AN: This is a Secret Santa fic for shana-rosee, who has been an avid supporter of multiple fandoms since before I was on tumblr. Her prompt appears below. Happy holidays, bb! Sorry it was late!
Prompt: Sybil and Tom meeting for the first time one night in London and find themselves talking and exploring the city together until morning. Canon era-ish. Sybil and Tom sharing their dreams and if possible at one point stopping at a pub or nightclub/speakeasy.
I did this as a slightly post-canon-era AU, where Tom was never the Crawleys' chauffeur (he worked instead for another family in England, returned to Ireland and began his career in journalism after WWI, and came back to England in 1923 for reasons that will be explained). Sybil served as a volunteer nurse during the war, but didn't continue with it. She hasn't married (for reasons that will also be explained).
Historical note: Though British women over 30 who met property qualifications were granted the right to vote in 1918, women did not receive suffrage on equal terms with men until a decade later. Sybil's advocacy organization, the British Society for Equal Rights, is fictional but based on groups of the era that worked for women's rights.
Spring 1924, London
He would always begin the story by saying that the rain had worked in their favor. Weather, the most tangible form of kismet, author of so many accidents both happy and tragic. But in the romantic depths of the soul that for years he'd kept hidden behind facile cynicism and sharply turned phrases, Tom would always believe that they'd been fated to meet.
He saw her coming out of the printer's shop just as the drizzle was turning into a downpour. Her woollen coat was a splash of summer against the charcoal smear of the wet pavements, its cheerful blue mirrored in her eyes as she raised them to the sky in dismay. Her arms were full of bound stacks of paper: pamphlets, it looked like, which would quickly be reduced to pulp if she attempted to carry them unprotected through the deluge. She shrank back against the fogged-up window, underneath the awning.
She hadn't seen him yet. He'd been attempting to ignore the rain, a buttoned coat and pulled-down hat the only allowance he'd made, but now he thanked whatever God might be listening for the umbrella hooked over his arm.
He stepped up smartly, unfurling it. "Can I help?"
"Oh… that'd be terrific!" She gave him and his umbrella a brilliant smile.
He motioned toward her armful of pamphlets. "I could take those as well."
"Oh, no, you've the umbrella…"
"It's no trouble at all." It was, in truth, a bit of trouble, and in the end she only let him take half of them. He glanced down at the title and felt his heart quicken. His instinctive attraction to this strange woman in the street had been even more on target than he knew. "You're a suffragist!"
She lifted her head proudly, as if accustomed to defending her political proclivities, but finding only approval on his face she smiled. "Yes, I am."
"Well, bully for you," said Tom. "Some might say that fight's finished…"
"Finished!" Her forehead wrinkled with indignation. "With every woman under thirty still disenfranchised! Hardly."
He raised an eyebrow. "...I was just going to say that there's plenty more to be done. What with the age and property requirements."
"Oh. Of course." She dropped her gaze, her lashes sweeping over her cheeks prettily. "I didn't mean to jump on you. Only, people always like to belittle the cause."
"Well then, it sounds as though you need some new people in your life."
She laughed, a sound like the peal of heavenly bells, and looked around and seemed to notice that they were still standing in the middle of the pavement. "Goodness, it's really coming down!"
"Have you got far to go?"
"Not very far, but I think I'd best get a cab if I'm going to keep these pamphlets dry."
They set off toward the high street. "I'm Tom Branson," he said, though his reporter's eye had picked out several signs that his companion was not the sort of woman one simply introduced oneself to. Her coat and hat were of good quality and the latest fashion, and from her elaborately yet tastefully styled hair there wafted a faint but distinct whiff of French perfume. But it wasn't just the clothes and hair and scent; it was the way she spoke, the way she carried herself. The girl radiated posh.
But she did not seem snobbish. She grinned up at him and said, "Terribly glad to meet you, Tom Branson. I'm Sybil Crawley."
Crawley. The name was familiar, but it took him halfway to the cross street to work out the context in which he'd heard it. "If I may ask, what's the daughter of a Conservative in the Lords doing agitating for universal women's suffrage?"
"What if I say you may not ask?" That made Tom whip his head around, an apology on his lips, but she had a sparkle in her eyes that brought the smile back to his face. "You're very quick," she said. "How did you know who my father was?"
"I've done some reporting on Parliament." He left it at that, not being quite ready to risk frightening her off. Suffragette or not, there was a distinct possibility that Lady Sybil Crawley would find his views on government overly radical… and he was very much enjoying talking with her.
