Chapter Text
It's the end of August, and the Grantham household are getting ready to relocate to London for a few days to catch the end of the Season. Tickets for the Proms have been secured, the Hexhams are scheduled to come up from Brancaster for the occasion, and Thomas barely has five minutes a day to continue talking to Richard in writing, not that it matters if they can do it again in person so soon.
But I suppose I'm lucky they're taking me at all, he writes in a quick note just before bedtime a few days ahead of departure. I had quite some misgivings that they might have got used to having one butler for everyday use and one for special occasions, and wouldn't trust me to remember my way around the London house, either.
Richard's response surprises him by sounding almost angry.
Thomas, please stop thinking of yourself as The Butler Who Couldn't Handle The Royal Visit this instant. You're The Butler Who Was Spared The Royal Visit. No, don't argue, just listen to me for a moment.
Thomas feels rather caught and reads on biting his lip.
In my experience – and I've been part of this travelling circus long enough to know, Richard says, there are two different ways a butler can react to what you so aptly called the Royal invasion. Most of them consider being pushed aside and crowded out of their own realm the high point of their careers, as well as their sacred duty as loyal subjects, and can't wait for it to happen. Others – far fewer – get a bit territorial and take some time to get used to the idea that bending over backwards to accommodate a conquering force is supposed to be an honour. But they all do, in the end. Nobody wins against us, ever, and it can only end in tears if you try. So imagine my intense disquiet, that day when we of the advance guard first came to Downton and Mr W. outlined to your assembled servants' hall how these things are done. A reluctant butler may survive a Royal visit with his feathers ruffled, but you, my friend, weren't just reluctant – I barely had to watch your very eloquent face for two minutes to know that you were going to be endless trouble. And what was worse, so also was everyone else under your command. No voice of reason anywhere, no calming influence, nothing to stop our visit turning into a total disaster with an unconscionable number of casualties, all on your side of course. I found myself wishing you out of the line of fire for your own sake long before I had a personal stake in the matter. So it was as if in answer to my prayers when I heard, the next day, that your own family had plucked you from the jaws of that particular beast literally at the last moment. I do not exaggerate when I say that Mr W. and Mrs W. between them have ruined careers, and by extension lives, with just one well-placed hint that a local butler or housekeeper was found lacking in respect or compliance with the Royal Household's needs and requests. Even an earl would find it difficult to hold on to a servant with such a tarnished reputation. So as if your family knew that – and I assume they did – they brought that jaded old warhorse back out of retirement instead, who would be safe from any such repercussions, and I dared to breathe again. You know the old saying that the only things a tree can do in a storm is to bend or break. I was glad, glad, Thomas, that you had to do neither.
Thomas takes a deep breath himself at this point. Richard's words do put things in a different light, and maybe he will stop licking his wounds one of these days, if he can indeed manage to convince himself that Lady Mary's motives for demoting him were quite as benevolent as Richard makes them sound. But what really touches his heart, more than anything else, is that Richard should care so much – that he should have cared even then, when they'd barely exchanged a look or a word yet, let alone known…
Of course, I underestimated the sheer power of you as a collective, Richard concludes. You did win, which must have been a first since 1066. But you couldn't know that you would. So you can keep slamming doors all you like, Thomas, you will not convince me that Lady M. getting you out of harm's way like that was a bad idea.
That last remark, the one about the door, does come as a surprise. And so does the fact that the chocolate mousse that Daisy had made for the upstairs dessert on the eve of their departure contained eggs that had gone off. So the house in London remains shuttered after all, the Prom tickets expire, and when Thomas staggers back to his feet, still pale and weak after twenty-four hours of hearty bouts of sickness, his chance to see Richard again any time soon is gone.
Eight across: How come you caught that bug when the mousse was for upstairs? Richard muses in an ill-fated attempt to cheer them both up after this disappointment. The only explanation that I have involves accusations of both envy and gluttony, which I hesitate to make without further evidence.
Never mind that, Thomas grumbles back. When I commit a cardinal sin, I usually pick one that will be fun for everyone involved. Eight down: How do you know about the slammed door?
