Thomas and the Society of Sentinels (6/15)

[alex51324]

Chapter Six



Thomas’s bruises faded much more quickly than he would have liked them to, now that he was on a deadline. It seemed like no time at all before they were leaving the club for the railway station, bound for Norfolk by way of Yorkshire.

He had to wear his livery to the station, but, feeling that he would literally rather die than have anyone at Downton see him in it, he changed into his rumpled and threadbare third-best suit. Better to look like a street beggar than something that had fallen off the back of an 18th century coach.

It turned out that the railway company disagreed. The next time he went forward to check on his lordship, the conductor asked him what he was doing in the first-class carriage, and, when he answered, clearly didn’t quite believe that such a ragged-looking person could be a genuine valet. Thomas thought he might have ended up turned over to the railway police if his lordship hadn’t come out of the compartment to rescue him.

“Perhaps you had better just stay here for the rest of the journey,” his lordship suggested once they were back in the compartment.

“The conductor won’t like that either, my lord,” Thomas pointed out, with a nervous look back at the door.

“If he says anything, I’ll just remind him I’m a Sentinel and say that I need you here. He won’t ask any questions-they never do. Euan used to ride in first class on third-class tickets all the time.”

His lordship was right-the conductor didn’t bother them for the rest of the way to Yorkshire. Getting out on the platform at Downton, Thomas was suddenly nervous. He didn’t know why-surely both his arrest and the reasons for it had been kept quiet; it wasn’t as though the first person who recognized him would yell, “It’s him! The sodomite!” and arrange the rest of the villagers into an angry mob.

Probably not, anyway.

Their first stop was the pub. Railway schedules being what they were, they would have to stay the night in the village and depart for Norfolk the next day, so Thomas had booked rooms by telephone. The accommodations wouldn’t be quite what his lordship was used to-visiting nobs usually stayed up at the house-but his lordship reminded him that the rooms in a perfectly respectable pub were sure to be considerably more comfortable than a trench dugout.

And they were, but there was one problem Thomas hadn’t anticipated. As he unpacked his lordship’s overnight case, his lordship wandered around vaguely for a bit, then asked, “I say, where are you going to sleep?”

“My room’s up on the third floor, my lord,” Thomas explained. The Grantham Arms didn’t run to dressing rooms, and even if they had, they wouldn’t have expected anyone to sleep in them.

“Oh. I don’t like having you so far away. Especially in a strange place.”

Thomas wondered what he wanted him to do-curl up on the hearth rug like a dog, perhaps?

But his lordship continued, “Aren’t there any other rooms on this floor?”

“I expect there are, my lord, but the servants’ rooms are on the third floor.”

“I’ll speak to the publican.”

And he did, when they went back downstairs. The man who ran the pub hemmed and hawed for a while, then told his lordship that he’d be happy to put Thomas wherever his lordship liked, but he’d have to pay the full rate for a second guest room. His lordship stared at him as though he had grown another head and answered that he didn’t care a bit about that.

It was rather satisfying, though Thomas worried the barman might think there was something funny about it. Thomas resolved to find some reason to make a point about his lordship being an invalid; that way, it would be clear that he wanted him nearby for strictly professional reasons.

After that, his lordship sent a boy up to the big house with his card and a note for Mr. Carson, asking if he wished to come down to the Grantham Arms to discuss the matter or if he’d prefer to have his lordship call at the house, and they settled in the saloon bar to wait.

They didn’t have to wait long before the boy returned with a curt reply, which his lordship read aloud. “He ‘regrets to say’ that his ‘duties do not permit him the leisure to discuss Thomas Barrow with anyone.’” His lordship folded the note and tucked it into his pocket. “In that case, I’ll have to go up.” He hesitated. “I’ve been thinking, perhaps it would be best if you waited here.” Thomas had been thinking precisely the same thing, but as he considered how to express his agreement, his lordship misunderstood his silence and went on, “I’m sure you’d like to see your old friends, but…well, this interview may be a bit unpleasant. And while I’m quite sure there would be no long-term consequences if this Carson followed through on his threat to involve the police, there might be a bit of a scene, and I’m sure you don’t want that.”

“No. No, my lord. It’s fine. There’s no one up there that I want to see, anyway.”

“Oh,” his lordship said. “All right, then. No time like the present,” he added, planting his crutch and standing up. “I’ll let that strange little man know that if you would like anything while I’m gone, he can put it on my bill.”

#

Downton Abbey was less than half a mile from the village, so Gerald decided to walk, rather than return to the train station and try to find a car to take him. He rather enjoyed having the option, but began to regret it near the end of the walk-his prosthetic leg fit better now, but it was still quite heavy.

By the time he arrived, a place to sit down and perhaps a drink would have been quite welcome, but what he got instead was a butler looking down his nose at him and repeating that, while he was greatly sorry that Gerald had inconvenienced himself, he had no time to discuss Thomas Barrow.

“Yes, that’s why I came,” Gerald said pleasantly. “This way it should only take a short time.” Remembering a trick from comic drawings about pushy salesmen, he casually planted the tip of his crutch just inside the door.

Carson took in both the spoken and unspoken messages. “If you would like to step this way, your lordship.”

The butler showed him to a small sitting room that somehow managed to give the clear impression of infrequent use, without anything so obvious as dust. Perhaps it was the rather last-century wallpaper, or the unharmonious collection of china ornaments over the marble fireplace.

Once Carson had closed the door, he said, “What, precisely, is your connection to Mr. Barrow?”

“He’s my Guide.” He saw no reason to explain the complicated details of Thomas’s relationship with the Society.

“I beg your pardon?”

Unless, of course, this butler already knew them. “That is, he’s a Society Guide at present, of course, but he’s acting as my Guide. I understand that he wrote to you recently about his personal belongings.”

“The…Sentinel Society, your lordship?”

“Of course.”

“You mean to say that Thomas Barrow is a Guide, my lord?”

“That is why the Society took an interest in his case,” Gerald said impatiently. It rankled, being “my lorded” by this…person. He knew Insensates did things differently, but not even Guides he’d known for years would presume that intimacy. “I’m not certain why you thought it appropriate to refuse to send his effects to his new place of employment, but I am not at all pleased about it.”

Carson blinked a few times. “Indeed. Perhaps you would understand more clearly if you saw the letter. If you’ll excuse me, while I fetch it?”

Gerald nodded graciously. He had no idea what Thomas could have said that would justify the butler’s conduct, but he was willing to let the thing play out. In Carson’s absence, he sat in a late-Victorian chair whose decided discomfort made as plain as could be that this room designated for the reception of unwanted visitors.

