Chapter Text
Peter didn’t mind London. It had a tarnished, busy beauty to it that he could appreciate, like the offerings of an artist he admired, but whose style was not his own. He liked that the city leant him a degree of invisibility, that he could stroll down the street here, watching and listening to the thrum of humanity without accounting for himself. The only thing that bothered him about it, truly, was the lack of colour. It was bad enough that December meant early sunsets and grey skies, so why did people feel the need to dress in greys and browns? Just once, he should like to see London exactly as it was, but awash in all the gayest fabrics the world had to offer. As if on cue with his thoughts, a woman ran down the street in a vibrant purple coat, holding a silk-flower-bedecked hat on her head with one hand, the other thrust out beside her for balance. She was wearing smeared, bright-red lipstick and shouted something at the men in front of her, presumably to get the hell out of her way. He loved her immediately.
He turned back to his cup as she sprinted out of view. Naturally, as soon as he had his native Earl Grey in front of him, he wanted nothing so much as a steaming cup of mint tea. He curled his hands around the porcelain. He could do that here, when he was being Nobody in a little café. Though he was rather tempted to abandon manners and huddle delicately around teacups or be muffled in blankets at Brancaster, solely to watch Cousin Mirada inflate like a toad. It was certainly cold enough for Bertie to forgive him, and he was the only one whose opinion really mattered. Though his opinion that marrying on New Year’s Eve was a good idea could have done with a challenge.
The man himself strolled in and spotted him immediately, grinning with all his perfect teeth. Peter felt something of equal size but significantly lower quality pulling at his own face. Lord, it was good to see old Bertie.
They embraced wordlessly for a long moment, which drew a few looks, though the eyes soon moved on. Nothing said ‘not bound by English customs’ quite like being liberally spattered with freckles in the dead of winter, he supposed.
“Bertie Pelham, in the last days of his bachelordom!” he announced jovially, clapping his cousin on the shoulder. “How are you keeping, old boy? You look as if you’ve swallowed a sunbeam.”
Bertie blushed, which was a phenomenon to behold. “I asked her to meet us here,” he murmured, as if his fiancée coming to meet them were some sort of grave secret. “I wanted to introduce you before all Hell breaks loose.”
Peter bent his head in, in keeping with the situation. “I take it the Wicked Witch of the Moorlands still doesn’t approve?”
“I’ll have you know,” said Bertie, giving him what he probably thought was a terribly stern look, “that Mama has given us her blessing. So if you could be civil, I’d appreciate it.”
“I’d never ruin this for you,” he reassured him. “I shall be the picture of decorum.”
“I wouldn’t ask you to go that far.”
They chatted on over their tea, discussing the wedding plans and getting all the Crawleys straight in Peter’s head. Bertie had relaxed around the edges, and it was a lovely thing to see. He smiled, he leaned, he even gesticulated in a very un-Bertie way. Peter wasn’t sure whether leaving the military life had finally caught up to him, or if love had done it, until Edith walked in. It was definitely love.
She was a gorgeous thing, all gold and pink and fawn from her hat to her shoes. She smiled brilliantly at Bertie and kissed him full on the mouth. He blushed (twice in less than twenty minutes!), stumbling through the introductions, and nearly tripped when he pulled a chair out for her. Peter shot him a look that said ‘Dear Lord, you have it bad,’ which was answered by a resigned ‘I know, please shut up’ glance from behind her shoulder. Peter bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing.
“Bertie has told me so much about you, I feel as if I’m meeting an old friend,” said Edith, looking at him with genuine fascination. He had been in many a situation where his reputation preceded him, and it usually made him feel like an exotic, ugly insect pinned to a card. Edith’s scrutiny made him feel more like a rare gem in someone’s private collection, being taken out for a special guest. That, he could manage.
“I hope we shall be the best of friends,” he said, not needing to fake a charming smile. “I can already see that all the mad scribblings you inspire have been completely justified.”
He ended up performing a dramatic recitation of one of Bertie’s more ridiculous letters from Paris during the couple’s separation, much to his cousin’s embarrassment and Edith’s hilarity, and was in turn regaled by tales from Edith’s life as a magazine proprietor. By the time they left to collect Peter’s luggage from the hotel and catch their train, they were indeed chatting like old friends and ganging up on Bertie. The worry that had weighed on his heart lifted. They would be perfect for each other, and happy as he was for them, he couldn’t help the selfish hope that bubbled up in his chest. The hope that she could be a marchioness in all but name. That he could keep to his sunny Tangiers and his paintings and they could carry it all on. They would certainly manage Brancaster better than he ever could.