Is that a serious question? Richard asks, amusement playing around his words just as it would play around his lips. That bang rang up and down the whole county for a week afterwards. Even HRH's butler at Harewood wanted to know how his Downton counterpart managed to keep his job after walking out on his own lordship like that. I told him that you were a Butler With Teeth, and seeing what rare beasts those are, the Granthams would be mad not to keep you; I certainly would. Can I keep you?
Always and forever, Thomas feels his heart sing, even though he should probably be a bit worried about his sudden dubious fame.
Keep me at your own risk, he warns Richard, only half in jest. I know I bite sometimes, and I don't restrict that to people with titles, either.
I'm not afraid of your teeth, Richard assures him. Although I occasionally allow myself to picture a very, very self-indulgent scenario indeed in which I'd want to whisper to you to be careful with them.
Honestly, Thomas reflects when his cheeks have stopped burning and his pulse has slowed down again, if Richard was in the bloody Navy, then where on earth did he learn to fire and hit like a sniper?
I'm sorry, Richard writes again on the very next day, in a hasty scribble that renders the urgency of his words visible. Now I'm worried that I may have overstepped the mark. I hate not being able to see your expression, not being able to sense what's welcome and what may not be. I'd hate to be pushy or disrespectful or just plain impertinent. Give me some kind of pointer, please. Sometimes I feel that I know you much better already than the people I'm surrounded with every day, but of course in some ways I don't know you and your likes and dislikes at all.
Here's your pointer, Thomas responds, feeling wonderfully reckless. Words are one thing, but I'm sure the day will come when I'll get a real taste of what you call your impertinence, and as far as I'm concerned it can't come soon enough. But you might want to stop talking about local butlers bending over backwards to accommodate you now. I'll get lumbago if I linger over that particular image any longer than I already have.
Lumbago? Really? Well, I don't want you to strain your back, obviously, but I admit that I'd be hoping for a more gratifying outcome than that.
It is an appealing suggestion for sure, Thomas concedes. But it sounds rather ambitious all the same. I'm not sure I'm flexible enough to accept.
Physically or mentally?
Both, you cheeky beggar. Now convince me otherwise.
By the way, I'd still like to hear why you changed your hairstyle, Richard reminds Thomas a little later. I notice it every time I look at the picture you sent me. You used to part it on the other side. So, nine across: What's the story?
I lost a bet. Well, it was more a dare than a bet, really. I'd teased Lady G.'s maid that she wouldn't have the guts to bob her hair, back when the women all started doing it. She replied that I was one to talk, not having changed my hair once in the past ten years, neither. Which was a lie, but still rankled. So we made a wager that if she'd dare do something drastically different with hers, I'd have to do something drastically different with mine. As you saw when you were here, I badly underestimated her spirit of adventure, and paid the price.
Of course this isn't the full story. It wasn't so much a dare as a veritable conspiracy, and Thomas completely fell for it. He'd been back at Downton and installed in his new position only for a couple of weeks when he struck that silly deal with Phyllis. And it took him days to realise, after returning from the barber looking indeed rather different than he had before, that this was about so much more than just a new haircut. But it had helped enormously, and of course she'd known that it would. Thomas is just not yet ready to confide to Richard why exactly he so badly needed a fresh start with all of them in the first place.
Buy her flowers and say they're from me, Richard writes back, as if he guesses the full story anyway. Well, don't, obviously, but you know what I mean.
I'm glad to hear you like the new style better, Thomas replies, trying to steer the conversation back into safer waters again. It certainly saves me time in the mornings.
You know how I'd like your hair best? Richard says to that. Plastered to your forehead, dripping with sweat, and me to blame.
Again, Thomas really should have heard the whistle of the bullet before it hit him squarely in the chest. No safe waters anywhere with this man. It's glorious.
I'm game if you are, Thomas challenges him as soon as he's got his breath back, trying to sound a lot more nonchalant than he feels about this. Do your best.
Oh, I will.
The next letter that arrives is typewritten, rather than by hand as usual, and it conspicuously bears a postmark from a part of London far away from the palace, as well as no sender's name on the cover. It also doesn't start with the words Dear Thomas, as Richard's letters usually do, even the ones that have some daring innuendo at the bottom of page three. No, this one begins with the words My Love, and that alone sends a shiver down Thomas' spine. They're clearly on a different plane now, entering new, as yet uncharted territory, and Thomas is in equal parts alarmed and enchanted.
