Work Text:
York, 1944
‘Will you go,’ says Richard, so quiet Thomas can barely hear him, ‘to the funeral?’
The letter is from Edith although he had read the news in the paper some days ago.
Father thought so well of you she’d written and it didn’t ring entirely true. It wasn’t entirely false either and it made Thomas’s throat feel tight, despite the time and the distance.
Near on thirty years he worked for the Crawleys and it’s been almost ten since he left but hearing of Lord Grantham’s death, in the words of the man’s own daughter, has hit him harder than he expected. Harder than he would have liked.
His first thought is blank; a confusion of emotions that become almost nothing in the feeling of them.
His second thought is for George.
‘I don’t know.’
He doesn’t have to check if Richard heard the break in his voice because he’s already getting up from the breakfast table to come to Thomas’s side.
‘You don’t have to,’ he says, soft again, his hands at Thomas’s waist, taking the rest of the post and setting it down.
Strangely, that thought isn’t even on Thomas’s mind. He’s certain he doesn’t have to go. What he isn’t so sure of is if he wants to go, can he? Aside from anything else Britain is still at war and the service will be a small one; Thomas would hate to stand out, no longer a servant but not classed with friends and family either.
He wonders why Edith thought to write to him, pity perhaps, or misguided loyalty, an attempt to bolster the numbers at the funeral. In the hierarchy of people who were close to the Earl of Grantham Thomas can’t really count himself among them and so his grief is misplaced, a relic and an attitude he has never ascribed to.
Robert Crawley thought well of his skills at cricket and his ability as a servant but he didn’t care for Thomas, not really. Not when he appointed Thomas butler, not even when Thomas left service to come to York and make his life with Richard. There was no animosity in the manner of their parting but not much in the way of affection either and when Thomas had read the news in the paper he hadn’t felt much of anything but now, holding the expensive cardstock, embossed with the arms of the Marchioness of Hexham, he feels suddenly untethered, as one more part of his old life slips away.
Richard repeats himself, his meaning a little different, he won’t let Thomas hide from this, from the grief or the rage, ‘do you want to go?’
‘How could I possibly? We weren’t friends, he was my employer,’ his voice comes out harsher than he means it to, discomforted by sudden emotion he can’t place.
‘And haven’t we said so many times that the intimacies of service are a strange thing? You knew him in ways so many others never got to see. You are allowed to grieve, or not. You are allowed to go to the funeral, or not.’
Thomas steps slightly out of Richard’s reach but he doesn’t march off like he wants to. After all this time he knows talking it through will help him find his resolve, one way or another. He struggled for so long for a place at Downton and then he struggled to get away. What good would returning do, now? He has never been a man like Carson, dedicated, even more so than any Crawley, to upholding the old ways. There’s no need to show his face, pay his respects, but the fact that he has been asked does hold a little sway. He hasn’t been forgotten at least.
‘What would it achieve? If things were the other way round, he wouldn’t come to pay his respects to me.’
‘Thomas ,’ Richard’s voice holds so much concern and Thomas hates it in these moments to be understood so completely. He can’t even be petulant or angry without Richard seeing right through it. Of course if Thomas had died and Lord Grantham had heard the news he would have come because Robert Crawley was good at that; caring where it could be seen, benevolent and compassionate when it suited him but in protecting Thomas so many times Lord Grantham was only ever protecting himself.
Thomas has known a lot of men like that, men who held no real affection for him, in the end, and it makes Thomas angry to think of all the times he hoped for their approval. It’s not lovers he’s thinking of, men who came and went like the tides, whose own lives, whether they were upstairs or down, were dictated by secrecy and the expectations of others. Thomas forgave all of them long ago. No, he’s thinking of the men who should have led by example but instead used their position and their power for cruelty.
Carson’s funeral rivalled many a state funeral Thomas had read about in the newspapers or heard about on the wireless. Paid for by a grateful family who held only one version of the man in high esteem. Thomas was struck with grief then too, grief he couldn’t place, but he was also angry, standing with the other mourners, weeping over a benevolent figure, a kindly man who did his best for his staff; the same man whose lip would curl at the sight of Thomas and whose kindness extended only to those who would fall in line.
There was certainly no love lost between himself and Carson but Thomas can admit to himself now that he was always hoping for a word or a sign from his predecessor; acknowledgement that despite their differences Carson could see Thomas did his job well, that he was leaving Downton in good hands but right into old age Carson could never quite let go of the reins and no one upstairs seem inclined to make him. Thomas was butler by default, by necessity, once Carson was no longer fit for the job, and he spent the rest of his time at Downton in the man's shadow.
