Twelve leaves from a budding love-tree – Third letter

Fandom: Downton Abbey
Genre : Romance, Humour, Fluff, Angst
Characters: Sybil Crawley, Tom Branson
Synopsis: Sybil/Tom Secret Valentine Exchange : my present to obessivewritingdisorder after her prompt: “a series of love letters between Tom and Sybil” (during the time they kept their courting / relationship secret). Will be a 12-part fic.

August 1917, morning.

A knock on his door.

Tom Branson was sure it was Mr Carson. The butler would have come to tell him that he was sacked, for having attempted and very nearly succeeded in humiliating and ridiculing Downton’s guest of honour, General Strutt.

But no. Behind the door was only a young hall boy who handed him a folded note. Even in his already disheartened state, Tom was then a bit more disappointed: he had always deemed Mr Carson as a man of honour, in his own way. The kind of man who would tell an employee face to face that he was dismissed; never would have he thought Mr Carson would do it through a simple note delivered by a kid.

Twelve leaves from a budding love-tree – Second letter

Fandom: Downton Abbey
Genre : Romance, Humour, Fluff, Angst
Characters: Sybil Crawley, Tom Branson
Synopsis: Sybil/Tom Secret Valentine Exchange : my present to obessivewritingdisorder after her prompt: “a series of love letters between Tom and Sybil” (during the time they kept their courting / relationship secret). Will be a 12-part fic.

.As soon as she saw the envelope, she knew whom the mail she had just received came from. Not because of the postmark revealing it had been posted in Downton – half the people she knew and who would correspond with her lived in Downton. Not because she recognised the handwriting – it was one she did not remember having ever seen before.

No. It was because of the way she was referred to in the heading. The mail was not addressed to Lady Sybil Crawley. Instead, it read:

Twelve leaves from a budding love-tree – First letter

Fandom: Downton Abbey
Genre : Romance, Humour, Fluff, Angst
Characters: Sybil Crawley, Tom Branson
Synopsis: Sybil/Tom Secret Valentine Exchange : my present to obessivewritingdisorder after her prompt: “a series of love letters between Tom and Sybil” (during the time they kept their courting / relationship secret). As the title suggests, it will be a 12-part fic (one for each letter/note)

Hunched over a very small wooden table squeezed between her left neighbour’s bed and her own, with two crumpled sheets of paper lying at her feet, Lady Sybil Crawley – or rather Nurse Crawley, now – was rereading for the umpteenth time the draft she had finally managed to come up with, before copying it out on a new blank leaf of high quality stationery. The scribbled sheet read:

York, 18^th December 1916

Dea Branson,

Best-laid plan, bar the « laid » part

This is my own little participation to January 2014’s “Downton Monthly Prompt”. 1600 words. It will just be a one-shot (well, most probably… but maybe I’ll feel inspired later and will come back to it, I don’t know…)

Yes, Thomas, you can do that! Come on, take heart!

He had his hands on her waist, was looking straight into her eyes… Courage!

Her head was raised, tilted back, and she was gazing upwards at him… gazing expectantly at him…

He could do that.

And he did. He bent his head, lowered his lips aiming at hers… and finally touched them with his, closing both the distance and his eyes.

Yes, better not look, better not see anything. Things would be easier with his eyes shut. That way, he could deceive himself. Nearly as much as he was deceiving her.

Kaléidoscope en noir et blanc – Ch 5 : Madame Patmore

Univers : Downton Abbey

Synopsis : L’introduction d’un élément extérieur comme prétexte à explorer les réflexions des personnages que l’on connait…

Au moins elle ne se fait pas prier pour manger… D’ailleurs, ça fait plutôt plaisir à voir ! se dit madame Patmore. « Rien ne donne plus faim que le chagrin », se souvint alors la cuisinière…

Déjà que cette femme avait la tempe et la joue brûlées ainsi que le regard vide ou absent, ç’aurait été une vraie misère qu’elle eût en plus les yeux enfoncés au dessus de joues creuses et d’un corps maigrichon ! Au moins, elle prenait les forces dont elle avait besoin. Pour madame Patmore c’était là l’essentiel.

Mrs Dillon faisait toujours honneur à ses repas, et ne manquait jamais de la féliciter sur l’excellence de la cuisine, même si les déjeuners et soupers du personnel n’avaient rien à voir avec les trésors de virtuosité culinaire qu’elle déployait pour les repas de la famille Crawley.

Hibernian letters – Part 1: Prologue

Fandom: Downton Abbey
Genre : General, Epistolary, Friendship,
Characters: Tom Branson, Original Character
Synopsis: Before he had Sybil as a confidant, had Branson anyone back home to confide in? And before he arrived at Downton? Let’s say that he had someone in his family who partly understood him and shared some of his concerns. This will lead to interesting exchange of letters through the years, and sometimes a few one-to-one conversations. Series of one-shots.