But he wouldn't get away that easily. "Oh, you're a journalist!" she cried with an enthusiasm that most fashionable young ladies he'd come across reserved for peers-in-waiting or, if they were a little bohemian, the smarter West End actors. Not that he'd been acquainted with many earls' daughters, he reminded himself. He ought not to prejudge. She tilted her head in a fetching manner and asked, "Which paper do you write for?"
Whoever will give me a few column inches and a couple of shillings would be the truthful but decidedly unimpressive answer. "I work freelance," he said, shrugging. "I've had some things in the Herald." He dithered a few seconds before adding, "and the Workers' Weekly."
"You're a communist?" Her lovely brows arched, but she looked more interested than shocked.
"A socialist really. But there aren't many socialist papers around, at least not ones that pay. I guess those in the middle of the road tend to get run over." He let one side of his mouth turn up.
Lady Sybil giggled. "If my father could only hear someone call socialism the middle of the road. But there is something to be said for a balanced outlook."
"Which is the very thing I try to bring to my work." And his wallet suffered for it, but he wasn't going to bring that up.
She nodded happily. "I wish more journalists thought like you."
They turned into the high street, the rain pelting down as hard as ever and not an empty cab or even a bus in sight. "Oh, dear," she said. "I must get these pamphlets back to the office before they simply disintegrate. I should have just left it until the morning, but we've got a rally tomorrow and…"
"I'd be glad to walk you," said Tom, absurdly grateful for the chance to be gallant, especially since the brighter lights in this street showed his threadbare coat to its fullest disadvantage.
"Oh, thank you. You've been such a help. I don't know what I'd have done if you hadn't come along."
"What are we here for, if not to help each other where we can?" The phrase came out glibly, half a slogan, but it had a galvanizing effect on Sybil; for a moment Tom thought she might cry, right there in the street.
She swallowed, pursing her lips, and blinked rapidly. "So few people seem to think that way. Especially nowadays."
Tom felt a flicker of guilt, as though he'd manipulated her intentionally, which was ridiculous. But he didn't want to make himself out as anything more than a bloke with an umbrella, so he shrugged his shoulders. "It's nothing. I'd be out in the rain regardless, and now I'm out in the rain with a pretty girl."
She dropped her eyes, the corners of her mouth rising politely. "Well, I'm flattered. But I would hope you'd have done the same for anyone else."
"I would have. I may not be a gentleman, but my mother raised me to behave like one." That got a real smile out of her, and Tom found himself trying to think of what to say next that would elicit another one.
"You're Irish?" She asked, and he nodded. "Is your family still there?"
"I've a brother in Liverpool, but everyone else is in Dublin." Everyone who's still alive, he couldn't help but think, but there was no need to cast a shadow over this perfectly nice conversation.
"And what brought you to England?" The question was innocent enough, just like her clear eyes. A standard ice-breaker, for which Tom had an array of stock answers according to his audience and how much he'd had to drink.
He chose the condensed version of the truth. "I was on the anti-treaty side during the civil war, and things got hot for us after it ended. I thought it best to go somewhere else for a while." The reality had been less considered, with his cousin Colm rousting him in the middle of the night with a tip that the gardaí were on their way to arrest him in the morning. He'd arrived on Kieran's doorstep with little more than his book of clippings and the clothes he stood up in.
Lady Sybil smiled ruefully. "I must admit, my grasp of recent events in Ireland is tenuous. But I support your right to govern yourselves, and I respect anyone who stands up for his beliefs." She grew solemn. "I was a volunteer nurse, during the War."
He could discern the capital W and wondered what she'd say when she heard how he'd spent the years between 1914 and 1918. "Then the respect is mutual," he said. "I worked in Hampshire before and during the war. Once the wounded started coming back, I saw firsthand how much suffering the nurses helped alleviate."
Her head came up. "You didn't fight?"
"I invalided out; heart murmur. But I wouldn't have fought for England in any case." Automatically his voice had sharpened, and he made an effort to soften it. "I'd have been a conscientious objector."
"You'd have gone to prison to avoid battle?"
"To avoid fighting for the Crown. I served in my own country, later." He softened his expression, to neutralize the edge that had crept back into his voice. "I don't mean to be rude, Lady Sybil. But England's war wasn't Ireland's."
She studied him sidelong for a moment, then smiled. "Of course it wasn't. And I'm very glad you escaped going to prison, in either country."
"If I hadn't, you'd be a good deal wetter," agreed Tom with a grin he'd been told more than once was dashing.
Their destination was a nondescript door between storefronts that opened on a narrow flight of stairs. At the top of them was a cramped hallway lined with more doors: an accountant's office, a dentist's surgery. Lady Sybil opened the last one on the right, whose pebble-glass window was freshly lettered THE BRITISH SOCIETY FOR EQUAL RIGHTS.
