Fic: The oldest, yet the latest thing (Part 1)
Title: The oldest, yet the latest thing
Author: sagestreet
Fandom: Downton Abbey
Pairing: (eventual) Thomas Barrow/Jimmy Kent; (past) Thomas Barrow/Edward Courtenay
Rating: NC-17 (overall)
Spoilers: set post Christmas Special 2012
Warnings: explicit sexual situations; references to the Great War; period-specific homophobia, misogyny and outdated concepts of gender roles (all of which the author explicitly doesn’t subscribe to); probably some strong language thrown in for good measure
Summary: Jimmy has a secret. Thomas is lonely. A sudden rain shower and an umbrella might change both those things …
Soundtrack: Al Bowlly “Love is the Sweetest Thing” (1932)
The oldest, yet the latest thing
It all starts with a telegram - the way these things tend to do.
The way a bleeding cut starts with a razor breaking the skin. The way a record starts with a crackling sound when you place the needle on it. The way a cricket match starts with the umpire yelling, “Play.”
It starts with a telegram. But that doesn't happen until later.
Not until after winter has started to slowly eat away at what little cheerfulness a house of mourning such as theirs has managed to regain over Christmas. Not until after a seemingly endless, dark and rainy January has given way to an equally rainy February, that tears the last vestiges of their morale to shreds, clawing away at their nerves.
It all starts later. Much later.
For now, all that Jimmy can think about is Mr Barrow’s pensive face. Ever since the man has received the news of his father’s death, he has been unusually quiet, not exactly sad probably, but certainly in a brooding mood.
Jimmy, true to the tentative friendship they have somehow managed to form since September, offers the underbutler his condolences of course, shakes the man’s hand and tells him how sorry he is for his loss. To which, Barrow just quietly snorts, “Why you should be sorry about the death of a bastard who managed to make my life a living hell when he was still around is honestly beyond me.”
Then the man carefully extricates his pale hand from Jimmy’s grasp, apparently following this unwritten rule between them that dictates they never touch.
No, Barrow doesn’t seem particularly saddened; it looks more as if he is scheming, plotting something in that raven-haired head of his. But yes, he has been quieter and even more contemplative than usual.
It’s not until a few days later that Jimmy finds out - through the rumour mill, as per usual - that Lord Grantham has told Mr Bates he honestly hopes Mr Barrow won’t just up and leave now that he has got the means to do so. (Mr Bates has subsequently told Anna about it, who has passed the news on to Mrs Hughes, who couldn’t have kept it from the maids even if she had wanted to, who … Well, long story short, a few days later, the entire household knows that Barrow has inherited a small fortune.)
“Always thought he was as poor as a workhouse rat,” Barrow confirms the rumours to Jimmy, speaking around his customary cigarette as the two of them stand outside one evening between two spells of rain. “Turns out he’s been out of the country for years.”
Jimmy makes a mental note of how the man apparently hasn’t even known where his own father has been residing for the past few years. ‘How badly do you have to fall out with your son for him to stop wanting to know about your life?’ he wonders.
“‘Cause, you see … he was in Switzerland all this time, manufacturing fancy chronometres and whatnot, saving money for a rainy day. Forgot to cut me out of his will, apparently,” Barrow grimaces, finishing his tale, and stubs out his cigarette resolutely against the rain-washed brick wall behind them.
Jimmy doesn’t dare to ask the man how much money he has inherited. Talking about money just seems so crude somehow, so American … And anyway, they’re not that close friends. (Actually, the term ‘friendship’ is just a euphemism for the status quo between them. What they have agreed on after the incident at the fair is probably best described as a de-facto truce: they don’t talk about what happened; Jimmy never brings up Barrow’s transgression, and Barrow never mentions the abominable way Jimmy treated him afterwards. They just pretend it didn’t happen. All of it. … It can barely be called a friendship. They are merely being civil to each other.) But even though there is no way for Jimmy to know if Barrow is a wealthy man now or if it’s just the kind of sum that offers financial security and makes life more comfortable, he suspects that the truth lies somewhere in between. And this suspicion is confirmed soon.
It’s on one of those late evenings - when the others have all retreated to their rooms already and the chill of this far-too-wet winter is creeping into the servants’ quarters like the cold fingers of some monstrous creature, the likes of which are the stuff of nightmares or modern-day experimental horror flicks - that Jimmy longs for a warm cup of tea before bed.
Barrow is sitting in the servants’ hall, smoking and reading The Yorkshire Observer, but that much is to be expected.
“Anything interesting happen today?” Jimmy asks, still standing, china cup in hand. (He always remains standing in Barrow’s presence, he notices absently, feeling too awkward to sit down beside the man.)
