Author's Note: Technically no research was done for this chapter aside from watching all the scenes of the show that take place in the Grantham Arms over and over and asking Tumblr for opinions on Tom's father (thanks Repmet and YankeeCountess!). Every city and town that I mention in this chapter is somewhere I have actually been even though it sounds like all I did was read the Wikipedia entry. The problem is that personally gathered information like, "There's a good Greek restaurant in Bray" isn't very useful when the year is 1914. Review this chapter and I will give you a totally useless fact about one of these places.
After the unexpected run-in with Isobel Crawley, the walk to the pub was fairly uneventful and short. The façade of the building was the same light brown brick as many of the surrounding buildings and truthfully would have been easy to miss had it not been for its swinging sign featuring the name of the pub and the arms in question.
Lady Sybil eyed the sign curiously as they approached.
"Those are the arms of my grandfather," she whispered to him matter-of-factly. "Do you think he might have established the pub? He had to have done something with it, right?"
He shrugged. "I wouldn't know. I've actually never been here before."
"An adventure for us both then," she said with a smile.
He grinned back at her as he held open the door so she could walk inside, following behind her. The interior was dimly lit and what he would call "homey," by which he may have meant, "smaller than he imagined but reasonable as a watering hole for a place the size of Downton." There were various tables scattered around with occasionally mismatched hard-backed chairs and benches, wooden wall panels above which hung paintings of the village, and a fireplace in the corner that was unlit as it was too warm to need the extra heat. Aside from an elderly man sitting at the bar smoking and chatting with the bartender and two middle aged men sharing a table near the dartboard on the wall, the place was empty. Thankfully, while it wasn't exactly high class and did have some roughness around the edges, it gave the appearance of being clean and welcoming.
She glanced around the interior, seemingly satisfied with what she saw, before looking back at him expectantly.
"Would you like to sit over there?" he asked, motioning to a table by the window, immediately regretting his choice as they could more easily be seen. After their experiences getting there, he felt like paranoia was reasonable but they had really already defied the odds of close encounters so what more could possibly happen?
"That would be fine," she said, walking over and sitting down in the chair facing the door before he could even think to pull her chair out for her. He sat down across from her and took off his hat, running his fingers through his pomade-free hair and smiling at her.
"So what do we do?" she asked quietly, looking at the other patrons out of the corner of her eye as if she was afraid they were judging her.
"Well, normally you would put in an order at the bar and then you either wait for it there or it is brought to you if there's a waiter but there doesn't appear to be one here," he said, scanning the area. Maybe they had one later but extra help probably wasn't needed in the middle of a weekday, in between meals. "Are you hungry?"
"No. I ate a fairly hearty lunch in preparation of our day out," she said.
"How about just a drink then?" he offered.
She eyed the lines of bottles behind the bar in trepidation.
"I'm afraid I wouldn't know what to order," she admitted, trying to study the labels from far away. "I've mostly only had wine and it's always selected for me."
"I could pick something out for you. Do you trust me?" he asked with raised brows.
"As I said a few days ago, I should learn to listen to people who know better than I do in situations I'm unfamiliar with," she said with a grin.
He smiled back at her, tapping the table as he stood up. "I'll be right back then."
He went up to the bar in the back where the bartender was utilizing the relatively slow day to wipe down the shelves and rearrange the bottles. He looked over his shoulder at Branson and then threw the towel he was using to clean over his shoulder.
"What can I get you?" he asked.
"A cider for the lady," he asked, pointing to one of the bottles that was on display behind the counter, "And Jameson for me?"
The fact that he had just called her a lady, even in the broadest of uses, almost made him laugh out loud at the wonderful absurdity of the situation.
The bartender looked past him for a minute to the girl seated by the window before shooting him a smile that he was pretty familiar with. It was the same sort of expression he would give his friends when he met their girls or wives: a look of approval. For a moment he forgot that the beautiful girl by the window was not his girl but his friend, his friend who society said was not even allowed to be his friend, and he felt himself grin sheepishly back, reddening a bit.