My Love, Richard writes, you ask me to do my best as if I would ever dream of offering you anything less. Consider me an expert, actually, because I've imagined this so often already that I could go through all the steps involved with my eyes closed, if that wouldn't deprive me of a beautiful view. Because I'll be looking all the time, make no mistake about that. I'll want to see all there is to see, your face, your eyes, your lips… I want to hear you, too, I want you to whisper all the things you want me to do to you, I want to hear the hitch in your breath when I hurry to comply, I want to feel you tense and shiver with anticipation and then melt into my touch when -
Thomas has read exactly this far in a glowing rush when the door of his pantry bursts open with barely a knock, and the stable boy appears in the doorway, gesticulating wildly.
"Mr Barrow, please come quick, it's Miss Sybbie! The pony threw her, there's blood all over, Nanny's in a state, and we think she's broken her - "
By which time Thomas has dropped everything and they're already out in the passage.
" - and Mr Branson's away on the estate somewhere with Lady Mary, and Mr Talbot's in York, and Mr Stark's taken Her Ladyship God knows where - "
Phyllis and Andy come hurrying anxiously towards them from the servants' hall. John Bates hovers in the background. Relieved to see them, Thomas cuts right across the boy's prattle. "Call the hospital. Miss Sybbie's broken her arm. Make sure Dr Clarkson knows we're coming. We'll be there as fast as we can."
There are four children howling at the top of their voices when Thomas and the boy arrive at the paddock behind the stable yard, and one of them certainly has a good reason to. The cut above Sybbie's right eye bleeds spectacularly, but it doesn't look like more than a superficial laceration. Her arm is another matter, swelling and changing colour fast.
Fashioning a makeshift sling from the skirt of Nanny's apron, which she readily sacrifices for the purpose, is the work of a moment. Quickly finding someone who both knows the theory of driving a car and can boast a left hand with enough strength in it to shift the gear stick is the bigger problem. Luckily Lord Grantham himself comes striding towards them in hat and coat already when they're heading back to the house, Thomas carrying the pale and whimpering girl in his arms and Nanny gently herding the distressed remainder of her flock.
It's hours before they're back from the hospital, Sybbie provided with three stitches and an impressive plaster cast, and Tom Branson reassured that this was never a matter of life and death to start with. It's later still when Thomas finally returns to his pantry to finish whatever it was he was busy with when the accident occurred. And it's only then that he realises.
The letter. Richard's letter. Like a fool, like a complete and utter idiot, he's left it lying openly on the desk for all the world to see. And what's worse, he's expressly told the others to go in there and use the telephone, too, as if to make sure it should be found.
Thomas' hands shake when he pushes the door open, but he doesn't even need to rush across to check. He likes his desk tidy, and he can see at a single glance from the doorway that the letter, as well as its cover, is gone.
His stomach turns over, and he feels the bile rising in his throat. He can't believe he's done this, that he's ruined it all, ruined them both, with an utterly moronic and utterly unforgivable beginner's mistake like that. For a short moment, Thomas wants to tell himself that it can't be that bad, that if there are no names and the details are nebulous enough, he might get away with pretending that the letter was written by a woman, embarrassing though it would still be. But with his record, who would buy that story?
Thomas is reeling by the time he reaches his desk, trying but failing to control his breathing. His heart is stumbling in his chest like a drunkard, and his throat is so tight that he can barely swallow.
What will happen now? Will they take the damning piece of paper straight to the police? Or to Lord Grantham, so he can tell Thomas he's covered for his wayward butler once too often already? Or will they keep it for later, dangling it over his head until it's employed to its fullest destructive effect, taunting him, ridiculing him?
The desk top is a blurry mess, the inkwell and the cursed telephone and the little shelf with the separate sections for outgoing mail and unanswered correspondence coming back into focus only slowly, too slowly almost for him to realise that… there is… a third envelope wedged in between the two bills that he put there this morning. He makes a grab for it almost wildly, and there it is, Richard's letter, folded neatly back into its cover and – there's no other way to explain this – hidden deliberately among his business papers to save it from prying eyes.