The office was one largish room, stuffed with desks and filing cabinets and—oddly—pot plants. Geraniums bloomed on every desktop and the windowsill, while ivy trailed from the tops of the bookshelves. Tom nearly speared a vital part of his anatomy on something spiky that was just inside the door. "Hellooo?" Came a call from behind a pair of ferns practically as tall as a man.
"It's just me, Lil. Well, actually, it isn't just me." Sybil smiled at the girl who emerged from the greenery. "Tom Branson, allow me to present Lillian Rolfs, our secretary. Mr. Branson was kind enough to save me from a soaking coming from the printer's… he's the reason the literature survived." She took Tom's armful of pamphlets and set it, along with hers, on one of the desks.
"Well, then, I'm very glad to meet you indeed." Lillian looked Tom up and down with a very keen pair of black eyes. She gave him a smile that, in different circumstances, would have equally excited and unsettled him and offered her hand, holding onto his just a beat longer than was quite conventional.
Eventually she let go. Tom cleared his throat, his heart sinking a bit. It was obviously time for him to go, and with Lillian in the room there was no polite way to ask Lady Sybil when he might see her again. At least he knew where she worked. "It's been lovely meeting you both…"
"Oh, but you must come out with us!" Lillian's grin became almost predatory before she toned it down a notch. "We go down to the pub sometimes after we knock off work. It's loads of fun, you've just got to come."
Tom looked at Lady Sybil. "I'd love it if you would," she said.
That was all he needed.
-o-
Lil took Sybil's elbow. "We'll just go freshen up," she said. "Back in a jiffy." She hustled them out into the hall, leaving Mr. Branson to cool his heels among the plants and desk-chairs, and into the loo.
Once inside she gave Sybil one of her juicy smiles and leaned toward the mirror to reapply her lipstick, which was the emergency red of a motor-bus and perfectly suited her cap of glossy black curls. "Lord, Sybil, don't you have all the luck. A tasty guy like that falling into your lap."
Sybil went into her bag for her own lipstick, a more sedate shade of coral, and kept her eyes trained on her mouth as she freshened the color. "He was just being nice."
"Don't act like you don't see. He was looking at you like he wanted to eat you for dessert."
"I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about."
Lil cut her eyes to Sybil's in the mirror, cat-like. "Well, if you don't want him, I'm happy to snap him up."
Be my guest, Sybil started to say but then didn't, and Lil cocked her head with half a sardonic smile.
When they came back into the office Mr. Branson had removed his hat and was drying it off as best he could. At their entrance he looked up with a smile that was nothing short of arresting; Sybil hadn't noticed until just then how blue his eyes were. Was it only because they were indoors, or was it that Lil had drawn attention to his looks? She was right: he was handsome, very. Sybil felt her cheeks go warm.
"Oh, Mr. Branson, you're wet through!" She cried, to cover her discomfiture. She brushed at the shoulders of his coat, which were dark with rainwater; to get so soaked he must have been holding the umbrella mostly over her when they'd been in the street.
"I'm fine," he said.
"You'll catch your death."
"It's nothing a little while in the dry won't take care of. That, and a pint and good conversation." He sought her gaze, which she gave him after a few seconds of internal fortification. "Though if we're going to be drinking together," he said in an intimate tone that almost undid her again, "you'd best call me Tom."
She smiled tightly. "Likewise. I mean, you must call me Sybil. And you're awfully kind to indulge us." Behind her, Sybil could almost hear the roll of Lil's eyes.
Lil blazed the trail to the Rose and Gryphon. Fortunately, she had her own umbrella, leaving Tom and Sybil with his. He tried to give her the lion's share of the coverage but she nudged his hand over, saying, "I insist we share equally."
"Well, then, we'll be equally wet and miserable."
"Not if we take up as little space as possible." She took his arm without giving him a glance that could be interpreted as flirtatious; this was for both of their health. It was certainly not an excuse to nestle close enough to him that she could feel his warmth and smell the scent of his aftershave. Her skin prickled and she gave her head a little shake. "I'm afraid I must warn you, this will be rather a gaggle of hens. All the girls from the office are already there, and I'll bet they're a couple of drinks in."
"I don't mind." Somehow he managed not to sound smarmy. "So this is how your set blows off steam after a long week of agitating?"
"It is, actually." Sybil smiled. "I remember the first time we all went in together, we were the only women in the place. You should have seen the stares! But they know us now."
The pub was just up the street, so Sybil remained very nearly dry except for the outer sleeve of her coat and the hem of her dress. She hated to think about the state of her hair, but it couldn't be helped—and anyway, it didn't matter. She was having a drink with her comrades and a nice man who just happened to be rather good looking and would probably turn out to be engaged or married—he'd never said he wasn't, and practically all the eligible men his age were, these days.