“I’m surprised at how you’re managing yourself without a valet,” Bertie remarked as he helped Peter shove one of his cases into the rack. “What’s become of that Mohammed chap?”
“If you saw the inside of these, you wouldn’t be surprised.” He had had to sit on one of his valises to get it closed, which he imagined was not at all good for his suits. And then there was the Paint Issue. “And Mohammed simply doesn’t do winter in England.”
“Oh dear. I pity the footman who’s going to have to sort your mess out.”
Peter elbowed him, which was not particularly dignified, but Edith didn’t seem to mind them shoving each other like errant children and he didn’t care what the steward made of it. He had missed this. Seeing his cousin in his natural habitat was his one point of homesickness. If it wasn’t for Bertie, the whole island could fall into the sea and he would get along just fine. The barren fields that rolled past the window held no allure for him, nor the empty sky above. They were dead and desolate now, all greys. But Edith was bright and full of colour, and Bertie reflected her back like a mirror pool. He sketched them in bold lines as the train rattled North, carrying him further and further from where he belonged. Soon it would be time to put on his Lord Hexham face and ape the man he was supposed to be.
They arrived in Yorkshire far too soon. Mr. Branson (“Please call me Tom, we’ll be family in a couple days”) collected him and Edith from the station, while Bertie went on to Castle Howard. The Irishman was quite a welcome surprise, with an easy smile and an earthiness about him that felt more like the people Peter knew in Tangiers than the ones he knew in England. Tom was a good distraction for a moment, but could not obscure the fact that he was being thrown in the deep end with a load of very-English strangers. Peter felt the old familiar lead weight slide into his stomach as the car rounded the drive. For God’s sake, they had the servants lined up. Surely they had better things to bloody be doing, but no, they were here to welcome a runaway degenerate into the house. And some poor bastard was going to have to valet for him, probably with warnings about the Kind of Man He Was—
“Lord Hexham, welcome to Downton.” Edith’s mother was elegant and crisp, with a voice like a warm bath. She looked nothing like her daughter. She was all night colours.
“Lady Grantham, a pleasure to meet you at last.” Peter managed to pull his dignity together and kissed her hand. She had a lovely, calm smile that took over her whole face, like she was truly glad to see him. Perhaps she was. He let that thought carry him through the rest of the formalities.
Lord Grantham looked much as he expected (and vaguely remembered from some society to-do), tweed and rounded and dignified. Mary was night colours too, but she had the air of a beautiful predator about her that was belied by her rather unassuming husband. The children were all little bright things, who hopped inside ahead of him as he was informed that a tall, curly footman called Andrew would deal with him.
“Do you make paintings?” Mary’s son looked up at him with big blue eyes as he stamped his feet for warmth in the great hall. Peter had the distinct impression that the children had insisted on joining the welcome party because they were curious about him.
“George, don’t pester Lord Hexham,” his mother murmured.
“It’s quite alright. We’re all going to be family soon enough, are we not?” Peter squatted down beside the little boy, so they could talk properly. He had a feeling the other adults in the room were unsure of what to do with such a development, but he always felt like an idiot looking so far down at someone. “I do indeed. Do you paint?”
George shook his head, smiling bashfully.
“Do you…draw?” he prodded playfully.
“Yes. I dwaw with Sybbie.”
“What have you drawn lately?”
“A dwagon!”
“Well! I’ve never seen a dragon before. You must show me what they look like. Are there any about these parts?”
“There’s one in the woods. Mr. Bawwow told me about him. His name is Otto.”
“What an excellent name for a dragon. Is Mr. Barrow your friend?”
George nodded, looking suddenly very lost. “But he was ill and then he went away. I didn’t want him to go.”
Peter opened his mouth and shut it again, his heart cracking just a little for someone he had never met, who he would never meet, who told little boys about dragons named Otto.
“He means our former under-butler,” Edith cut in quickly, bouncing Marigold on her hip. “He moved on to another house. But he’s coming for the wedding, Georgie, didn’t we tell you?”
“It’s not the same,” George said, as if they were all particularly slow.
“You didn’t tell me!” Sybbie squeaked indignantly, wheeling on her father with a look that could shatter glass.
“Perhaps we all ought to let Lord Hexham freshen up?” Grantham cut across the deliberations on the not-dead-after-all former under-butler. As much as Peter wanted to protest that the children were a delight, his legs and back were making a fuss at being on a level with them. He took the out and scuttled, as quickly as dignity and politeness would allow, to his room.
