Author's Note: Can't get enough of Tom and Sybil wandering around and talking about stuff? Then oh boy, have you come to the right place!
The unnecessary research for this chapter involved a lot of reading and rereading of texts, some of which were borrowed from my philosopher best friend who reads Kant and Nietzsche for fun.
As he stood waiting behind the garage, he passed the brim of his hat through his hands, spinning it around and around as he glanced in the direction of the Abbey and then in the direction of the village.
No sign of anyone.
With a sigh he put his hat back on his head and anxiously fumbled for his pocket watch. It was 1:35 in the afternoon, five minutes after when she said she would meet him.
It could be nothing. She could have gotten temporarily held up, he thought to himself. Or it could mean she's not coming.
She was so enthusiastic about their little outing and had been so devoted to every step of planning it. If she wasn't coming it seemed unlikely that it would be of her own volition and he was hoping that it wouldn't lead to trouble for her.
They had to wait a few days before he was given an afternoon off but the minute he was informed of it, he wrote a note with no more information than the day and times that he would be free and left it under a rock behind the garage, a clever method of information transport that she had devised so they wouldn't need to involve anyone else as a messenger who would need access to them both. Only a few hours later when he returned to the place he had left the note, he found a small blue envelope in its place and a matching letter containing nothing more than: At 1:30, I'll meet you right here.
He would freely admit that she had the most difficult part of the plan to contend with: that of leaving the house for hours without any one finding out that she was missing or asking too many questions. His contribution was merely to find a pub in the village and figure out how to get there. Unfortunately, his knowledge of pubs in Downton village was virtually nonexistent as he had never been in one. Sure, he would pass one whenever he went into town but neither the names nor the atmospheres seemed to attach to his memory. The only pub around that he was familiar with was in Ripon, which he stopped by occasionally on his way back from church, but it would be nonsense to complicate their already precarious plan by adding in miles of travel.
Carson had told him of his afternoon off at breakfast the day before and when everyone had gone about their chores, he had been alone at the table with Anna and Bates and decided to ask them if they knew of any places in the village. Anna had told him about the Grantham Arms which she had described as being the main pub of Downton and a fairly popular lunch destination. Bates had elaborated that he had heard of a pub called The Dog and Duck but didn't know much about it otherwise aside from rumors that it was a bit more downtrodden than Anna's recommendation. For a while he weighed the risk of being caught if they attended the more popular pub versus the desire to take her somewhere that would be nice and would show better judgment on his part. In the end he chose style over caution. To the Grantham Arms they would go.
"Hello!"
Branson jumped slightly at the loud whisper as he turned to look at the side of the garage around which Lady Sybil was poking out her head.
"Oh! I was trying not to startle you. I'm sorry," she said wringing her hands together as she emerged from hiding.
He let out a sigh of relief that she had made it out of the house successfully and smiled to reassure her.
"It's no trouble, milady. I'm just glad you got here," he admitted, eyeing her attire curiously. While he was surely no expert on women's fashion, he could tell from years spent in the vicinity of the upper class that what she was wearing was certainly not hers. The light, grey-hued jacket and skirt combination was of a far coarser and less expensive fabric than her usual attire and fit her too tightly in some places while being too long or loose in others. However, in spite of her dress which was obviously chosen to make her appear to be of a working class stature, her navy blue hat and gloves where ones that he had seen her wear before and were of a much higher quality. The hat and gloves could have easily given up her attempt at a disguise but they actually made her look like a lower class girl who happened to be proud of a few expensive gifts that she thought would make up for her hand-me-down outfit.
Lady Sybil had noticed him taking in her clothing and she tugged down the edge of the jacket self-consciously.
"I borrowed them from Gwen," she explained. "I didn't tell her why I needed them but she was happy to help. I thought wearing something like this would help conceal my identity. There are some advantages to being only the third daughter but you can't be too careful."
"I think that will do well, milady," he noted, with a nod of confirmation. "Shall we start walking?"
"Yes," she agreed and they started off down the hill so that they would not be seen. A slow smile began to form across her face in satisfaction that they had managed to succeed in her plan so far but her grin halted abruptly with a revelation. She looked up at him seriously.
