Jimmy gets the whole story on the bus to Ripon, about two months after he'd first seen the picture, the earliest they could get their half-days together.
"She wrote me," Mr. Barrow is saying quietly. They're pressed close together in their seats and there's no one else around them, but Mr. Barrow's got his head tilted so he can talk quiet and only Jimmy can hear him. Jimmy's heart is near to pounding, for some reason, and he thinks it must just be that he hasn't been on a bus in a while or something silly like that. "After she found out she was in the family way, she wrote me and told me. It didn't matter much, o' course, and like as not, I'd have a bullet in me head before I saw her again, anyway. But then, well, after I got me blighty, I came back here and we set up a bit of a meeting. The boy, he was 'bout a year when I met him. He had… big eyes."
"You've sort of big eyes," Jimmy cuts in, laughing to think of it. "Sorta roundish, aren't they? Especially when you notice a place setting's a centimeter off at table and you make that face like you're turning into old Carson."
It does the trick and Thomas's mouth sort of kicks up on one side, like he hadn't even realized how dreadfully serious he was being until just now. "My eyes?" he says incredulously, then pauses, backtracks. "I know your tricks, James," he says on a laugh. "You'll not get me to wax poetic about your eyes that easily."
Jimmy pushes down the disappointment. It's not that he cares, precisely, what Mr. Barrow thinks of his eyes, but Jimmy does like to hear things about how attractive he is. It makes him a bleeding girl, he knows, but he can't help it; he likes the tone of Mr. Barrow's voice when he's talking Jimmy up.
"Fine, then," he says, pretending to sulk. "Tell me about the boy, then. What happened after the war?" He regrets the question immediately when the smile all but falls off Thomas's face.
"Y'don't have to," he amends quickly.
Mr. Barrow shakes his head. "No. It's alright. After the war, I… made a mistake. Thought I could do right by the lad, start up a shop or somethin', but I'm- I've never been a good judge of character."
Jimmy knows that as a matter of fact. He'd never seen Mr. Barrow and Ms. O'Brien as friends, but they had been, at one point, everyone knows that, and to think that Mr. Barrow's only friend for years and years was a woman who could do what O'Brien did, well, it doesn't speak well for Mr. Barrow's judgment. Of course, Jimmy had believed her, too, so what does that say about him? They deserve each other, he and Mr. Barrow, if only for how bleeding daft they both apparently are.
"I lost everything, of course," Mr. Barrow continues. "Went back into service and sent the two of them most of me pay from then on. Not like I was using it. And she'd write me and I would visit when I could. But then they moved to London when he was five to stay with her sister. They've only just come back to town again. For good, I think."
"And what'll you do now?" Jimmy asks. He doesn't think Thomas is just going to go off and play Happy Families with them, but if he is going to Jimmy wants to know now, though whether to change Mr. Barrow's mind or resign himself to it, he doesn't know.
"Tea once a month," Mr. Barrow says at once, like it's been at the very front of his mind for a while now. "And he's learning his letters, so he can write me."
It's a better arrangement than Jimmy'd dared to hope for, and somehow, the look on Mr. Barrow's face says he thinks the same.
"Not a bad place," Jimmy says, surveying the little cottage while Mr. Barrow knocks at the door. "Bit small."
"Don't tell her that," Thomas says under his breath, but he's smiling and looking right excited. "She'll be wanting Buckingham Palace on an under butler's wages." He doesn't say that he'd give her a palace if he could, but with that soppy smile, he doesn't exactly have to say it.
It's the boy who opens the door and the first thing Jimmy looks for are the eyes, which are, in fact, sort of big. "Dad!" he all but screeches and launches himself at Mr. Barrow, wraps his arms round his middle and buries his little face with his big eyes in the fabric of Mr. Barrow's jacket. Mr. Barrow hugs him back, a soft unguarded look in his eyes and Jimmy takes a step back, sort of embarrassed by the proceedings.
"You lot had best come in off the street," a voice says from beside Jimmy and he looks round to see a pretty sort of girl, maybe a few years older than him, standing in the door and looking downright pleased about something. She's Agatha, Jimmy supposes, and the plain cut of her dress can't quite hide how dreadfully pretty she is, with her golden hair and her sharp nose. Her eyes aren't big at all, though, and that pleases Jimmy for some reason.