And yet, after a time, how many of the old hands at Downton told Thomas they much preferred him as butler.
‘When the king died…,’ Richard begins and Thomas can’t help but scoff.
‘That’s hardly the same.’
‘How so? He was my employer, as you say, but I knew him well enough.’
‘You were only his second dresser,’ Thomas hates the sound of his own voice in times like these, when Richard is only trying to help. There’s more common ground than Thomas can admit to here but no one, in any context, would compare Robert Crawley to the King, it truly isn’t the same, ‘you couldn’t have known him like I knew Lord Grantham, like I knew his family.’
Thomas thinks of Sybil, then of Matthew, and has to hold back tears again.
‘That’s true enough, in a smaller house, these things have greater significance. A place like Downton has it’s means to take more than it should from those who serve there,’ Richard concedes and he’s hovering again, closer but still not touching.
Thomas finds he would quite like to be touched, now. He moves his hand abortively at his side and Richard reads the meaning of the gesture, takes Thomas’s hand in his own.
‘You never truly got to know what he thought of you,’ Richard says it gently, mindful of the fragility of the moment.
‘I know quite well what he thought of me,’ says Thomas but there’s no anger in it, only bitterness.
‘Maybe, but there will always have been things left unsaid. That is the nature of the relationship between servant and served. And I'm certain he was grateful, in the end.’
‘Don’t defend him.’
‘I’m not. I’m saying that your relationship was complicated so your feelings are bound to be complicated too but there’s no shame in feeling them. And whether you go to the funeral or not, no one will judge you. I certainly won’t.’
Richard still has hold of his hand, rubbing firm circles in the space between his thumb and his index finger, working out the tension, ‘you don’t have to decide just now, in any case.’
Thomas is grateful for the reprieve. He went to his father’s funeral for the sake of his mother and he went to his mother’s funeral for the sake of his sister but there was so much distance between them and not the kind that can be healed by time. It was duty which drove him to Carson’s funeral too and he hates the pull of it, the desire to please and the need to be accepted. Being invited to this funeral, whatever the reason, however hollow, feels significant somehow. Not that he’s won, by surviving, barring tragedy that would always have been likely, but if someone feels he should be there, that his presence would be missed, it must mean something.
He is grieving, Thomas realises, for everyone he has ever lost and for a life spent alone for so long, for every person he looked to for guidance only to find pity and suspicion, or worse, disgust. From his father to Carson to Lord Grantham; he will never get to look in their eyes and see approval or affection and their dying makes him everything they thought he was, angry and spiteful, aching for absolution from men who could never give it to him, dead or alive.
Thomas puts his hand over Richard’s, entwining their fingers, rougher and marked with age these days, ‘no, I won’t decide just now.’
*
The day of the funeral dawns, cold in a way that hurts if you breathe too deeply but bright, the sun hanging low in the sky even in the early morning. Thomas isn’t expected at the hospital today, a state of affairs quite deliberately orchestrated while pointedly not thinking about anything at all, and he’s smoking, something he hasn’t done in a long time, huddled against the cold in the backyard.
There’s clarity to a decision like this; just like the choice he made all those years ago to leave Downton and come to York with Richard. He was certain in that choice and he’s certain in this one.
‘You’ve decided then,’ says Richard, at the door with a cup of tea, half dressed for work and smiling softly.
‘I wanted him to forgive me,’ says Thomas, apropos of nothing and Richard stands up straighter, worry colouring his face.
‘For what? There was nothing you did that needed forgiving.’
‘I always felt I disappointed him, like I disappointed Carson, like I had disappointed my father. By not being…’ Thomas breathes out sharply, shakes his head as if to clear it, ‘I’ll not be going.’
He doesn’t need to dwell on it anymore, ghosts long since put to rest; it had hurt to remember but here far away from Downton and any Crawley there is no need to forcibly open old wounds for the sake of what’s proper. He was sorry to hear of what happened and that can be the end of it.
Richard nods, relaxes, ‘if you’re sure, I think that’s for the best.’
There is affection in every line on his face as he smiles, the way he leans against the door frame, angled toward Thomas, the brush of his fingers as he hands over the tea.
Thomas had been looking in all the wrong places.