And I haven't even had anything to drink yet.
The drinks were placed on the bar and Branson thanked him, taking one in each hand over to the table. Her head was tilted upwards as she admired the framed paintings and photographs on the walls before he set the glasses down and she switched her gaze to him.
"Here you are, Miss Crawley," he said, sliding the taller glass towards her. She considered it with inquisitiveness but didn't ask what he had gotten her.
"Thank you, Mr. Branson," she replied, taking the glass in hand.
"Should we toast?" he asked, stopping her from taking a sip.
"Oh, of course," she said, lowering the glass slightly as she thought of something. "To getting away from it all," she declared in a cheerful tone, raising her glass up.
He mimicked her motion with a, "here, here" and watched as she took a tentative sip.
"Mmm," she murmured, unable to stop herself, "That's very good."
"I'm glad!" he exclaimed, taking a drink from his own glass.
"What is it?" she asked, following her initial cautious taste with a generous second.
"Cider," he told her. "It's a good choice for an inexperienced drinker."
"I should say so," she agreed, looking at his drink."What did you get? It looks almost like mine but you only got a fraction of the portion."
"It's whisky. Would you like to try it?"
She nodded in interest and he slid the glass towards her, watching intently as she pressed it to her lips. His composure as he watched her was broken when she made a strained guttural sound and scrunched up her face as she lowered the glass, her mouth in an exaggerated frown and her eyes clamped shut at the strong flavor. He tried so hard not to respond but he was soon unable to stop chuckling.
"I guess my inexperience is pretty clear now," she said in a tight voice, quickly trying to wash out the taste with another gulp of cider.
"It's all over your face I'm afraid," he joked with a wide smile that made her giggle herself.
When they eventually managed to control themselves, she passed him his glass and they both leaned back in their chairs to take in the calm atmosphere.
"I like this place," she said, passing her eyes around the room. "Although, it's a lot quieter than I thought it would be, I'll admit."
"Well, it is the middle of a work day. Most people probably won't start trickling in until after six at the least."
She sighed at herself. "Right, I wasn't thinking. This place must get quite busy to need a second level."
"That's where the rooms are, I'm pretty sure," he corrected, glancing towards the back to see if he could see any stairs or other employees that might indicate that the upper floor was in use. He could see that the bar seemed to have a whole other room on the ground floor but no guests were visible.
"What rooms?" she asked, taking another drink.
"I think the Grantham Arms also has accommodation. Someone might have mentioned it to me once," he said vaguely, a blurry memory of Anna telling him what she knew about the place coming to mind.
"So it's not just a pub but an inn?" she asked intrigued.
"Pretty much. In my experience rooms in pubs are usually cheaper than places that call themselves inns and are mostly for people passing through town or who were too drunk to make it home after a round downstairs."
He had gotten a room at a pub or two but it was a point of pride that it had always been for a reason intended to be considerate to someone else, often who he was visiting, and that he had never gotten a room as the result of excessive inebriation. Even in his slightly wilder, younger days he had far too much temperance for that. His rule of thumb was to never drink so much he could not find his way safely home.
"What else do you think goes on up there?" she asked with a mischievous glint in her eye.
The truth was, probably not much in a little village like Downton but he couldn't resist indulging her.
"Secret meetings?" he offered, raising an eyebrow.
"A lover's tryst, perhaps?" she added, equally amused. "Think of the scandal that could be going on above us!"
"Or right here," he said, speaking long before his mind could stop him. He had meant to imply that neither of them knew the true purpose of the men at the table or the man at the bar; any number of things could be going on with them. Of course, his timing made it seem like he was calling their presence there a scandal (which it truthfully could be) or, even worse, that he was implying that a lover's tryst was present right here.
