"You'll do nothin' to help 'im, nothin' at all?"
Thomas smirked at Daisy the way he used to when she was in love with him and he ruled the servants' hall, and he blew a cloud of white smoke between them. "Now why should I care what Jimmy does?" he said through the fog.
Daisy's heart fell into her stomach. "Because yer the only one he listens to," she begged.
"You're wrong, Daisy. He talks to me, sure he does, but Mister Jimmy Kent listens to no one."
"You won't even try?"
"And what exactly would I be tryin' to do, Daisy? Talk him out of the one thing that's made him happy since I came home?" He spread his arms and legs, filling the rocking chair he sat in and drew on his cigarette.
The smoke once more made Thomas a into blur. Daisy had hated the sight of smoke since William died. The boys who came home, including Thomas - when he was Corporal Barrow and she despised him - spoke in hushed whispers about gas, as if it were a creature of nightmare with a mind of its own. Caught in another cloud of his making, Daisy raised her voice, like Thomas was a hundred miles away. "Fine then! He'll get 'imself killed and it'll all be your fault!"
Thomas's face emerged again, smug and self-satisfied. "The thing you don't know about Jimmy Kent is that he takes care of himself. He'll stop halfway to the pub and come back here safe and sound. Might even tell us he beat the other man to bleedin' pulp and spared his life on a whim. He'll be fine."
Daisy's hands had turned into fists. Her small body, unaccustomed as it was to so much anger, could not hold it all, and one of her hands darted out and knocked Thomas's cigarette to the ground. Startled by what she had done, she ran from the servants' hall before Thomas ask what was going on, because if he did, she was sure she had no answer. She had only one thing to say: Jimmy Kent had ruined everything.
Safely in her room upstairs, she opened the suitcase on her bed, the one that now contained all her earthly belongings: a half dozen dresses, two aprons, and a collection of sentimental tokens that seemed now, in the haze of her anger, to have no value, but which she took because they were hers.
She tucked her final paycheck amongst her most delicate clothing. After ten years at Downton, her life fit in a single suitcase. Yesterday the thought had pleased her.
But tonight Jimmy Kent was going to get himself beaten to a pulp to impress some village idiots and at the last minute, Thomas would likely get himself beaten up too, and do no one no good. And she had done her best to help him, but she'd leave Downton not a triumphant heiress, but a careless little girl. Jimmy had ruined her final evening at Downton, and she hated him for it.
Only Mrs. Patmore knew that Daisy planned to leave Downton, and if she left tomorrow morning as she now planned, no one else would know until she was far away. She loved Downton more than words could say, but the place was now too haunted with memories of failure. As long as Mrs. Patmore was around, her work would not change. And best of all, she liked Mr. Mason and the thought of working on his farm, a place that she would inherit from someone who loved her like a daughter, made her smile.
She had planned on telling everyone that night, reminding them of her good fortune, and, possibly, receiving good wishes. But then Jimmy Kent came home from his half-day, beaming bright. He had clearly thrown on his livery in a rush, and his mussed blond hair fell into his eyes. He leaned back lazily on the counter.
"Who wants to guess where I've been?"
"No one, if I'm any good at guessin'. Now move," Mrs. Patmore shooed him out of her way as she collected the final items for the servants' tea and placed them on the table. He sauntered over to the table where the rest of the staff sat, smiling wickedly.
"Well, if you'd guessed I'd been in town, you'd be right." He put his hands on the back of his chair. "Talking to a man who said I was - that we all were - spoiled up here, that none of us understood what it was like to live a real working-class life. And well, I just couldn't let that stand!"
"You just couldn't, could you?" Bates muttered and drank his tea.
"So the man I was talking to said he'd drop it - if I could best him in an honest fight."
"You told him to mind his own business, didn't you?" Anna asked, a warning in her voice.
"Course I didn't! He said I was nothin' more than a little girl if I refused, so tonight I'm meeting him at the local pub… and we'll see who's the bigger man."
"Challengin' folk to fights now, are we?" Mrs. Patmore chuckled.
