Filling in an annoying gap in the original storyline. WARNING: its summer so the opening gets rather steamy, may not be for everyone. Enjoy!
Chapter 10 – Reunion
Day was breaking…patches of fog crept across the verdant swathe of lawn that stretched from the foot of Downton Abbey…in the distance he could barely see the outline of the temple…a woman's voice summoned him to join her there…wearing only a shirt and trousers he slowly walked toward it and her…his feet grew wet as the blades of grass slid through his toes…he could hear her lyrical voice become more audible with each step…"Tom," she whispered…he came closer and the round temple gradually appeared out of the grey haze…he halted...he breathed in the crisp air…he heard his name again "Tom," but saw no one…until out of the mist he could grasp the figure of a woman slowly emerging from the Doric colonnade…she wore a long white diaphanous gown that fluttered in the gentle breeze…she walked barefoot down the stone stairs…he could not discern her face, he only heard her call…"Tom," she gently beckoned…she came closer and he could see the sensuous curves of her body through the sheer fabric of her shift…her breasts were round and voluptuous…a wisp of fabric shrouded her face…she held out her arms…opening them wide, she gestured him to come to her…he stepped willingly into her embrace…his body met hers…they were fully unclothed…his arms slid around her waist…her breasts pressed against his chest…her skin felt dewy…her hair was soft against his cheek as its curls cascaded down her back…she smelled of grass and orange blossoms…"Tom," she whispered in his ear…his hands caressed the gentle curve of her damp back...her supple lips lightly grazed his shoulder…he'd never felt anything so blissful…so pleasurable…his head fell back in ecstasy…he looked down and her face came into view…Sybil…
"Sybil!" he gasped as he sat up arrested from his sleep by the vivid dream. He was in his cottage. It was still night. And he was now fully aroused. You're having an erotic dream about your mistress, he thought. Get ahold of yourself Tom Branson. He took in a deep breath, then lay down again to finish the pleasure the dream had begun.
Branson arrived in London in the late afternoon. He had driven Lord and Lady Grantham, and the Dowager Countess from Downton to Grantham House this warm July day. Because they were eager to join in the festivities of the new season, the Crawley daughters had taken a train earlier in the week. It was his second London season for the family, so at least he was now accustomed to the city routines.
Downstairs was abuzz that this year Lady Sybil would be making her social debut. He tried to ignore the chatter of the maids in both households because he had heard (and dreamed) enough about the Earl's youngest daughter. He was determined to avoid being alone with her for the entire month they were to spend here. In the aftermath of the Ripon brawl, they had seen little of one another and it was always in the company of others. Lord Grantham had wisely enlisted Mr. Carson and the staff to keep a watchful eye on his wayward daughter. And for a change she was obedient as he suspected she was not going to jeopardize her debut at court. Anyway, he was fine with keeping some distance from what in his mind had become a vexing problem of his very confused heart.
His schedule was busy when in town, mostly with driving the family to dinner parties in the evenings. He would bring the car around the front of Grantham House these nights. Dressed in their finest evening attire, Lord and Lady Grantham, and two or all of the daughters would climb inside. On occasion the Dowager Countess in full regalia would join them. The Crawley daughters were always giddy and filled with speculation on which eligible escort they would meet that evening. He would drop the family off at some stately terrace house that sat on one of the city's elegant squares. While the family dined, he would either wait patiently out front with the motorcar or sometimes the kitchen staff of the hosting family would invite him inside for tea or a meal. Typically after midnight, he would drive them all back to Grantham House.
Sometimes while he waited outside for the family, he would watch the other guests arrive. Heading into the parties would always be twosomes of young men dressed in elegant black evening clothes, tall silk hats, and carrying gold knobbed canes. No doubt future Viscounts and Earls, perhaps even a Duke, seeking a wife. He wondered which one these haughty aristocrats would catch Lady Sybil's fancy. In the tall windows of these grand houses he could on occasion see the silhouettes of gentlemen talking to ladies. Lady Sybil was stunningly attired he observed when he caught a glimpse of her in one of her flowing evening gowns. She sparkled and men would certainly alight to her like a moth to a flame. He only hoped that when the marriage contracts were signed that she would find a husband who was deserving of her kindness, respected her intelligence, and loved her deeply.
