Three's a Crowd
Anna stared at the wall over the sink with hollow eyes as she filled a kettle. She wasn't even sure why she was preparing to make tea; the entire house was so topsy turvy with the Spanish Flu, the staff run so ragged, who was going to drink it?
But it felt good to give her hands something to do, something that made her feel useful. The look on Lady Mary's face as she hurried from her room to her mother's sickbed had made her feel so helpless, so self-centered for her own happiness in the knowledge that, come Friday, she and John Bates would belong to one another, bonded by name as well as hearts. Yet she couldn't be unhappy about that, regardless of what may be going on upstairs.
Still, her happiness didn't prevent a tear from trickling down her cheek. The water filled the kettle and poured over the top, drenching her hands and sleeves without her noticing until a familiar arm reached around her to turn it off, making her gasp in surprise.
John gently took the overfull kettle from her hands and turned her to face him, anxious eyes searching her features for some sign of illness or distress.
"I'm alright," she said, before he could ask. At his doubtful look, she mustered up a small smile and laid her fingertips on the damp cuff of his jacket, where the water from the kettle had spilled. "I am. You just caught me woolgathering, is all."
The warmth of her fingers touching him made the irritation of the damp wool insignificant. After a quick look to ensure they were alone, he gathered both her hands in his.
"You've soaked your sleeves through," he said softly. "What distracted you so?"
"You, of course," she replied. Wet sleeves were a small price to pay for the brief sight of the corners of his mouth turning up and the sudden sparkle of his eyes. "I was thinking that even in the midst of this sorrow, I can't make myself set aside how happy I am that we'll be married on Friday. I was wondering if that made me a bad person—"
"You could never be a bad person, Anna Smith," he interrupted, squeezing her hands.
"I hope not," she replied, "because I simply can't help it and wouldn't change it if I could."
She moved closer to him as she spoke and he slid his arms around her back, pulling her closer.
"Please don't change," he whispered. The voice in the back of his mind screaming at him that this was incredibly reckless and improper was drowned out by the happy sigh she released as his lips hovered within inches of hers.
A stealthy noise in the back entry made him let go and stumble back before he could capture her lips with his. He made a silencing gesture and moved as stealthily as he could towards the doorway of the kitchen.
Tom Branson suppressed a yelp of surprise when he saw Mr. Bates' face appear around the doorway. Relieved that it was only Mr. Bates, he snuck down the corridor and into the kitchen.
"I didn't suppose there would be anyone around," he said nervously.
Anna and John looked at each other in confusion, knowing quite well that Mr. Branson was persona non grata both upstairs and down.
"What are you doing here. Mr. Branson?" Anna asked in an urgent whisper.
"I'm to meet Sybil…Lady Sybil, for a few minutes. She's been run off her feet nursing the sick and we haven't been able to lay eyes on each other for days. She…she sent me a note, asking me to come here if I could, so here I am."
John shook his head at the young man's foolhardiness. What he'd been intending to do with his fiancee a moment before his arrival was nothing compared to the risk Mr. Branson was running.
"I haven't seen her, Mr. Branson," Anna said, watching his face fall. "But that could mean she just hasn't been able to come down."
"Is Lady Grantham worse, do you think?" he asked. "If she is, I won't expect Sybil to leave her side."
"She is," Anna confirmed.
"Then I should go," he replied in a disheartened voice.
John caught Anna's sympathetic look towards Mr. Branson and was about to suggest that, perhaps, she might nip upstairs and check to see if Lady Sybil could step away. The noise of a person coming quickly down the stairs made them all freeze.
"Head for the door, Mr. Branson," John whispered. "Quickly!"
"Wait," Mr. Branson replied. "Those sound like Sybil's steps…"
"Are you mad?" Anna hissed, suddenly pushing Mr. Branson behind John and stepping inappropriately close to his side to hide the ex-chauffeur. If this was Mrs. Hughes, they were all in for it…
"The luck of the Irish seems to hold," John murmured in her ear as Lady Sybil could be seen through the doorway rushing into the Servant's Hall, wiping her cheeks with her handkerchief. Anna rolled her eyes at him while Mr. Branson stepped from behind them and very nearly sprinted into the Servant's Hall.
John cleared his throat and turned away as the couple embraced as if they were the only ones downstairs. Anna looked at him with sparkling eyes.
"It's no more than you and I were about to get up to before Mr. Branson arrived," she said with a smile.
"That doesn't mean I want to watch them get up to it," he replied, smiling back.
Before Anna could retort, Mr. Branson and Lady Sybil came through the kitchen, holding hands.
"Thank you for not giving Tom away," she said in a choked voice.
"Of course, M'lady," John said formally.
"But you might want to step outside into the courtyard, M'lady," Anna suggested. "There's no guarantee the downstairs will stay empty."
Lady Sybil smiled at them both through her tears and tugged Tom by the hand towards the outside door. Anna and John watched them go.
"Poor things," Anna said. "What a time they're having."
John made a noncommittal hum, a tad disgruntled about the time he and Anna weren't having, after all.
"We could have gone outside to the courtyard," he reminded her, "if you were determined to give them some privacy."
"Well, now that they're gone, we have some again," she replied. "And I don't think we should take anymore chances."
"You're probably right," he replied, unable to hide his disappointment. "Shall I make us some tea, then?"
"Silly beggar," she said as she pulled him towards the pantry. "It's cold and wet out there. And Lady Sybil will have to go back upstairs very soon. It won't be much longer before Mrs. Patmore comes back. Do you really want tea?"
"Not as such, no," he replied following her willingly into the pantry. No sooner did Anna closed the door behind them, leaving it open only a crack, than he had grasped her by the shoulders and pulled her to his chest. She rose on her tiptoes to meet him half way as their lips met. The fears and frustrations of the day disappeared as he urged her lips open under his. Her hands went into his hair as she held him even closer to her. With a groan, he twisted them until her back was against the shelves along the wall.
