Author's Note: The 'flashback' occurs on Friday, May 30, 1913 after Sybil has left Madame Swann's shop. The framing sequence occurs a week later.
Disclaimer: I'm not even a custodian, my dears, let alone an owner. These characters and their settings are the work of others. I hope I do not offend with my homage.
Branson couldn't explain it, except that it appeared he wanted to get fired. He could think of no other plausible explanation for his current behavior. Strange, because this was undoubtedly the best job he'd ever had. He was an idiot to risk it for such a frivolous reason. His only excuse was that he couldn't help himself.
"Well, milady?" the chauffeur had asked.
Despite the fact that she and the young man had conversed the entire nine miles between Downton Village and Ripon, it still surprised her that he should address her out of the blue in this way. It could not be appropriate. Lady Sybil had already had more words out of Branson than she'd had from Taylor in all the years the previous chauffeur had worked for the family. This new man would wear out his voicebox if he wasn't careful.
Should she warn him that he was talking too much? Surely he shouldn't be running on like an old family retainer when he had only started three days ago? She could 'freeze him out' she supposed, but that would be so rude, so cruel. She stared at the back of the brown head, undecided.
"Milady?"
He was certainly sure of himself.
"Well, what?" She had made her tone as gruff as possible, which admittedly was not all that gruff.
"Did you find a dress that will be 'new and exciting'?"
Oh. Yes! Enthusiasm caught her, and the proprieties were left in the dust of the road behind them. "I did! It's the most darling thing!"
"What's it like?"
Lady Sybil did not ask herself why a man and a chauffeur would care what her new frock was like; she just wanted to talk about it. "It's all shades of blue—"
Branson had a sudden vision of the dusky-hued Lady Sybil in a dress of St. Patrick's blue like a bride. He smiled, knowing it was safe, because she was behind him and could not see his face. His imagination crowned his young employer with a wreath of wildflowers: he knew just the ones he'd use to make it…
"—with an overlay of gold lace on the bodice, and capped cuffs on the… " she paused dramatically, "… balloon trousers." She laughed with delight, thinking to surprise him.
She had surprised him, but not in the way she'd thought. "Planning to take a turn as Scheherazade then, milady?"
"You've heard of Léon Bakst, have you?" she had asked, surprised in her turn.
"We don't live in caves in the Second City, milady. Street models were turning Sackville Street into an annex of the Ballets Russes with the designs of Bakst and Diaghilev these two years gone."
Lady Sybil studied what she could see of his self-satisfied smile in the side mirror. "So I'm behind the times, am I, when I thought I was in the van?"
"I wouldn't say that, milady." There was a short pause. Greatly daring, he assayed, "If you're to be the lady of the thousand and one nights, milady, perhaps you'd tell me a story?"
He was impertinent. And he'd just given Lady Sybil the perfect opening to give him a setdown: "Very well," she agreed magnanimously. "Once upon a time, there was a princess—"
"A beautiful princess," he amended.
She ignored him, continuing instead, "—whose magic carpet had an extremely forward and talkative chauffeur."
Branson sank down comically on the driver's bench. Lady Sybil smiled her amusement at his antics, but nevertheless kept on with her story in the sternest tones she could muster: "And when the princess found she couldn't stand his chatter even one minute more—"
"—she told him to 'hush', and he hushed," the chauffeur finished for her, chagrined and quite earnest in his desire to remain in ignorance of the penalty the lady herself thought to impose.
Lady Sybil thought about what the young man had said. "Does he always hush when he's told to?" she asked, just to make sure.
"He must, milady… He's under an enchantment."
"And how would one go about getting this enchanted chauffeur to speak again once he's been hushed?"
Well, that was a hopeful sign.
"Should such a thing ever be desirable," the lady temporized, cautiously.
Maybe not that hopeful, then. "One asks him a question, or invites him to speak, milady."
Lady Sybil pondered this information. "Good to know," she said.
Branson had been dispatched to pick up Lady Sybil's 'new and exciting' costume that morning in Ripon, and she had told him last week that if it was ready today she would wear it at dinner tonight. The lady hoped and expected to create a sensation in the drawing room.
A good chauffeur familiarizes himself with the lay of the land. He knew just where the drawing room was, and which window would give him the best view of anyone entering from the Great Hall. His mother would call him a fool for putting this knowledge to use.
This was such a bad idea. He was going to get caught. He couldn't stop himself, however; he had to see it. Hang the consequences.
As things fell out, he did not get caught. But if he had, he thought it might well have been worth it. Without a doubt, this was a job in a million.
