Rosamund's," Lady Mary agrees. "But I'll need someone to carry my bags. Someone not in a high-risk pregnancy, preferably."
There are not many people in Thomas' life who have the ability to leave him speechless, and there's exactly one whom Thomas won't resent for it. But that person is certainly not here in this room right now. He's… in London. Speaking of which -
Lady Grantham smiles indulgently at her daughter. "Oh, take one of the footmen, please. Andrew might want to catch up with old friends. Or ask Albert, he'd be thrilled."
Which is an erroneous assumption in Andy's case, who couldn't be happier where he is. And in Albert's, this would be unwise to say the least. The boy may have well and truly earned his recent promotion, and not just because they'll need a replacement for Andy sooner or later. But he's still underage, and the idea of letting him run loose in London on his own even for a single night is rather worrying.
"No, it'll have to be Barrow, I'm afraid," Lady Mary insists, and turns to actually look at the intended beneficiary of her deliberations for the first time. "Wouldn't you enjoy a trip to London, Barrow?"
Oh, would he enjoy it? The thing is, he's been waiting desperately for an opportunity like this, hoping for it with every fibre of his being, thirsting for it like the proverbial wanderer in the desert, ever since Richard Ellis said those four words to him, made that promise to him, till we meet again. Yes, of course Thomas would carry Lady Mary's blooming shopping bags to the ends of the earth and back again if it won him a single hour in Richard's company, the first since they met back in July. He could have done without the humiliation, but this is Mary Crawley, what did he expect.
She's smiling and waiting for his answer, so he tries to muster some semblance of dignity and hopes that he sounds not too pitifully needy when he says, "Naturally I'd enjoy it, my Lady. Very much so."
"Good, that's settled then," Lady Mary concludes the subject. "Take the evening off, if you like, I'm sure there are things you'd like to do while you're there. And if there's anything Andrew and Albert don't know how to handle here while you're away, they can always ask - "
" - Mrs Hughes," Lady Grantham cuts in hastily. "They can ask Mrs Hughes."
Thomas feels a surge of gratitude towards Lady Grantham for deflecting that particular blow at least. Here he was, thinking that Lady Mary was somehow offering him that London trip to make amends, to apologise, God forbid. The woman has an uncanny talent for souring everything at least a little, even her own good deeds.
Oh well. Beggars can't be choosers.
***
Thomas runs downstairs, flat out runs, and scribbles a hasty note to put in the last post, I'll be in town Thursday p.m. and Friday a.m., do you think there's a chance...?
It turns out that there is, and Thomas is - not over the moon, he'll never be over this beautiful little silver thing that he carries around with him to remind himself constantly of the two and a half best seconds of his life. But the prospect of a repetition makes him feel both exhilarated and queasy with anticipation. Again.
They've had two very near misses since July.
The first occurred when the Grantham household prepared to relocate to London for a few days in late August to catch the tail end of the Season. That idea was ruined by some eggs from Mrs Patmore's larder that had somehow gone off, tainting a chocolate mousse and leaving an unconscionable number of people in the house prostrate with extremely unpleasant symptoms of food poisoning on the intended day of departure. The sorry list included all the upstairs adults except for Lord Grantham, who had – ironically - skipped dessert that day on account of his sensitive stomach. It also struck down Daisy, who had made the blasted thing and was thus entitled to have tasted it, as well as Thomas, who had had no justifiable reason whatsoever to come anywhere even near the dish. To add insult to injury, this was of course duly noted and commented on by everyone who was not engaged in heaving into a toilet bowl at the time. Lord Grantham ended up going to London alone with just Bates for the business side of things, leaving Thomas to vomit his heart out and dream on.
The second miss came in October, when Thomas and Richard had worked out a perfect plan that would have given them exactly an hour and forty-three minutes together at the railway station in York, Richard's return journey from His Majesty's annual sojourn at Balmoral coinciding with a quiet day at Downton, ideal for Thomas to take time off on. But this was wrecked by some visiting foreign dignitary who had to be received in London in state without delay in order to avert some kind of international crisis, cutting HM's holiday short and jumbling up the Royal Household's travelling schedule with it. In the end, it took Richard through York on the same evening when Thomas had eighteen dinner guests on his hands by way of celebrating the Mertons' second anniversary. Thomas doesn't have anything against the Mertons personally, honestly not, but that night he hated them fiercely.
Third time lucky, Thomas thinks when he finally sits at the long table in the Painswick servants' hall in Eaton Square on Thursday night, waiting for eight o'clock. He finds that he has every right to feel starved. There have been letters, of course, dozens of them, back and forth every couple of days, and they're good, but still not quite the same. And telephone calls, they've had to agree, are out of the question - too costly as well as too risky, all too easy for some bored operator or nosy palace official to listen in on.
His hand in his pocket closes around Richard's letter detailing the name and location of the pub where they'll be meeting. Richard has put all kinds of cautious qualifications in his reply this time, like hopefully and if all goes well and assuming they finish in time, but Thomas chooses to ignore all of them.