"You can't call me that once we get into town," she said, lifting her long skirt slightly as they started to reach the bottom of the hill.
"Milady?" he clarified.
"It would give me away."
He nodded in agreement, as he thought about how strange it would appear to anyone passing by to hear a man call a woman by such a title when they appeared to be of the same class. It had become so habitual when he was addressing her that he initially thought he could get around it by trying to say it ironically but he didn't think he would be able to maintain that without slipping into an honest appellation that might raise eyebrows. The only other way he ever referred to her was as Lady Sybil and as much as he would have loved to just call her Sybil, he didn't think she would be comfortable with that. He knew she didn't think in terms of class, the fact that she had conceived this outing made it fairly clear that the girl who had, even sarcastically, once told him that she gave the orders was gone, but he knew how hard it could be to overcome what you have been taught to believe. Even if she found it perfectly acceptable, her father and mother's horrified reactions would probably still be lingering in the back of her mind.
"What shall I can you then?" he asked, thinking she should determine what she was most comfortable with.
Lady Sybil contemplated this for a moment and he imagined that she was running through the same ideas he had just explored.
"How about 'Ms. Crawley'?" she offered, clearly thinking it was the most neutral designation, concealing class and relationship to the speaker. "And I will call you 'Mr. Branson.'"
He smiled at this idea, allowing himself to picture a world in which they would have met under different circumstances and used these titles outright.
"That should work just fine, Ms. Crawley," he said shooting her a grin as he tried out the name.
"Thank you, Mr. Branson," she replied, giggling softly behind her gloved hand.
For a brief pause, there was no sound between them but the crunch of the brittle grass under their shoes. The August sun was blaring down, only mercifully concealed every so often by a passing cloud. England's usual dark clouds or rain were nowhere to be found and Tom reflected on how they couldn't have found a nicer day for this outing.
Unfortunately, as things had been going lately, every time someone seemed to find that they were feeling happy or fortunate, they found their minds tending back towards the war, guilty for the small pleasures. The morning paper had been disturbing to say the least and he suddenly couldn't expel it from his mind.
"I read an article in the paper this morning about how Germany. . ."
"Stop, please," she said swiftly, shutting her eyes as if the mere mention had brought her physical pain. "I'm sorry. I just thought we could have a day that would free us of these thoughts, even if it was only for a little while. Can we please talk about any other topic? It can be politics, just not that."
"Of course, mi . . . ss Crawley," he said gently, a little ashamed that he had brought it up in the first place. Her words from a few days ago replayed in his mind: And I think you and I could both use a distraction.
And that was what he was going to give her: a good time that they both needed.
"So how did you manage to make it out of the house without anyone questioning you?" he asked with a cheeky grin. "You never revealed that part of your masterful plan."
She smiled and shook her head.
"I think you'd rather not hear about that," she admitted.
"Well, now I must know," he answered, not looking away from her until she felt his eyes on her, looked at him and sighed in resignation, a bit of a smile still on her face.
"I knew I needed to tell them something that would convince them to leave me alone in my room for hours without asking too many questions. Faking an illness was the easiest way to do that but there weren't many ailments I could claim that would keep them from checking on me constantly and wondering if they should call a doctor so . . . I said I was having women's issues," she finally said, blushing red in the face that she had told him.
Unshaken, he nodded, impressed by her reasoning. He was actually more surprised that she had told him than that she had used this technique. He could remember briefly mentioning before that he has sisters and grew up in a house where everyone was open and privacy was nonexistent but he still found it hard to believe that she had divulged the full detail of her plan when it was about such a personal matter.
"That's very clever," he told her, hoping she wasn't too embarrassed. "And it would be easy to say you are feeling better later and able to come down for dinner."
She looked at him with visible relief that she hadn't revolted him and nodded at his assertion. "My father is usually the most suspicious of me but he leaves the room at even the briefest inkling that the topic will come up so I knew that was the perfect course of action."