“Something interesting happens every day,” Barrow replies enigmatically, looking up at him from under a lowered brow, then smoothes out the newspaper on the tabletop with his gloved hand.
Jimmy squints at the man over the teacup in his hand, suddenly realising that Barrow hasn’t been reading the news so much as the classified section.
“They’re selling the old vicarage down in the village,” the man finally elaborates, tapping the newspaper with his index and middle fingers, ash threatening to fall onto it from the cigarette that’s still stuck between those two digits. “They’re merging parishes. These days people seem to be more keen on going to the pictures and exploring jazz clubs than on attending church. Godless times we’re living in, James,” he adds with a slight ironic lilt to his voice.
“Oh, as if you care about that!” Jimmy snorts quietly, almost immediately realising what he has just said there and looking down into his teacup.
But if Barrow has noticed anything, he isn't showing it.
There is also the name thing. It’s rather awful, but it can’t be helped, Jimmy supposes. For, ever since the ‘incident’, Barrow has taken to calling him James again, as if to avoid the impression that he is, yet again, forcing some kind of unwelcome familiarity on Jimmy.
“In any case, the Church is closing up shop here, and the Reverend Albert Travis will have to move,” Barrow continues. “His Lordship doesn’t intend to keep the house. As soon as it is vacated, he’ll sell it.”
“Wonder what will happen to it, though,” Jimmy states quickly to make sure the other man forgets his earlier remark. “The vicarage is a grand old building, isn’t it? I mean, it’s probably as big as Crawley House-”
“Bigger. In a slightly more weathered state, though,” Barrow corrects him gently.
Jimmy peers at the man over his teacup again, shuffling his feet. “I suppose some investor is going to buy it. Some bland old nob. Or some nouveau-riche git.”
“Some investor, yes …” Barrow agrees, taking a leisurely drag from his cigarette. There is a strange glint in his pale blue eyes all of a sudden. “And he’s definitely rather nouveau to this being riche thing.”
Jimmy’s eyes shoot over to the other man in surprise. “You? Are you saying you’re buying the old vicarage, Mr Barrow?”
Barrow leans back in his chair, casually crossing his legs and blowing out an elegant plume of smoke towards the ceiling. ‘Smooth. Why does he always look so smooth?’ Jimmy wonders. “But … why?” he enquires out loud, shuffling his feet again.
“You said it yourself: as an investment,” Barrow offers, sucking on his cigarette, his cheeks hollowing for a moment. “If you read the papers every night like I do, you’d know that the economy is still in free fall - mostly due to a botched monetary policy.”
“And here I thought prospects were finally looking up,” Jimmy argues with an unsure chuckle, sipping at his tea and adding to himself, ‘Well, it's not as if I know anything about this stuff. I just overheard that, while waiting at dinner upstairs.’
Barrow shakes his head. “Prepare for a crash in a few years,” he states wisely. “You could, of course, argue that I shouldn't be buying property, what with interest rates being so high at the moment. But that doesn't concern me since I don't have to go into debt; I can pay for it in one go. The house could lose its value, yes. But it’ll still physically be there … Should the current deflation ever come to an end, I’d own something that couldn’t just melt away the way currencies do. And should His Majesty's Treasury, on the contrary, continue the deflationary policy - with unemployment continuing to soar - the house could serve as an insurance for tougher times.”
Jimmy hasn’t got the faintest idea about the economy. Sometimes he just feels like a naïve schoolboy when talking to Barrow. ‘When you haven’t got a farthing to spare, you tend not to worry about money devaluation quite so much,’ he defends his own ignorance to himself. Not that his shortage of money isn’t a humiliating weight on his shoulders, a constant worry on his mind … for obvious reasons.
He has even made sure to make that ‘I can always get money,’ remark in front of everybody once; he is so embarrassed about his poverty. Also, he really hadn’t wanted to take anything Barrow had paid for.
But then, his worries don’t stem solely from embarrassment. No, there actually is an obvious, much more rational explanation, as well. Not that Jimmy can tell anyone about it … Sometimes he wishes he could, though, wishes there were at least someone he could confide in, someone to share this particular burden with, a co-conspirator of sorts. Sometimes he just hates this blasted secrecy he has imposed on himself …
Jimmy sets his teacup down on the saucer, which doesn’t change the fact that he is still, somewhat awkwardly, holding both those things in his hands. He could easily just sit down, of course. But then it wouldn’t look as if he had just popped down for a second on the way to his bedroom.