The Painswicks' servants' supper, which they take early here, is already over, and Thomas is alone at the table. Anna has gone up to rest until Lady Mary needs her again at bedtime, which is still a long way off, and Lady Rosamund's own people are in a frantic hurry to get everything ready for a grand upstairs dinner in honour of the visiting niece.
One of their two footmen, Thomas has learned from Mr Mead the butler, is in bed with the flu, and the other is kicking his heels at His Majesty's expense, having taken the drunk and disorderly a little too far last pay day night, and hasn't been replaced yet. In combination, this is enough to get any butler not used to waiting at table alone into a tizzy. But Thomas is officially off duty, emphatically out of uniform, and studiously ignores Mr Mead's harassed, pleading looks every time the man rushes past the open doorway of the hall. He's got other places to be tonight, and other things to do. The Painswick dinner party won't starve to death just because there isn't a whole host of helpful hands putting their food in front of them.
The third time Thomas catches Mr Mead's flapping coat tails out of the corner of his eye, the butler is running into his pantry where the telephone is ringing. A minute or so later, Mead is back holding a piece of paper.
"Message for you, Mr Barrow," he says, and reads from the note in a rush. "From Richard's in Savile Row. Lady Mary's Christmas present won't get done tonight, nor tomorrow, their schedule is too full." He pushes the note into Thomas' hand. "They say they're very sorry to disappoint, and hope you'll give them another chance another time, or words to that effect," Mead continues, already backing out of the room again as other duties call. "You'll pass it on?"
Thomas nods stupidly, then sits there brooding over the scrap of paper for another full minute after Mead has left. The words on it somehow make Thomas feel like a limp piece of roadkill.
For a moment, he's tempted to sneak into Mead's pantry and ring back, but what for? To shout at Richard, who had sensed it coming and did his best to prepare them both for another disappointment? Who said that Thomas deserved it in the first place to see the man he wants and needs like he's never wanted and needed another even for five minutes after travelling over two hundred miles for no other purpose and now they're barely a mile apart and he still can't see him goddammit what the bloody hell.
He would shout, obviously, so instead Thomas crumples the note in his hand and goes to look for Lady Rosamund's housekeeper.
When the clock strikes eight, he follows Mead upstairs to the dining room, wearing the ugly Painswick livery over a borrowed dress shirt, and spends the rest of the evening doing the only thing he's ever been good at, and good for.
"I'm surprised to see you here, Barrow," Lady Mary remarks, eyebrows raised, when he reaches her on his serving round with the starter.
"I'm surprised to see me here, too, my Lady," he replies while he holds the platter for her, deferential smile firmly in place, murder in his heart. The sheer insolence of the remark makes Lady Rosamund and her other guests stare, and Thomas takes a savage pleasure in their shocked expressions.
***
With dinner done and dusted, Thomas and Mead finally step into the cold outside the back door for a smoke.
"That were decent of you, Mr Barrow," Mead says as he strikes a light, sounding very different now that his underlings are out of earshot. "On your night off and all."
Thomas shrugs. He bends over the little flame that Mead is shielding with his hand and lights up, too. It's after eleven, the jarringly jolly company upstairs disbanded at last, and they've well and truly deserved their break.
"You came up to see your sweetheart, didn't you?" Mead asks and takes a deep drag.
Thomas' heart misses a beat. His fingers tighten around his cigarette. "What makes you think that?"
Mead laughs. "Should've seen yourself at supper, dressed up to the nines and giddy like a schoolboy, glancing at the clock every two minutes. Wouldn't do that for a night at the pub with some old mate, would you?"
Seems the man is much more perceptive than Thomas has given him credit for. He's still trying to determine how worried exactly he should be when Mead continues. "But she stood you up, didn't she? Damn rotten luck, I say."
"Thanks," Thomas replies with a completely unsuccessful attempt at a smile.
"Why're you making such a fuss 'bout keeping it secret though? She married, or what?" Mead laughs at his own joke until it turns into a cough, and luckily doesn't seem to mind or even notice that Thomas isn't answering the question. "Got a picture?" he asks then, bumping his shoulder against Thomas' in a way that makes Thomas suspect he's been at the leftover wine.
"Not here," Thomas says truthfully.
"Must be a bother, though, coming all the way here for bugger all," Mead repeats himself, shaking his head.
He has been at the wine. Could have at least shared the spoils, the greedy bastard. Thomas has rarely been more ready to drink himself into oblivion out of pure frustration, not that he could ever risk it. But he can guess what kind of advice will come next, and preempts any well-meant hints about the willing ladies of the West End by grinding his half-finished cigarette under his shoe. "Bother's one word for it," he says and takes his leave.
He walks the short mile that separates him from Richard until he's at the outer fence of the palace grounds, which is the closest he can hope to get. The lights are still on behind many windows in the vast complex, and Thomas has no idea where exactly he should picture Richard twiddling his thumbs right now, waiting for the much-delayed end of whichever event it was that ruined the evening for them both.
