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Lieutenant Edward Courtenay was a source of an incredible range of emotion for Thomas Barrow. It was now nearing eight years since that dreadful morning, and yet no other event since had quite rocked Thomas so much as that death had.
Sybil had been the one to tell Thomas the news, something he was eternally grateful for. Clarkson was a good man, but he couldn’t imagine him quite having the emotional capacity to comfort him as Sybil had. Thomas had broken down, slid down the wall in a puddle of tears, and she hand joined him on the floor, openly weeping for a man they had only known for a couple of months. She had been there to hold him and whisper in his ear that it was not his fault, it was no one’s fault aside from the system that wouldn’t allow Edward to stay where he had felt safe.
Even now, Thomas was still unsure if Sybil knew the truth of his feelings for Edward. It had taken himself until the man’s death to realise exactly how much he cared for Edward, and by that point it was too late. Too late to ever know whether he felt similarly. Thomas still mourned the fact that he would never be able to learn if Edward was a similar way. He knew that it was unlikely, that Edward would have been disgusted by Thomas’ feelings, but it gave him hope to pretend sometimes.
At the time, Thomas couldn’t wrap his head around the idea that Edward had felt such a deep hopelessness that he felt there was no other way out. And yet now he completely understood. He thought back to one of their conversations, where Edward had slumped down in his bed and told Thomas “I’m finished” and he now felt the exact same way.
It was impossible to see a way forward. He was being cast out from the only place he had ever been able to feel somewhat at home, with no hope for future employment. He had tried and tried again to find a suitable job, but the truth of the matter was that the years of jobs in service were gone, left in the past. Losing his home like this just reminded Thomas of his own father kicking him out so many years ago. Once again, he had spent 15 years making a home for himself, finding himself comfortable somewhere, and suddenly having it all turned on its head, being torn away from everything he had ever had that was worth keeping.
In the face of this hopelessness, he found himself down at the church, by Edward’s grave. They had hidden the truth of his death well enough that he had been allowed to be buried in the section for fallen soldiers. It was a simple stone, providing only his name, birth, and death dates. Thomas rarely found himself there, he tried to avoid the church grounds as much as he possibly could, wishing to reduce the chances of any unsavoury encounters with locals who liked to gossip about the servants at the abbey.
He not completely sure what had brought him to the grave in the face of his hopelessness. Perhaps he wanted to be reminded of someone who had brought him a glimpse of true happiness once. Perhaps he was hoping to work out how Edward had found the strength to do what he did in the end. Some part of Thomas wanted the ghost of his old friend to speak to him and tell him that he regretted his choice to leave this realm, that Thomas would be making a mistake. He wasn’t even sure he believed in ghosts, or God, or heaven or hell.
Thomas stood in the warm July air staring at the plot of land where Edward was buried. He wondered if Edward would have mourned Thomas the way he had. If it was the other way round, would it have been Edward sitting on the floor in Sybil’s arms? Would he still mourn him the way Thomas did? Or would he have moved on, thinking of Thomas as only another hospital employee, who could be replaced in a few days?
The sound of approaching footsteps made Thomas jump, the thought only crossing his mind for half a second that it might be Edward’s ghost. He turned around instead to see Lady Sybil, crossing the church grounds towards him. He often wondered if she ever visited this grave, he didn’t think she had been in love with Edward as he had but she certainly cared for him. While they were still at the hospital, he often caught her watching his old bed with a forlorn expression. His death had rocked her enough, at any rate, to go about changing the course of the next two years for her family in converting the Abbey into a convalescence home.
“I had wondered if I might catch you here someday,” she spoke, reaching the spot beside him.
Thomas nodded. “I wondered the same, milady.”
“Do you visit often?”
“Not as much as I ought to, only when I feel a need to remember him.”
They stood in silence for a few moments, watching the grave. Thomas wondered if Sybil might be in prayer, he was never sure if she was the type to really believe in God or not, she certainly hadn’t had any religious objections to her daughter being baptised catholic, which was quite a difference to the rest of her family.