"He insulted me, Mrs. Patmore! Was I supposed to take it lying down?" Daisy noticed that Ivy seemed suddenly intent on the magazine she was holding. " 'N it's a proper boxing match, with rules and no funny business."
He then posed with his fists up and his lips pouting, like they had all come to take his photograph.
"A boxing match?!" Anna put down her teacup.
"Well, I never! " Mrs. Patmore shrieked.
"You careless, silly boy!" Bates yelled.
Daisy covered her ears, because they had all shouted at once, and everyone not shouting was looking at Jimmy in shock, their eyes wide and their jaws dropped. Except Thomas, who sat eating a scone, perfectly contented and completely unperturbed.
"What do you think, Barrow?" Jimmy grinned, posing again.
"I think you look like quite the man," Thomas said flatly and continued eating. Daisy wasn't convinced of his words, and neither was Jimmy, whose face had fallen.
"You sound amused," said Ivy, from behind her magazine.
"Do I? Well, I'm not. Jimmy's gonna show us all what a man he is by beatin' another man to a bloody pulp. What's not to love?"
"He will do no such thing!" Mrs. Hughes stood.
"But I will, won't I?" Jimmy said, striking the air again.
"How much bigger than you is he, James?" Anna's question fell on deaf ears as Jimmy struck pose after pose, and Thomas only smeared butter on another scone.
Daisy couldn't dream what ridiculous things Jimmy would have done to get Thomas' attention when Carson suddenly towered over him. He had risen silently amongst the commotion and came to stand behind Jimmy, simply waiting. Daisy thought he had never looked larger or more frightening.
"Mr. Kent?"
Jimmy dropped his fists.
"If you want to play the boxer, you'll do it after dinner when your duties are over and when you will not, if I may make it absolutely crystal-clear, be fighting any of the men in the village tonight or any night while you are in my employ. Going would make trouble for everyone here, and I will not have it. Do I make myself clear?"
"Yes, sir," Jimmy had shrank under Carson's angled, angry eyebrows, visibly sobered.
And that had been the end of that until Daisy, last to go to sleep, made her final rounds turning off the electric lights, and halted when she saw a figure outside in the dark. She held her breath until a change in the light or the angle of his body revealed the loneliest face she had ever seen. Jimmy stood in the light outside, bundled tight in his best suit and warmest coat. His hands were deep in his pockets, his trembling lips making smoke in the cold. He looked like a tortured character in a moving picture, shifting in the backyard shadows. He took a deep breath, shook himself, and started to walk towards town.
Daisy stood in silence, watching him until he faded from sight, but still she could not shake the image of his lonely face from her mind.
Which is why she had turned out the light in the servants' hall without looking inside.
"I can't see in the dark, Daisy."
"Sorry," she'd muttered to Thomas and flicked the lights on again. Daisy lit a candle and started walking towards the stairs. She had wanted nothing more than to curl up on her bed and cry herself to sleep, wake at dawn, and get on the train that would carry her away from here forever, but Jimmy's face still haunted her and her stomach sank. She was arrested with a sudden feeling that if anything happened to Jimmy, it would be her fault for saying nothing.
She tried to tell herself Jimmy's silliness couldn't be her fault, but it had to be someone's fault… so she talked to Thomas, so it could be his.
She closed the suitcase and tied the straps around it tight.
She had done all she could. It was not her fault if Thomas didn't care. Thomas was Jimmy's friend. Thomas could play the hero, or Thomas could play the villain, as if she bloody cared.
She pressed her nose to the frosted window. The moon was big tonight, but so were the clouds, and the light outside rose and fell as the clouds drifted by. She wondered how cold it would be on Mr. Mason's farm, whether he kept a big fire burning in a big room where they would sit and talk at night. The thought made her smile until the moon came out from the clouds and lit up the abbey, and she felt a lump rise in her throat. Now that it came to it, she didn't want to start crying about leaving this place, because she knew that she might never stop. She loved Downton. She gazed out over the treetops and the turrets, but a movement on the gravel path caught her eye. At first she thought the figure running towards town was Jimmy, but then she saw black hair in the moonlight. She threw on her coat and followed Thomas into the night.