Lady Sybil had blushed and looked away from him towards her half full glass and he wondered how she had interpreted his comment. Maybe she was just shy at the idea that they were sitting somewhere that disgraceful things could happen but he thought that seemed too abstract and minor for a strong girl like her and that it was more likely the two choices he had predicted. Neither option was agreeable but he honestly hoped that she was more saddened by the fact that the inappropriateness of their outing had been brought to her attention again than uncomfortable by incorrect implications.
Even as he did feel for her, he would never want just a tryst.
He tried to numb his line of thought by closing his eyes tightly and taking another swig of whisky.
"Well," she started, finally looking back up to let his remark pass by, "I feel like we talked about me the entire walk here and that's unfair. How are things with you? How's your family? You barely even mention them."
Barely mention them was a bit of a kind understatement on her part. He could only remember the topic of his family in Ireland coming up a few times and often in a very indistinct way. He didn't really think of it as something to talk about with her since she would have little to contribute and he was grateful just to be able to talk to her at all without risking alienating her by discussing personal things he shouldn't be discussing with the daughter of his employer.
He thought about the last letter he had received from his mother and tried to find the topic that would be most appealing to share.
"The big news in the last letter I received was that my sister, Catherine, just gave birth to her second child," he said, hopeful that would be a safe thing to mention.
"And she is your older sister, right?" she asked for clarification. "I remember you mentioning her."
"Yes, she is," he agreed in surprise. He couldn't even remember mentioning much more to her than the fact that he had sisters so it was stunning that she had managed to stow away that knowledge.
"And you have an older brother named Kieran who lives in Liverpool and a younger sister named Winifred but you call her something else. . ."
"Una," he said, pleased and a bit humbled that she had recalled so much.
"Yes," she said, taking a drink.
"She's my mother's favorite. The baby of the family," he said fondly. "But I guess you might know something about that."
"Well, I think it's clear to everyone that my father prefers Mary but I did always think that my mother might secretly favor me," she added with a slight grin of satisfaction before she furrowed her brow and shook her head gently. "Poor Edith."
He gave her a similarly sympathetic look for the plight of her sister. "In truth, I always felt like I was filling the role of the middle child myself since my older brother and sister are so close in age," he said taking a drink as she glanced downward, seemingly a bit ashamed for not making the connection before she spoke.
To try to ease the tension, he figured he would explain and instead let loose a stream of thoughts. "With Kieran and Catherine being less than a year apart and feeling like they always know what's best, they both fought for the coveted role of oldest sibling, you know, trying to set an example for me and Una to live by. We both related slightly better to Kieran though. My grandfather would say it's because we have the 'Branson family fire' in our blood, a trait of passion and varying degrees of recklessness to pursue it. Catherine's more like a stricter version of our mother: a warm person ultimately but with a formidable calm strength that seems to let nothing waver it. She can be terrifying if she doesn't like you. And I guess our personalities have to say something about our choices because while Catherine built her safe, secure walls in Dublin with her stable job and family, Kieran ran off to Liverpool and I ran off to Yorkshire. Una hasn't gone anywhere yet but she will. She's stayed in school longer than the rest of us and I know she's studying hard for her inevitable run off to some decent career. She'll be the first really formally educated person in the family and although I may come from farmers and factory workers, my father won't let me forget that I come from a line of well-read and intelligent people who were just ill-financed to choose any other path."
As he spoke, he noticed her leaning towards him, nodding as he talked. He hoped he wasn't boring her and trapping her into having to pretend to be following along.
"I have to admit that I'm surprised you could remember so much about my siblings. I can't even remember exactly when we talked much about them," he confessed, trying to get them back on track, "Aside from just now with my runaway mouth."
She smiled. "I have a pretty good memory. And I'm used to having to remember names of people I've never met so that I don't embarrass myself in future conversations. It's one of the first lessons a lady is given. So, Catherine had another child?" she said, quickly changing the subject away from herself. "A little boy or a little girl?"