There had always been some regret in Thomas, about his relationship with Sybil. They had grown so close during the war while they worked together. They had been close enough that he may have almost claimed her as a friend after Edward’s death. But once she left for Ireland, they had grown apart. There was the occasional letter, wishing happy birthdays or congratulations on her pregnancy, but by the time she returned to England soon before the birth of the baby, there was a distance between them. Whatever had been built during the war had been lost. He sometimes wondered if perhaps Tom had spoken ill of him and pushed them apart.
“And what makes you feel the need to remember Lieutenant Courtenay now?”
Thomas knew he wouldn’t be able to answer that. He couldn’t tell Lady Sybil Crawley that he was currently contemplating doing the same thing Edward had done because her father was going to take his job away.
“Its nothing to worry you with milady.”
Sybil turned to look up at him. “Please, Thomas, can we drop the titles for a moment? Can we pretend like nothing has changed since the day he died? Just for now?”
“Shall I call you Nurse Crawley then?”
She smiled, looking back down at the grave. “Sybil is fine.”
They stood in a comfortable silence again. Thomas found himself looking at Sybil from the corner of his eye, rather than at the grave as she was. He wondered if perhaps she missed the war more than he knew. Not the war itself exactly, but the way social barriers had seemed to almost disappear. Certainly, she had found a way to escape them for a time when she married Tom, but in the end, it had backfired on her when they had moved back to Downton. All that had been achieved was almost turning the chauffer into a gentleman, and Sybil had never truly been able to leave the titles and prestige behind.
“I feel I should apologise,” Sybil started, “for not making more of an effort to keep in contact after we left.”
Thomas raised an eyebrow. “Really?”
Sybil looked back up at him. “I’ve always regretted it. I feel I let you down, I let myself down in a way. I miss how close we became, especially after Edward’s death.”
Shaking his head, Thomas replied, “You don’t have anything to apologise for milady…. Sybil. I imagine it was hard enough on the family, you marrying Mr Branson. Your father would have been less enthusiastic about a friendship with his least favourite servant.”
“You know, everyone always spoke about you like you were the most unkind man they had ever met, but I can’t imagine it. You were always so kind when we spoke.”
Thomas gave a bittersweet smile at that. “Its impossible to be unkind under your influence, it’s a different story downstairs.”
“I do worry about you, you know. And hearing you speak like this isn’t helping the matter. Please, can you tell me what it is that’s troubling you?”
Closing his eyes, Thomas tried to think of a way through this conversation without having to tell Sybil the truth. He knew that she had no ill intentions but how could she possibly understand the way he was feeling? The way that despite the odds, he had finally found people he could potentially call friends, a place he could call home, and he was being cast out with no hope for the future. No matter what her father had said when she married Tom, she must have known deep down that her family would never truly leave her to fend for herself when it came down to it. How could she possibly understand the way people hated him from the moment they learnt about his homosexuality, the way he had the odds stacked against him from birth through no fault of his own, and he had to adapt a harsh shell to deflect the insults.
“I just can’t see a way forward. I feel I understand the way he felt, in those last days. Why he made the final decision.”
Sybil reached up to put a hand on is shoulder. It was all he could do not to flinch away from her touch.
“Do you remember what happened after Edward died?” She asked, watching his expressions carefully.
“Of course.” Thomas replied, wondering where the conversation could possibly be headed.
“Then you remember that it wasn’t long afterwards that we converted Downton into a convalescent. That if he had managed to hold on for just a little longer, he would have found that relief from his hopelessness.”
She stepped in front of Thomas, forcing him to look at her instead of staring at his feet.
“You need to remember there’s an option for you, somewhere right around the corner. I can’t tell you what it is, but please Thomas, remember that there is always an answer. Sometimes we just have to wait for it.”