“Should I retire someday,” Barrow continues slowly, twirling the cigarette in his fingers, “I’ll have something that will last. Owning a house can give you a sense of security, independence, and … belonging … See, if one day I didn’t feel like working anymore, I could rent out rooms and live off the rent. Or I could open a little countryside hotel. Or something like that.”
“‘Barrow’s Bed and Breakfast’,” Jimmy intones with a laugh and a grand sweep of his free hand, feeling like a conférencier at a music hall announcing the next number.
Barrow just smiles a quiet smile in return.
“So, you’re definitely not moving away, then? Now that you’ve inherited, I mean …” Jimmy finally remembers to ask, feeling an odd, inexplicable quivering somewhere below his sternum.
“And where would I go, James? I’m an untrained worker. The only thing I’ve ever done is this,” Barrow replies quietly, making a small gesture with his hand, the glowing end of his cigarette describing a circle in the air. “Admittedly, there were times when I wanted to leave service. But now … in this new position …” He shrugs. “It’s not so bad. I get paid much better than a factory worker, and Grantham isn't bad either. I don’t fancy being unemployed in an economy that is still recovering …”
‘He’s always so certain,’ Jimmy muses, watching the other man talk. ‘Like he always knows what he wants. Like he always gets what he wants, anyway.’
But then, that’s not true, of course. Jimmy knows of one instance at least where Barrow didn’t get what he wanted, and it makes Jimmy’s skin crawl to think about it.
“I'm glad to be buying from someone I know, actually,” Barrow continues, carefully extinguishing his cigarette in an ashtray, the last of the smoke he has inhaled leaving through his nose. “I was conned out of my money once. Don’t fancy that happening again,” he adds vaguely.
“You’re all set!” Jimmy exclaims in surprise.
Barrow inclines his head, a hint of a smile playing in the corner of his eyes. “It’ll be nice for a change to sleep in a room that I actually own.”
“You intend to live there? Er, I mean … you won’t be living in anymore?”
“Why, yes. That’s what I’m saying, innit?” Barrow replies, tucking both his hands into his trouser pockets and leaning back in his chair, regarding Jimmy levelly.
“But-” Jimmy ducks his head uncertainly, not even knowing why the prospect suddenly unnerves him so.
“A house like the old vicarage needs to be lived in. Admittedly, I won’t see much of it, what with getting up with the birds in the morning and returning home at odd hours in the evening. But still … Anna and Mr Bates seem to manage nicely.”
“Anna and Mr Bates will be so bally jealous when they hear the news. Their cottage is a hovel by comparison.”
“Is that so?” Barrow asks slyly, a mischievous dimple appearing in his cheek. He seems to be enjoying himself immensely.
“Won’t it be strange, though? You living in a house the size of Lady Isobel’s, or even bigger, and still working as an underbutler?”
Barrow regards him for a second or two through narrowed eyes; it’s impossible to tell what he’s thinking. “Once you get to my age, James,” he states finally, a touch of haughtiness in his voice, “you’ll know what it’s like to want something of your own.”
‘Oh, sure!’ Jimmy thinks nastily. ‘Way to go and patronise me … just because you’re a few years older than me. This isn’t a primary school playground where the first-year pupils get shoved about by the older boys, for Heaven's sake! … Bloody ridiculous.’
It takes him a lot of restraint not to lose his temper at this point, but he manages to keep himself in check. “Oh, I know that all right, Mr Barrow,” he grits out instead. “Some of us were forced to grow up long before their time,” he adds somewhat acerbically.
But Barrow doesn’t seem to want to rise to the challenge and ask him outright why that is. Instead the man just replies coolly, “Whatever you say, James. Whatever you say.”
🚬
Naturally, Mr Carson isn’t too happy with the upcoming changes. “A man living in the old vicarage ought to have a butler of his own, Thom- Mr Barrow, not work in service,” the man announces gruffly just as Jimmy passes the two of them in the downstairs hall a few days later.
“I’m not one of them, Mr Carson,” he hears Barrow argue back. “I’ll never be. There’s no need for me to pretend. I know my place; I’m a working-class lad, not a gentleman. One Tom Branson is quite enough for Yorkshire, don’t you think? … Besides, if I had to spend the rest of my life reclining on a chaise longue and sipping tea with my little finger sticking out, I’d die of boredom. Well, and then, His Lordship didn’t seem to disagree with my decision either.”
Mr Carson rolls his eyes, which makes him look suspiciously like a steam locomotive about to jump the tracks. “Well, if His Lordship intends to keep you on, Mr Barrow, then my hands are tied … There might even be one or two souls in this house who will be sleeping more peacefully once you don’t live under the same roof as them anymore.”