"He's still watching you after the count incident?" he asked, amazed that Lord Grantham had managed, or at least gave the appearance of being able, to forgive and forget his role in the injury while still punishing her. "That was three months ago."
"With helping Gwen find a job and the fact that he caught me reading John Stuart Mill, I think it's safe to say I'm still not living up to his idea of a model daughter," she said with a small crooked smile that was equal parts sympathy for her father and pride in herself.
"The Subjection of Woman again?" he wondered, figuring that if so, this would be the fourth time she's read it since he initially suggested it.
"Utilitarianism actually," she corrected. "I'm afraid I don't know much on the topic so I found it a bit hard to follow but I wanted to explore more of the things he has done."
He hoped that discovery wouldn't be tied back to his influence. He had introduced her to Mill, this was true, but this particular selection was all her. Ever since he had first started recommending books, she had taken to finding things she could also pass on to him and had been so diligent that now his own reading list was a backlog of suggestions from her. She was responsible for introducing him to Mary Wollstonecraft for instance, a shameful oversight in his knowledge of women's rights literature that had escaped him since he had initially discovered the genre through works by liberal male writers.
If Lord Grantham was still holding any sort of grudge against him after the incident three months ago, he figured that any sense of him spreading his political and philosophical interests to his daughter would probably be enough to get fired or at the very least, would lead to him being watched with a close eye. He'd have to be careful about which books he chose to take from the library or the potential for another casual chat with his daughter ever again would be a lost hope.
"I'm afraid I'm not familiar with it myself either," he said finally, remembering that today, as she had insisted, was about not allowing our concerns to ruin our relaxation, and expelled those fears from his mind. "Did you get anything good out of it?"
"A lot of it has faded from my mind unfortunately," she admitted with a sigh. "He does put forth the idea that intellectual pursuits bring about more pleasure than trivial ones which struck me as an interesting thought that I'm not sure I can agree with."
"I guess it would be hard to take the word of a man who is so intellectually capable that anything trivial would surely bore him," he said with laughter in his voice.
She furrowed her brows and gave her head a small shake like she had just had an epiphany.
"Exactly," she said stunned, as if she had been trying to formulate why the theory seemed suspect and he had managed to find the exact words. "It's a nice idea though."
"How did you even find it in the first place?" he asked, since he didn't lend it to her and he doubted she had just found it in town somewhere.
"Oh, it was in the library," she exclaimed with the same kind of disbelief that he face showed. "I think my grandfather was more diversely read than he got credit for being. You'd be surprised by some of the controversial things I've found there."
"Perhaps he just wanted to know his enemy?" he noted, finding it hard to believe that the man who married Lady Violet Crawley and sired the current Lord Grantham was somehow the more forward thinking patriarch of the family line.
"That's more likely, yes," she agreed with a grin, and he wondered if she was having recollections of him. "My father made the strangest remark when he saw me reading it."
"What did he say?" he asked, looking forward to realize that they were closing in on the edge of Downton Village. He had been so drawn in by the conversation that he hadn't even noticed how far they had walked.
"He said, 'Wouldn't you prefer to read something more suitable for a girl your age? Wuthering Heights, perhaps?' I told him that I had already read it and he asked why I didn't just reread then."
They both chuckled at Lord Grantham's stubbornness.
"He may not want you reading anything too philosophical but his recommendations come from a strange place," he noted, probing his mind for the details of Emily Bronte's novel. "If I recall correctly, isn't that novel mostly about how a homeless servant inherits an estate and tortures his descendents and the daughter of the women who loved him but had married a wealthier man?"
She started laughing so loud that a murder of crows flew out of a nearby tree, spooked by the loud noise.
"You're certainly not wrong," she said, unable to stop smiling. "I think his suggestion was mostly driven by the novel's reputation as a love story. It wouldn't surprise me if he hadn't actually read it himself. I'm sure he'd revise his opinion if he knew the love story is only a small portion of the book and is between a servant and a woman of a higher class who haunts him after she has died."
"He might be able to twist it into a horror story about how you should stay with your own sort," he pointed out with humor in his tone.