A few moments later, the butler returned and wordlessly handed Gerald a letter. It took only the briefest of moments to read-the contents, in full, were, “Mr. Carson. Please send my things to the above address. You can deduct the freight charges from my wages owed. Thomas Barrow.” The Society’s address was hand-written at the top; he hadn’t even thought to use the Society’s notepaper. “Oh, Thomas, you silly creature,” Gerald said.

Carson said, “I’m afraid I was unfamiliar with the address, your lordship, and having been informed through the papers that Mr. Barrow was sentenced to three months as a guest of her majesty, I formed an incorrect impression.”

“I see,” Gerald said, his sense of righteous indignation collapsing like a pricked balloon. Naturally, if the butler had thought Thomas had-what, staged a prison break?-he would be reluctant to involve himself.

“I understand that Guides are granted a certain degree of latitude regarding crimes such as Barrow’s, but none of us were aware that he is, in fact, a Guide.”

“Nor was he, as it happens,” Gerald said. “But he is, and he’s now quite respectably employed by the Society, so I trust there’s no further difficulty about his belongings and wages.”

“I’ll have his things collected and taken down to the Grantham Arms, my lord. As to his wages, I’ll have to speak to Lord Grantham.”

“All right,” Gerald said, not moving. When Carson didn’t take the hint, he added, “I’ll wait.”

Carson appeared to be swelling with righteous indignation himself, but before he could erupt, the door opened, and another man came through, saying, “Carson, where is my-who is this?”

“Lord Pellinger, my lord. Apparently,” he gave Gerald a skeptical look, “Mr. Barrow is now his Guide.”

“I see,” said the new man, who Gerald supposed must be Lord Grantham. Carson went on to explain the purpose of Gerald’s visit, prompted Grantham to repeat, “I see. Well. Perhaps you could see about that, Carson. I’ll take over entertaining Lord Pellinger.”

Carson had little choice but to agree to that. Once he’d gone, Grantham offered Gerald a drink-which he gratefully accepted-and said, sounding shocked, “Barrow is a Guide?”

“Yes, he is.”

“That’s certainly unexpected.”

“He wasn’t aware of it either, until a police Sentinel identified him.” Despite the fact that he was now drinking Lord Grantham’s liquor, Gerald couldn’t help adding, “The Sentinel Society provided for his defense.” As Grantham should have, for one of his own people, even if he wasn’t a Sentinel. He’d come here to defend his Guide, and while the first foe had proven to be mistaken rather than malicious, Lord Grantham was a readily-available secondary target. “We didn’t think it quite right that a Guide should be imprisoned merely for kissing another boy.”

“Kissing?” Grantham asked. “I was told-after he’d already been arrested-that he crept into another servant’s bedroom and perpetrated an act of gross indecency.”

“That’s broadly true, but a very inflammatory way to describe it,” Gerald answered. “I’ve seen the police report-the act of gross indecency was one kiss.”

Grantham looked a bit puzzled. “In that case, I rather agree that bringing in the police seems a bit of an overreaction. I’d assumed, since I wasn’t consulted beforehand, that the matter must have been…unequivocal.”

“It wasn’t,” Gerald said. “The other man’s report and Thomas’s report of the situation matched precisely; there was no indication of anything further.”

“We all knew he was inclined that way,” Grantham went on, “but he’d never caused any trouble-any of that sort of trouble-before. We can’t have him bothering the other male staff, of course, but if I had known it was as innocent as that, I’d have advised James-the fellow in question, he’s a footman-to be more forgiving. Provided it didn’t happen again.”

“I’m glad to hear that. I’ll tell him.” Now Gerald couldn’t be properly angry with him, either. Still, he reminded himself, the objective had been achieved-Thomas would know that Gerald was willing to stand up for him, even if it had not actually been necessary to do so. And he would have his things back. “As you can imagine, he was rather distressed by the incident, even though we were able to spare him a custodial sentence.”

“Hmph,” Grantham said. “You can tell him, as well, that we missed him at the cricket match.”

“Did you?” Gerald asked, wondering what that had to do with anything.

“Yes-the house plays the village, once a year. He was always our best player.”

Gerald hadn’t had the slightest idea that Thomas played cricket. It dawned on him that this might be an opportunity to learn a bit more about his puzzling Guide. “Had he worked here for some time, then?”

“Years,” Grantham answered. “I don’t quite remember when he first came. It was well before the war.”

“He must have been quite satisfied with his position here, then.” Perhaps Gerald could find out what he had liked about it.

“Satisfied? Thomas? No, I don’t think so. He was always trying to convince me to make him my valet. He was very…single-minded about it.”

“Wasn’t he your valet?”

“Only for the last year or so; he was a footman for most of his time here.”

Guides usually worked as footmen in Sentinel households, too, but everyone knew that being a personal Guide was the job they really wanted. Being stuck as a footman for years on end might go some ways toward explaining Thomas’s burden of built-up resentment.

“There’s nothing wrong with his qualifications,” Grantham added, apparently under the impression Gerald was concerned about that. “He’d filled in before, when I was between valets, and he often looked after overnight guests.”

Stuck as a footman, and having the job he really wanted waved under his nose. It sounded quite dreadful. “Then why wasn’t he a valet?”

Grantham considered the question. “He was a bit unreliable, when he was younger. Before the war. But mostly, I suppose I just didn’t…care much for his company. There’s something a bit off about him-sullen, and sneaking.”

“You didn’t care much for him,” Gerald repeated numbly. That was the problem in a nutshell, as far as he was concerned-though he knew Grantham was using the word in a slightly different sense. Here, now, was something to battle against, but he was unsure where even to start. And who knew what further revelations would unfold if he could keep Grantham talking?

“It hardly matters whether one likes footmen or not,” Grantham said, as though it were the most reasonable thing in the world to say. “And he was still only filling in as my valet, really, this past year. My other one…had to go away for a while. He’d just returned when Thomas-well, when it happened.”

“Why, ah, why did you keep him on here? It seems that he might have been happier in another household.”

“Quite possibly, but I couldn’t sack him for being unhappy. He did his job well enough-for the most part-when he wasn’t making a nuisance of himself about wanting to be a valet.”

Who had said anything about sacking him? “Didn’t you know anyone who was looking for a valet?” Keeping an unhappy and resentful Guide on ice was no good to anyone. At Bellerock, they would have sought out a suitable place for him in another branch of the family, or even another House entirely if necessary.

Grantham scoffed. “I don’t run an employment agency, Lord Pellinger. He could have given notice at any time, of course, but it’s hardly my responsibility to find him another place.”

“Isn’t it?”