He takes his hand out of his coat pocket and closes his fingers around the solid wrought-iron railing. The cold of it seeps through his glove and shakes him to the core. Sometimes he wonders why they're always so terrified of going to prison, if all they can do even now is peer through bars, hoping for a glimpse that isn't even there.
***
Anna has her doctor's appointment at ten the next morning - nothing to worry about, everything in order - and by the time their train pulls out of King's Cross just before noon, steady cold rain has turned into driving sleet that pummels the carriage windows. When the train slows down and finally comes to a halt in the middle of nowhere outside Peterborough, they feast on the sandwiches provided by Lady Rosamund's cook, and afterwards Anna shows Thomas what she bought as a Christmas present for Johnny.
Thomas takes the bright little tin toy into his hand. It's a bird with a handle on the underside that pumps air into small bellows under its wings, raising them as if to take flight. The rest of the air comes out through a system of slits, producing a warbling sound. It is a genuinely clever little contraption, and it makes Thomas smile as he inspects the mechanism. It's also a girl's toy rather than a boy's, by any usual standards, but Johnny Bates loves animals in any shape or form and is less prone to wreck things than many other three year olds. Trust his mother to get this exactly right, like she gets almost everything else exactly right.
"I thought you'd like it," Anna smiles while she puts the toy back in its box, and he nods quite sincerely. "I just wish your trip could have been as successful."
Thomas remembers standing outside the palace last night and shrugs. What's he supposed to say, that one mile apart is an improvement on two hundred? So he says nothing at all, because he doesn't need more of her "I think he liked you" and "This must be difficult for you".
But all she says this time is "You'll get there, just don't give up", as if she knows. And then he recalls that she does know. She's waited long enough for her own happiness.
With a jolt, the train starts moving again.
It's been dark for a good while when they finally get to York, the train creeping like a snail along the icy tracks. North of the Humber, the sleet is actual snow, and when they reunite with Lady Mary on the jam-packed platform, they learn that there will be no connecting train on their local line for hours, not until the snow plough has cleared the main line in both directions.
Lady Mary insists that in spite of a foot of snow on the roads, too, she'll call Mr Talbot to come and pick them up in the car. Thomas resists the urge to ask whether she's keen on losing another husband in a car crash after all, leaves it to Anna to talk her out of it and goes to find them seats in the crowded station buffet instead. He spends the next twenty minutes queuing for tea and whatever food there's left. When he takes the meagre spoils to the ladies at their tiny table, shouldering his way through a throng of other stranded travellers, he reflects that he's done a remarkable amount of carrying trays in the last forty-eight hours, considering they were supposed to be time off.
It's after ten o'clock at night when they finally, finally make it back to Downton, Mr Talbot steering the car from the station up the snowy drive to the house with a sure hand but at less than walking pace. Anna is in tears of exhaustion, and Thomas is so cold that he can't feel his toes any more. They leave the car in the yard and all pile in at the back door in a shockingly democratic manner.
They've caught the tail end of the servants' dinner. Mrs Patmore bustles off to put together a belated dinner tray for Lady Mary, which Mr Talbot - thank heaven for small mercies - offers to take upstairs himself. Thomas hands Anna over to her relieved husband and all but falls down in his own chair at the head of the table.
"It's been snowing here all day. I've got out extra blankets for all the attic bedrooms, and we've lit the fires early in each," Mrs Hughes informs Thomas while he does his best to catch up with the others in terms of both news and nutrition.
"That's kind," Thomas replies, and then realises belatedly that he's probably supposed to lament the extra expenses for heating fuel. But his prickling toes approve, so why should the rest of him disagree? The day may come when Lord Grantham will ask him to cut back even on the small things, but until then the few remaining attic-dwellers among the staff will not freeze in their beds on a snowy November night.
***
When Thomas reaches his bedroom at last, he finds the door standing a little ajar. That's not great for keeping the warmth of a fire inside a room. Maybe Mrs Hughes should have a word with her maids about wasting fuel, after all.
But a vague feeling that something is wrong lingers. When Thomas pushes to door fully open, there's a sudden rustling sound from the direction of his bed. He switches the light on. There's no one there, but the promised extra blanket is no longer neatly folded on the end of the bed as it should be. Someone's pulled it down untidily, and now it's half hanging down the side and half stuffed in a heap under the bed. The embers of the fire are still glowing in the grate. In spite of the open door, the air in the room is close and stuffy and not exactly pleasant.
Puzzled, Thomas walks over, crouches down and tugs at the blanket. The result is a wild hiss of protest and sharp pain across the back of his hand. He lets go, startled, and stares in disbelief at the deep, long scratch, tiny beads of blood welling up all along it.
Keenly aware of just how silly this would look to anyone watching, he goes to fetch a coat hanger from his wardrobe and pokes it tentatively into the centre of the woollen pile, careful to keep his distance this time. There's the angry snarl again, and when Thomas pushes the folds apart, a pair of cold grey eyes with vertical slits for pupils glares at him defiantly.
In the two days that he's been away, a cat has somehow found its way into his empty room and made a makeshift nest under his bed. And in the nest, it - she - has had kittens.
***