"That wouldn't be easy," she explained, the story clearer in her mind. "The novel seems to say that everything goes wrong because Catherine denies her feelings for Heathcliff. That's why she dies and he goes on tortured and torturing, to use your word. Their happy ending comes in the afterlife."
He smiled mirthlessly. If that wasn't a perfect display of the divisions in society and the way it restricts relationships, he wasn't sure what was. For a moment it made him hyper aware of where he was: enjoying a day out with someone who he considered a friend he held deep warmth for but one who he was not, by society's standards, allowed to feel as strongly towards as he did. And she was a Lady who had to pretend not to be in order to make the outing possible at all.
Perhaps, he should read it again himself.
"There's no way his lordship has read this book."
She placed a gloved hand to her mouth to stifle a laugh now that they were closer to businesses and the occasional person walking about.
"I don't think so. No."
"Well, what did you say to his suggestion?"
"I just smiled and then he gave me that look," she said, trying to convey the look with a frown and eyebrows drawn together.
"The look of parental disapproval?" he asked, not unfamiliar with the face himself. While he had been fortunate enough to be supported by his parents in his career endeavors and his political interests, when he was a little younger he had been on the receiving end of such a face any time he came home later than his mother had wanted him to be. If he came home a wee bit intoxicated, the look was usually accompanied with a sigh or a head shake that left him particularly shameful as he knew his granddad had a touch of a drinking problem.
"Yes, but he has a specific look tailored to me. It says," she paused to say in a deeper voice, "Sybil, you're heading down a path that leads to spinsterhood and I worry about you."
He smirked at her impression. He had to admit that while her voice still sounded mostly like her, the cadence and expression were spot-on.
"There are far worse things to be than unmarried, I think," she continued, glancing down at the ground for a second before looking forward with a wistful look. "My debut made that perfectly clear."
His brow creased in puzzlement. When he had driven her and her family back from the train station after her first proper season in London, she had seemed to be in good spirits about the experience. Of course, he hadn't been able to talk to her about it directly and there was no reason for Lord and Lady Grantham to have told him that the trip was anything short of pleasurable, he had watched her on the drive and she seemed to be chatting about it quite happily with her mother and Lady Edith in between long periods of staring out the window with a content appearance. While he had missed getting to chat with her on the occasional drives, he had been glad she had enjoyed herself.
"What happened?" he asked softly, afraid that he was asking her to relive dreadful memories.
"Don't misunderstand me. I had a lovely time overall," she quickly insisted, noticing his delicate manner of asking. "I got to see my friends for the first time in what felt like forever, there was dancing, it was all such a good time . . . but I will admit that the men I was introduced to were a bit disappointing. Some were fantastically funny and one or two were really incredibly kind but plenty were so dull that I would have rather been locked in my room with nothing than have to listen to them talk of nothing. And very few seemed keen on conversation about anything important with a woman."
"That's horrible," he said earnestly, secretly a bit satisfied that she hadn't encountered any men she might want to correspond with but focusing on the anger he felt that she had been treated so poorly. Anyone who couldn't appreciate her mind had no business talking to her in the first place.
"I remember thinking: I would rather be alone than married to a man like that."
There are men who would like nothing more than to be with an intelligent woman like yourself, he wanted to say but was unable to as she continued speaking before he could find the courage to do so.
"I'm sure my father doesn't see it that way. One time he saw me reading The Awakening and I told him it was about the joys of family life. The touch of sarcasm was lost on him, thankfully. In hindsight, if he had known what the book was about he would have had a fit."
He had not read the book himself but he remembered hearing about it as it had been very notorious for being against what was expected of women and for some inappropriate sexual content (another book he wondered where she had managed to find it). He only knew that the woman in the book rejects high society and wants to leave her marriage and her children for another man but it ends badly.
"That book terrified me. After reading it I bombarded my mother and father with questions about the current legal rights of a married woman in England so I would know just what I should be prepared to fight for."
"Sorry I didn't initially recommend something on women's rights that was a bit more current." He could have given her Engels but given how much he emphasizes that the upper class woman is even more a slave of her husband than the proletariat who marries for love, he thought it might hit a bit too close to home and come off as insulting to his employer, which was not the impression he wanted to start off with in his first literature recommendation before she had gotten to understand him and his beliefs.