Narrowing his eyes, Grantham said, with what sounded like genuine disbelief, “You think that it is? Why?”

“Because he’s--” A Guide of your House, Gerald had been about to say. But he wasn’t. “We ordinarily would,” Gerald explained rather weakly. “For Guides.” Did all Insensates think like that? That it wasn’t any concern of theirs if their servants were unhappy?

“Would you?” Grantham asked, with vague interest. “Well, as I said, none of us knew he was a Guide.”

#

“What are you doing here?”

Thomas looked up to see Bates, of all people, standing in the doorway of the public bar. The barman had shooed his shabby self out of the saloon bar shortly after his lordship left. “Having a pint; what’s it look like?”

Bates came closer. “I didn’t realize you’d got out. I wouldn’t try going up to the house, if that’s what you were thinking of.”

“Really,” Thomas said. “Funny, I got the impression people who’d been to prison were welcomed back with open arms up there.”

“It’s hardly the same.”

“Suppose not. I never killed anybody.”

Bates opened his mouth to speak, then stopped himself, taking in a deep breath and letting it out slowly. “What is it you want, Thomas? Money? A reference? I’ll speak to his lordship, if it’ll get you to go away without making another scene.”

“I don’t need anything from you,” Thomas informed him. “And it’s Mr. Barrow, thanks.”

“Really. Whose valet are you now?”

“His name’s Lord Pellinger.” Enjoying the look of surprise on Bates’s face, he added, “He’s up at the house now, seeing about getting my things and my wages out of Mr. Carson. As soon as he’s finished, we’ll be on our way.”

The barman came in then, and asked Bates in a pointed sort of way what he wanted. Thomas didn’t get rid of Bates that easily, though-once he had his pint, he brought it over to Thomas’s table and sat down, quite uninvited, thank you very much. “This new place of yours. Is it all right?”

“Of course it is. He’s the inheriting son of the Earl of Yernemuth.” That much would make it plain to Bates that it was a good position; Thomas didn’t think he’d understand about his lordship needing him, or thinking he might come to like Thomas one day. Thomas wouldn’t have wanted to try to explain that part even if Bates would understand.

Bates took another deep breath and let it out slowly, again. “Thomas. I can’t think of too many good reasons the son of an earl would want to hire a valet who’d just got out of prison on charges of--” He glanced over at the barman, who was obliviously polishing a glass. “You know what kind of charges. Are. You. All. Right?”

Once he worked out what Bates was implying, Thomas wasn’t sure whether to be amused or offended. Bates thought he was, what-prostituting himself for a valeting job? Even if he was, he wouldn’t stoop to asking Bates to save him. He settled on saying, “Glad to know you’re concerned about my virtue, Mr. Bates. But it’s nothing like that. Sentinels don’t care so much about ‘you know what kind of charges.’”

“Sentinels?” Bates asked.

Now it was Thomas’s turn to be surprised. He hoped he did a better job of keeping it off his face than Bates had. “O’Brien didn’t tell everyone?”

“Tell everyone what? If you think she’s still on your side, you’re wrong-she’s made no secret that she’s glad you’re gone.”

“I know about that,” Thomas answered. “No, she didn’t tell everyone I’m a Guide now?”

“You?” Bates asked. “A Guide? I thought they were…nice.”

“Apparently it’s not a requirement.” Not quite, anyway.

“And this Sentinel gave you a job, just like that?”

“Yes.” Got him out of prison and gave him a job that was his for as long as he wanted it-it was almost like he was Bates or something.

“Well, then.” Another deep breath. “I’m pleased for you.”

“Of course you are.” Bates would say that-hell, maybe he even believed it. Leaning back, Thomas lit a cigarette.

“No, I am. Not even you deserve to be ruined over something like that. You do know O’Brien set you up, don’t you? She’s been bragging about it.”

“Figured that out on my own, thanks.” It stung to know that all of Downton knew what a fool he’d been-but at least he never had to see any of them again.

“A lot of us think she went too far this time.”

“She’s gone further,” Thomas answered.

There was the faint outline of a sharp expression on Bates’s doughy face. “What do you mean?”

Thomas almost told him. But they’d been mates once, him and O’Brien, and he didn’t owe Bates a thing. “Nothing.”

“Did she have something to do with Vera-”

Naturally, Bates would think Thomas was referring to his troubles-after all, the world revolved around him, didn’t it? “No. No. I mean, she was the one who told her you were at Downton. But she didn’t kill her.” Thomas considered for a moment. “Far as I know, anyway.”

“You sure know how to choose your friends, don’t you?” Bates asked, shaking his head.

Thomas didn’t have an answer for that-he had never chosen O’Brien as a friend. She was just the only one who had taken his side.

Bates didn’t seem to have anything else to say, either. But he didn’t leave, just sat there sipping his pint and watching him like Thomas was some kind of insect under a microscope. Thomas thought about leaving-back to his room, or the saloon bar-but he didn’t want to give ground.

The standoff only ended when his lordship returned. “Ah, Thomas,” he said, as Thomas stood up. “You found a friend after all?”

“No, my lord,” Thomas said, glaring at Bates.

“Arch-enemy, perhaps,” Bates said, getting to his feet. “I should be getting back. Lord Pellinger,” he added, with a nod.

“Good day,” his lordship said, looking after Bates for a moment with a puzzled expression. “I didn’t realize you had an arch-enemy.”

“He isn’t that, either, my lord.” Not anymore, at any rate. “He’s Lord Grantham’s valet,” he said, for lack of any better explanation.

“Oh,” his lordship said, nodding as if that actually meant something. “Ah, shall we?” he added, looking towards the door to the saloon bar.

“Yes, my lord.” In they went. After his lordship had settled himself and gotten a drink from the barman, he took an envelope out of his jacket pocket. “Your wages. They’re sending someone named Wallace down with your things in a bit.”

The under-gardener. Thomas supposed that was all right; at least they weren’t sending Alfred.

Or worse, Jimmy. “Thank you, my lord. I appreciate it.”

“Of course. As it happens, I had rather an interesting chat with Lord Grantham.”

Thomas froze.

“He says to tell you they missed you at the cricket match.”

“That was kind of him to say,” Thomas said. That couldn’t possibly have been all he said. Rapidly, he tried to think of what Lord Grantham knew about him that his lordship didn’t. The stealing, possibly. But that had been so long ago.

“He also said he hadn’t been told precisely what happened, with the footman, and if he had known, he’d have advised him to-what did he say? Be more forgiving, that’s it. For whatever that’s worth.”

“That was kind of him to say as well,” Thomas murmured, still waiting for the hammer to fall.