Freshening up meant taking a quiet bath and counting backwards from one thousand, skating his thumbs along the insides of his knees. The Crawleys seemed nicer than he had expected them to be. Certainly more relaxed. They had hardly blinked at his slightly-to-the-left-of-fashionable suit, and if they knew about the more unsavoury aspects of him then they were glossing it over well enough. Dinner would be another matter. ‘Granny’ was coming, and she sounded absolutely terrifying. He tried not to think about whether or not his white tie would even fit him when he ran the cloth over his chest and belly, or what he would do if it didn’t. He had never been slim, exactly, but his love of pastry was steadily catching up with him in a most unflattering way these days. At least, unlike Bertie, he still had all his hair.
He returned to his room with curls as tamed as they were going to get to find Andrew putting away a portion of his freshly ironed clothing, the dubious white tie already laid out. “On a scale of mess to cataclysm, how dreadful were my suitcases?” Peter asked conversationally. Andrew looked like he had just been politely asked to shoot himself. “Never mind, don’t answer that,” he said quickly. He had become too used to Mohammed, who would have thrown up his hands without hesitation and declared his creased jackets a cauchemar.[1]
The footman recovered himself quickly. “I wasn’t sure which you wanted for tomorrow, my lord, so I took a selection. I can prepare more tonight.” Peter got the strangest feeling he was doing an impression of someone. Perhaps Lord Grantham’s valet.
“The more conservative options, I see. That’s probably wise; I don’t think I could get away with the purple one.” He tried to smile but he had a feeling it wasn’t translating well.
Andrew inclined his head. The footman helped him into his extremely-snug-but-still-workable clothes with flitting movements that betrayed the fact he was still new to this. There was none of the other kind of nervousness, though, for which Peter was extremely grateful.
He was quite certain that Andrew had given him very clear and simple instructions on how to get to the drawing room, and that it was really very findable, but that didn’t stop him from ending up in the bit of more-library that was attached to the first library. By the time he made it to the green-papered room he was nearly late.
“Oh, there you are, Peter! We weren’t sure you were coming after all,” Edith exclaimed.
“I got rather turned about, I’m afraid,” Peter admitted sheepishly. “I hope I didn’t keep you waiting.”
“Not at all. Did Andrew not show you?” Grantham frowned. The butler pricked up his ears and his very intimidating eyebrows. Peter was sure the staff required full battle garb to contend with such bushy omens of doom.
“Oh, he told me where to go before I dismissed him, but I’m quite incapable of remembering directions. No head for it whatsoever.” He tried to smile and fidgeted with the ring on his little finger, feeling incredibly stupid. “Lovely chap, by the way. Good taste,” he added, trying to save poor Andrew from his superior. It was absolutely the Wrong Thing to say. Mary exchanged a glance with Tom and the butler inflated in a terribly ominous manner.
Edith made some sort of non-committal noise, in the way that well-bred women could do without seeming rude, and presented him to the dowager countess. She was every bit as terrifying as anticipated, with her iron-grey hair and pursed lips. She fixed him with a cold stare as he stumbled through pleasantries, taking in his too-long hair and his too-tight buttons with calm distaste.
“Are you travelling alone, Lord Hexham, or might we expect an invasion of bohemians at my granddaughter’s wedding?” she asked, deadpan.
“Granny,” Edith warned.
“Only me, I’m afraid. I don’t believe I’ve ever qualified as an invasion.”
The dowager gave him a look that said ‘that remains to be seen’ as clearly as if she had spoken aloud. Edith gave him an apologetic grimace. It was going to be a long evening.
When they went in, he found himself between Lady Grantham and Edith. The seating arrangement soothed his nerves a little, but not enough to ignore the dowager’s unimpressed gaze or Mary’s eye-flicking in between murmurs to Tom. He smiled at Andrew without thinking when the footman brought in the first course, and had to live with that awful butler’s indignation for his carelessness. Over a smile! Sometimes he truly hated this country. He felt his appetite trickling away as those eyebrows condemned him from across the room. It was those old family dinners all over again, and his armour had rusted from lack of use. He felt naked, countering each question about Tangiers or pointed remark about his ‘lifestyle’ (all of the latter courtesy of the dowager) with weaker and weaker answers while he pushed his food around his plate. The smell of trifle was so horribly cloying that he refused it all together.
“Peter?” Cora inquired softly, still relishing the use of his first name that he had granted her without hesitation. He realized that he had missed the entirety of what she had just said. “Are you alright?”