"It's alright. Were I a writer, I would like to compose an essay that would be useful to the modern woman on the subject." She perked up slightly as if she had an idea and glanced over at him with a smile. "Perhaps you could do it? You do have a politician's ways with words," she said, adding in a joking dramatic hand flourish.
"I like to think so," he said with a feigned smug attitude. "But I'm afraid I don't know as much about the present struggle for women's rights as you think I do," he admitted.
"Well, I could help you," she offered, delighted with the idea. "You should write something to call men to the cause while also informing women of what rights they have and what they can do to work for true equality."
He had to admit that while he wasn't sure how he would manage the time to research such an article, the idea of writing it, and of writing it with her, was intriguing. He found himself imagining a wonderful but completely improbable scenario in which he is in his cottage, sitting at his desk with a typewriter at the ready while she sits in a chair on the opposite side, paper and pen in hand as they shout ideas back and forth about what to write. She had already taken extensive notes and they are trying to find the best way to reach people through their words. He imagines composing something powerful that really affects the readers and when he is finished with it, they will share authorship of it. While John Stuart Mill credited his wife, Harriet, in helping with The Subjection of Women, this fact seems often forgotten. He would make sure people remembered who had done the work.
By Tom Branson and Lady Sybil Crawley.
Or Lady Sybil Crawley and Tom Branson.
Or perhaps, by Tom and Sybil Branson.
Suddenly embarrassed at having allowed himself to overstep the line, even if it was only in his head, he looked over at her and found that she had disappeared from his side. Frantically, he whipped around, scanning the area for her but afraid to call her name in case anyone around heard him.
"Miss . . . ?"
After a few panicked seconds, he saw a large tree to his right and from the edge of it was the slightest peak of the brim of a navy blue hat and the side of a too long grey skirt. He let out a relieved breath and walked behind the tree.
"Miss Crawley, what -?"
She cut him off by raising a finger to her lips to silence him and then discreetly pointed said finger in the direction that he had come from.
Very slowly, he started to turn, glancing out of the side of his eye at what had caused her to run and hide: Dr. Clarkson, walking through the area where they had been passing just seconds earlier. If there was anyone outside of her family who would be able to recognize her, even in disguise as she was, it was sure to be him and he would definitely pass on what he had seen to Lord and Lady Grantham. Branson imagined that their transgression would mean she would be confined to the estate until a suitable husband was found to take her off the Lord and Lady's hands and he would be let go from his position without a reference, never to see her again.
He moved in closer to her, situating himself at an angle to the tree so she would be mostly blocked from any direction the doctor might look on the path he was walking. She was almost facing him, their shoulders just a fraction away from touching when she lowered her head a bit more to conceal herself behind his broad form, causing her to move in closer. He tensed up immediately, even more so than he had been at the initial fear of them being spotted. She was as near to him as she might be if they were dancing, closer even if he was thinking of the sorts of dances she participated in. Her sweet scent was inescapable and it took all his willpower not to enfold her in his arms as he watched her eyes, obscured by her hat, focus on his chest for a long while before they moved up to his face nervously.
"Is he gone?" she asked softly, and he realized that the reason for their tight proximity had slipped his mind.
He looked over his left shoulder as she attempted to look over his right and after a solid few seconds of combing the area for the village doctor, they came to the same conclusion.
"We're safe," he said, and watched sadly as she moved away from him and their seclusion and back into the open.
"Branson?"
At the sound of his name, they both froze and exchanged glances. He could hear her mumble "oh no" under her breath, clearly aware of who had called him but he had to admit that he really couldn't place the voice.
Before he had much time to think it over, Isobel Crawley had appeared before him and Lady Sybil had managed to, as surreptitiously as she could, slink behind him.
"Mrs. Crawley," he acknowledged with a nod. "It's good to see you."
"It must be truly rare to catch you on a day off," she said smiling in her usual content manner. She inclined her head towards his mysterious companion with a clear intent to introduce herself but no words managed to escape her tightly grinning mouth.