“How he didn’t know, I don’t begin to understand. Apparently upon hearing his valet had just been arrested, he elected to shrug his shoulders and not ask any questions.”

Yes, that was more or less what Thomas assumed he had done. He wasn’t sure why his lordship sounded so surprised about it. “Well, my lord, Bates had just come back, so he didn’t need me anymore.”

“Yes, about that,” his lordship said.

Oh, yes, there it was. He’d told everyone at the Society that he’d been Lord Grantham’s valet. He’d never mentioned the part about it being temporary.

But how angry could his lordship be about that? It wasn’t really a lie, just an…omission.

“How long were you trying to be that man’s valet?”

“Well,” Thomas said, thinking. “I valeted him for a while in…1912.” It would sound better if he mentioned that part, wouldn’t it? “Before Mr. Bates showed up. He was his lordship’s-Lord Grantham’s-batman in the Boer war. So he got the job. But he left and came back a few times. And I was away in France for a while. Then when Bates was first arrested, I filled in again--”

“This Bates was arrested? What for?”

“Murdering his wife, my lord. Apparently he didn’t do it, but after he was convicted, his lordship said I could have the valeting job until he’d proved his innocence and got released. I didn’t think he really would. Be released, I mean. But his lordship had a lawyer working on it, so he was. Eventually. Just before I…did what I did. So I was his valet off and on from 1912 until this year.” That was, Thomas was certain, a completely legitimate way of looking at it.

“So this other fellow was accused of murdering his wife, and Grantham arranged for his defense and held his job open for him even after he’d been convicted.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“But you kiss one footman, and he washes his hands of you?”

“He’s always favored Bates, my lord.”

“You don’t say.” His lordship shook his head. “Why on Earth did you agree to this preposterous arrangement?”

“My lord?”

“‘Filling in’ as his valet until this other fellow managed to prove he hadn’t killed anybody. If I understand correctly, you’d have been out on your ear whether you’d kissed any footmen or not.”

“I might have gotten my footman job back. Or something. That was never quite made clear, my lord.”

“It just gets better and better,” his lordship murmured. “Why did you put up with it?”

“I…wanted to be a valet, my lord. I always did.”

“Of course you did. But his valet?”

“My lord?”

“I’m sorry, Thomas, but the man’s an ass. If I showed such an appalling lack of consideration to any Guide on our place, I’d expect him to tell me to go soak my head. If the rest of the family didn’t do it first.”

Thomas was stunned into silence. He’d long thought himself ill-used at Downton, but he knew his was the minority opinion. He never, really, expected Lord Grantham to notice or care that all Thomas wanted was to be his valet and that it hurt and angered him every time the promotion slipped from his grasp. People like Lord Grantham didn’t have to concern themselves with whether their servants liked their jobs or not. “I don’t…my lord.”

“I know you don’t.” He shook his head and drained his glass. “We should probably finish this conversation up in the room.

“Yes, my lord,” Thomas agreed automatically, going around to help him to his feet. What in God’s name was he going to say next? He still expected, somehow, that this conversation would eventually work its way around to his many deficiencies as a valet, servant, and human being.

Or at least to the stealing.

#

Up in the room, Gerald had Thomas help him take his leg off, then sat on the bed, on top of the covers and leaning against the headboard. There was only one chair in the room, and he rather thought Thomas would be more comfortable sitting in it than on the bed.

Even so, getting him to sit took more coaxing than it had any time since the beginning. Anxiety was practically pouring off of him-and now, Gerald thought, he was finally starting to get a handle on precisely why he was so miserable all the time.

Gerald had been thinking all along that because Thomas had been in service before, he knew what it meant to be a Guide-that being Lord Grantham’s valet meant, more or less, the same thing that it would have meant to be a Guide.

Thomas thought the same, and they were both so, so wrong.

Talking to Lord Grantham, it became clear that the man thought his responsibilities to his servants began and ended with providing them with their wages and a roof over their heads. For certain ones, the favorites, he might do more-like he had for this Bates, for instance. But for the most part, their needs, their happiness, was beneath his notice. Thomas may have been unhappy, but as long as he wasn’t “making a nuisance of himself,” Grantham simply didn’t care.

Sentinels couldn’t operate that way. Not because they were inherently kinder or more generous than other people-at least, not as far as Gerald knew-but because having one’s dinner served by someone who literally reeked of misery tended to dampen the appetite. At Bellerock, if the boy who cleaned the boots was half as unhappy as Thomas seemed to have been at Downton, the entire family would have surged round to find out what was wrong and fix it.

And he had been unhappy. A few anecdotes that he had pried out of Grantham, and a few others he’d later pried out of the butler, painted a picture of a Guide who had been absolutely desperate to be noticed and cared for, which Grantham called “making a nuisance of himself” and “sneaking and sullen,” to which Carson had added “sulking and scheming.” They were a very alliterative household, it seemed.

Gerald had to admit that Thomas’s reported behavior had been, from time to time at least, fairly beastly-the way he’d been acting belowstairs at the Society was, apparently, quite normal for Thomas. He’d gotten on very poorly with the Downton staff, and Gerald didn’t suppose they could all have taken a baseless dislike to him. And his being “unreliable” when he was younger had apparently consisted of a few incidents of petty theft and ongoing feuds with a few servants in particular. Gerald wasn’t particularly pleased to hear about any of it-though he could hardly get too excited about the theft of the odd bottle of wine, given that Guides were generally given free access to anything their Sentinels kept around to drink-but he was even less pleased to hear that Grantham and his butler had responded to these problems by denying Thomas promotion and hoping he’d eventually go away. While Gerald was not entirely pleased with the Society’s collective response to the Gregory-Thomas-Boko incident, it was at least more effective and compassionate than that.

Gerald had concluded that Thomas’s misbehavior was a symptom of his unhappiness, and he still thought it was-just a more far-reaching one than he’d initially suspected. He could still be wrong, though. He had been wrong before. So he asked, “Were you happy, when you worked at Downton?”

“Happy, my lord?”

Gerald wondered if he even knew what the word meant. “Happier than you have been at the Society?”

“I wouldn’t say that, my lord. I don’t want to go back, if that’s what you mean.”

He was glad to hear that, at least. “But you were there for-what, ten years?”

“About that, my lord, yes. Minus a couple of years of the war.”

“So I suppose you liked it well enough.”

“I must have. I was glad to be back after the war, I can tell you that much.” He managed a weak smile.

Of course he had been-even though they hadn’t been glad to have him back. Grantham had chuckled saying that he thought he’d got rid of him after the war, but he’d managed to worm his way back in by pitching in while much of the staff were down with Spanish ‘flu. It had been all Gerald could do not to bash the fatuous idiot over the head with his crutch.