Anna was right. It was cold and wet in the courtyard. Sybil had a good cry for her mother on Tom's shoulder as he stroked her back. He walked her back into the warmth of the house, interlacing their fingers, reluctant to let go. Seeing that the kitchen was empty, he led her in to say goodbye.
The voice of Mrs. Patmore began echoing down the servant's staircase as she muttered biblical imprecations against the flu, the postponed wedding, and the general state of humanity. Tom prepared to kiss Sybil one last time and flee out the backdoor, but they waited a moment too long.
"Quick," Sybil hissed, opening the pantry door and shoving him in, never taking her eyes off of the doorway that Mrs. Patmore was rapidly approaching.
Tom blinked as the door shut firmly in his face and tried to slump against the wall, only to find that someone was already slumped against the wall.
John and Anna had barely noticed when the door was flung open, as engrossed as they were in each other at that moment. They were brought back to earth quickly though when Tom leaned against them in the dark and sprung away as far as the space allowed.
John and Anna stared at him, opened mouthed. Tom eyes flickered to John's disheveled hair and the flush spreading across Anna's face, and he made a shocked, choking sound.
"Good Lord, M'Lady!" Mr.s Patmore brayed. "Whatever are ye doing down here?"
"I… I just needed a moment to myself, Mrs. Patmore," she answered, trying desperately to keep from glancing at the pantry door, which was not closed all the way. Her eyes fell on the overfull kettle that Anna had left next to the sink. "I thought…I thought I might make some tea…"
"Of course you did," Mrs. Patmore said soothingly. "And it's quite right you should have some. Why don't I finish it and I'll have it sent upstairs." Bustling over to the sink, Mrs. Patmore raised an eyebrow and gave the overflowing kettle an incredulous look, but said nothing.
"That's very kind," Sybil said, glancing at the pantry and making jerking motions with her head towards the corridor. "But I'd like to stay down here, if it wouldn't be too much trouble." At Mrs. Patmore's doubtful glance, she added: "I just need to step away from…from everything upstairs at the moment."
Anna straightened out her skirts and, giving both men a stern glance, quietly slipped out of the pantry while Mrs. Patmore was discretely pouring away the water in the kettle. Lady Sybil's eyes went wide and she smothered a sudden giggle in her hand. When Mrs. Patmore turned to look curiously at her, she caught sight of Anna in the kitchen, looking a bit rumpled and red.
"Oh don't tell me you're coming down with it too, Anna?" Mrs. Patmore proclaimed. "I don't know how we'll manage without you."
In the pantry, John silently echoed the sentiment as he and Mr. Branson stared awkwardly at each other. Tom peeked through to see Sybil shaking her head at him and cutting her eyes towards the sink. He looked back at John and shrugged helplessly.
John ground his teeth for a moment, then edged his way towards the door. He peeked out to see Mrs. Patmore urging Anna to sit down at her desk and get off her feet.
"You look as bad as if you were sick, even if you're not," she said, clucking at the younger woman.
John seized the moment to step out of the pantry and soundlessly pull the door almost shut behind him. Lady Sybil caught his movement and had to stifle another giggle as he hastily smoothed his hair down and schooled his featured.
"Can I help, Mrs. Patmore," he asked. "Is something wrong with Anna?"
"Oh, Mr. Bates! I didn't hear you come in. You startled me out of a year's growth. And there's nothing wrong with Anna that a good night's rest and a little cozening wouldn't put right."
John's mouth twitched as he thought abut how he'd tried to do just that in Mrs. Patmore's pantry. He doubted she'd approve. When Anna's eyes met his, they twinkled like she was thinking the same thing.
"Tea will be ready in a half a tick. I've got to find Daisy and get started putting together something for them poor folks upstairs to eat, not that they'll feel much like it." She patted Anna's shoulder and suggested that she go on through to the servant's hall. "And you go too, Mr. Bates. You look like you could do with a bit of a rest yourself."
Anna and John followed orders. Mrs. Patmore stuck her head into the servant's hall and bellowed for Daisy as loudly as she could.
Sybil bolted to the pantry door and flung it open. She pulled a shocked and speechless Tom Branson out and they fled for the corridor and the outside door.
"What was all that in the pantry?" she whispered against his lips as he took one last kiss.
"I'll tell you someday, love," he answered with a grin before disappearing into the courtyard.
John and Anna sipped their tea in silence, glancing at each other over the tops of their cups. Lady Sybil watched them with a twinkle in her eye as she finished her own tea and prepared herself to return to the sickroom where her mother might be dying. Tom's comforting presence had strengthened her, but the sight of Anna and Mr. Bates clearly having been disturbed in the pantry when she'd thrown Tom in, lifted her spirits to the point where she almost felt like herself again.
Rather than bother them, she slipped away when she was done. The servant's hall began to ring with subdued voices as staff gathered for evening tasks.
John reluctantly released Anna's hand, which he'd been holding under the table and leaned over to her.
"Do you think they suspected anything?" he asked.
Anna snorted into her tea and began to cough. She glared over at him as he patted her between the shoulder blades.
"You're just lucky Mrs. Patmore didn't notice that one of your collar studs is missing," she hissed at him.
His face showed momentary panic as he reached up to confirm it.
"It must be in the pantry," he said anxiously.
Anna just gave him a smug look and reached into her apron pocket. His eyebrows flew up as she pressed the stud into his hand.
"It didn't come off by accident," she teased, as the bell rang, summoning John to His Lordship.
John hurried from the room, refastening his collar as he went. Looking back at Anna's sparkling eyes and discrete little smile, he decided that Friday couldn't arrive soon enough.