Chapter Text
Thomas frowns as he makes his way through the basement, narrowly dodging Royal servants who didn’t seem to care if they bowled anyone over. The Thomas of just a few years ago would have reveled in what was essentially a free holiday. But present-Thomas had only managed to enjoy it for about a day before anxiety started spreading through his veins.
He’d been racking his brain, trying to figure out what exactly he’d done wrong; what he had flubbed badly enough to send Lady Mary running to Mr. Carson. So far, all he’d been able to come up with was letting Mr. Wilson enter through the front door and charge through the great hall like he owned the place. But that couldn’t have been it, surely.
He’d thought his days of constantly worrying about his job security were over, but the whole incident was returning him to a time he preferred not to think about. So it seemed the proper thing to do was to identify the mistake and see if it couldn’t be fixed.
He might have had a chance to ask Lady Mary directly, but he’d used it to get into what he still felt was a well-deserved snit. Which meant the next course of action was to corner Anna and get the scoop from her, which was proving to be a difficult task with all the Royal interlopers. He finally finds her in the boot room, but unfortunately she is not alone. Phyllis is there as well, which he can live with. But Mr. Ellis is a different matter.
Since he’s arrived, Ellis has been seeking him out for seemingly no reason other than to chat, and Thomas couldn’t figure out why. He knew what he wished the reason was, but he didn’t dare hope. Especially not with the way this whole visit was turning out.
Ellis glances up when Thomas walks in the room and gives him a smile. “You’re not bored with your time off already, Mr. Barrow?”
“Not bored, exactly, no,” Thomas answers. Mr. Ellis has dimples in his cheeks when he smiles. Thomas tries not to notice. He looks to Anna instead, diligently buffing a pair of Lady Mary’s shoes. He taps on the table to get her attention. “May I talk to you for a minute?”
“You may, but I can’t really stop. I’ve got Lady Hexham’s to do after these,” she says, only glancing at him a moment before returning to her work.
Thomas holds back a sigh. He really doesn’t want Mr. Ellis to hear this conversation, whatever it’s going to entail. For whatever reason, Ellis seems to like him alright, and he’d hate to lose the man’s good opinion. It’s a bit nice having someone new around to be friendly with. Or it had been nice, for all of two days.
He grits his teeth and decides to just get it over with. “Why did Lady Mary ask Mr. Carson to come back?”
Anna does look at him now, with a grimace. Phyllis gives him her ‘don’t make trouble for yourself’ look, but Thomas forges on. “Lord Grantham said it wasn’t planned, so obviously it was something I did. What was it?”
Anna sighs. “She was worried about the silver not being done.”
Thomas waits for Anna to continue, but she doesn’t. “That’s it?” Anna only shrugs. “I was supposed to waste all of Andy’s time having him clean a whole room of silver that we more than likely weren’t even going to use?”
“You might have tried explaining that to her,” Anna offers.
“I did explain that to her.” Or he had started to, at least, before he had to go answer the door. “Did you explain it to her?”
“I didn’t think she was much in the mood to hear explanations,” Anna says evasively.
Thomas has a number of choice responses to that, but he keeps them lodged in his throat.
Ellis looks back and forth between Thomas and Anna. “Lady Mary sounds like a hard woman to please,” he notes.
“You don’t know the half of it,” Thomas says, ignoring Anna’s warning look.
“Perhaps I do,” Ellis grins. “Have you forgotten who I work for?”
Thomas is a bit delighted that Ellis is willing to poke fun at the King of England. “Oh yes, I can imagine His Majesty is nearly as hard to please as our Lady Mary.”
“Lady Mary,” Anna says sharply, “just wants this visit to be perfect, and she has relied on Mr. Carson for such things since she was a child. Surely it was nothing personal, Mr. Barrow.”
She gives him a pointed look, so Thomas gives her one right back. “Doesn’t make it any less insulting,” he grumbles.
“You ought to get out of the house,” Ellis suggests. “Take your mind off of it.”
Thomas quirks an eyebrow. “And do what, exactly?”
