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In a strange way his medical training had just made it all seem more plausible.
The electric shocks had hurt, a sharp prickle that snapped through his skin and jerked his muscles rigid but this thing inside him was a type of sickness wasn’t it, a disease that needed to be cut out and such things were never pleasant. Had he not seen plenty of young men held down by strong hands, belts clamped in their teeth as the surgeons worked to save them – would any of them have begrudged pain if it saved their lives?
It almost made Thomas miss the war. In the filth and fear of the trenches he could almost forget what set him apart from the others; that sort of sentiment so far from his daily experience he could hardly remember how it felt to linger his gaze on another man.
He shifted uncomfortably in bed. Tiredness itched behind his eyes but, even if sleep took him briefly, the slightest movement would have him awake with a jerk and a strangled, stifled whimper. Lying on his right side would have been impossible, even the thought of trying made him sick to his stomach, but on his left there was still the weight of the blankets and the drag of rough cotton over tight, sensitive skin.
If only Downton had still been a convalescence home! He could remember the unwieldy cage structures they’d used to prevent wounds and bandaged limbs coming into contact with bedsheets when injured men couldn’t bear the pressure; surely it wouldn’t have been too difficult for a man of his talents to appropriate one?
Thomas snorted, wondering if he might be slightly delirious.
He raked an unsteady hand through sweat-tangled hair, realising he could see more clearly as dim dawn light started to leak into the room.
Another night gone.
He struggled out of bed with a soft grunt and began the slow business of dressing, shivering as the cold air crawled over his overheated skin. Even that small thing caused an answering crawl of pain from his back. It looked bigger.
Walking slowly down to the bathroom Thomas still held his posture upright, shoulders back. Barely anyone should be awake this early but it didn’t do to get careless. It was almost a game; each time someone mentioned his current appearance could he stand straighter, do his job better, hold on a little longer. Too bad that, as always, he seemed to be the only one playing.
Setting the case of medications on the side of the sink he dared to meet his own glassy stare in the mirror; taking in the deep shadows, the pallor, the faintly chapped lips. Licking them he arranged his face into its normal detached smile as he combed his hair into place. Yes, the expression still sat straight for the moment.
Once he had corrected himself as much as possible he dry-swallowed two pills from his dwindling supply. They weren’t so terrible really, they made him thirsty and faintly nauseous but it wasn’t anything as bad as the so-called cleansing powder he’d had to take on the first night after his trip to London, the one that has left him retching well into the early hours of the morning and praying he would have the strength to stand through breakfast.
He looked down at the case again but, even as he took the lighter from his pocket to sterilise a needle, he realised he couldn’t bear to inject again. He’d thought himself well inured to pain, that nothing could ever be as bad as clutching his maimed hand in the dark and mud while begging for a doctor. He’d been right, but it had been the familiar feeling of fear and hopelessness the last time he’d slid a needle into hot, swollen flesh that had wrung the cry from him that nearly led to Baxter bursting in on him.
A desperate, clutching part of him still hoped this was how it was meant to work; that it was just drawing to the surface everything about him that was sly, devious and foul…
Even thinking that word brought up memories that clicked his teeth together, jolting him free of useless revery. Hiding his case carefully back in his room Thomas looked around the sparce space. If he had to be up at this hour he might as well be in the relative warmth and comfort downstairs, seeing in the house’s true dawn in a cloud of comforting cigarette smoke.
Of course he had forgotten all the kitchen staff would be up and bustling at this hour. Making straight for his usual chair he had almost run into Mrs. Patmore as she oversaw her kingdom.
“Mr. Barrow, to what do we owe the honour of your visit so early?”
Her sharp gaze reminded him that he’d never been fully forgiven for his dishonest flirtations with Daisy, the girl in question now watching both of them avidly as distraction from kneading dough. He tilted his head slightly, trying to keep the weariness buried under his normal measured tone.
“Actually, Mrs. Patmore, I was hoping to catch you before the rest of the staff came down.”
He continued down the passage to his original destination, trusting in her curiosity to draw her along in his wake. When they arrived she stared at him expectantly.
“Yes Mr. Barrow, what did you want to tell me?”