Looking down at his hands, Thomas went on, “I suppose I ought to have looked for another place-somewhere I could be a valet without standing in line behind Bates. I don’t know. I guess I’d been there so long I thought it was home.”

“And Grantham-you found him to be a good employer?” Grantham had certainly seemed to think he was, by Insensate standards. Gerald wondered if Thomas agreed.

“Ah-yes, my lord. He’s all right. He was quite generous to-some of the others. Not just Bates. Years ago, he sent the cook to London to have her cataracts operated on, and he held her job for her, too. Things like that.”

That was “quite generous”? Compared to what, turning the woman out onto the street, blind? Gerald was certainly glad to hear that Grantham adhered to some minimal standard of decency, but he wasn’t about to award him a medal for it. “Was he ever particularly generous to you?”

“Well, no, my lord. But I wasn’t one of his favorites. And I don’t think I ever asked for anything, besides the valeting job, anyway.”

And that, he’d asked for quite often, Gerald understood. “What about the rest of the staff? How did you get on with them?” Again, he thought he knew the answer, but he wanted to know what Thomas thought.

Gerald wouldn’t have thought it possible for Thomas to smell any unhappier than he already had, but now he did. Looking down at the floor, he said, “About as well as I did with the others in London, my lord.”

“That’s something we’ll have to work on,” Gerald said.

Thomas looked up at him suspiciously. “How, my lord?”

“I’m not sure yet. But you’ll be able to make a fresh start, at Bellerock. And I’m sure the others will do their best to help you feel at home.”

“Yes, my lord,” Thomas said.

They could return to that later, Gerald thought. “So you weren’t any happier there than you were in London?”

Thomas glanced up, meeting his eyes briefly. “I suppose not, my lord, now that you put it that way. Except when I thought Jimmy liked me. I was pretty happy then.”

“Jimmy-your footman?” Thomas nodded. “What happened there?”

Thomas breathed in sharply through his nose and blinked his eyes a few times. Gerald wondered if telling him he wouldn’t make fun of him if he cried would help matters. Probably not.

Once Thomas had recovered, he said in a brittle, falsely cheerful voice, “That’s quite simple, my lord. I fell for him, and my former best mate realized I’d handed her a weapon to use against me. So she convinced me he felt the same way, and as soon as I fell for it enough to do something stupid, they called down the law on me.”

No wonder he’d had a bit of trouble making new friends in London, after an experience like that. A few questions about the former best friend produced even more shocking tidbits. She had a nasty streak a mile wide, and it was a little troubling to see how Thomas had been amused by that nasty streak as long as they were on the same side, but the falling-out had been vicious. Apparently, she’d been his only ally in his quest to become a valet, but even she hadn’t understood why it was so important to him, or she wouldn’t have expected him to turn around and help her nephew jump into that position.

Gerald had his own theory about that. Guides thrived on close personal relationships-not only with their Sentinels, but with each other, as well. Some of Gerald’s fondest childhood memories were of visiting the household Guides downstairs and being enveloped in an atmosphere of warmth and caring.

Downton was nothing like that. It was, apparently, not quite the noxious den of vipers Gerald had initially imagined-apart from O’Brien and, disturbingly, Thomas himself-but it also wasn’t the sort of warmly supportive environment that produced happy, affectionate Guides.

Thomas had had no Sentinel, no other Guides, and, from the sound of it, not even any Insensates who genuinely liked him. The isolation must have been crushing. But some part of him had known the shape of what was missing, and he’d reached out blindly for the only thing he knew that even resembled a proper Sentinel-Guide relationship: being Lord Grantham’s valet.

He’d done exactly what any good Guide would have done, exactly what Gerald had been trying for weeks to get him to do: he’d figured out what he needed, and he’d asked for it. He’d asked for it clearly enough that even Grantham, who Gerald thought must be the densest man in Britain, had noticed. He must have been practically screaming, for God’s sake.

And in response, he’d gotten…nothing. Until he finally achieved his goal, and it turned out to be a mirage: Grantham still disliked him, still didn’t even care enough to inquire into why he’d been arrested.

No wonder he was unhappy. No wonder he was so willing to believe, on the flimsiest scraps of misunderstood evidence, that Gerald considered him a poor second best to Euan and would happily discard him if any alternative presented itself. He’d never known anything else.

But while Gerald was thinking about that, Thomas was apparently doing some thinking of his own. And the conclusions he drew about Gerald’s line of questioning were-as always-nearly accurate, but skewed out of recognition by the enormous gaps between his basic expectations and Gerald’s own. He said, “I know I’m supposed to be…happy, my lord.”

“Pardon?”

“Mr. Weatherby said. It’s just…a bit difficult, that’s all. I’m trying.”

“Weatherby told you that?”

“Yes, my lord.”

Damn Weatherby’s eyes. “What did you think he meant?”

Thomas looked startled. “My lord?”

“I’m not angry at you,” Gerald said quickly, realizing how that must have sounded. And what an unfair question it had been. “Can I ask you-no.” That wasn’t a fair question, either, and if he asked it, Thomas would likely feel that he had to answer it, even if answering it made him miserable. “Let me tell you what I think these last few weeks have looked like, from your perspective. And you let me know if I get anything wrong. All right?”

Thomas nodded mutely.

“So. A couple of months ago, you were working at that house up there.” Gerald gestured in the direction of Downton Abbey. “You finally had the job you always wanted, but your--” Not his Sentinel; Gerald kept making that mistake, and that was the whole point, that he wasn’t. “Grantham was making no secret that he was just waiting to get this Bates back and give you the boot.”

Thomas stirred. “It was a bit of a secret, actually, my lord. I didn’t know he was coming back until a day or two before.”

“All right.” That was even worse, somehow. “But he was….” He didn’t know how to explain the problem in a way that Thomas would understand-Grantham wasn’t his Sentinel. “It wasn’t as satisfying as you thought it would be. He didn’t favor you the way he did Bates.”

“I didn’t really expect him to, my lord.”

Gerald decided to let that part of his theory go. Perhaps Thomas hadn’t ever expected what Gerald thought he had a right to expect: to be cared for and paid attention to. “All right. You had no close friends anymore, since this O’Brien person turned on you, and the one bright spot was that you thought Jimmy might let you kiss him.”

He glanced over at Thomas and, this time, got a nod of confirmation.

“Then Bates turned up, and you lost the valeting job and weren’t sure if you would have any job at all. Which would mean….” Gerald wasn’t sure, precisely, what it would mean. “Would they have done anything at all to help you find another position?”