The fact was, pickings were slim for young women of that time and place. Sybil still felt the prick of tears when she thought about the steady stream of letters that had arrived during the War, bearing their grim tidings. Peter Torrance. Harry Jacobs. Tom Bellasis. And on and on. She remembered them all: their names, their smiles across from her at dinners and in the ballrooms. She'd cried over every one of them, imagined those bright fair faces stained with mud, with blood. Maybe she would have married one of them; now they would never marry anyone, and probably neither would she. Sybil didn't dwell on it. It wouldn't do to moan, not when she had it so much better than so many others. But the sight of a couple walking in step down the street, fully absorbed in each other, could still make her sigh.
She let go of Tom's arm with some reluctance as they walked under the overhang. Lil had already shaken her umbrella and disappeared into the pub's smoky depths, but it only took Sybil a moment to locate her and the rest of the girls, who'd commandeered their favorite snug. Apparently Lil had just filled them in on the situation; the ones whose backs were to the door turned as one, and the corners of everyone's mouths rose in that universal smirk of slightly envious raillery.
Oh, Lord. Sybil smiled back, raising a hand to them. She'd never hear the end of it.
"Shall I get us some drinks?" asked Tom. Sybil could tell from the look on his face that he had not missed what had just passed, and that he was highly amused by it. "How's a round of cider sound?" He glanced over at the snug, counting heads. "Six of you, are there?"
"Oh, I couldn't let you…"
He waved a hand, as if to clear away the ubiquitous cigar smoke of the clerks and workingmen who peered at Sybil from under the brims of their caps. "Go and sit down with your friends. I won't be a minute."
And now she'd have to buy him one. So they'd be even.
-o-
Tom had never been a ladies' man. He felt he lacked the capacity for either frivolity or artifice that would be necessary for a life of serial seduction, and he had no qualms with being a little self-satisfied about it. Sure, women seemed to like him well enough, but anyone responded well to being treated with respect and consideration: in short, like a person. So sitting in a pub surrounded by several attractive young women, all fawning (there really was no other word for it) over him to varying degrees, was a new and rather uncomfortable experience.
It was particularly awkward because he had to be personable and charming with five women—perfectly nice women! Pretty! Intelligent! Passionately committed to their cause!—whom he would happily have sent to the other end of the country if it meant he could spend five minutes alone with the sixth. Sybil, Sybil, Sybil—her name beat in his head along with his heart in his chest, and every time he looked over and felt the liquid touch of her eyes on his it beat a little faster. She was very beautiful. Her cheeks were flushed with the rising heat of the room, and she listened more than she spoke, her lips curving slightly in approbation when she agreed with what was being said, or turning down in an enchanting pout when she didn't. God, those pillowy lips. Yeats could've written an ode to them. It wasn't like Tom to lose his head like this, not over a woman, especially not over a woman he'd just met. But he'd known from the first that Sybil Crawley was special.
At length someone sat down at the piano in the corner and began to bang out something more lively than tuneful, and the younger half of the pub's patrons tapped their feet and bobbed their heads. Soon enough a pair of them were dancing in the small space cleared for the purpose, and then another, and not long after that Tom felt the speculative eyes of his six companions upon him. Were they wondering which one of them he might ask for a dance? Or did they know, and were just waiting for him to get up the nerve?
Fortune favors the bold he told himself, and leaned over to speak into Sybil's ear over the jangle of the piano and the buzz of voices. "Would you like to dance?" She smiled, nodded, and a minute later was in his arms. That easy.
"I don't suppose you're used to this sort of dancing," he said.
"And what does that mean, Mr. Branson?"
"I told you, call me Tom."
She was not distracted, her left eyebrow remaining an indignant quarter inch higher than her right. "I suppose you're like everyone else and think that because I'm an earl's daughter, I know nothing of the world. I can assure you that I do."
He had pegged her as a bit naive, though more as a function of her relative youth and sunny disposition than her rank. But the remark about him being like everyone else rankled. "That isn't what I thought."
"I may not have ever been in battle or lived in the street, but I've had plenty of conversations with people who have."
He wasn't sure how they'd gotten to this point, but she had stiffened in his arms and he needed to steer things back in a more amiable direction. "Lady Sybil—"
"Just Sybil is fine."
Well, thank goodness for that. "Sybil, then. I didn't mean to imply that you were… unsophisticated. Only that…" he trailed off, nonplussed. What had he meant?
"Only that I hadn't ever had anyone in this pub ask me to dance?" She looked at him steadily enough for it to feel like a challenge, but Tom was sure he could discern a flicker of humor in her eyes. "This is my local, Tom. And believe me, I've had plenty of offers." Her mouth quirked and he could feel through the hand he had resting lightly on her back that she had relaxed.