At this snide remark, Jimmy quickly scurries off. There’s really no need for him to be hearing any of this, he decides.
Later in the evening, when they’re standing outside, Jimmy watching the fast-moving, low clouds in the night sky and Barrow producing even more clouds from his cigarette, the underbutler says something that hits Jimmy square in the chest, “I intend to do something with my father’s money that’ll send the old bastard spinning in his grave: I intend to be happy.”
Jimmy throws him a quick glance out of the corner of his eyes. There is an expression of defiance on the man’s pale face. “You see, James,” he adds with a dark laugh, “should you ever have a son, make sure you disinherit him in time before you pass on, or else he’ll do all the god-awful things with your money you never wanted him to do.”
Jimmy gulps in the cool, damp night air, uncertain how to respond for a moment. (He is uncertain how to respond to Barrow half the time, which, he supposes, often makes him look curiously like a silent film actor opening and closing his mouth to no avail, waiting for the next title card to pop up.)
A throaty “I … I have not got any money,” is the only thing he comes up with after a moment.
🚬
It all starts with a telegram.
And that telegram arrives now.
On a day that is just as grey as the ones before. It’s not raining, but it looks as if it might start pouring down any moment again. And they have had quite enough of that over the last few weeks - enough for a decade, probably. Apparently, the skies are not willing to bless them with the gentle white cover of peace and forgiveness that snow would provide. Instead, they continue to send heavy showers their way.
Yes, it has been an exceptionally wet winter so far, and somehow this damp cold seems even worse than if there had been a crisp, dry frost.
It’s the sort of cold that creeps up men’s starched cuffs and under their imperial collars, dampening their stiff shirt fronts until they are all bent out of their usual pristine cardboard-like shape. The sort of cold that ruins women’s carefully marcelled bobs, turning those perfectly sculpted waves into sagging curls that spill forth across their clammy foreheads. The sort of cold that sets everyone’s teeth on edge, making it seem as if each and every living thing in the house (including a soggy Isis and the drooping flowers in the entrance hall) is either in a dreary or in an irritable mood.
The telegram arrives in the morning while Jimmy is working. (Of course, it does.) Which is why he only sets eyes on it at lunchtime.
And it’s a telegram, not a phone call. Of course, it is. It is in keeping with his self-imposed secrecy. He had rather nobody knew about it all. No need to involve any nosy switchboard operators or to have someone from upstairs overhear his calling someone over the telephone.
“James, a telegram’s arrived for you,” Mrs Hughes says just as they have all pulled out their chairs in the servants’ hall, wooden chair legs scraping across the stone floor in unison, and are about to sit down. “A telegram boy delivered it earlier while you were-”
But Jimmy is already out of his seat again. He knows this isn’t good. No communication unless there is a problem. That’s what they have agreed on.
He barely notices the fact that every face in the room suddenly turns in his direction as he rips open the small pinkish envelope and unfolds the fateful slip of paper, staring at it numbly for a moment. A second later, panic explodes in his chest. “I’ve got to go!”
Mr Carson gives a disgruntled cough. “James, I hardly think this is acceptable, considering that it is not your half-day and-”
“Please, Mr Carson, sir, I need to go. It’s an emergency. A … a family matter.”
“Well, if that is the case, you had better hurry up. I strongly recommend you be back at a reasonable hour, young man.”
But Jimmy has already sprinted out of the servants’ hall. Somewhere behind him, he thinks he can make out Mrs Hughes’s concerned Scottish cooing, “Take an umbrella, James. It looks as if it’s about to-”
But he is already out the door.
🚬
‘I have to get to the bus stop in time. I have to get to the bus stop in time. Have to … Have to … Have to …’ The wet gravel crunches under his feet as he runs down the broad driveway, thoughts pounding rhythmically in his skull, in time with his steps. ‘Have to get to the village … to the bus stop … Have to …’
He almost slips on a wet root when he takes a shortcut through the underbrush. Above him, the skies seem to be conspiring against him, darkness knitting itself into a formidable black veil, making it look as if the thunderbird were spreading its enormous onyx wings, covering the world more and more by the minute. It is a giant evil vulture circling overhead, slowly closing in on him, the air vibrating with a crackling tension, that makes this novel electric lighting craze, that is sweeping the country these days, look weak by comparison.
Out of the woods. Across that soggy lawn. Through that puddle. Down that trail and …
“James! … James! Just- … Will you bloody stop for a moment?!”
He hears it just as the first heavy droplets begin to hit his face and chest and turns around sharply, almost stumbling and falling over.
It’s Barrow.
The man is running towards him with an open umbrella in his hand.
Continued here