“I’m not sure, my lord. They’d have sent me off with a reference, but…probably not a very good one. I thought I might have a pretty difficult time finding another place. That’s why…well, I didn’t think I had much to lose, taking a chance with Jimmy.”

“Yes. So you did that, and it went spectacularly badly, and you wound up in jail with no one to help you and even worse prospects for future employment than you had before.”

“Yes, my lord. And I know I ought to be grateful, to you and Mr. Langley-Smythe and everyone. I am, really. I just--”

“You’re just dreadfully unhappy because you’d been thrown out of your home and treated badly by people you hoped you could trust,” Gerald interrupted. “And there’s no reason to expect that your new position will be any better. It’s slightly more secure, for reasons that you don’t entirely understand, but you’re still playing second fiddle, this time to a dead man. What’s expected of you is just familiar enough that you think you know what you’re doing, except every once in a while something completely baffling will happen. You don’t want to ask too many questions because….” Gerald wasn’t sure why not. “What do they do to you, up at that place, if you ask too many questions?” He gestured vaguely in the direction of the Abbey.

Thomas stirred. “Ah…Carson yells at you. And makes fun of you at the servants’ dinner, if they were particularly stupid questions.”

That didn’t sound particularly heinous to Gerald, but even well-brought-up Guides were sensitive, their feelings easily hurt. He wondered if Thomas had always been so sensitive to criticism, or if Carson’s approach had worsened it. But he supposed it didn’t much matter; one way or another, Thomas had learned not to ask questions. “So you’re mostly guessing about what we want from you. Meanwhile, Weatherby tells you that you’re supposed to be happy. Since you’ve never actually been happy before, and you’ve had several particularly terrible things happen to you recently, this seems like a cruel and insane demand, but you’re afraid of what will happen if you don’t manage to find a way to achieve it. Somehow, this fails to make you any happier.”

Thomas was staring at him. “Can Sentinels read minds?” he asked in a small voice.

“No,” Gerald said. “But we can sense how people are feeling-particularly Guides. It has to do with scent, mostly.”

“So that’s why….”

Gerald waited, but Thomas didn’t seem to be planning to finish the thought. “That’s how I knew you were unhappy. The rest of it was putting two and two together. Was I right?”

“I think so. I never really thought about it before.”

“I realize now that I’ve been a bit thick,” Gerald admitted. “All this time, I’ve been asking you if you’re all right, when I knew perfectly well that you weren’t. And I even had a fair idea of why you were unhappy-some of the reasons, at least. What I ought to have been asking is, how can I help?”

Gerald had to admit, he’d had some unrealistic hopes that finally asking the right question would have dramatic results-that Thomas would, perhaps, immediately reveal a plan by which Gerald could fix everything in three or four easy steps. What he actually did was look anywhere but at Gerald for a few moments, then say, “I don’t know, my lord.”

“Well,” he said, “give it some thought. Because I want to help. It’s….” He struggled for words. “It’s normal for Guides to ask their Sentinels for things. Or even if you just want to talk about what’s bothering you. I understand it’s different up at that other house. I didn’t realize how different it was. I thought you’d already know.”

“I’m sorry, my lord--”

“It’s not something for you to be sorry for. It’s something you never learned.” He remembered Nanny Morgan, when they were little, telling Euan, If you’re sad, it’ll make Gerry sad. What do you need to be cheerful again? When they’d been very tiny, she’d set about fixing whatever it was herself; once they were a little older, she’d taught Euan to come to him-to say that he wanted a turn with whatever toy they’d been squabbling over, or that Simon had said something mean to him and a hug might help.

Most Guides weren’t raised in their Sentinels’ nurseries, but perhaps they were taught the same way, at home. And he’d been taught, in his nursery and outside of it, that keeping the estate’s Guides happy was Mama and Papa’s job, and that when he was a man, it would be his job too.

Whatever lessons Thomas had learned on the same subjects had been rather different.

If he was going to remedy that, he’d have to begin at the beginning-but he’d have to be very careful to avoid the childlike language Nanny had used; Thomas would almost certainly find it insulting. “You see, Sentinels are affected by Guides’ feelings and moods.”

“Because you can smell them,” Thomas said, sounding a little skeptical about the whole idea.

“Yes. And Guides are, too, though we’re not entirely sure how. You don’t much like to be around someone who’s cross, or who--” Doesn’t like you. God, Thomas. “Or anything like that, do you?”

“Does anyone? My lord,” Thomas added hastily.

“I suppose not. But you can tell, even if they’re trying to hide it.” Thomas looked dubious about that, so Gerald went on, “Some Guides can, at any rate. And Sentinels can. So it’s much more comfortable for everyone if the Guides are happy.”

“That’s what Mr. Weatherby said.”

“Did he?” That made much more sense than saying that Thomas was “supposed to be happy.” Perhaps Weatherby had come closer to understanding the problem than Gerald had-he just hadn’t quite gone far enough. “What he meant was that there’s no reason to feel that asking for help is…a nuisance, or anything like that. We’re used to it. If there’s something you-or any of the Guides--don’t like about your job, or where you live, or anything really, we want to fix it. It isn’t-I mean, in a way, it’s completely selfish of us. Happy Guides are more pleasant to be around, so we do what we can to make sure the Guides are happy. And to us, that’s just the usual way of running a household. It’s nothing to do with who happens to be anyone’s particular favorite. Does that make sense?”

“I suppose so, my lord. A bit.”

Gerald was fairly sure that that meant, “Not in the slightest.” He tried again. “Let me put it another way. If you had started your career as a footman at Bellerock, when you started to feel that you were finished with being a footman, you’d have come to one of us-me, or my father, or perhaps even Simon, and said so, and that you’d set your eye on being a gentleman’s personal Guide. Then we’d have talked with the butler about whether you really were ready. If you were, we’d find you a place-you’d likely have had to go to another household, unless one of us happened to be without a Guide, but we’d have talked with you about that, and about where you might like to go and which other branches of the family already employed people you knew or were related to, and found somewhere that suited you.”

Thomas looked skeptical. “What if Mr. Carson-what if the butler says they aren’t ready?”

“Then we’d have expected him to tell you, and us, what you still needed to work on and to come up with a plan for bringing you up to scratch, in some reasonable amount of time.” Something less than, say, eight years. “I know that’s what we’d have done, because it’s what we have done. The situation comes up fairly often-hardly any Guides like being footmen. They do it for a few years, to learn how the house is run and see what the different jobs are, and then decide what they’d like to do. It’s the same way with housemaids.”

“Your butler and housekeeper must spend a lot of time training new maids and footmen, my lord.”