“Why don’t you and I go have a drink?” he offers. “I’m off duty, once Mr. Miller arrives tomorrow. You can show me your local watering hole. Or we could go up to York, and I show you mine.”
Phyllis, who has been quietly listening up until now, gives him a reassuring nod. “You should go. How often do you get a night out?”
“That settles it, then,” Ellis says happily. He gathers up the shoes he’d been working on and sweeps out of the room. “I’ll come find you when I’m released,” he calls over his shoulder as he goes.
Thomas stares at the empty doorway for probably a bit too long. When he turns back around, Phyllis and Anna both have infuriating little grins on their faces.
“You know, I don’t quite recall agreeing to anything,” he hastens to complain.
“Oh, please say you’ll go,” Phyllis says. “You could use a good time, and Mr. Ellis seems so nice.”
“Pitying, more like,” replies Thomas, though his heart isn’t really in it.
“Not everything is pity, Mr. Barrow,” Anna says. “Lots of people are simply kind.”
She’s right, Thomas thinks. Mr. Ellis is likely just a kind bloke trying to cheer someone up. But for a moment, when he was asking him to go, Thomas could’ve sworn the other man looked hopeful.
When Thomas comes down for breakfast the next day, Anna is waiting for him by the stairs. “I looked all over for you last night.”
“I went to bed early.” He’d come into the servants' hall for supper to find Mr. Carson and Mr. Wilson nearly having a tug-of-war over the chair at the head of the table and it had just sent his blood boiling. That was his chair and yet he had wound up halfway down the table like he was a bloody footman again. He’d thought it best to remove himself from the situation before he did something he regretted, a bit of self-preservation he’s quite proud of. “Why were you looking for me?”
“The chairs for the parade finally showed up. We could’ve used your help with putting them out.”
Thomas raises his eyebrow. “We?”
Anna sighs. “Lady Mary would have liked your help.”
“Well, isn’t that interesting. I’d have loved to help, but as Lady Mary has said herself, I’m clearly not up to snuff.”
“What about me, then?” snaps Anna. “I wouldn’t have minded your help.” She gives him a look, the one she used to give him all the time when she thought he was being purposefully difficult. He hasn’t seen it in quite awhile, and it startles him how much it stings. “Or what about Andy, or Mr. Molesley? They’re about to be pushed aside as well, but they’re still pitching in. We all want this visit to go well, Mr. Barrow. But it’s got to be a team effort.”
Thomas opens his mouth to argue that he’s not technically on anyone’s team right now, but the words die in his throat. Both indignation and shame bubble up inside of him, and between the two feelings no words can get out.
Anna sighs at his lack of response and walks off towards the servants' hall. Nearly everyone is sitting down for breakfast now, but Thomas isn’t hungry anymore. Instead he stalks out the back door to sit in the kitchen yard. Instinct has him reaching into his pocket for his cigarettes, but he remembers too late that they’re in his bedroom. He’s been trying to quit the habit by simply not carrying them around with him; it works great, until he truly needs one. He sits down on an empty crate instead.
It’s easy for Anna to say he ought to pitch in—no one’s cast her off as unnecessary. And she’s got a lot of nerve comparing him to Andy and Molesley; if they get told to step down, it’ll be by the Royal intruders who will be gone by tomorrow, not their own bloody employer who very well might decide to do it permanently. Why should he help out, when they’ve all but said they don’t need him?
But then again… this is the exact sort of thing he’s been trying not to do anymore; this being bitter and petty and snappish. And really, he did feel like a bit of a cad yesterday, lounging around doing nothing while everybody else rushed about. He might have loved that, back in his footman days; he’d have relished in being given free time while his adversaries had to do all the work. But they aren’t his adversaries anymore. Now they are his friends—most of them, anyway—and he hadn’t liked it much at all.
The back door opens. Mr. Ellis is standing in the doorway, and Thomas’s agitation gives way to something else.
“Is this your hiding spot?”
“I’m not hiding,” Thomas denies.
“I wouldn’t blame you if you were,” Ellis says. “They’re fighting over that bloody chair again.”