"A healthy girl named Aisling. She was ecstatic. My mother had said in her letter that she was happy to have one of each."
"The best course, I'd say," she agreed. "Were there any stories about her?"
"Well, my mother had written that when they had baptized her she cried the whole time, loud wails of terror when they poured the holy water. My mother had said that she had always had some trouble when they would try to bathe her but for whatever reason this was just too much for her. So afterwards they took the train down near where we used to live by the sea and put my niece directly in the water for the first time with everyone around to show her it's not scary."
"Did that work?" she asked animatedly.
"Apparently, she loved it. Kicked and splashed without a care in the world! There's no fathoming the mind of a baby."
She laughed heartily as she lifted her glass to her mouth, drinking the remaining few drops.
"Would you like me to get you another?" he offered, a bit surprised by how fast she had put away the cider.
"Yes, thank you!" she said cheerily, her eyes bright with the drink.
He smirked at her heightened spirits and went up to the bar again.
"Another cider?" the bartender asked knowingly, glancing over at Lady Sybil. Clearly there wasn't much entertainment to be had from the other patrons.
He gave his assent and then glimpsed over at the man sitting to the right and gave him a friendly nod. The man stared back at him grumpily and took a swig from his glass, clearly not drinking for enjoyment.
Mercifully, her drink was ready quickly and he was able to avoid the glare of the man as he returned to his table.
"I bet you're a good uncle," she said grinning, as he placed the new glass in front of her.
"I would spoil those kids rotten if I could!" he said enthusiastically, sitting back down across from her and watching her take her first drink.
"Will you get to meet her any time soon?" she asked, momentarily catching him off guard as she ran her tongue over her upper lip to catch any liquid clinging to her mouth.
"I'm . . . not so sure," he answered slowly. "It would require a lot of time off and there's the cost to consider."
"Do you miss Ireland?" she asked gently, clearly feeling very sorry for him. Although he had gotten accustomed to spending time away from home in the near year and a half that he had been working at Downton, it was true that he really hadn't prepared himself for how many big events he would end up missing in the lives of his family and friends. He had already missed a wedding and a birth, and unfortunately, the progression of time was not going to stop there.
"Sometimes," he said, deciding that was the safe and honest answer. "It's hard not to feel homesick when I get a letter. It really is more practical for me to work in England," financially speaking, he added mentally. "But it can be hard missing so much of their lives. I only get little snippets and stories, most often from my mother because everyone else is too busy to write."
"I can't know what it's like to be separated from everyone close to you like that," she said softly. "But I can understand in a way. It can be hard to maintain friendships with people living as isolated as my family does. Of course, we have guests but they are often friends of my parents and most of them have sons who I was friendly with once as children but who now have little interest in talking to me. My own friends I sometimes only get to see during the season and as time goes on I find myself drifting further and further from most of them because of dwindling shared interests or fewer letters written between us or what have you."
He thought about telling her that the same thing had happened to him when he was around her age but he knew the situations were not the same. With his own emerging adulthood had come the revelation that he should cut people from his life who did not make good company. He had lost some friends, but only because he had chosen to. Everyone else he had stuck by and he had never had to worry about not seeing them enough or feeling lonely as she did since they all lived so close to each other.
He thought about telling her that he was always there for her if she needed someone to talk to but she had interjected with another question to bring the conversation back to him.
"What's Dublin like?" she wondered, with an engrossed look.
"Dublin is a city like any in England really," he said with an ambivalent wave of his hand. "It's much smaller than London. It's more the size of York but with far more people in it. It's, um, got mostly Georgian buildings but with a little bit of the medieval look still lingering around in the churches and castle. It's by the sea with the River Liffey running through it. Busy, but not . . . overly so." He shrugged. "I don't know what else you want me to say about it."
"Where does your family live there?" she asked, taking a drink.