“I suppose they do.” Gerald shrugged. “The only alternative would be to keep them waiting around with vague promises that they might be promoted someday. And they’d be, understandably, a bit resentful about that.”

He trusted the parallel was not lost on Thomas, who swallowed and said, “I see, my lord.”

“I thought you might.” He went on, “So that’s just one example of how, even as a footman, you’d have expected us to help you. As my personal Guide, you have a correspondingly greater right to my time and attention.”

“I-Yes, my lord.”

Gerald considered his next words carefully. “You aren’t going to be sacked, or be in any kind of trouble, for being unhappy. Do you understand that?” That was the most important detail.

“Yes, my lord.”

“Good. But I would like it better if you were happy, and I’m sure you would too.” That was the second-most important details. “So think about what we might be able to do to make things better for you, and tell me. All right?”

Thomas swallowed hard, then nodded. “Yes, my lord.” His expression was worried, but his scent was…well, less so. It seemed that they were finally getting somewhere.

#

His lordship had announced his intention to rest until dinner, so after Wallace brought his trunk down, Thomas took it up to his room so he could check that nothing was missing and re-pack it properly.

Oddly enough, it was already packed fairly well-some of the things were folded a little oddly, but nothing was wadded up and stuffed in the corners, as he would have expected. And everything seemed to be there, even the Whitman book and the photographs he had stuffed inside it.

Still, unpacking and re-packing gave him something to keep his hands busy while he thought over the strange conversation he’d had with his lordship. He was still surprised that the stealing hadn’t come up. He was even more surprised by his lordship telling him how he felt-and being, as far as Thomas could tell, pretty much right about it.

He’d thought he’d done a pretty good job of keeping it all under wraps. Having so many of his insecurities laid bare at the same time had not been entirely pleasant. In fact, he was fairly sure that, had he been given the option beforehand, he would have said he’d rather walk down the village high street stark naked. But then, he’d have expected his lordship to laugh at him, or tell him he was being stupid and childish. Instead, he’d acted as though they were perfectly acceptable ways to feel.

Having his feelings understood and accepted was certainly an improvement…but he still wasn’t sure he liked it.

What his lordship had said, about what would have happened if Thomas had been a footman at Bellerock, that had to be a bit of a fairy story. No one would take that much trouble with all of their servants. It might be that way for a few-like how Lady Sybil had helped that maid become a secretary, back before the war. Not everyone.

But his lordship wanted it to be true. Thomas didn’t think he was lying. To suppose that his lordship had decided to go to elaborate lengths to deceive Thomas into believing that he wanted him to be happy was beyond even the reach of Thomas’s natural suspicion. For one thing, there was the question of motive: all he could possibly gain from such a ruse was the dubious pleasure of eventually revealing the deception. For, say, O’Brien, Thomas could almost believe that might be motive enough. But if his lordship was the sort to enjoy that sort of joke, surely he’d find it more sporting to play it against someone of his own class.

And Thomas didn’t think he was the sort to enjoy it. His concern over Thomas’s injuries, and his outrage at Lord Finsworth for causing them, had seemed genuine. If there was one thing Thomas could recognize when he saw it, it was petty cruelty.

So, as insane as it seemed, his lordship wanted him to be happy in his new place. He’d kept on asking what was wrong, not because he wanted Thomas to do a better job of hiding it, but because he wanted to help.

The trouble was, Thomas didn’t know how he could. It was all very well to talk about how, if everything in the world were different, he’d have found Thomas a job as a valet years ago. He had one now. He ought to be happy. He knew he ought to be.

So why wasn’t he?

Unfortunately, the only answer that came to mind was something his mum used to say when she thought he was being uppish: If you’re so clever, why aren’t you rich?

Not particularly relevant to the circumstances. It brought to mind one of her other sayings: Wish in one hand, cry in the other, and see which one gets full first. He’d never been entirely sure what that one meant, since she tended to trot it out whenever anyone cried or wished. He’d gotten tired enough of hearing it to make sure he never did either in her hearing-which he supposed was more or less the result she had wanted.

And more or less the opposite of what his lordship wanted. All right then, Barrow, he told himself. Go ahead. Wish for something. See what happens.

All he could think of was that he wished he didn’t have to wear that stupid green livery. Not particularly helpful, since-

Since he already didn’t have to. For the next couple of weeks, anyway. He sat down on the edge of the bed with a thump, as it occurred to him, for the first time, to think, really think, about what they were doing in Downton Village. His lordship had said that they’d simply stop, “On the way” to pick up his things.

It was not even remotely on the way. It was an entire day’s travel out of the way. And they’d come for no better reason than because he’d said he didn’t want to wear his livery in Norfolk. If he’d needed proof that his lordship was willing to go to a certain amount of trouble on his account, he had it.

Again, he knew he ought to be pleased and grateful. For a while, as he located a pressing iron and put his suit to rights, and as he dressed in it and admired how completely unremarkable and not-ridiculous he looked in it, he tried to convince himself that he was.

Instead, he found himself feeling rather bitter about it. His lordship had more or less tricked him into coming to Downton, hadn’t he? After all, Thomas hadn’t asked him to get his clothes and his wages back for him. What right did he have to just assume that Thomas wanted his help?

Except he had sort of asked. But he hadn’t meant to. He’d meant to use his lordship to get what he wanted. He hadn’t asked his lordship to….

To what? To want to?

Realizing that that was a fairly silly distinction to make, he hastened on. He certainly hadn’t asked his lordship to ask Lord Grantham a lot of questions about his life. Or to go around sniffing him and making deductions about why he was unhappy. What business was it of his? Thomas could be unhappy if he wanted to. If thinking that Thomas smelled unhappy was upsetting to his lordship, he could just keep his nose to himself.

Or perhaps he couldn’t; Thomas wasn’t sure about that part. But still, he didn’t have a right to insist that Thomas talk to him about it, or tell him how he could fix it. Maybe Thomas didn’t want to be happy. Maybe he was just a naturally unhappy person. What about that? What if he just plain didn’t want to be taken care of?

The question loomed. Thomas skittered away from it, telling himself it didn’t matter whether he wanted to be or not-it was, apparently, part of the job. Bring him his meals, brush his suits and press his collars, cuddle with him on the sofa of an evening, get taken care of. He’d got used to the cuddling part well enough. He even sort of liked it. So maybe he’d come to like being taken care of.

Even if he didn’t, you had things you didn’t like in any job. You just had to put up with them if you wanted to keep the job.

But did he-- Thomas’s breath caught in his throat. Did he want to keep the job? Because nobody had ever asked him about that, either. He’d always wanted to be a valet-not that his lordship or anyone else had known that when they decided to make him one-but valets didn’t cuddle, they didn’t get asked about their feelings, they didn’t get cared for. Guides did, and if his lordship was to be believed, most of them liked it. But so what? That didn’t mean he had to. Maybe he didn’t want to be a Guide.