Back on firm ground, he gave her his most charming smile. "Any you were inclined to accept?"
She dropped her eyes, smiling. "Maybe." She was playing with him. Feeling almost insulted but hardly knowing why, Tom went quiet. Then she looked up at him again. "But everyone else had to ask at least twice."
The song ended and Sybil said, "It'd be lovely if you'd dance with the others too. I don't know if you've noticed, but there's not exactly an abundance of men our age around, and I'm sure they'd like to keep in practice."
So he danced one with each of the other girls: to be nice, but mainly to please her. Duty done, he felt free to dance with Sybil until he noticed the flush in her cheeks and the increasing dryness in his throat. They piled back into the snug with the two or three others who hadn't gone home yet and joined a rousing conversation about women's rights and plans for the rally the next day. Tom had drunk just enough not to think too much about it when Sybil's hand happened to rest on his arm in the course of making a point, though he was also acutely sensitive to the fact that her right hip was very nearly up against his left, close enough that he could feel her warmth through her dress. Later, he would hardly remember what they'd talked about. He couldn't stop watching her lips on her glass when she drank, the flutter of her eyelids and the play of muscles in her throat as she swallowed. He'd experienced lust before but this was something else again. He wanted to touch her but he also had an overwhelming desire to know her: to catalogue every quirk and mannerism, every eyebrow twitch and deepening of dimples, what music she liked, the things that made her smile and the things that annoyed her. She charmed him; everything about her charmed him. He reminded himself for the tenth time that he'd only just met her.
And then she looked up at him and smiled slowly and he forgot all over again.
The clang of the bell behind the bar roused them both from their tipsy reverie. Just in time, too; he felt dizzy, and it wasn't just from the drink. "Closing time!" the publican bellowed.
"Already?" The dismay in Sybil's voice made Tom smile; he didn't want their night to end, either. But a bit of fresh air would be just the ticket.
"Are you hungry?" He heard himself ask.
"I don't know..."
He was savvy enough to realize that it wasn't her appetite she was unsure about. "It's been a long time since my dinner," he said. It had actually been lunch. "I know a good place nearby. Your friends can come too if you like."
Sybil glanced round at her friends; only Lil looked back, with a significant glint in her eye and a slight jerk of her head to one side: Go. Tom could have kissed her.
-o-
The restaurant was everything Sybil could have wanted: bright, clean, and not at all elegant. "It's good to be somewhere one can hear oneself talk," she said. They were having a cup of coffee after their meals, simple filling food that had been just the thing after a night of cider.
"I like to bring sources here." Tom looked around at the other tables, which were mostly empty. The few other patrons were quiet couples like them or second-shift workers on their way home. "There's just enough noise that you don't feel as though people are eavesdropping on you."
"So which story are you working on now, Reporter Branson?" She gave him an arch smile. It was nice to talk to a man who so clearly liked a girl with spirit. In the pub she had begun to let herself think about more than nice to talk to in connection with Tom Branson. She'd confirmed that he was unattached—thank God for Lil, who'd asked him point blank—and he was smart and a supporter of women's rights. And he looked utterly gorgeous with his sleeves rolled to the elbows.
He'd put his jacket back on when they left the pub and Sybil was sorry for it. But she was glad of the chance to get to know the man behind the forearms and the smile, which was undeniably dazzling. He gave it to her now and said, "No story… just two people talking."
"Good. I should hate to think you were working an angle." His head shot up, a denial obviously on his lips, but she smiled again to let him know she was only joking.
"Do you think you'll ever go back to Ireland?" she asked, after a brief silence.
"I'd like to. I suppose it depends on the climate." He was not talking of rainfall. "But there's no use waiting for something that may not ever be possible."
"That's rather a pessimistic way to think."
He shook his head slowly, turning his cup in circles on the table. "I only meant that I've got to make a life for myself wherever I am."
"But it's good to have dreams to aim for."
He smiled ruefully. "And it's good that you actually believe your dreams are going to come true."
She took a sip of coffee. "Well, why shouldn't they?"
He laughed close-mouthed. "And that's how I know you're posh."
Sybil frowned. He'd spoken lightly, but socialist or not, she didn't like to think of Tom as a class warrior. "I wonder what's happened to you to make you so cynical."
His eyes went wide and chagrined. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to be harsh. But you're right, I wasn't always like this."
"So why are you now?"
"I'm not, really. It's just an… not an act exactly, more of a hedge against failure." His eyebrow quirked as he chuckled, seemingly at himself. "My life hasn't exactly gone as I planned, and I'm trying to make the best of it. But sometimes my inner cynic likes to get a word in. I've got no complaints tonight, though, thanks to you." He smiled at her almost shyly.