"My mother, father, and Una live in a flat on the Northside, that is, north of the Liffey, and Catherine and her husband Daniel live a bit west of them. They see each other quite a bit from what I hear as Catherine gets a lot of help with her kids."
She smiled as if the idea really pleased her and it occurred to him that she had probably spent most of her childhood with a nanny and then a governess instead of being passed around among relatives throughout the day.
Speaking of loneliness, he thought, hoping that her childhood had been a good one in spite of the tale his mind was spinning.
"Has your family always lived in Dublin?"
"No, actually I was born in Bray which is south of Dublin right over the border in County Wicklow. My father's family has a sheep farm in Galway out in the west but he moved to Dublin for work and met my mother there. My mother is originally from Bray and they ended up moving out there after Kieran was born with my father traveling north for work. When I was nine my parents moved us to Dublin because my father found a better job that was even further from where we were. Moving to the city made it easier for my mother to pick up sewing jobs, she's a very good seamstress, and I also think it might have been cheaper for us to move into a smaller place in the city than it was to live away from it and have my father pay to travel."
"What does he do?"
"Not much anymore," he found himself saying before he could stop himself. He had been trying to hide the issue for so long that he felt a bit of relief at saying it.
Lady Sybil gazed at him in confusion.
"He's not well," he clarified, looking down at his nearly empty glass for a second before looking back at her compassionate expression.
"I'm sorry. May I ask why?" she wondered gently.
"He's been having heart problems. They used to be minor, sporadic things but now he spends a lot of time in bed," he explained, looking away from her mournful face. "My mother didn't say so explicitly but it's the end."
"Oh," she murmured. She was silent for a minute as she took another drink and gathered her words. "Well, you must go back there," she said assertively.
He sighed softly.
"I would love to, but . . ."
"No, you must," she interrupted with more force. "I will get Papa to give you the time off that you need. And as for the cost, I could help . . ."
"No," he stopped her, shaking his head. "It's too much."
"Of course it isn't," she said dismissively. "If you won't accept it directly from me, I can find some way you feel more comfortable with but either way you have to go home. You need to see your father and meet Aisling and give your mother a hug for me and I won't take no for an answer!"
He smiled somberly at her, in awe again at what a caring and generous person she was. He was sure that no matter how much time he spent in her presence, he would always find her charitable nature inspiring and unmatched.
"Well, I guess I have nothing more to say then," he told her, knowing there was no way he could thank her properly.
She gave him a sorry smile, which brought emphasis to the blush on her cheeks that he could not be sure of the origin: the alcohol or his words. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed her hand that had been resting on the table move towards where his own was lying on the other side and his heart leapt into his throat. He couldn't resist looking down at her hand making its slow journey before looking up into her eyes which were fixated on him and seemed to be questioning every movement. Then suddenly, she looked down and her hand retreated back to its original position as if she had thought better of what she was about to do and he tried not to let out a disappointed sigh.
When he had taken her hand at the garden party it had been in excitement, in triumph, and had not gone unnoticed by those who might question it. Here they were more secluded, visually less separated by class but it would be a gesture of comfort, of empathy. He didn't know whether she had stopped because she had learned her lesson about appropriate behavior last time or if it was because she didn't want to mar the original memory with this one. He hoped it was the latter but he suspected the former. To touch in such a way was a line she was wary to cross again after all they have had to endure today.
"All this talk about Dublin reminded me of something," he said finally, desperate to resurrect their conversation for her sake. "I actually just got a book I think you might enjoy if you're interested. It's a book of short stories about the lives of various people living there. It's very good."
"I would love to read it," she said earnestly. "I've actually been looking for something . . ."
She was cut off when she heard a loud sob that came on so quickly that she jumped in her seat in surprise. Similarly startled, he looked in the direction of the noise and saw the man who had been sitting at the bar shaking violently.
"I lost a boy in the Boer War!" he practically shouted in the direction of the bartender who appeared to only be half listening, the man's voice unsteady from a combination of drink and tears. "How many more? How many more!?"
