Many thanks to HamiltonAsparagus for your detailed review and for adding this fic to Favourites and Alerts
***chapter 21***
"Mr Barrow." Tom Branson acknowledged, following on after his small daughter, who had rushed on ahead the moment she saw Thomas Barrow.
Tom meant to surprise the Crawley family with their unexpected return from the United States by sneaking into Downton Abbey the back way through the servants' entrance and stairs. While he was sure they would be delighted, he was not so sure they would approve of him taking such a route; neither would some of the more snobbish servants, but, dammit, he'd loved the lack of class barriers and easygoing way of America, and he wanted to inject some humour into the staid English country home, especially now they were over twenty years into the twentieth century. He hoped to find some of the less serious of the household staff - Anna or John Bates, for instance, who would recognise fun as soon as they saw it - to aid and abet him and Sybbie in creeping silently into the drawing room, where, when someone finally turned and saw them, he would reveal they were homesick and home for good.
He had not hoped or expected to find Barrow sitting outside in the frosty night stubbing out a cigarette in a cracked saucer. But he was.
Tom always felt as though he were in the middle of an ocean navigating stormy waters whenever he had dealings with Thomas Barrow. Which was strange because his late wife Lady Sybil had been friendly and relaxed with him, and as for his small daughter...well, Sybbie positively adored him. It was remarkable how often the child could introduce her absent friend into the conversation during their time in the USA.
"Mr Barrow knows about clocks. He could climb a very, very big ladder all the way to the sky and fix that big clock and he wouldn't be scared climbing really, really high, not even a little bit!"
"Mr Barrow said they call sweets candy in America. Can we send some candy to Mr Barrow?"
"Look, look! That man's got a mark on his hand and Mr Barrow's got a mark on his hand! Did that man get shot with Mr Barrow in the War and have to go to hospital and did he cry or was he brave like Mr Barrow said I was when I fell over and cut my knee?"
"Good evening, sir." Thomas answered the greeting as impassively as if their travelling thousands of miles to turn up unexpectedly happened every other day. "Welcome home." There was no particular inflection in his voice to suggest otherwise yet the polite words dripped with sarcasm.
Even though Barrow stood and tipped the brim of his hat, he still somehow managed to convey the message to the normally never ruffled Tom Branson that he was nothing more than a jumped-up chauffeur who had no business hobnobbing with the gentry, and who only got where he was through marrying into the family. It didn't matter that he'd loved Lady Sybil Crawley beyond life itself. Barrow seemed to regard himself as having been his wife's personal protector and Branson pretender to the throne.
Tom believed he knew why he behaved the way he did. There were several at Downton Abbey who suspected Thomas Barrow of being a homosexual, and though most were disgusted by it, Sybil had simply accepted him as he was. Tom had seen enough of the world to leave no room for doubt as to his sexual preferences, but while he held no prejudice towards him for it, Barrow still resented him for rising from being chauffeur, and therefore his inferior in the servant hierarchy, to becoming his superior as a member of the Crawley family, and was determined not to accept him.
And Sybbie asking Barrow which he thought best, the toy train or the doll, made him uncomfortable. Would he imagine he'd been drilling into the little girl that boys and girls should have different toys? Hell, why was he even thinking such ridiculous thoughts? But Barrow never failed to unsettle him. Tom had known of two or three men in the States who it was rumoured were homosexual, and who probably were, and none of them ever made him feel awkward like the extremely unlikeable, acid-tongued under-butler, whose only saving grace was that he was as genuinely fond of his small daughter as she was of him.
Elated to espy Thomas after so long, she had immediately run to her favourite person out of the household staff, and she tugged on his coat sleeve when he stood, anxious to keep his undivided attention. Sybbie had lots to tell and needed to tell it all at once.
"I like the train best. I've been on a train. I dropped my doll and her head fell off and Papa put it back on the wrong way 'cos he was being very silly. You know my friend Rachel in America? She's got a doll like mine, but her head didn't fall off. You know my friend Rachel? Did you know she won't eat all her dinner? Daddy said I was good 'cos I eat all my dinner." (Lapsing easily, Tom observed, into a more informal and American way of addressing her parent, Sybbie did not explain how she expected Thomas to have acquired such knowledge.) "I lost my two front teeth, look! Daddy says they're milk teeth and fall out and my friend Rachel's mom said fall out means argue but I don't think my teeth argued and Rachel said you have to put them under your pillow for the fairy..."
Thomas's expression softened as he looked down at the little girl, though it hardened again when, choosing the moment Sybbie, of necessity and not desire, actually paused for breath, he returned his gaze to the former chauffeur. The ghost, of a mocking smile briefly curved the corners of his lips. Because he knew and Tom Branson knew another meaning to the word fairy and he knew and Tom Branson knew that, while the appellation didn't trouble Thomas in the slightest, it troubled Tom Branson.