“Oh! Yes, I’m fine, thank you. You must forgive me for drifting off. I get terribly sea-sick, you see, and I’m afraid I’m not quite as recovered as I’d thought.” It wasn’t completely untrue. Even the train journey had set his insides rocking ominously. At any rate, it was a more acceptable explanation than saying he couldn’t eat or concentrate on conversation with the butler looking at him like that.
Cora made sympathetic noises to the effect that he ought to have taken a tray if he was feeling unwell, to which he made all the reciprocal noises about how he couldn’t possibly miss his first dinner at Downton. He made his excuses as soon as the savoury was finally cleared. Dread for the rest of his stay in England had crept into his chest and bedded down for the duration. How he had survived this sort of thing for years, he would never know. At least he managed to squeeze a few drops of satisfaction from informing the butler that he could undress himself, and Andrew would not be required.
He felt sorry for Edith when he said goodnight to her, as she seemed to be taking his failure to have a good time rather personally. She kissed him sweetly on the cheek before he went up, and turned on her grandmother with a set to her shoulders that told him there would be Words exchanged as soon as he left the room. He hoped, not for the first time, that he wouldn’t make any part of her wedding awkward with his inability to be adequately English. Or to stare down a butler. Or to erase the damning knowledge that half the landed gentry had of the late Lord Hexham’s second son.
He lay flat on his back, staring at the ceiling many hours after going up. The room felt too closed in, spacious as it was. He longed to step out onto his balcony back home. What he really wanted were those sultry nights in summer when it was almost too hot to sleep. When all the windows were thrown open at night to catch any sort of breeze, and the scent of the garden hung heavy in the air. He wanted to go walking in the moonlight beneath the verbena and jasmine, or to lie atop the sheets and smoke his pipe in the silence. He comforted himself in the knowledge that those nights would come again, and that perhaps, in the months and years to come, there would be someone who could one day take over Brancaster properly. Someone who would love the things that Bertie did, and would do what Peter could not.
Somewhere, a clock chimed. Forty-eight hours to go until the new year. His stomach growled in protest at his lack of dinner. There was something to be done about that at least, rude as it was to be getting up to a midnight kitchen raid in someone else’s house. The night air was freezing against his skin, and his robe didn’t do much to improve the situation. He fumbled around for a candle, going through several matches in an attempt to light the damn thing. He hoped his shaky hands were a product of the chill and not a harbinger of misery to come.
Someone else was out there. A little blond head caught the light of the sconces, bobbing down to the end of the hall.
“Psst,” he whispered at the retreating figure.
George whipped around, looking immensely guilty for a moment before he screwed his courage to the sticking place. “I’m going to get some milk,” he declared, head held high as Peter caught up to him.
“All by yourself?”
George nodded. “Ev’ybody’s sleeping. I left Nanny a note,” he elaborated, with the air of don’t-you-know-I’m-very-grown-up-and-responsible.
Peter suppressed a smile. “I’m not sleeping.”
“No.” He screwed up his face, pondering. “You can come, if you like.”
“I’d like that very much. I’m very hungry, you see, and I don’t know the way to the kitchen. I’m scared I’ll get lost and never find my way back.”
“Don’t be scared. I won’t let you get lost.” George held up his hand for Peter to take. It was wonderfully warm. God, if only he could just deal with the children and leave the adults to Nanny.
They made their way through a green baize door and down the stairs, Peter’s candle throwing spidery shadows from the railing. Peter always loved the servants’ passages in great houses, even though he had gotten spectacularly lost in the backways of Brancaster several times over the years. They were like the veins of a great creature, hidden beneath the surface but thrumming with activity, keeping it all going.
The kitchen was smaller than Brancaster’s, but well-kitted-out and still warm from the day’s operation. George tugged him into the pantry and pointed out all the divisions of upstairs and downstairs, for tomorrow and from today.
“You’ve got to only take little pieces of ev’ything, so no one misses it,” the boy concluded.
“That’s very good advice,” Peter chuckled, taking an apple, a bun, and some cheese from the downstairs shelf. “Did your papa tell you that?”
George shook his head. “Bawwow takes little pieces off all the pies and things and puts ’em in a napkin.”
“This Barrow sounds like a very interesting person. I bet he had all kinds of good tricks.”
“He showed me how to tie a slip-knot. And he’s the best at cwicket, but don’t tell Donk.”
“Donk?”
“My Gwandpapa.”
“Oh. Why do you call him Donk?”
“Because he’s Bob like the donkey.”