Sybil felt a flicker of warmth inside, her mouth curving up in tandem with the blush that rose to her face. "You really should make a habit of counting your blessings," she teased, partly to cover her confusion.
Tom leaned back in his chair, regarding her with a look just this side of rakish that did nothing to quell the heat in her cheeks. "All right, I'll start now. Blessing number one: I've just spent an evening with the most beautiful, intriguing woman I've ever met."
She stared at the table. She'd received her share of florid compliments and was well versed both in encouragement and deflection, but she had no idea how to respond to such a direct salvo from a virtual stranger, especially one she found so attractive. The reflexive urge to keep him at arm's length warred with the desire to bounce with glee in her chair. Sybil had certainly never measured her own worth by men's interest in her, but it was intoxicating to know that this intelligent, handsome man of the world found her intriguing, and on her own merits.
Finally she looked up at him, and his smile widened. "Blessing number two: the night's not over yet."
She gave in to delight, grinning like the Cheshire cat. "No," she said, "it's not."
-o-
They weren't dressed to go into a nightclub, so they ended up wandering the West End amid the glittering crowds as the late shows let out. Tom had never had much use for people whose chief occupation was to see and be seen, but the frenetic gaiety of the bright-lit streets was an event in itself, and even more so with Sybil by his side.
"I used to go to the theatre all the time," Sybil said. "We all needed a distraction after the war." She smiled sadly. "And I wanted something to do, I suppose."
"You didn't want to continue with nursing?"
"Oh, I was only a VAD. A glorified hostess, really. I worked at the convalescent hospital for officers they set up at my father's country house; it was a lot of making beds and fetching tea."
Tom could imagine what those officers must have been thinking about the young, pretty daughter of the house in a nurse's uniform. But he only said, "I'm sure it was more than that. And it was jolly decent of your father, to open his home for the war effort."
Sybil gave a secret smile. "Well, I had to persuade him."
"So you did do more than bring hot drinks, then."
They sidestepped a chattering sextet of finely dressed revelers, the men in sharp suits and the women in feathered headdresses and shin-length skirts, who barely seemed to notice the couple in drab daytime clothes they'd nearly run over. "Sorry!" one of the girls simpered when her elbow connected with Sybil's, and then clicked away on her high-heeled shoes, forgetting her existence.
Sybil shook her head. "I haven't been out like this in a long time," she said. "It just started to feel rather pointless. I do believe I've got old and humorless."
"You don't seem humorless to me." Tom turned his head to look Sybil up and down. "And you're nowhere near old, but you'll be a ravishing geriatric."
She smiled, the compliment absorbed. They were walking east out of the theatre district, and the crowd was thinning, the clubs less frequent and seedier-looking. The street was quite dark under the overcast night sky, but Sybil betrayed no hint of unease, her arm linked easily with his. "I feel such a drive to make more of a difference," she said. "I dabble in charity and work for women's rights, but I miss being busy like I was during the war."
"Have you thought of going into politics?" Tom asked.
"Do you mean running for office? I don't think I'd—"
"That, or working for a campaign if you don't like the spotlight. But there's got to be a woman candidate sooner or later. Right?"
"Well, of course." Tom expected her to follow up with a laundry list of reasons she wouldn't be suited, but she actually seemed to be mulling it over. "What an idea. Me running for Parliament." The corners of her mouth flickered upward and her eyes swept over him, quickly but keenly, as though she were trying to gauge his true feelings about the notion.
He responded with a hearty smile. "And just think what you could do if you got in."
"Just think." Their steps slowed and they looked—almost gazed—at each other and Tom had just about decided to try leaning over for a kiss when it started to rain. "Oh!" cried Sybil, putting a hand to the top of her cloche. Tom opened his umbrella, but this was no quick shower; it came down like the clouds were paper bags that had finally broken under the weight of gallons of water. Fast-moving streams formed instantly on the pavements, water splashing up to soak Tom and Sybil to the shins.
"We'd better get out of this!" Tom took her elbow and guided her to the nearest doorway, whose sign read CABARET in lurid red neon. He glanced up at it. "Not my first choice for a night out, but…"
"Beggars can't be choosers!" Sybil said.
The woman behind the box office window scowled, looked them up and down, and shook her head at Tom's money. "Evening attire only."
"Oh, come on—"
Sybil shouldered him aside, giving the woman her most charming smile. "It's dreadful out, isn't it? Just the kind of night when all you want to do is cozy up at a nice table in the back and have a good bottle of wine."
