The Book of Secrets, fanfiction, downton abbey
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Jimmy felt, sometimes, that he existed- as a
being
- in square
opposition to society. The funny thing about this opposition was
that
society
had no idea- and Jimmy got along very well, being
funny, or charming, or good-looking- or any of the tripe that it
seemed that other people valued.
Jimmy himself did not value any of those things. He felt less than
nothing about most people- they were good for a laugh, but he
preferred to be on his own. Stupid people were
stupid
, and easily
malleable- and people whose intellects equaled or eclipsed Jimmy's
own could still be drawn in by good looks and charm. Those two
things in combination could render a genius into a soft and obvious
fool for periods of time.
Jimmy made snap judgements about everyone- and he was usually
right- a rube was a a rube, and a sucker was a sucker- and there
would always be a few of them around. Sometimes, however, his
abrupt character evaluations were wrong. He had been incorrect,
on a couple of points, when he had first arrived at Downton. He had
been
right
about a few things, too: Mr. Carson disliked him, Alfred
was easy to manipulate- but he had been wrong on the
finer
points.
He had thought Miss O'Brien a rigid old sort, with a stern way about
her- but ultimately
kind
- and he had been painfully wrong. And he
had, of course, been wrong about Mr. Barrow.
Oh, Jimmy had liked Mr. Barrow a bit- but he had
loathed
him too,
thinking for a while that Mr Barrow-
Thomas-
was one of those
soppy, lecherous types. And lecherous about
him.
Lavender.
Deviant.
Smart
, perhaps- but rendered stupid by his obvious
infatuation. And far too forward. But eventually Jimmy realized it
might not've been entirely Thomas's fault, after all.
And
then
there had been the whole debacle with Thomas
appearing, as if by magic, in his bed- and after that they'd barely
spoken for a year. But in that year Jimmy had gleaned a bit of
information about Thomas, and discovered that perhaps the other
man wasn't as soppy as he had originally thought. In fact he was
supposed to have once been something of a
villain
, if the
secondhand stories Alfred repeated to him- told by his evil aunt-
were to be believed. Jimmy knew now that O'Brien was a liar, and
yet some of the tales she told- Thomas dabbling in the black
market, Thomas trying to seduce the visiting dignitaries- Thomas
doing a poor frame-up of Mr. Bates- had a quality of truth to them.
It took Jimmy
months
to put together the reasons why his idea of
Thomas Barrow was so remarkably out-of-step with everyone
else's. But then- after Thomas had saved him from an ugly beating
at the fair in Thirsk- the hard truth had shattered over Jimmy's
head like a china plate. Or like a fist.
The really
interesting
thing- the thing that gave Jimmy pause- was
that perhaps
both
sides of Thomas could be true. This idea occurred
to him suddenly as he'd stared at Thomas's battered, bloodied face-
and then Thomas had been lifted up and helped to limp away by
many people- and Jimmy had stayed on for a moment, staring at
the stone wall that Thomas had been slumped against as if it might
divulge to him bewildering secrets.
He
is
a villain,
Jimmy thought.
But he's a hero for me. How strange. I wonder why-
Jimmy had pondered it for a year, and he could've pondered it for a
year more- if he hadn't caught sight of the pretty young couple
embracing chastely by the carousel as he left the fair. The young
man gazed into the girl's eyes, and- without taking his eyes away
from her face- readjusted her gauzy scarf around her neck, a smile
touching the corners of his mouth.
Watching them together, Jimmy had a sudden and profound idea:
Maybe he
loves
me. Doesn't just
desire
me, but actually loves me.
It would explain a lot- Thomas's refusal to hear anybody slander
Jimmy's name, and Thomas's behavior towards Jimmy- noble,
heroic behavior that seemed in direct dissent with what Jimmy had
learned about Thomas's basic character.
So he's Lancelot for me
and Mordred to everybody else,
Jimmy thought.
Strange. But they
say all love is exception-making.
They
said
that, but Jimmy didn't know for sure if it was true. He
had never been in love.
Oh, so many girls had professed to be devoted to him that Jimmy
had lost count- but those were all flirtations that vanished with the
changing of the seasons- and Thomas Barrow was a grown man-
not a silly young girl, but a grown
man-
who seemed to have
become hopelessly attached to him.
Jimmy had gone to visit Thomas as he lay in bed, recovering from
his injuries. He hoped that the visit would relieve the pressing
sense of guilt- the heavy-handed feeling of
obligation
that the sight
of Thomas's beaten face had stirred up in him. It had been a
success, after a fashion. Jimmy had gotten Thomas to admit to his
to romantic sentiments in a minute and a half, without any cajoling
at all, and so the mystery had been solved.
But the
answer
to the mystery- that is to say, the idea of
love
and
the odd things it could provoke people to do- stayed with Jimmy,
pushing itself in amidst his other concerns and making it hard to
sleep.
It was uncomfortable, to have someone pining away for him-
uncomfortable
- but Jimmy knew with total certainty that if Thomas
did, in the course of their newborn friendship, ever
really
get to
know him,
love
would no longer be an issue.