“Yes, but how can you really know there’s a solution?” Thomas felt tears welling behind his eyes and he tried to choke them down. He couldn’t find himself crying in front of her, not again. His attempts to hide the tears didn’t go unnoticed by Sybil, and he was frozen in place as she wrapped her arms around him. It had been years since anyone had really hugged him like that, perhaps since the night Edward died, and he didn’t know how to react.
“I don’t.” She said into his chest. “But you can’t give up hope. There will be another option somewhere, even if you have to wade through uncertainty for a time.”
“You wouldn’t be talking like this if you knew who I really am.” Thomas couldn’t stop himself. If she knew about his inversion, she wouldn’t be hugging him like this. She wouldn’t be trying to comfort him in any way, in all likelihood she would see his depression as a solution to his sin. There were very few people in this world who were able to look past that fact about him, Baxter being one of the few, and he doubted any great Lady would feel anything other than disgust at him.
After a pause, Sybil let him go and stepped back slightly, leaving her hand on his arm.
“I know you cared about Edward, more than anyone else did.”
Thomas was confused by the change in conversation. Where could this possibly be coming from?
“I used to speak with him sometimes,” Sybil continued, “while you were elsewhere. He used to ask about you, how you looked, what you were like. One time, after you had been reading him his letters, he asked a question I didn’t know how to answer.”
Sybil looked back down at Edward’s grave before she continued.
“He asked what made you different. I didn’t know what to tell him, but he started talking about how he thought he understood what you meant, that he thought you might have been different in the same way he was. It wasn’t my secret to tell, so I stayed quiet. But I think he knew, really.”
Thomas couldn’t stop himself from crying at this point. If she was saying what he thought she was saying, then it changed everything about what he knew of Edward. It changed the way he mourned him. It meant that if Edward was still with them, Thomas’ life could have been completely different, for the better. Sybil put her arm around him again, an act of comfort that only caused Thomas to cry more.
“I really do think he cared for you the same way you cared for him. Neither of you could say it, but I do think he felt the same way.”
Sniffing and wiping the tears from his eyes, Thomas replied, “Do you not find me disgusting?”
Sybil smiled at him, with a tenderness in her eyes that Thomas had not seen from anyone in a long time.
“You deserve love, Thomas, and I’m only sorry it has been so elusive.”
They stood in silence for what felt like an eternity, with only the sounds of Thomas crying as silently as he possibly could. His day had changed trajectory dramatically. Only a few moments ago he found he felt nothing other than hopelessness. Now he knew that Edward had felt the same way he had, and he knew Sybil wasn’t repulsed by him. In fact, she seemed to truly understand how he felt, and that he had no choice in the matter. She had known all along and had still held him as he cried on the floor when Edward had died.
“I hope we can be friends again Thomas, truly.”
He finally looked at her again, and saw she had been crying too, not quite as dramatically as him, but there were still tear stains on her cheeks.
“I hope you feel you can come and speak to me if you feel this way again.”
Thomas nodded. “I would like that.”
She smiled at him, before surprising him again by reaching up to kiss his cheek.
“I’m sorry for not telling you about this earlier, I wasn’t sure knowing the truth would help but I know now I was wrong.”
Sybil turned to leave, wiping her face with her handkerchief to clear herself of the evidence of her tears. Before leaving, she turned to look at him again.
“Remember what I said Thomas. There is an option for you somewhere, you just need to wait, I promise.”
As she left, Thomas turned to look at Edwards grave again. Once again, he was crying, thinking now he knew as a fact, that if he had been able to hang on slightly longer, they could have been together. Thomas could have finally had the companionship he so craved, Edward could have had a future worth having, despite any other hardship they might have faced. Perhaps Thomas could hold on, just a little longer, as Sybil had said. If nothing else, at least now he had someone else he could hopefully call a friend, someone he could confide in who truly cared.
Before he turned to walk away, Thomas brought his hand to his lips, before placing the same hand on the top of Edward’s gravestone. A kiss for what might have been, a kiss for memories which were now just a little more sweet than bitter.