The relief that floods Thomas is almost as intense as his panic. It takes a while for his fingers to stop trembling, even after he's stuffed the letter deep into his inner breast pocket, terrified of parting with it again even for a single moment. He should burn the dratted thing. If only he could bring himself to do it.
At dinner in the servants' hall, he briefly considers asking casually who exactly it was that rang the hospital this afternoon. But he knows that he couldn't bring himself to look whoever it was in the eye, so he keeps quiet. Nobody else brings it up, either.
I am sorry I caused you to panic, Richard apologises when he hears of this. As I told you on our return trip from York, I have - by the grace of God, or whichever entity is responsible for these things – so far never come to anyone's attention in that sense, and I keep forgetting what it must feel like if you have. Looking back, it was utterly thoughtless of me to write what I did. I won't say it won't happen again, but it certainly won't until I've found a way to convey my meaning in a manner that doesn't rely on the magnanimity of your fellow workers to save the day. I am astounded, quite frankly, that the matter has resolved itself like this. Nobody here where I am would pass up an opportunity to gain that kind of leverage over another person. What a different world you live in. I knew already after the few days I'd spent at Downton that you would take the proverbial bullet for your people, but it warms my heart to know for a fact now that they would do the same for you. I hope you see now how blessed you are.
I think the main reason why we at Downton are no longer at each other's throats is simply that there are only so few of us left, Thomas writes back after – not exactly wiping away a tear, but something very close to it. Back in the day, there was a much higher turnover, and every time there was a vacancy, there would be at least two or three people waiting in the wings, ready to scratch each other's eyes out in order to get there first. It's just not like that any more. My first footman's dearest ambition in life is to marry our undercook and become a pig breeder. My second footman is nineteen years old and still so proud of his current livery that I suspect he sleeps in it and then gets up an hour early every morning to iron out the creases. By the time he could start jockeying for my position in earnest, this place will be an hotel or a school or a museum. Until then, I won't let things slide, and I want them, too, to strive for the pride that comes with any job well done. But why should they believe that a lifetime spent in service is a future worth selling their own grandmother for, and why should I scold them like a bunch of ungrateful brats if they don't? We represent a bygone age, Richard. I didn't expect to say this even before my fortieth birthday, but that's how it is. So we might as well huddle around the camp fire together in peace and quiet and let the wolves howl in the distance. No point in doing the snarling and mauling ourselves.
You're mostly right about all of that, I'm sure, Richard replies, except for one thing. I stand by what I said. The main reason why the servants' hall of Downton in 1927 is not the the servants' hall of Downton in 1912 any more, Thomas, is you.
Darkness has crept up on them and the street lamps are on outside when their afternoon together draws to its inevitable close. Three whole hours that belong to them and them alone, carved from one of the quieter days between Christmas and New Year's, in the Ellises' otherwise empty house in York. They've used their time well, so well that they're both pleasantly sleepy now, half seated and half stretched out on the sofa in the sitting room. They're mostly dressed again but still in their shirtsleeves, Richard's head and shoulders a comfortable weight against Thomas' chest, their legs tangled together.
"You know what I want?" Richard asks quietly, a finger drawing idle ornaments on Thomas' thigh. "I want to walk you to the station, I want to kiss you goodbye on the platform, and I want to wave until the train turns the corner."
"Mmh. Never mind." They have already got a lot of what they've spent the past half a year wanting, and Thomas is in no mood to complain.
"And you know something else?" Richard continues. "I don't want to go back."
This does make Thomas frown. "Hang on, that's my line." He glances across to where the rain is lashing the windows, then at the mantel clock. "Be glad it's not you who has to go out there and brave the elements in twenty minutes' time."
"Twenty-five," Richard corrects him automatically.
Oh, confound it. Richard has of course warned Thomas that all the clocks in the Ellises' house are five minutes fast on purpose, as this is the only way Mrs Ellis can keep her menfolk in line. Thomas promptly called it a sacrilege to make a functioning clock deliberately display the wrong time, and he's still a bit miffed that Richard only grinned at that.