"Tom, ya seem a bit agitated, if you don't mind my saying," Mr. Bates observed one morning of his friend, colleague, and temporary roommate. "At night you're tossin' and turnin' like a side of mutton on a spit. No more problems with your brother?"
"No I haven't heard anything more from Tim, that situation does have me worried still. But thanks for askin'," Branson rubbed his face as he sat on the edge of the bed. "Don't know what it is, just feeling restless I suppose. You might say things aren't where they ought to be," he replied elliptically not wanting to talk about what was really on his mind or troubling his heart.
"Since we're both off tomorrow afternoon, how about we go over to Masons for a fine Sunday meal. You can have a pint and we can talk about what's been eating at you?"
Branson took a moment to consider his offer. "Yes, I could use that. Thank you," he agreed thinking this might be a good idea.
He did need to talk to someone, and he implicitly trusted Bates and his sterling good judgment—it had certainly helped Tim. Given the way Bates and Anna kept exchanging furtive glances around the halls and stairwells of Downton, he suspected his friend the valet might have some romantic concerns of his own that may be equally as complicated. In light of that fact, he might be able offer some advice on what was causing all the turmoil and what to do about it. Or at the very least the two men could commiserate.
The next day arrived and they walked over to the Mason Arms. The rotund proprietress looked much the same as last summer and instantly welcomed her not-so regular patron Mr. Bates.
"Mr. Bates, welcome home. How's life up there in wilds of Yorkshire?" Mrs. Hall greeted him at the door.
"Ah Mrs. Hall good to see you again, its not as wild as ya think up there, and its been a long time since London's been my home," he replied warmly as she showed them to a table near the window.
"And who's ya friend here Mr. Bates," Mrs. Hall inquired wanting to know who was entering her establishment.
"This is Mr. Branson," he told her.
"Tom. Please to meet you Mrs. Hall," he greeted her, hoping she would not remember him from last summer.
But alas she had excellent recall, and clearly kept track of who came in and out of her dining room. "Mr. Branson, you look awfully familiar. Huh…you've been here? I remember now with a fetching dark haired lass you were. Ya shoulda seen them Mr. Bates, their cheeks turned bright red when I asked them if they were a couple–so sweet I tell ya! How's that girl of yours?"
"Mrs. Hall…well…I'm not" he once again choked up. "She's not my girl," he explained with a hint of regret in his voice.
"Well too bad ya let that one get away, someone else's a lucky fella. Now what'll you two gentleman be havin'?" she asked her guests.
Once they ordered their meal, the conversation immediately turned toward the issue at hand.
"Brought a girl here did you? Might that be what's bothering you now that you're back in London?"
"I rescued a friend last summer who'd gotten into a bit of a tough spot, that's all," he began to explain. Then he took a deep breath, looked up, and confessed, "But John, she is the trouble, if you want to call her that."
Mrs. Hall brought Branson a pint and Mr. Bates a cup of coffee.
"So it is a matter of the heart then?" Bates wondered about his friend.
"Indeed. A very confused one," he took a sip of ale to get up his courage to explain what was clearly a delicate situation. "I feel frozen, I feel trapped in my own uncertainty. I'm unable to move forward. I like her. I think about her…well a lot. I've never met a woman quite like her."
"That sounds promising. Maybe you need to be more forceful. Not so afraid. Sounds like she lives here then, take her to a picture show why don't you? What's the problem?"
"Truth is I could never take her to those places. We could never be together in any way. It's just not possible for many obvious reasons if you knew her. Her entire world would collapse and she'd be cast out," he sketched for Bates "the why" without telling him "the who."
"Well that's truly unfortunate for you my friend," Bates sympathized, too respectful of Branson's privacy to pry any further.
