Chapter Text
“I never thought myself too bothered by it.”
Tom doubted that very much; he’d never forget the many ways Lady Mary had managed, despite her shorter stature, to look so down at him after she’d uncovered his and Sybil’s elopement scheme. But he didn’t voice his objection, figuring Lady Mary’s revisionist history could do no harm.
“It’s funny—I find all I’m worried about now is Edith getting ideas,” Lady Mary continued, teasing as she brought her teacup to lip. The poor girl didn’t even need to be in the room to get the heel of Lady Mary’s boot. Matthew, Tom, and Sybil took turns sending exasperated glances at one other as Lady Mary downed her sip. “I can already see her trying the same stunt, dragging some poor gardener into the dining room. Lord knows she’s desperate enough by now.”
“Darling, you shouldn’t be so unkind,” Matthew started, ever the peace-keeper. “And don’t pretend you don’t see the path she and that Strallan fellow are heading down.”
“Oh, yes, Strallan! Because that will turn out sunny,” she bit back, laughing with an almost hysterical lilt.
Tom felt more intrusive than usual, sitting spectator to what was clearly intimate family drama. Downstairs, they’d all joked of Lady Mary and Lady Edith’s hostile relationship now and again, but it didn’t seem so funny up close. In fact, Lady Mary was rather frightening once she started on Lady Edith. Sybil had repeatedly expressed her concern over the two’s locked struggle, to which Tom had only ever responded with routine, husbandly utterances of sympathy. He’d thought it too petty a matter for serious consideration. Noble girls, bored of luxury, picking up catfights as a hobby—who cared?
Sybil, seated across from him, sighed heavily as Lady Mary was clearly gearing to speak further ill against her sister and old Strallan. Tom decided, for Sybil’s sake, to intercede.
“I’m grateful for Strallan,” he began tentatively. Lady Mary’s head snapped to him, followed suit by Sybil and Matthew’s. Stronger, he continued, “he could’ve let me continue to make a fool of myself the other night. And speaking to a fellow nobleman like that, at a dinner… It's a real show of character, to let your morals win over propriety. If you’re right about Lady Edith and him, I wish them the best.”
Tom was quite proud of his defusing attempt.
Lady Mary seemed placated enough, but as always where Lady Mary was concerned, that entailed a lingering look of displeasure.
Obviously thankful for Tom’s intervention, Sybil turned to him with a small smile.
“You must start calling her ‘Edith,’ Tom. You know good and well you oughtn’t be using our titles anymore,” Matthew chided.
“I’ll try.” Happy with this small triumph, Tom smiled into his teacup.
With announcing footsteps, Barrow entered the drawing room.
“Luncheon will be served in 10 minutes. Mrs. Patmore asks you forgive the delay; the issue with the stove’s been fixed now.”
“It’s forgiven. Thank you, Thomas,” Mary nodded at the footman, dismissing him by returning her attention to the group. Once he exited, though, her eyes shot straight back to the spot Thomas had stood at. “I’m surprised Edith never tried that.”
Matthew and Sybil looked at her with confused expressions, but Tom figured out that she was back on the subject of Edith’s romantic troubles. So much for his defusal.
“A footman, I mean,” Mary began to explain. “I can’t imagine a servant turning down the attentions of an Earl’s daughter, even if it is Edith.” Tom tried, to little avail, to push down the anger instilled by Mary’s assumptions regarding working-class men’s attitudes toward desperate noble girls. Of course the upper-class thought their mere attention an irrefusable gift upon the miserable creatures in their employ. He managed, just barely, to hold his tongue.
Matthew uneasily looked to Tom, perhaps hoping he could save the conversation again. Tom didn’t have anything to add that wouldn’t make the situation worse, though, and Mary seemed positively combustible. Tom didn’t think he knew Mary well enough to say so definitively, but her particular sourness at the moment seemed much worse than typical for her. He did notice Lord Grantham acting uncharacteristically, too—miles away and snappish during conversation. Tom would deign to wager she and his lordship were in a fight of some sort. That would explain the two’s… off-ness.
Finally accepting that Tom would not be rescuing them this time, Matthew made his own attempt.
“Well, she might not find much success with Barrow in particular,” he tried lightly. He put on an amused, though clearly performed, smile.