.Part 1 – Prologue

  1912, Ireland.

“Tom! Don’t leave your cousin stand here all by herself… Go and ask her for a dance!”

“But mummy–” said-Tom tried to drawlingly plead with his mother.

“No ‘but’, m’lad” a kind-faced woman in her late forties intervened between mother and son. “Your mum is right: young people are to enjoy themselves among themselves;

Kaléidoscope en noir et blanc – Ch 4 : Lord Grantham

Univers : Downton Abbey

Synopsis : L’introduction d’un élément extérieur comme prétexte à explorer les réflexions des personnages que l’on connait…

Les journaux ce matin là n’annonçaient rien de très intéressant. Sans doute la raison pour laquelle la conversation que madame Hughes tenait à cet instant même avec la comtesse faisait pour une fois son chemin depuis l’oreille de Lord Grantham jusqu’à son cerveau.

Encore une nouvelle servante ! Cela n’en finirait donc jamais, ces recrutements et ces embauches à répétition ! Et qu’était-il donc arrivé à la précédente ?

Bah, après tout les servantes, c’était le domaine de sa femme et de madame Hughes. La seule fois où il s’en était un tant soit peu mêlé… Moui, bon, il préférait ne pas y penser.

Kaléidoscope en noir et blanc – Ch 3 : Mr Carson

Univers : Downton Abbey
Synopsis : Les pensées de différents personnages, serviteurs comme maîtres, sur une nouvelle et discrète employée à Downton. Ou l’introduction d’un élément extérieur comme prétexte à explorer les réflexions des personnages que l’on connait…

— Comment ?!! Vous voulez dire qu’elle a épousé le chauffeur ? s’exclama Mrs Dillon les yeux écarquillés, la mine stupéfaite, demeurant légèrement bouche bée à la fin de sa phrase.

Amen ! Enfin quelqu’un qui a le sens des convenances !

Paradoxalement, c’était là la première pensée qui traversa l’esprit de Charles Carson alors que pourtant Mrs Dillon – Alice, un prénom qu’il aurait préféré ne pas avoir à employer – s’était quelque peu étranglée avec la gorgée d’eau qu’elle venait d’avaler de travers. Mais c’est en pensant à ce qui avait provoqué cet étranglement soudain que monsieur Carson se dit que parmi les candidates à ce poste, madame Hughes avait sans doute fait un choix approprié à une maison comme la leur.

Cheeky to cheeky

Fandom: Downton Abbey
Genre : Romance, Humour, fluff
Characters: Sybil Crawley, Tom Branson
Synopsis: Sybil teaches Tom to dance. Or at least she tries to. Except it’s not really his thing… Set in Dublin, just a few days before Tom and Sybil’s wedding. Could be a missing scene between S2E08 and S2E09. Un-betaed. One-shot.
Requested by Magfreak, for a Christmas Secret Santa Fic Exchange. Her prompt was: Sybil teaches Tom to dance. A specific she wanted: some fluff

.

“WHAT?!!”

Tom Branson’s exclamation rang out in his mother’s flat. “What do you mean, ‘you’ll have to ask my sisters for a dance’?”

He looked in disbelief at his fiancée. In disbelief, and with a hint of horror.

She held his gaze and didn’t blink. In fact, she even looked a bit amused.

“Of course” she simply answered. “They are the bride’s sisters. The groom must share a dance with each of his sisters-in-law. Especially as the bride’s mother and grandmothers won’t be there” she added doing her best to hide a sigh of sadness.

Tom missed that hint of blighted hope. His mind was elsewhere: thank God the dowager countess had politely turned down their wedding invitation, he suddenly thought and gave thanks for this to the Almighty. He just couldn’t imagine having to… with… Well, that was a moot point anyway.

Kaléidoscope en noir et blanc – Ch 2 : Jimmy

Pour sûr, ce n’est pas Mary Pickford…

En effet, la nouvelle servante embauchée par Mrs Hughes n’avait rien des beautés à la mode. Et d’ailleurs, sans être franchement vieille, elle n’était pas non plus une jouvencelle pour autant. Elle n’avait rien d’une petite jeune fille comme Ivy, ni rien de ce à quoi Jimmy s’attendait lorsqu’il avait entendu dire que Mrs Hughes examinait des candidatures pour remplacer l’éphémère Edna.

Ceci dit, pour avoir vécu la guerre de l’intérieur il fallait forcément avoir quelques années de plus qu’Ivy.

À y bien penser, c’était assez bizarre. Que les hommes aillent faire la guerre, soit. Mais que des femmes y partent aussi, cela dépassait l’entendement de James Kent.

Et qu’elles en reviennent défigurées lui semblait une aberration.