Richard is not grinning now. "No, I mean it." He reaches across and gently puts his right hand over Thomas' gloved left where it rests on his chest, warming it from both sides. "I keep thinking of what you wrote a while ago about your Downton camp fire. Laugh at me if you like, but I sometimes dream of joining you there. You know, warm my hands over it, watch the firelight flicker across your face…"
"I wish there was a way," Thomas agrees, both mollified and saddened by the longing in Richard's voice. "I'm not sure how I'd smuggle you in, though. You've met our lordship's valet. I've wasted years of my life trying to usurp his position, and all I ever got for my efforts was a bloody nose."
"Oh, I dare say."
But it is nice to pretend for a moment that this is not just a fantasy. "Maybe you could be our third footman," Thomas suggests. "Not that we can actually afford the two that we have."
Richard grimaces. "Uh, thank you kindly. I'm a tailor, not a piece of furniture."
"I love the respect you have for my profession. What am I right now, your deck chair?"
Richard shifts, and Thomas narrowly avoids a poke in the ribs from his elbow. He scoffs, but moves obligingly so Richard can settle against him again. He rather likes being Richard's deck chair, if he's honest. He may get pins and needles in his left leg soon, where it's stuck between Richard's and the back of the sofa, but he knows better than to give the tailor in his arms the opportunity for a godawful pun.
"Maybe I can just be an honorary member of your camp," Richard circles back when they've rearranged themselves around each other. "With a little patch of ground nearby, where I can pitch my own tent and come visiting. What I meant is, I don't want to go back to London."
"I thought you liked London."
"I do, or I used to. I've always felt freer there, more myself, more like anything's possible… And it used to be true. But I feel that's changing. These days, I don't really see the possibilities. Don't want to see them, even."
Richard sounds… not resigned exactly, but there's certainly something brewing here that's news to Thomas, that Richard hasn't mentioned in his letters.
"The thing is," Richard muses, and he starts toying with a fold of Thomas' sleeve as if he's suddenly a bit nervous, "I sometimes feel like I'm drifting when I'm up there now, and after today, it's only going to get worse. So I've been thinking that it might be time to… come into port, as it were."
"You said forty."
"I know. And that's not so far off now. But my father's getting on, and my brother-in-law could certainly do with an extra pair of hands here at the shop sooner rather than later. Mind you, it's not going to happen overnight. But it was always going to happen, and I'm starting to wonder what exactly I'm waiting for."
Thomas is quiet for so long that Richard tilts his head back to look up into his face. The truth is, Thomas is lost – lost in a daydream that is quite frankly too good to believe. This beautiful human being, always within reach? Barely an hour away instead of the current four-and-three-quarters, and his own master, too, free to come and go as he pleases? More afternoons like this one, often, not a luxury they can only afford two or three times a year?
"Thomas? Are you there?"
Thomas blinks, and the doubts come crowding in at once. Don't do this, he wants to protest. Not for me. I warned you that I bite, didn't I, and I bite hard enough to draw blood, my own more often than not. To think that Richard might commit himself and then regret… But Richard knows this. He's seen the scars now, all of them, and didn't shy away, only held Thomas closer.
"Is that a promise?" Thomas hears himself ask, much against his better judgment, but there's a tiny bud of hope blossoming in his chest, and the words are out before he knows it.
"Oh, are we still doing the crossword? In that case, ten across: Do you want it to be?"
He's smirking, the rascal. If Thomas wasn't so firmly trapped under Richard's solid weight already, the man would be in for a bit of a tumble now. Maybe they should fight it out, with whoever comes out on top winning the right to be answered first.
It's a kiss that settles the matter in the end, and when Thomas reluctantly pulls away again, Richard's grin has given way to that tender smile that stole Thomas' heart last summer and will keep stealing it over and over again.
"So's that your answer?" Richard murmurs. "Let me guess, three letters, and the first one is a Y?"
"Clever you," Thomas whispers back. "Except now you can't say the same to me."
"Why not?"
"Can't have the same answer in a crossword twice. It's against the rules."
"So what? We're against the rules anyway. I mean it, Thomas. Let's not waste any more time."
In the end, Thomas has to run to catch his train back to Downton, but he doesn't even mind. He has, as Richard also put it months ago already, not felt this alive in a long time, either.