He knew the moment their charade was over when her brows started to crease and she took a long, curious look at the girl trying to hide beneath her hat and the man in front of her.
"Sybil?" Isobel Crawley addressed. Her voice was not substantially surprised or judgmental, just uncertain as if she wasn't sure she was identifying her correctly.
She tilted her head up at the sound of her name, the sound of defeat.
"Hello, Cousin Isobel," she said with a feeble smile that matched well with her partner's crestfallen expression that he was trying to mask behind his own weak grin.
Mrs. Crawley seemed to sense their discomfort as her brows softened and she tried to lighten the mood.
"So what are you two up to? Is there some kind of political meeting I haven't heard about?"
He could tell that she knew they were afraid to have been seen by her. He knew she knew even with her liberal, middle class ways, they were not supposed to be out together in a social manner and that his lack of uniform and Lady Sybil's disguise made it perfectly clear that was what they were doing. He knew she knew that even if they had been going to something political she had somehow managed to miss that it would probably not be approved of by Lord Grantham (of course, that would be unlikely to stop her).
But he also knew that Isobel Crawley was a very open-minded woman who rested on the same side of the political spectrum as them and didn't seem to care about classes and the rules of proper society any more than they did. He knew Lady Sybil admired her and Mrs. Crawley had always been very kind to him so it would not be unfounded to think that she would be willing to keep this encounter a secret from Lord and Lady Grantham.
He would not ask her to but he hoped he was right in his assessment of her. However, he knew the whole truth about Lady Sybil wanting to go to a pub would not sound as good as something else so he accepted that he would need to tell a small lie.
"We're actually collecting pamphlets," he blurted out, unable to form the rest of the thought. Pamphlets made the situation sound important and political but in his nervous state he hadn't thought to mention what they were about or why they were collecting them.
"For women's clubs," Lady Sybil finished quickly. "I want to join a club that is focused on equal rights and Branson is helping me find information on them. I think it would be a good use of my time."
"Yes, it certainly would be," Isobel agreed with a nod. "Especially with the war, it will be good to not lose sight of our other goals."
The dark cloud they had been trying to avoid passed over them as they glanced at each other. Neither of them had broken their rule but maybe it was folly to think that if they were in agreement to not talk about it, they would be able to avoid it from the rest of the world as well.
As if she was trying to diffuse both the situation's inherent awkwardness and the new layer of gloom she had unintentionally provided, Isobel let out a loud, high-pitched sigh.
"Well, I'd best leave you to it," she said jovially. "Good luck in your search."
"Thank you," Lady Sybil replied while Branson gave her a nod of affirmation, and, without hesitation, Cousin Isobel walked on as if nothing unusual had happened.
For a moment they both watched her retreating form, mildly dumbstruck at what had just happened but ultimately coming to the same conclusion.
"She isn't going to mention this to anyone," Branson stated, a note of relief in his otherwise strictly factual tone.
She looked over at him with a bit of wonder as if she was still processing that truth herself.
"It wasn't a mere oversight that she didn't ask more questions about what we were doing," she observed with an air of experience.
She wanted us to have our privacy, he thought. Even though privacy is a luxury this world doesn't believe we should have and we were so close to having it all ripped away. Twice.
That thought was almost enough for him to tell her that they should forget about their day out and just go back to Downton. If she still wanted to spend any time at all with him, after he had ruined her day, they could do so behind the safely closed doors of the garage.
But then she glanced up at him, the fear of almost being revealed to her family simmering in her eyes. She looked like she was expecting him to tell her it was too dangerous to stay here and then all her planning and attempts at cheering would have been for nothing. She looked so sorry that she had gotten them into yet another mess that could have ended with him losing his job.
And he found that he couldn't tell her what she was preparing to hear.
"We'd best get on to the pub," he said, smiling in a manner that was only somewhat forced for her sake. "I'm sure we'll both feel better with a little drink."
She smiled in relief and nodded as they walked on, deciding to take a lesson from Cousin Isobel and pretend it never happened.