"You heard the woman," Mr. Barrow says, and he ushers the three of them back inside, hardly hindered at all by the boy still clinging to him.
Inside, Jimmy takes a quick look around as Mr. Barrow introduces him to Agatha. It's a small place, he was right about that, but it's well-kept and tidy, and Agatha takes his hat politely before showing them into the parlor. She doesn't, he notices, take Mr. Barrow's hat, because the boy Tommy gets there first, and instead of hanging it on the rack, he puts it on his own head and grins up at his dad. He really does look like a little Mr. Barrow like that, Jimmy decides, and the thought makes him smile.
The seating arrangement for tea is a bit odd, truth be told, because of course the lad wants to sit next to his dad and Mr. Barrow clearly wants that, too, which means Jimmy sits next to Agatha and makes decidedly awkward polite conversation. Jimmy's never been much of a conversationalist, to be honest; he's too restless and not willing enough to put forth the effort. He tries today, though, distracts Agatha with compliments about her home and idle gossip about the Crawleys, which she seems to already know a bit about, presumably from Thomas's letters. All the while, Mr. Barrow listens to intense, though childish, conversation from his son, all about the friends the boy's made since he's been here and how he's learning his letters and how badly he wants a puppy, none of which Jimmy thinks he himself would have talked about with his dad when he was a lad, but he supposes the boy considers Mr. Barrow sort of a playmate rather than a proper father-figure, being as he's never around. It's rather, well, Jimmy hesitates even to think the word 'sweet,' but that's how things are, aren't they?
"I thought I might take him to the park," Mr. Barrow says after tea. He doesn't look hopeful, wouldn't let such a weak emotion mar his handsome face, but Jimmy can tell he is. He wants this, badly, and Jimmy worries for a short moment at the type of games he might play to get his way if Agatha makes things difficult. He needn't worry, though, because the woman agrees right off and the easiness of the whole procedure make Jimmy sure she'd loved Mr. Barrow, once, if not still. And what's more, she doesn't even offer to come with them, which means she trusts Mr. Barrow, too.
The park is rather empty at this time of day, so Jimmy and Mr. Barrow are free to find a bench and watch as little Tommy runs about and chases the birds who're foolish enough to land near him. Mr. Barrow's got a ball in one hand, a present he'd brought from home, but the lad hasn't taken an interest yet.
"Crikey, though, Mr. Barrow, you know who this lad looks like?" Jimmy says at last. It's been bugging him for a while now and he's just realized.
"Me?" Mr. Barrow hazards.
"Well, yeah," Jimmy says, rolling his eyes. "But seriously, he looks exactly like Master George. They could be brothers, the two of them." Tommy's got darker hair and his face is a bit pointer, but they do look quite similar.
"Cousins, more like," Mr. Barrow fairly breathes out, and Jimmy sort of smiles, confused.
"Oh yes?" Jimmy asks, shaking his head a bit in disbelief. "And I suppose you're to tell me his mum is his lordship's natural daughter, then?"
When Mr. Barrow doesn't answer him, just watches the boy play, Jimmy raises an eyebrow in disbelief. Surely not, he thinks. It's not so far of a stretch to imagine his lordship having an affair, maybe with some pretty maid in his younger days, maybe even before he married her ladyship, but the odds that Mr. Barrow would happen upon that bastard child and get a babe on her, well, that's patently ridiculous. Besides, this Agatha, she doesn't look anything at all like the Crawleys. Mr. Barrow, on the other hand, could be a brother to the Crawley girls, but that's a thought almost too outlandish to be born, so Jimmy dismisses it. After all, he thinks, even Lord Grantham, only second in line after old Carson in terms of conservatism and preserving the old ways, even he would have a problem with his bastard son working in his own household as a servant.
Well. Or would he?