“Why? Are you saying he’s too good for Edith?” Mary almost seemed defensive of Edith, but Tom chalked it up to her thinking a servant couldn’t possibly be ‘too good’ for a well-bred woman. Tom gulped his tea, finishing the cup, in a vain attempt to swallow his ire with it.
Caught up in his frustrations with the bourgeoisie, Tom was confused by the sheepish looks Matthew and Sybil were sending him. Once his mind was up to speed, though, it dawned on him what Matthew had said, and what Mary had missed.
Matthew pathetically tried to kill the topic with a “no, of course not.” Mary was never one to drop a bone, however.
“Well, then why wouldn’t he be a match for Edith? From what I gather from Anna, the two would be quite the pair, since Thomas isn’t the most popular downstairs—isn’t that right, Tom?”
That was right, but Tom wasn’t inclined to speak against a fellow workingman, and was beginning to take Mary’s derisions personally. Fortunately, before Tom could develop an appropriate response (that would inevitably be less-than-appropriate), his wife and perpetual savior answered for him.
“Oh, Barrow really isn’t so bad. He was a pleasure to work with at the hospital, I actually learned quite a bit from him. The war brought out some of the best in our men, I think.”
Sybil and he had spoken at length about the many ways the war had done the exact opposite, drawing out the unimaginable horrors only imperialists could have in their bloodlust. But he and Sybil were not in a Dublin pub among their fellow radicals; they were in an excessively ornate drawing room among nobility, and Sybil was speaking as Lady Sybil, the pleasant younger sister of Lady Mary. Tom couldn’t wait to return home.
“I do remember him helping me with my stretches,” Matthew added, sounding genuinely grateful. “A stern fellow, certainly, but I wouldn’t speak ill of him.”
Though he knew of Barrow’s work in the convalescent home well enough, Tom hadn’t known he personally cared for Matthew at all, and was surprised by this revelation. Based on his treatment of the staff downstairs during his tenure as Acting Sergeant, Tom imagined him to be at least somewhat the same upstairs. He couldn’t envision the sight of Barrow tenderly nursing patients, least of all Matthew. Before Tom could stop himself—as he probably should have—he voiced that surprise.
“Really? Thomas took care of you?” Tom failed to hide the magnitude of his disbelief.
“Well, not much, when the family was so keen on caring for me, but yes, he played his part,” Matthew affirmed.
Having sensed the implied feelings Tom held toward Barrow, Mary picked back up the thread that everyone kept trying to cut. “So you don’t think Thomas the type, Tom? He’s more like Anna describes, then?”
Though he’d have liked Sybil to save him again, Tom realized he ought to speak for himself this time.
“He’s a fine worker,” he said after a thoughtful pause, and left it at that—working-class solidarity intact.
“Ah, so he respects the honor of the house too much to take up with one of the Earl’s daughters,” Mary remarked doubtfully. There’s never been a sleeping dog she’s left lie.
“Mary, he would never take up with anyone’s daughter,” Sybil said at last, clearly having had enough of… whatever this conversation was. Carson would be proud of how his non-stop drilling on propriety at Downton caused Tom to stiffen at such a blatant introduction of a topic unsuited to the drawing room of Downton Abbey. But he couldn’t help feeling relieved to have this awkward conversation reach its peak, so it could all wind down from here (at least, he hoped).
Mary looked perplexed for only a moment before she translated Sybil’s (rather obvious) phrasing into plain English. With an incredulous gesture she scolded, “well why didn’t you just say that!”
“It’s not something you exactly say,” Matthew chuckled. “Come on, my dear, why don’t we start heading for luncheon,” he stood up, stretching out a hand to his bride-to-be.
“Well, if anything, it all makes him an even better match for Edith—a marriage of convenience may be the best she can get…” Mary carried on with her tirade as the two walked out, hand-in-hand.
Tom and Sybil gave each other a simultaneous sigh once they’d left, and began to get up themselves. Sybil noticed what was doubtlessly a pensive expression on Tom’s face.
“What is it?”
“Nothing, I only wondered—how did you know about Barrow?” He didn’t care the way his lordship would about Sybil discussing ‘sensitive matters,’ but he couldn’t deny his curiosity.
“How did you?” Sybil teased, with that radiantly cheeky smile of hers, and that was that.