Oh, Tom was aware he was perfectly within his rights, being one of the Upstairs now, to rebuke him for his disrespect, but he was an honourable man who held fast to his socialist principles and eschewed pulling rank. If there was ever anyone who made him feel sorely tempted to pull rank, however, it was Thomas Barrow. What the hell was his problem anyway? He heard Mr Molesley once remarked he had an aversion to anyone else being happy. There was something in that.
Thomas took great satisfaction in the fact he unnerved Tom Branson. He would never forgive him for Lady Sybil's death. He should have absolutely insisted on following Dr Clarkson's advice she go to the hospital to be treated for eclampsia after Sybbie's birth. She might well have survived if he had. But even long before that, he put his wife in grave danger, taking her off to Ireland as he did, in the middle of the Irish revolution when wealthy English were being targeted.
Not many had been kind to Thomas in his life. Lady Sybil Crawley was one of the few. They developed a strong bond of friendship during their time working together in the cottage hospital, tending to those whose minds and bodies were broken by the Great War. Despite knowing of his homosexuality, Lady Sybil never judged him, never thought him repulsive, never treated him as anything other than a fellow human being. He missed her.
Her daughter Sybbie was almost four now and, as well as gaining a more extensive and impressive vocabulary, she had changed in other ways too since he saw her last. Her hair, damp with the frost, was darker and cut into a stylish bob; she was taller, much taller, and her face, ruddy with the iciness of the night, was losing the plumpness of babyhood.
She was wrapped up well in warm coat, scarf and gloves - she never did like wearing hats, no matter how cold it was, he recollected, and he could well imagine during their journey home there had been a difference of opinion regarding hats between the little girl and her father - and which of them won. Sybbie had always been her own person.
Her breath like smoke on the air, she was determined to tell him everything single thing that happened in America, no matter how long the story took. Kids were so honest, so true to themselves, so funny without knowing they were funny, he thought in amusement. They could be generous and mean, quiet and noisy, wise and naive, all in a single second. But they were never boring.
He would have given anything to be a father. Anything. To raise his own children so differently to the violent, cruel way William Barrow raised him. But it would never be. Homosexuals didn't have children. He knew at the root of his dislike for Tom Branson was plain, old-fashioned jealousy. He resented him for taking Lady Sybil away, for being a chauffeur and lower in status than him, then joining the gentry and being more important than him. For being a father when he never could.
"We need to get inside out of the cold now, Sybbie," Tom reminded her. Gently. Sybbie liked to dig her heels in at times. "Remember, we're going to sneak in and surprise everyone,"
"Can I walk in with Mr Barrow?" Her silver-blue eyes, his late wife's to a T, were sparkling with joy at being reunited with Thomas again, and she clutched his hand in a vice-like grip, jumping up and down with excitement. That must have hurt him, Tom reflected; he remembered the nerve damage he suffered from the bullet wound in the Great War still troubled Barrow to a certain extent and a flash of pain would cross his face if he happened to forget and reach for something too quickly when serving dinner. It obviously did hurt. He sucked in a breath and, obviously not wishing Sybbie to feel rejected if he dropped her hold, quietly moved the small gloved hand a little way away from the scar.
Well, whatever else he was, at least you couldn't accuse Barrow of not being good with kids. Lady Mary wrote to him how George, no matter how great the two-year-old's tantrums, and he was going for gold these days calmed when he saw Thomas; Lady Edith, too, mentioned in her letters that her ward, Marigold, had taken a shine to him despite being hesitant and shy with everyone else.
Another memory suddenly struck Tom. Before leaving for the States, he happened to go in Downton village's general store, where a small boy was crying miserably over a broken toy while his mother was too busy tending to his baby sister to give him much attention. And then Tom noticed Thomas Barrow. He watched as he stooped to the boy's height, said something that made him nod and tearfully smile, spoke with the mother, then allowed the child to take as long as he liked in choosing another toy, spoke with the mother again, indicating some chocolate bars and both children, then took out his wallet. He left the shop without seeing Tom.
Though he personally did not like the man, his daughter did and his little girl was the most important person in Tom Branson's life. It it made her happy to walk in with Barrow, then it made her father happy too. "Sure you can." Tom realised with a jolt Sybbie wasn't the only one who'd picked up Americanisms.
Barrow didn't thank him, but then he didn't expect anything else from the surly under-butler. He followed on with mixed emotions as Sybbie skipped along beside her friend. Annoyed his secret entrance via the servants quarters had been spoilt by him, glad that Sybbie was so happy in his company. Perhaps he ought to just get used to Thomas Barrow, he thought resignedly. Whatever lucky star rose on his horizon the day he was born, it was a powerful ally, for he skated on thin ice again and again and again, and yet somehow not only survived but came out on top. The man had nine lives.
Like Thomas, Tom Branson was unaware he had used up his ninth life already...