"But the thing is I can't stop thinkin' about her. She's everywhere I turn. Its like," he had to think about how to phrase it, "it's like she's gotten into my blood," he admitted staring down at his pint of ale.
"Well then that is bad," Bates said, he held up his cup took a sip of coffee and looked off into the distance while he thought it over. Branson said nothing, just twisted around his pint glass. Then Bates piped up, "What ya need is a cure for that. And I think the cure's to find someone else. Someone to take your mind off the other one, the one you can't have."
"You think so?" Branson asked mulling over this seemingly logical suggestion.
"I know so. I've been in that situation myself. And it helps to find someone else. Someone who's less 'trouble' shall we say."
"You mean someone like Anna for instance?" he redirected the conversation onto Bates' own personal travails.
"I'm not the one who's trying to mend what sounds like a broken heart."
"Oh aren't you?" he reminded Bates, who smiled back at his friend's very astute observation of his own tortured affairs of the heart.
Just then Mrs. Hall brought over their plates piled high with steaming slices of roast lamb and potatoes—much to Mr. Bates relief. "Tom there's no need to worry about me, now eat ya potatoes why don't' you," his friend directed as he picked up his fork. And the two men commenced to have a hearty laugh and hearty meal. The rest of their discussion drifted onto politics and the storm brewing between Austria-Hungary, France, Russia, the German Reich, and Britain.
After Mrs. Hall's filling dinner, not quite on par with Mrs. Patmore's fine cuisine, but close, he and Bates parted ways. Branson was grateful for his friend's advice. And to think through what they had discussed, he decided to take a long walk on the lovely summer evening. Meandering through the city's streets and lanes was always a good way to sift through ideas, problems, and aspirations.
As he wandered amidst the early evening crowds, Branson pondered where his life was heading. Marriage had not been something that was foremost on his agenda of what to pursue. His first job away from home had been at seventeen and he had worked diligently in service for ten years now. While a young man, his mind had been focused on books and from those he started to piece together in his head a puzzle of how the world should be. He still did not have all the pieces just yet to know exactly how that was going to happen or what he should do. But he felt these diverse experiences were providing him with that knowledge.
His mother, of course, hoped all of her boys would marry fine local girls. And that as a contented couple they would grow old and fat together in a house filled children—as she had planned to do with his father. But she was a very wise woman and also wanted each to find happiness with whomever they married. Gemma, even with their religious differences, from his mother's perspective made him happy. That he realized once his mother was gone was her most cherished wish. He regretted she would never know that special woman or their children. But he was also sure that one reason why he hadn't married yet like his brother Kevin, who wed Kate when he was 18, or Tim, who certainly had his favorites, was that he didn't believe that wives should be subordinate to their husbands. He wanted to find a woman who had her own mind, her own passions—and he knew that such a woman would be a rare find.
Lamplighters climbed up the poles to illuminate the streetlights along the Strand as he walked deeply lost in thought. He of course needed female companionship from time to time. He'd been intimate with women before: a girl in the neighborhood, one of the housemaids from a nearby estate when he worked for Mrs. Ennis, and there had been others. So he knew his desires, as well as how to please a woman, which most men around him thought unimportant. Over the years, there had been women in is life, but none whom he could actually go through with marrying.
Much to his surprise, his yearlong retreat to Yorkshire had brought another dimension to his life – he had fallen in love. He didn't plan it, he still couldn't pinpoint exactly when it happened—it had kind of gradually crept up on him. The vivid dreams were certainly an indicator of the depth of his desire for her. But falling in love with his employer's daughter, an aristocrat no less, was not in the offing. There was no point in pursuing anything more than their mistress and servant relationship. He knew deep inside that it would be impossible to conquer the chasm between their two worlds. He was not naïve to believe that love would conquer all. The world was far more complicated and ruthless than that. But Bates was right, what he needed to do was find a distraction, someone to take his mind off Sybil. And he had an inkling of who that "someone else" might be—Millie, a maid in Lord Peckham's household.