Except he had to be. They’d gotten him out of prison to be a Guide. He could wait until his sentence was up and then leave-but then he’d be in the same position he’d expected to be in before the Society stepped in: on the street with no job, no reference, and no prospects. He’d have his clothes and a bit of money put by-the Society paid pretty well-but there’d be no help with finding another place if he refused to be a Guide, he was sure of that.

If he refused to be his lordship’s Guide, in particular. It sounded like if you weren’t somebody’s personal Guide, you might be able to just about manage to be left alone. Mr. Weatherby, for instance, spent most of his time downstairs, where he could feel whatever he felt like without having Sentinels nosing into his personal business.

There were probably other positions like that. His lordship had said that footmen came to Bellerock to see what the different jobs were and decide what they wanted to do. If it weren’t for this business of being his lordship’s only match-which had seemed like such a terrific bit of luck at first-it might have gone the same way at the Society. They’d probably have started him in the dining room, since he had so much experience as a footman. He wouldn’t have liked that much, but it would have given him some breathing room to see how things worked, and to sort out what he wanted to do. If they were all as kind and as concerned about Guides’ well-being as his lordship said they were, he’d have ended up a valet again eventually-if he wanted.

And perhaps he would have. He’d have had his eye on it from the beginning, of course. And when he saw the other valets being fussed over-having their Sentinels ask about any little thing they could do to make them happier-he’d have wanted it even more. It certainly sounded good. Why on Earth didn’t he like it, now that it was actually happening?

#

Gerald couldn’t quite face strapping his prosthetic leg on for another hair-raising trip down the inn’s steep staircase, so he had Thomas bring their supper up to the room, where they sat on opposite sides of the small writing-desk to eat it.

“The suit looks quite smart,” Gerald noted as they began. He was relieved to see that it was in much better condition than the one Thomas had been wearing-though he hadn’t had much doubt that if Thomas thought it was better, it would be.

“My lord,” Thomas said cautiously, as if he wasn’t entirely sure why Gerald was mentioning it.

Gerald shrugged. “We came all this way for it.”

“Yes, my lord,” Thomas said. “All this way.”

He fell silent, and Gerald concentrated his attention on the fairly good rabbit pie.

“I don’t have any ideas yet, my lord,” Thomas said when they were about halfway through the meal. “About…what we talked about.”

“That’s all right,” Gerald assured him. “It isn’t a time-limited offer.”

Thomas nodded. After a moment, he said, “Can I ask something else? My lord?”

“Of course you can,” he said, pleased that Thomas had asked. He put his wine glass down to give the question his full attention.

“You were saying, earlier, about how it would have been if I’d started as a footman at Bellerock.”

“Yes,” Gerald said, nodding.

“I was just wondering, my lord. With me being your only match apart from Euan. How that would have made it different. It seems like you wouldn’t have wanted me going to some other house. To work, I mean.”

“That’s a good question,” Gerald said. He wasn’t sure how useful it was, really, for Thomas to be exploring that particular scenario in detail, since none of them could go back in time. But if he was trying to understand how Gerald’s world worked, that was all to the good. “We didn’t really know until after the war, how difficult it would be to find a match for me. I’d always had Euan. And his mother-she died of the Spanish flu. But if we had known that you and Euan were the only two candidates for my personal Guide, we would have been eager to keep both of you in the household, you’re right about that.” What was Thomas really asking?

“We’d probably have tried to find something else in the household for-whichever of you I didn’t choose.” Perhaps Thomas wanted to know which of them Gerald would have chosen, but he couldn’t answer that and was not going to try. “We’d likely have encouraged you-either of you-to give serious consideration to some of the other options. In fact,” Gerald added, remembering something he’d left out of his earlier story, “now that you mention it, I remember Euan saying that Clement has a sort of potted lecture he always gives the lads about whether they really want to be personal Guides and how the other jobs are just as good, so you’d have got that anyway. But if you were both determined to be personal Guides, we’d still have helped one of you find a place elsewhere.”

Thomas considered that. “So…being a personal Guide is what everyone wants? My lord.”

“Not everyone,” Gerald said. “But it’s the most…glamorous, I suppose. Especially to the younger fellows. We do our best to look after all the Guides, but personal Guides get the most attention. And they go along with us on visits and hunting and things. So I suppose it’s more varied and interesting than being a cook or a butler or something like that. Although I remember, when the family got our first motorcar, Euan decided he was going to be a driver when he grew up. We were about twelve, I think. For about a year or so, every afternoon when we were done with lessons he’d be down in the garage pestering the chauffeur to let him poke around under the bonnet.”

Thomas’s brows drew together. “But he wouldn’t have been able to,” he pointed out. “Oh-but you said you didn’t know then that no one else could be your Guide.”

Gerald shrugged uneasily. The idea of Euan deciding not to be his Guide was ghastly to contemplate. “He gave it up, anyway, when he realized he couldn’t be a driver and my Guide. We decided that when we were older, I’d get my own car and he could drive it. And we did, although he’d gotten over his boyhood fascination with the things by then.” Picking out the new motor had caused a brief resurgence of the obsession-Euan had spent a month poring over informational circulars from all the major manufacturers.

“Does it ever happen, though? That one of you picks somebody for your Guide, and they don’t want to do it?”

“I suppose it must.” No examples sprang to mind, but it must. “Simon asked Morgan to be his Guide, but he turned it down.” That hardly counted, seeing as it was Simon. “He wanted to be Guide for a professional Sentinel, a doctor or something like that. That’s how I met Ace, actually. I was up at Oxford, and Mama asked me to keep an eye out for a nice middle-class Sentinel Morgan might like.”

That didn’t seem to be quite what Thomas had in mind, however. He kept on frowning, and said, “What if he hadn’t wanted to be anyone’s Guide? What if they wanted to-I don’t know. Do something else. Not everybody’s cut out for being in service, are they, my lord?”

“Most Guides seem to like it,” Gerald said, puzzled. There were enough different jobs in and around to house to suit most of them. “But there are some, certainly, who do other things. We have a few Guide farmers on our place-oh, and there’s Thompson, the tailor in the village; he’s a Guide. We have him do all the livery for the house, and most of our country things. And his wife makes ladies’ hats; she’s a Guide as well.”

Thomas nodded solemnly. “I see, my lord. Thank you.” Gerald wanted to point out how well he was doing asking questions now, but thought it might embarrass him.

Fake Link to Chapter Seven