Thomas shakes his head. “Surprised they can even eat at the same table. They never eat with the resident staff, you know.”
“Oh, your cook gave them quite the lecture before you came down last night,” Ellis straightens up and puts his hands on hips, in imitation of Mrs. Patmore. “Said she’s not doing two servings when the table is plenty big enough for all of us, and anyone who didn’t like that would find themselves very hungry.”
He’s got her inflection down pat, and Thomas stops trying to hold back his laughter. The man is terribly handsome even with his face scrunched up like that.
Ellis sits down on a nearby crate and looks at him curiously. “What’s got you out here not hiding, then?”
“Oh, nothing that would interest you.”
“I’m easily intrigued,” Ellis insists.
Well, there was nothing to lose at this point. “I’ve been accused of not pulling my weight, with getting things ready.”
Ellis furrows his brows. “But you’re off duty.”
“Lord Grantham wanted me to stay on, though. Doing what exactly, I’m not sure.” He hadn’t let His Lordship get that far. “But really, I took myself off duty, and now apparently I’ve thrown everyone else to the wolves.”
Ellis doesn’t look any less confused. “That’s not what I’ve been hearing.” At Thomas’s own confused look, he continues, “I’ve overheard quite a few grumblings from your people about how unfair it is they they brought the old butler in over your head.”
Thomas scoffs. “They never.”
“No, it’s true. I heard the hall boys talking about it, and the footman Andy, and both the cooks—”
“Mrs. Patmore did not. You’re having me on.”
“Mr. Carson was saying something about how he was coming back because you were too young and flighty—” Ellis deepens his voice like Carson’s and Thomas nearly laughs again, despite the insult. “And she got a bit stroppy and asked if she was young and flighty, too. But she clearly didn’t approve.”
“Huh.” Well, it was a weight off his shoulders to know the only one actually annoyed with him was Anna. And Lady Mary, but that didn’t bother him nearly as much. “Still. I do feel a bit like a useless layabout.”
Ellis waves his hand flippantly. “Once Their Majesties get here, Wilson and all of them will be up on their high horses, telling your lot to get out of their way and let them work. Then you can all be useless layabouts together.”
“You mean they’re not on their high horses now?” Thomas asks, incredulous.
“Oh, this is nothing. Wait until luncheon when they’ve actually got something to do.”
Thomas shakes his head. “Well then. I still think I ought to pitch in, if just to get Mrs. Bates off my back.”
“Well, that’s easy enough, I would think,” Ellis says brightly. “If you took yourself off duty, surely you can put yourself back on duty.”
And so, that is just what Thomas does. Mr. Ellis disappears upstairs to finish up readying the King’s clothes, and Thomas inserts himself into the rest of the staff’s last minute hustling. Most of them don’t pay him much attention, occupied with their own tasks, but he gets a satisfied little look from Anna that he elects to ignore. Andy, at least, seems grateful when Thomas helps him finish up with the silver; apparently polishing was beneath the Royal footmen’s dignities.
When the time comes for them to all assemble outside, Thomas slips himself into the lineup between Mrs. Hughes and Bates. Mr. Carson leans around Mrs. Hughes to raise his bushy eyebrows at him. “I thought you weren’t on duty, Mr. Barrow.”
Typical, that he’d been helping all morning now and Carson hadn’t even noticed. “I didn’t think you’d approve of anything less than a full showing, Mr. Carson,” Thomas bites out.
Mrs. Hughes puts a hand on his shoulder. “Well, don’t let me take your spot,” she says, gently tugging his arm so that they switch places. Carson harrumphs but doesn’t argue.
Thomas doesn’t particularly want to stand next to Mr. Carson, but it is his right to stand at the front of the line, even if he’s not technically the butler right this minute. He ought to have Carson’s spot, of course, but it hardly matters now when Mr. Wilson is standing right on the front step like he himself is the lord of the house.
On the other side of the door, Mr. Ellis catches his eye and gives him an approving grin, before the cars come into sight and they all straighten up.