By now it was just about twilight and it being Sunday the music halls were shuttered, so the evening theater crowds were absent from the sidewalks. Although men still lingered in the nearby public houses and taverns. And the prostitutes still discretely plied their trade from the alleys and lanes. Assembled in groups of two or three, these women donning silk dresses and jewels, albeit fake ones, might be mistaken for "ladies," except for their absence of escorts. Their current plight, he thought sympathetically as he walked by them, was another fallout from the imbalance of wealth in society, and the imbalance of power between men and women.
"Need somethin' mister," one offered his way.
"'e's a looker that one, lookin' for me are ya?" another woman inquired.
"Ay mister," yelled a voice from the group of three. Her call stopped him dead in his tracks. He turned to see who had summoned him.
"Who said that?" he inquired.
"What ya lookin' for mister?" she asked again.
"Gemma, is that you?" he was sure he recognized the voice and scrutinized the woman who spoke to him.
"Tom? Nah, that can't be you?" Gemma walked toward him into the yellow light of streetlamps. And from her face, even with age and makeup, he knew it was she. He had not seen nor heard from her for ten years.
"You're alive!" he gleefully said and instinctively drew her into his embrace. "I can't believe it's really you." His heart was simultaneously alive with great joy and weighed down with deep sorrow given where he found her.
"Tom, Tom Branson, it's so good to see a face from home," she said through the tears that now welled up in her eyes.
He looked around, they could not talk here, "come with me. Don't worry," he assured. He grasped Gemma's hand and led her away. She came willingly, which meant that she still trusted him.
Nearby he found a tavern and the old friends sat down together. "Gemma love!" yelled the bartender. He realized this was one of her haunts.
"Bring him a pint and me a glass o' my usual," she requested. "Men are always happy to buy champagne for me, sometimes its on the house, plus I like the way it tickles me throat," she explained. She still had that glow about her he observed in the electric light of the tavern. Her fine light hair was now put up in curls with bright red bows and her hazel eyes still had a beauty about them, but the spark he fondly recalled had now vanished.
They had ten years to fill in. He started first and told her about his life thus far, how he ended up in North Yorkshire, and why he was in London for the month. "They sound like good decent people ya work for. You were always the smart one, my Pa could tell. That's why he wanted you to continue with your schoolin' even if ya had to work. I'm proud of ya," she warmly complimented raising her glass of champagne to toast him.
Then it was her turn. He found out that she had fled to Liverpool, then made her way to London. She first had success finding work in service. But she was soon dismissed from her first position as a housemaid due to a master who thought making his bed also meant she should join him in it. He sacked her and couldn't get a reference, which made it difficult to move elsewhere without it. She then tried to secure factory work and piece-work, but times were hard and these jobs went to locals, not an Irishwoman far from home. Hungry, destitute with no one to turn to, she eventually found work selling her sexual services.
Branson told her she should have sent word to him. Gemma tried to assure him it was not as bad or evil as they make it out to be. And she informed him that she was a "better class o' streetwalker" because she worked the music halls and theaters. "I get the real gentlemen," she told him of her well-heeled clientele. He paid for the drinks and they walked outside into the summer night. He wanted to escort her home, but instead she insisted he could walk her not far the tavern.
As they strolled along the Strand, Gemma wanted to know about his family. He told her that his Pa, brothers, and sisters were all fine. Next he informed her that his mother had died last year. She was truly sorry about that, she was very fond of his Ma.
Branson stopped, turned toward Gemma then gave her the news: "Donnelly's dead." He explained what had happened between his mother's murder and Tim's fight.
Gemma turned white as a sheet and began to visibly shake. "He made me hate myself," she cried shaking her head from side to side.
Branson held her hands, "Gemma look at me, look at me," he demanded, "he's dead. He can't hurt you anymore." And he took her into his arms to calm what had now become a torrent of tears, just like he had done some ten years before. He softly kissed her forehead and rocked gently until she stopped crying. In many ways he now understood, she had been his first love.