The woman's brow was still furrowed, but she looked tempted. "A very good bottle of wine. Maybe even two," Sybil said, and the woman gave a short, almost resentful nod and put out her hand. Sybil paid without a word, pulling money from some hidden location so quickly that Tom didn't even have a chance to reopen his wallet. And he'd thought her naive.
They were seated at a slightly sticky table just in time for the lights to go all the way down. The band played almost all the way through a lackluster version of "Ain't We Got Fun" before the MC pranced onto the stage, looking as though he'd had more to drink than Tom, Sybil, and her co-workers all together had at the pub earlier, and swung into a semi-coherent string of innuendoes that made Tom wish he and Sybil had taken their chances with the rainstorm. The only saving grace was that they weren't seated near the front, and so avoided having any of the MC's lewd banter directed at them.
When the MC started talking about the dancing girls who were next to take the stage (whose thighs, the MC claimed, had brought crowned heads of Europe to tears), Tom felt like crawling under the table. What must Sybil think of him, bringing her to a place like this? He hazarded a glance and was relieved to see her sipping her wine calmly, looking mildly amused rather than scandalized. Still he cringed his way through the show, probably drank more than he should, and was inordinately worried that someone would mistake Sybil for a prostitute. But whenever he happened to catch her eye she smiled brightly, seemingly enjoying herself. He was much more occupied with watching and thinking about her than anything that was going on onstage. It was so strange, the pull his heart had felt toward her the minute he'd seen her in the street, but he couldn't deny it; nor could he deny that the attraction was only growing stronger as he spent more time in her company. It didn't matter that she was an earl's daughter and he didn't even have a country to call his own; he would pursue this as far as he could. He knew that as surely as he knew that, one day, he would return to Ireland.
-o-
The clouds had parted by the time they got out of the theatre, though the streets still gleamed slick under the streetlamps. It was very late. Sybil stifled a yawn, trying not to think about how she'd agreed to show up early at the rally the next day, and took Tom's arm as they walked up the pavement. "Well, now I can say I've seen a cabaret."
Tom let out a laugh, glancing down at her hand on his arm before smiling into her eyes. "Did you really enjoy it, then?"
"Well…" she smiled. "It's not the sort of place I would have gone if the rain hadn't chased us in, but it is nice to have a bit of fun every once in a while."
He laughed and shook his head, almost shuddering. "I'm glad you thought it was fun. I feel as though I ought to go to confession."
"Oh, are you Catholic?" Sybil asked, then felt foolish; of course he was, if he'd fought for Irish independence.
He ducked his head in an odd little shrug, defensive but trying not to be. "It's how I was raised. I can't remember the last time I was in a church, though. I hope that doesn't shock you."
"More than watching a drunk man try to toss olives into the front of a woman's dress?" That had been the second act. Sybil half smiled; poor Tom had looked like he wanted to fall through the floor. "No, I grew up saying my prayers like a good girl, but I must say I haven't much faith left, after the war. I suppose people would say I never had it, to have it shaken so easily, but all I can think is that God must be either very cruel or very incompetent to allow so much suffering."
They walked a bit further in silence. Sybil could have begun to steer them toward Aunt Rosamund's, where she stayed when her family was at Downton. But she was not so tired yet that she wanted to go home.
When Tom spoke again, she could tell he'd been thinking about what she'd said. "You really never wanted to keep nursing? You seem like you'd have the temperament for it. And the stomach."
"I did feel called to do what I could, and it was good to be of use. And I do feel as though I need to live my own life, away from my family. Maybe I'll become an adventuress and go traveling. I'd quite like to see the tombs in Egypt and the Great Wall of China." Sybil said this rather flippantly; she'd never put much stock in old stones. The point of travel, all the time and expense and dirt, would be to escape her family's orbit, and she wasn't even entirely sure she wanted to do that. She tried out her next words in her mind before saying them out loud: she'd never uttered them before. "But what I'd really like to do is go to university."
He wouldn't make fun of her, she knew. But she waited for the awkward silence and change of subject, or for him to say something like My, that's an ambitious goal. But like he had when the subject of her running for office had come up, he behaved as though it were a perfectly reasonable thing for her to want. "Have you thought about what subject you'd read?"
She shrugged, looking at their feet in step, side by side. "Not really. It's more a dream than anything. I'd be so much older than everyone else, and a woman…"
"But that's no reason not to try."
Sybil looked up at his profile; he was looking off into the distance in front of them, his mind apparently on her future. He gave a decisive nod. "I think you should do it. And I know you could."
"After knowing me for all of one evening?" She met his eye with a teasing smile that probably gave him no hint of how much she had, emotionally speaking, riding on his answer.