Jimmy replays a few choice scenes from his time at Downton over in his mind, trying to spot out the thing that's niggling at him. It had been odd, he'd thought, not at the time but later after much contemplation, how hard his lordship had worked to stop Mr. Barrow from being sacked or going to prison after that whole messy affair with the kiss. And more than that, in his very hour of need, his lordship had seen fit to promote Mr. Barrow, not necessarily invent a role in the household specifically for him, but facts were that they'd been doing perfectly fine without an under butler for years, so no doubt could be had that the role had been brought up specifically to keep Mr. Barrow in the house. And on top of that, though slightly less reliable and certain, is the fact that Jimmy'd heard rumors in that year he'd spent hating Mr. Barrow, rumors that spelled out in murky details a few incidences of theft Mr. Barrow may or may not have committed before the war- wine was the thing, he'd heard, and maybe once even money. Surely, though, after that sort of transgression, an ordinary servant would have been sacked, never to be reinstated, as Mr. Barrow was. Because, sure, Mr. Barrow is good at his job, is an excellent under butler and had been an excellent valet before that, probably was a world-class footman even before that, but he isn't absolutely indispensable, no matter the circumstances. Well, to Jimmy he is, but that's personal, which is sort of the point of the whole thing. Mr. Barrow's entire history at Downton smacks of his having a personal connection with someone in high places, and that person sure as the Dickens isn't Carson.
"Well," he says out loud at last, having given this all good and proper thought. "Who would've thought it, his lordship having a son, after all."
Mr. Barrow doesn't even look at him, just shifts the ball from one hand to the other and keeps watching his son. "And by another man's wife, no less," he says casually.
"Hang on," Jimmy says, a thought occurring to him. "Does her ladyship know? Does Carson?"
"Her ladyship's what got me the job," Mr. Barrow says. "After me dad died when I was a lad, she's what brought me on as hall boy. And Carson, well, who's to say. I never told him, if that's what you're asking. I never told nobody."
"Well," Jimmy says, looking down at his hands, suddenly embarrassed for some bloody reason. "I always thought you looked the part of a toff, livery or no."
It doesn't change anything, not really, because legitimate son of a clockmaker or unacknowledged bastard son of an earl, the place in the world remains largely the same. It does explain a lot, though, especially about how broken up Mr. Barrow was when Lady Sybil went. She hadn't just been his friend, she'd been his bloody sister and likely the only one of the lot who'd been kind to him.
"Did Lady Sybil know?" Jimmy asks, rather more tentatively. It's always a sensitive subject with Mr. Barrow and Jimmy doesn't blame him on that.
Mr. Barrow sucks in a sharp breath then lets it out slowly. "Sybil loved me," he says tersely and Jimmy can assume the matter is closed for discussion.
Well, I love you, Jimmy thinks. It's not the sort of love Mr. Barrow wants from him, the sort a man would get from his sweetheart, but it's a love, all the same. He can't say that, though, so instead he nods toward little Tommy and says, "I think he'll be a cricketer yet. Shall we teach him to play?"
"There's one thing I don't understand, though, Mr. Barrow," Jimmy says on the bus back to Downton. "It's just… why don't you marry her? Agatha, I mean."
Mr. Barrow sighs, heavy and exasperated, but he doesn't look angry to Jimmy. "It's not that simple," he says after a moment.
"It could be, though," Jimmy tells him, bumping their shoulders together. It's not that he likes the thought of Thomas with a woman, even the mother of his child, but it somehow seems less… horrible than it would be if Thomas were off with a man. Probably, Jimmy tells himself firmly, because with a woman, there'd be no chance of her taking Jimmy's place as Thomas's best mate. Yeah, that's it exactly. Probably, anyway.
But Mr. Barrow's shaking his head. "No," he says. "It couldn't be. What happened during the war… it was because of the war. You… didn't you see the men in the trenches, the ones who cozied up together then went home to their wives? They weren't, well, they weren't my sort, were they? War drives people mad. And then after those blokes were home, they hadn't a lavender bone in their body, did they? It were like that with Agatha. She just… I could never give her what she wanted. And anyway, it's too late now, isn't it? She's moved on, found something else to make her happy."
"And you?" Jimmy asks without knowing why, mouth dry. "Have you moved on?" He doesn't even really know what he means by it, except that he wants to know the answer almost more than he wants to keep breathing.
Mr. Barrow looks at him sharply, then, and his brow might be creased in confusion, but there's something lurking in his eyes, something almost like… hope. At long last, he says carefully, "Nothing's changed, Jimmy. I haven't changed."
And maybe he hasn't, at that. Maybe nothing at all has changed for Mr. Barrow and he's just the same as he's always been, with the same wants and the same needs. Something has changed, though, and Jimmy's got the terrible wonderful frightening feeling that it might be him.