Jimmy had never really articulated that thought to himself- the
thought that he lacked some thread of decency that everyone else
possessed- but still the idea sat there in his head, dictating his
worldview as surely as if it were etched in stone. He existed in
opposition to society- or perhaps in defiance of it- and that was
Jimmy's grave, dark secret- so much worse than fancying blokes, or
being a bad lot sometimes. Someone could love you after you'd
been cruel to them, maybe- cruelty, Jimmy had ascertained from
literature, being an indivisible part of love. However Jimmy wasn't
exactly
cruel
, he didn't think- he was
careless
- and by that he
meant he didn't
care
, not about anything or anyone in the whole
world.
When he was a child Jimmy had liked to overturn rubbish bins just
to see the ugly mess of them spilling out over cobblestones. Just
for that- the pleasure of it- and the brief upheaval of the laws of
society- and perhaps, in some spiteful little way, the knowledge
that someone else would have to clean up the mess later.
Let
someone know that about me,
Jimmy thought,
and still profess to
love me. I defy anyone to know me and
still
love me.
To hedge his bets, to take things that did not belong to him- to
stack the deck of life in his own favor- these were things that
Jimmy did- and if they were ugly things to do, well, it was an ugly
world. Jimmy just wanted to make sure he got in a few good blows
before life knocked him flat on his back. As it did to everyone, in
the end.
"It's terrible, isn't it?" Alfred asked Jimmy in the hallway, the day
after Matthew Crawley's funeral- and Jimmy thought he meant the
great sadness that hovered over Downton, unbroken and ominous
as the thunderclouds that obscured the sky above.
Jimmy shrugged, falling into step with him as they walked down to
the servant's hall for a hurried breakfast. "I can't think of many
instances where somebody dying is wonderful, can you?"
Absently Jimmy thought that he would read the paper to Thomas
when he had a spare stretch of time. He was making it a point to
visit Thomas every day. Thomas had struggled out of bed for long
enough to stand, grey-faced, at Mr. Crawley's interment- but then
he had limped back to his rooms and remained there. Jimmy had
gone to visit Thomas, and give him the news of the world, much
later- but he had been scarcely halfway through the articles on the
front page when he had glanced up- only to realize that Thomas
had fallen asleep.
For a moment Jimmy had sat, watching Thomas's battered face,
unguarded in dreams. Then he rose, and left the room, turning out
the lights as he went.
The memory swept back over him as he walked with Alfred into the
hall, where everyone was assembled for breakfast in varying
degrees of wakefulness. Carson was gruffer than usual, and had a
list of additional tasks a mile long for everybody.
Of course Thomas was not at breakfast- but Jimmy would take a
tray up for him directly after- a thing which he was also making a
habit of. It wasn't out of some sense of obligation- well, maybe it
was
, a little- but it wasn't as
much
out of a sense of obligation as it
was genuine.
"This weather seems so appropriate," Anna said, from Jimmy's left-
but she wasn't speaking to him, and he didn't glance over. It was
raining, but then, it
rained
sometimes, didn't it?
"Lady Grantham would like us to see that all the funeral wreaths
are removed from the house before luncheon," Carson said, and
Jimmy realized that he was being addressed. Across the table
Alfred also gave Carson his full attention.
"You may begin after breakfast," Carson said, and together they
nodded an affirmative. "Yes, sir," Jimmy said, keeping his feelings
at being given additional work from showing on his face.
"I'll have the flowers taken to the church," Carson said, as if he
were checking it off on a mental list. Jimmy had the urge to play
with his cards- but he felt that any kind of frivolity, no matter how
standard, would result in remonstration at such a delicate time.
"I'll need a little extra time for-" O'Brien was making some demand
of Mrs. Hughes, but she fell silent, cut off by the appearance of
Lady Mary in the doorway.
Jimmy clambered to his feet, along with everybody else, by
reflexive habit- and so it was not until he was fully standing that he
realized something was very
off
.
Lady Mary was not
decent
. In fact Jimmy could not recall a time
when he had ever seen a woman so undressed- save for a few of
the bawdier bars he'd been to on leave during the war. But those
had been places to carouse with your comrades, drunk on liquor
and the glorious feeling of still, somehow, being
alive
- and this was
a world away from that.
The Widow Crawley stood in the doorframe, dressed in only her
white shift, as though she had sleepwalked all the way downstairs.
Jimmy could see her breasts through her nightgown, and was
alarmed by the unselfconsciouness Lady Mary displayed. As if she
had no idea what was going on. Around him, his colleagues stood
frozen, unsure of what to do- and Jimmy saw that Anna was about
to step forward, perhaps to lead her away- but then Lady Mary
spoke.
"I can't sleep," she said, in a taut, worn-sounding voice- "Carson, I
can't
sleep
- it keeps crying. The baby. George, I mean." She spoke
only
to Carson, as if she were unaware that other people in the
hall. Jimmy looked more closely at her pallid, sharp face- and
realized that she was
weeping-
although she gave little indication of
it, save for the tears that coursed silently down her cheeks.
There's
something very
wrong
with her,
Jimmy thought, the realization
giving him a chill. He did not enjoy seeing people in the extremities
of grief- it was too personal, and he came away from it feeling as
though both the grieving party and he himself had been violated in
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