“I see.” He didn’t, but he supposed that was the inherent joy of having children about. They had some wonderfully bent logic, which all made perfect sense in their tiny heads. He never truly regretted his decision to stop pretending he was anything but what he was, to spare some poor woman the chore of being his wife and to spare himself the constant, crushing weight of Keeping Up Appearances. But sometimes, like when George held onto his robe and swung about absentmindedly, his heart sank in the knowledge that he would never have his own baby.
Peter set his plunder at the table and busied himself heating some milk for the both of them, forcibly clearing his maudlin thoughts and listening to George rattle on about all the things the former under-butler had taught him. These included how to wind a clock, how to skip stones, and quite a lot of information about Roman gladiators. All together, Peter got the impression of a kindly, middle-aged fellow with clever eyes, who loved to read and was possessed of a sweet tooth to rival Peter’s own.
“You must introduce us at the wedding,” he said, as they both sat down and tucked in.
“You’ll like him,” George declared with the absolute confidence that only a six-year-old could carry off. He frowned, blowing on his milk. “What should I call you when Auntie Edith marries Mr. Pelham?”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, we shall be family then. And I don’t call Donk ‘Lord Gwantham.’”
“Ah, that’s a good point.” He pondered it for a moment while he chewed. “Well, I’ll be your uncle’s cousin. So I suppose I could be Cousin Peter. Or Uncle Peter, if you like. Bertie’s like a brother to me, so I think it works.”
“Uncle Peter,” George decided after a moment of deliberation. “I’ll tell Sybbie. She’s my cousin, but she’s like my sister too.”
“I’m glad that’s settled,” Peter chuckled. He was feeling much more relaxed now, sitting at the scrubbed wooden table with his hands curled around something warm. “Now what shall I call you?” he asked playfully.
“I’m just George, I haven’t got a fancy name.” Peter snorted around his apple, which was horrid manners, but George didn’t seem to notice. “Except the servant’s say ‘Master George,’ which is silly, but they always do it anyway.”
“I imagine you grandparents insist on it,” Peter reasoned, half-heartedly. It was a strange place that aristocratic children occupied, where they were ‘Master’ to the people they spent the most time with. He remembered it well, just like he remembered the steadily growing distance as ‘Master Peter, what have you got up to now?’ became ‘Of course, my lord’ that George was still too young to have experienced. “But it is a bit silly.”
George smiled at him conspiratorially. “Sometimes when no one’s awound Bawwow says ‘Geooor-geh.’”
Peter hid his smile in his cup. “It sounds like you miss him a lot.”
George nodded, looking down at his swinging legs. “I wish he didn’t have to go.”
“You should tell him so, when you see him. Sometimes grown-ups think children have forgotten them when they go away because they’re silly like that. And you haven’t forgotten him at all, have you?”
“Do you think he’ll be ill again if he thinks that?” George’s eyes snapped up, suddenly looking downright frightened.
“No,” said Peter hurriedly, feeling the dangerous pull of unfamiliar waters. “I’m sure that’s not the case.”
“But he was ill fwom being sad,” George insisted. “I’m not supposed to say it because ev’yone lied and said he had ’flu, but it’s stupid.” Peter’s stomach bottomed out. “And if he thinks I’ve forgotten him that would make him sad.”
“I’m sure he’s fine, George.” He wasn’t sure of any such thing, and cursed himself for bringing up the whole business. “And you’ll see him soon, won’t you?”
George nodded, still looking like he might cry.
“I’ll tell you what,” Peter said, taking the boy’s little hands in his own. “I think it’s going to make Mr. Barrow very happy to see you again. So you must give him a big hug and tell him how much you missed him, so he knows that you’re happy to see him too. I know I should have an awfully hard time being sad if someone I loved gave me a nice hug.”
The boy seemed content with that, and, to Peter’s surprise, climbed into his lap and gave him a hug. They cuddled like that in the kitchen until George’s yawns signaled it was time to go back upstairs. They snuck into the nursery like thieves, and Peter couldn’t help but snort at the absurdity of the whole situation, and more specifically the misspelt note on George’s pillow.
“Goodnight Georgie,” Peter whispered.
“Goodnight Uncle Peter.” The moniker made warmth hum in his chest. He hoped the others would call him that, too.
Valiantly as he tried to get some sleep that night, worry kept shooting him awake. He hoped he had misunderstood what George had told him, or that the little boy somehow had the wrong of it. But he knew in his gut that there was only one way that it would filter through to the upstairs children that their under-butler was so sad it made him ill. He buried his face in the pillow and tried not to think about a bottle of laudanum and an empty flat in Paris. When sleep finally pulled him under, he dreamed of following a faceless man down endless back passageways, picking up jasmine flowers as they fell from the stranger’s livery.