The look he returned had nothing of mockery in it. Girls dreamed of being on the receiving end of a look like that; they sighed over romance novels and giggled during sleepovers at the thought of eyes so deep and wide and sincere being turned upon them. Tom took a breath to speak and Sybil caught hers, not sure whether her heart was quickening in anticipation or apprehension. But all he said was, "You can know a lot about a person after one evening."
And that was when she knew that the spark of something she'd felt when she saw him outside the printer, which had broadened into liking during their walk to the office and deepened into attraction between the pub and the cabaret, would catch fire and keep on burning. Sybil did not believe anyone could truly fall in love in the space of one night. But she was perfectly happy to stay with Tom Branson for as long as it took.
The night wore on toward morning, and Sybil did not say she wanted to go home, and Tom did not offer to take her. They walked through familiar streets made exotic by darkness. Near Covent Garden the wagons and lorries rattled through, carrying vegetables to market, and it occurred to Sybil that London was a dozen cities in one, stacked top to bottom with each having only faint ideas of the others.
They walked on and on, sometimes talking, sometimes being comfortably silent. Leaving the shadow of St. Paul's, Sybil said, "Would you go back to Ireland today, if you could?"
Tom was quiet a moment. "If you'd asked me a month ago, I'd have said yes, in a heartbeat. I was well known in Ireland as a journalist... in certain circles, anyway. And my family's there, and I do feel as though I should do whatever I can to help Ireland come into her own. But at the same time…"
He didn't speak for so long that Sybil prompted, "At the same time?"
"I'm finally getting a bit of a foothold in London,' he said. "My name's getting about. In a way I'm keen to see how far I can go here. And…" he looked at her. "I've met some nice people."
They joined the Thames, turning to walk along it. The sky began to lighten almost imperceptibly, and by the time they reached London Bridge the sun was making the eastern sky into something out of an oil painting. By mutual, unspoken consent, they turned to cross the bridge, and in the same way they stopped in the middle, leaning on the rail elbow to elbow, watching the sunrise framed between the turrets of Tower Bridge further down the river. Behind them the morning traffic was picking up, the roar of bus engines and the click of a thousand pairs of shoes all hurrying to their destinations, but neither was listening.
"Tom?"
"Mm?"
"What are you doing tomorrow? I mean, today?"
"I don't know. Hadn't thought about it… work, maybe."
"Would you like to come to a rally in support of universal women's suffrage?"
He grinned. "There's nothing I'd rather do."
Sybil should have felt triumphant; they were going to see each other again, and that ought to be good enough for the present. But somehow it felt like a letdown. She sighed. "It's funny, isn't it, how everyone's always thinking of the future. Always on to the next thing." She spoke half to herself and Tom's eyebrows went up slightly, as well as the corners of his mouth; clearly, he was wondering what her point was. "But that makes it difficult to enjoy the moment. For instance, if I'd been worrying about having to go to the rally today, we never would have had last night." Her eyes found Tom's, which were suddenly so intense that they held her gaze like an electric current. "And I should have been terribly sorry to miss that."
"Me too." His voice was barely a whisper, but she heard it—felt it, really, in his soft breath on her cheek. Had he been that close the whole time? She could feel her heart pounding but the warmth of his hand in hers—when had he taken her hand? Or had she taken his?—steadied her. The discordant sawing of the violin strings of her nerves resolved into harmony, built toward a crescendo. He's going to kiss me. It was inevitable; just a matter of how long they chose to draw it out. She closed her eyes.
And opened them. His face was poised an inch from hers, a question in his eyes that she might have loved him for more than anything else he'd done so far. She'd spent the night with him, and still he didn't presume—
"Yes," she breathed, and he closed the distance eagerly. Or maybe she did.
For several moments she was conscious of nothing but his arms around her, his hands pressed to her back through her coat as if to bring her as close as possible. And his mouth… oh, his mouth was so warm on hers, soft at first and then pressing firmly as though he were trying to impress upon his brain the exact feel of her lips against his. There was passion in their kiss but a kind of ease as well, a level of comfort that Sybil had never before felt with anyone.
By the time they broke apart her head was spinning, her thoughts humming in a kind of happy delirium. Tom's entire face lit up in a wide grin and Sybil realized a second later that she had the same expression on her own face, and she laughed and kissed him again. This one started as a series of fluttering pecks that deepened to the point where they could have toppled over the rail into the Thames and Sybil would scarcely have noticed.
"You were talking of travel," murmured Tom. "Wherever you're going, I think I'd like to go with you." His tone was light; yet underneath the charm he sounded perfectly serious.
Sybil smiled. They leant against the rail looking south-east again, his right arm wrapped round her shoulders while she hugged him round the waist, not caring how it looked. "We can decide on a destination later," she said. "Together."