He tilted her head up and wiped her tears with his fingers. "Gemma," he began, "I know where to find you now, let me help you. Please."
"Tom, I'm a ghost. You haven't seen me, the innocent girl you knew disappeared that May afternoon," she said. "She's long gone."
"Will you promise me this: if I can find some work for you besides this, you'll at least consider it—for me?"
"Ya know I could never refuse you anything. You were and guess still are my very best friend," she assured him. "I'm usually here most nights. Goodnight," she bid and rejoined her fellow prostitutes seeking late night patrons. He headed back to Grantham House returning well after midnight. He was emotionally devastated.
A slight breeze stirred the warm air of the July evening. He leaned against the Renault in front of Grantham House as he waited for the family to come out. Running his hand through his hair, he was deep in thought, as he had been all week, trying to figure out how to help Gemma. If Bates thought he was distracted before, he was now utterly absorbed by the daunting task of what to do about her current situation. He still hadn't come up with a viable solution.
"Mama I'll wait outside, it's cooler. Thank you Mr. Carson," a familiar voice startled him out of his meditation. He looked up and he saw Lady Sybil standing on the porch. She wore a white silk gown with beading that glittered in the ephemeral light of the early evening. With her hair pinned in curls, she gracefully approached him down the stairs. Her gown's layers of sheer fabric fluttered in early evening breeze. He couldn't take his eyes off of her. She looked divine, he thought. It was after all the night of her big ball.
"There you are, hello," she warmly greeted him as he brushed off his uniform and stood ready to serve.
Her exquisite beauty transfixed him. The orange sunlight of the early evening lent her a radiant aura. "Good evening milady," was all he could muster as he tried to arrest his stare.
"I sneaked out," she said in a whisper. "I knew you'd be waiting out here. I wanted to talk to you before my parents and Granny come out," she confessed beaming and clearly happy to see him. "You are well?"
"Yes milady," he dutifully replied.
I see you in passing, but...I, it's been two months now and I miss…" but for some reason she couldn't finish what she started to say.
He didn't know quite what to say either so he stalled, "So this evening's your big night, are you excited milady?"
"Thank you for asking. Oh I don't know, I suppose I should be excited. Since I was a little girl, I was told this was something to look forward to, to cherish. Mary and Edith promised me I would be full-fledged woman once I was presented at court. But to be honest, it all seems rather silly, insignificant relative to all that's happening in the world. Spending the evening being ogled and put on display like a prized Ming vase at an auction is not what I would call memorable. Perhaps my moral compass has shifted somewhat," she said with a tone of resignation in her voice.
"I'm sure it will be a wonderful evening milady," he tactfully responded trying to maintain some modicum of professional distance between them. But he did not expect her to answer in this manner. Quite the opposite, he thought she would be delirious with anticipation of her big debut.
"I could never tell Mama and Papa this. They would be disappointed in me. And Granny will think I'm daft. She would say that I'm suffering from dementia due to my fall in Ripon," she laughed. "But I think you understand what I mean, don't you?" she asked sincerely of him looking into his eyes for confirmation.
She really was remarkable. "I do understand milady," he told her, pleased that she took him into her confidence. Regardless of how much he tried to erect a wall of decorum between them, there was something that drew him to her. He was beginning to wonder if the attraction was mutual.
"How's your brother?" she then asked.
"I haven't…" he began, but just then Carson opened the door for Lord and Lady Grantham. Her mother called out to Sybil: "Oh, we were wondering where on earth you'd gone off to my dear. And you're already out here. You must be eager to get to your very first ball."
"Yes Mama, I'm right here," she said turning her attention to her parents.
He grabbed his hat from the front seat, buttoned up his uniform, and went to open the car door. He gazed forward and assumed his position as the household's chauffeur. She gathered the flowing layers of her evening gown. Signaling she needed assistance, she held out her hand to get into the car. As she took his hand, she deliberately squeezed it. Sybil smiled knowingly at him and longingly, he detected. She was pleased to reconnect with an old friend.