His voice echoed in the pub as Branson looked over at the two younger men in the corner who had also stopped talking at the man's outburst and were watching him with detached absorption.
"Okay, Mr. Carling. I think it's time you go home," the bartender said with a touch of bitterness, clapping him on the shoulder in an attempt at being comforting. "Or do you need a lie down first?"
The man cried into his hands without giving him an answer as the bartender left his place behind the bar to walk over to the man and lead him into the back. Although they could not see them anymore he was surely being taken to where a staircase to the rooms was so he could calm down, sober up, or, at the very least, no longer disturb the few patrons the Grantham Arms had.
When they had disappeared, Branson looked back over at Lady Sybil whose face had dropped into the same one she had worn when they were talking about his father.
"That poor man," she said sadly. He nodded in agreement and they sat in silence for a long minute.
"We really cannot escape it, can we?" she asked finally.
He looked at her apologetically.
"I'm afraid not."
He had tried so hard to make her plan work and it seemed like no matter what they did if they managed to escape thoughts of the war, they were reminded of their class difference and if they managed to put that societal rule behind them they were being reminded of the war. And it was only likely to get worse.
And maybe he was just a stubborn, relentless fool but he still wasn't ready to admit defeat.
"But that doesn't mean we can't try."
She furrowed her brows dubiously as he looked over his shoulder at the wall next to the two men sitting.
"Have you ever played darts, Miss Crawley?" he asked, angling his head towards the dartboard hanging behind them.
"No," she answered with slight trepidation. "Have you?"
"Only very badly," he admitted casually. "Want to have a go?"
She looked from him to the dartboard and back, chuckling under her breath as if she couldn't believe his suggestion but he took her smile as a yes.
He grinned at her and left the table to approach the bartender who had since returned after putting the inebriated man in a room upstairs.
"Do you have the darts for that board?" he asked, motioning to the wall.
The bartender crouched down to look under the bar and pulled out a small wooden box.
"Be careful," he warned, handing Branson the box. He gave a nod of acknowledgment and walked over to Lady Sybil, who had finished her cider and gotten up from her seat to stand a few feet away from the board.
"So how do you play?" she asked, studying the numbers written along the outside.
"I don't really know the rules," he said, opening the box to reveal a few sets of darts with different colored stripes on the tails. "I just know you have to try to get it as close to the center as possible." He lifted the box up towards her invitingly. "Want to try?"
She glanced down at the darts and pulled out one with a white stripe at the end. Facing the wall and bringing her hand up next to her face, she tried to focus in on the center but wasn't really sure how to throw it properly and ended up launching the dart into the wall above the heads of the men sitting to the left of the board. Her hands flew to her face in shock.
"Oh! I'm sorry!" she said quickly, in a distinctly Yorkshire accent. For a second he was startled at the voice that had come out of her before he realized that she was trying to blend in. Her usual upper class tone would have been an immediate curiosity to the men who had no idea a Lady was in their midst. Her mind never censed to impress him.
"No harm done," assured one of the men as he pulled the dart out of the wall and handed it back to her. She took the dart sheepishly with a murmured, "thank you."
"Perhaps not quite so forcefully," Branson suggested as she got back into position, flushed with embarrassment.
She threw the dart again, gentler this time and it made it to the board but only onto one of the farther out rings.
"Try again," he told her, handing her another.
This one struck a bit closer to the center but had landed in a big hole and fell off. The board had clearly been used and abused in its day. She picked the dart off the floor and stood still, concentrating very hard for a minute before throwing it again. It found purchase just inside the metal ring that separated the middle circle.
"I got it!" she shouted excitedly. The men at the table gave her a light clap of acknowledgement. "That's not bad for my first round," she said softly to Branson in her natural voice.
"Not bad at all," he agreed admiringly. "And I think it calls for another round of drinks?"
She beamed at him in agreement.