He made to speak, then found his mind completely blank. He’d meant to think up some trivial question about the food menu for the day but grey fog had rolled across his thoughts and he couldn’t even remember whether the family was eating at home or dining out.
Mrs. Patmore crossed her arms impatiently.
“Spit it out Mr. Barrow, some of us are very busy at this time of day you know.”
One solitary idea blossomed in his head, not something he’d have normally thought to bring up but at least something honest, if not sure to be well received coming from him.
“I overheard some of your conversation with his Lordship earlier in the week.”
Her eyes went flinty but he pushed on before she could interrupt.
“I don’t know if it means much but I remember what it was like on the front line. If I had died…well I wouldn’t have begrudged Archie’s name being written up there with mine.”
The formidable woman swayed back half a step, her initially suspicious expression crumpling as if she’d felt his words as well as hearing them. She managed a watery smile, one hand compulsively straightening the hem of her apron.
“Well Mr. Barrow I…I can’t say I would have expected words like that from you but thank you. Mr. Carson he…well it does mean something, I can tell you that.”
He eyes flicked over him and he stood straighter, willing himself not to duck his head like a guilty child to try and hide the smudges under his eyes.
“You sit down Mr. Barrow, I’ve kept you from your chair long enough. Daisy has things well in hand, I might even be able to put a first pot of tea on early.”
Thomas waited until she had bustled out of earshot before lowering himself gingerly into the armchair. Holding his breath on a sigh he propped himself up against the left armrest and steadied himself further with the familiar ritual of smoking. It made it easier to feign insouciance a short while later when one of the kitchen maids blushingly brought him a cup of tea, a slice of fresh, buttered bread wedged awkwardly on the saucer. His stomach was still undecided about the idea of food but he found himself unwilling to refuse it, especially after having to pretend he hadn’t noticed Mrs. Patmore anxiously hovering just outside the doorway. As peace offerings went he’d had worse, especially with that inadvertent slip of gossip about conflict between her and Mr. Carson to store away for a rainy day.
Fortunately hunger managed to win through by the time breakfast time finally rolled around. Too many people had seen fit to comment on his physical appearance, he didn’t need to fuel rumours by picking at his plate. He never fancied all eyes were on him but both members of the Bates couple could be worryingly observant, though the nature of their comments on any supposed infirmity of his would be very different depending who it came from.
Sure enough he had to deflect both of them by the end of lunch that same day, though he hoped he’d managed Ana with a little more grace than her husband. At least Bates had contented himself with a single salvo; although his biting retort had seemed normal to his own ears Thomas had been aware he’d been supporting more of his weight against the mantlepiece than was strictly normal.
The rest of afternoon and evening passed in a dull haze. Sometimes he could almost fancy he felt normal, the next moment he’d be gritting his teeth against a wave of dizziness or a flash of bone-deep cold that would leave him clenching his fists to disguise the shake in his hands. He may have lost most of his old reverence for Mr. Carson but Thomas could admit a flicker of gratitude for the training he’d been given as a younger man. Any footman who couldn’t stand and perform under strain was not welcome at Downton and, as that next night drew inexorably towards morning, he was feeling very strained indeed.
He knew it was infected now. He’d been in enough hospital rooms to recognise the sight and faint smell of a wound going bad. It would have turned his stomach, if there had been anything left in there. Dressing had been a slow torture and, bending over to pick up the jacket he’d been unable to prevent falling from the hanger, a lurch of light-headedness had left him reeling against the dresser, meeting it solidly with his lower back. The next he’d known he was vomiting helplessly into his washbasin, cold porcelain pressing into his forehead as his arms couldn’t even hold him up.
The whole sorry mess was hidden under the bed now, a hand towel draped over it to disguise the contents until he could summon the energy to stealthily dispose of it.
Thomas had always hated the idea of pride being considered foolish. When so much of his life was seen as either pompous or pitiable, pride was one of the few things he trusted to be seen positively by others; pride in his job, pride in his station, pride in his ability.
Pride was the furthest thing from his mind when he stood at the bottom of the servants’ stairs after the family had long finished breakfast, clutching at the syringe box as though it were a lifeline rather than the cause of all his troubles.
“Mrs. Hughes, have you seen Miss Baxter?”