She noticed the flush creeping up his neck as his mouth thinned, and felt sorry for him. In an effort to forestall any more dramatic—as far as Downton dinners went—scenes at the table, Robert had adopted a rather patronizing tendency to lightly play off Tom Branson's politics and while his method achieved its basic objective (they felt safe inviting company over again), Cora could not help but think that it was not helpful in the long run.
"You cannot sweep the politics under the rug forever," she told Robert with a wry smile, in a moment of privacy as the women began to move through and the men remained for brandy. "It will only alienate him further."
Robert's expression indicated he'd like to alienate Branson back to Ireland. She had rather hoped they had moved past this stage, but it seemed as though the dissenion between he and his son-in-law had only been gilded over by manners and an effort to please Sybil.
"Perhaps I should begin soliciting his opinions at table, then," said Robert, shaking out a cuff with gentlemanly distaste.
Cora clasped her gloved hands in front, wearing her amusement and exasperation plainly. "I'm certain you could find a compromising solution. One that doesn't set your son's—yes, your son's—teeth on edge."
She watched him for a moment and accepted his silence as an acknowledgement. Long ago had Cora given up the unladylike practice of rolling her eyes, but she often felt the desire to pick the habit back up. Instead she laid a hand on his arm and went into the hall.
Tom must have felt the indignation of dinner more keenly than he'd even let on, because after the next turn she found him staring a hole through an oil painting with the sort of clenched jaw that suggested he took landscapes personally.
Cora considered moving away without attracting notice, but her sympathy overrode discretion. She moved forward and said with a smile, "I've never been especially fond of that painting either, but it was a gift and it's anchored to the wall by propriety."
Looking over his shoulder in surprise, Tom straightened and stepped away. After a moment he said, "I don't have much of an eye for paintings."
"Then it must be something else that's vexing you." Cora walked over to stand beside him. "Will you be joining the men for a drink?"
"Matthew and I are playing billiards shortly," said Tom.
"Thank goodness for him." Tom lifted his eyebrows. "It's good that you've become friends. I hope that continues."
He smiled a little but still looked guarded, and Cora experienced an old echo of the wariness she'd felt as a young woman, brand new to Downton and only just learning to navigate the velvet barbs of aristocratic conversation, designed to ever so delicately needle inferiors. How she'd resented them all.
Not for the first time, or even remotely the last, she wished that things at Downton Abbey resembled just a little more the place where she had been raised, and sometimes she worried that she had become far too different from the girl she'd arrived as.
Cora knit her hands behind her. "English society presents a gamut none of us really expect," she told him. "Believe it or not, Tom, I was once in a similar situation." He looked surprised by her frankness. She was a little surprised by it herself; she never discussed this.
"Years and years ago. Sometimes it drove me to the point of distraction, and I wondered how I could stand it. Many of my fellow... Buccaneers could not. I can't tell you how many girls I knew who sailed here with romantic visions only to end their marriages in frustration years later, and returned to America to marry cowboys and railroad tycoons."
This must have been about as forthright as anyone at Downton had been with him, going by the expression on Tom's face. But he didn't appear embarrassed by the candor, as Mary might have been. Then he asked, "Why didn't you?"
Cora exhaled and smiled at him. "Because I was as hopelessly in love with Robert as you are with Sybil."
Tom smiled, genuinely this time.
"Fortunately," Cora continued, "I adapted and now I'm quite comfortable with it all. Although I should be lying if I said I never missed laughing without hiding behind a glove." Her son-in-law grinned. "But you have an advantage that I did not."
"And what's that?"
She looked him in the eye. "You have absolutely no desire to fit in with this place. I'm pleased you're going along with the clothes and the dinners for Sybil's sake, but you hardly fool anyone." Tom's face became rueful. "Trust me, Tom, it is far easier when you don't want to belong here than when you do, and can't ever seem to."
Tom Branson was silent a moment, considering, but he appeared to have eased. It was remarkable how different he seemed when he relaxed, and she thought this must have been the Tom only Sybil had been privy to since he'd first arrived at Downton, as a chaffeur.
"I appreciate that, Lady Grantham. I do."
"I'm glad. Sybil's your ally, Tom, never forget that. And I hope you're her ally as well."
He nodded emphatically. "Yes. Always."
"And also," Cora said, "I think it does Robert good to have a fine argument every so often, it keeps him robust."
Tom chuckled, and just then Matthew came into the hall. "Lady Grantham," he nodded to the mother-in-law he and Tom shared in common, and turned to Tom and said, "I hope to offer some strong competition at billiards tonight."
"I hope you do, too." Both laughed.
"I'll leave you boys to it, I must return to the ladies for my daily quota of gossip." Cora beamed at the two young men and felt happily possessive of them both.
As they turned and walked away, Cora strode thoughtfully with slow steps. Downton was changing, and it wasn't because of her presence or Tom's. A war unlike any other had just been fought and had shaken the dust from so many antiquated notions held by rich and poor alike. Those ideas were now being taken down from the mantlepieces and re-examined for relevance, and many were finding, to their shock, that there was less and less relevance in them everyday. And the people examining them were men like Tom, and lords like Robert would quickly begin to feel exposed under the scrutiny.
It made her sad, but hopeful, in the way only change can. Have gun, will travel. Robert would not be investing in any more Canadian railroads, that was for certain. Perhaps now she could convince him to give the Western American tracks some consideration.
"Oh, there you are," said Mary as Cora walked into the room. "We were about to send out a search party."
"I hope you saved some choice conversation for me," said Cora, sliding onto the couch and listening attentively to the Dowager Countess rather amusingly recounting a tea she'd had with a friend.
The end. First attempt at Downton Abbey fic, obviously unedited so forgive any errors. I just wanted to write something quick. :)