"Goodnight granny!" sighed Sybil as she saw her butler open the door to let her into Crawley house. She loved her grandmother dearly but she could not say she was not sorry the night was at an end. She felt exasperated and exhilarated all at once. The talk at the dinner had been nothing but the war for which she had to say she was grateful. She had listened a lot more than she had been able to talk, but she felt she had picked up on a lot, so the night had not been a complete waste of time, apart from the dancing of course.
"Homeward bound, my lady?" said Branson with his cheeky smile he reserved for her and with a nod as her reply they were off. "Did you have a good time at the party?" he asked her.
She shrugged. "It was a night of two halves I must admit," she said to him. She had felt a little uncomfortable when she had got there and she realised Sir Anthony had been placed next to her. Asides from when she had been listening to the conversation, she had wanted nothing more than to turn about and ask him why he had been as cruel to her sister as to build every hope she had up and then just knock her down.
Under her grandmother's watchful eye, she had not been able to say anything though and by the end of the night they had managed to break the ice between them. He had actually been quite a help to her, for if she had not understood something, she had asked him and he had been good enough to explain it.
She had thought him to be a kind man till he had been so cruel to Edith. Just as she had been about to go he had had the nerve to ask how her sister was though. How he had the cheek too, she did not know but he had seemed so shy over it, painfully so. She wondered if there was more to the story than she knew.
But soon it was not going to matter, for he too was soon to be off to France by the sounds of it. She was going to have to tell her sister the next day for she did not want her to hear it second hand.
"Well, it clearly gave you food for thought my lady," said Branson from the front of the car bringing her back from her thoughts.
"That it did," she said with a slight laugh for that to her was an understatement. But then suddenly she had a thought and she turned serious once more. She did not know why the thought had hurt so much but now the question was in her mind. "Branson, you are not going to go away are you?"
She did not want him too. She felt as if he was her only friend outside of her sisters, Anna and Gwen sometimes. She knew the other debs she had met had thought her to be an odd ball. That much had been clear when she had tried to talk to them apart from frocks and shows. She did not look down on them for she knew what she was and she knew she loved to get a new frock as much as the night girl.
But she did need someone there who did not think it was ridiculous that she should want wider interest than her sisters and he had always been so kind and open with her. Even though she was grown, she knew even Mary still saw her as a baby at times and that was not going to change any time soon.
But he saw her as an adult. He saw the world the same as she did and it would kill her if he were to go away. The boredom would drive her insane...
"You do not want me to then, my lady?" he said his Irish accent caressing her ears as he spook to her. She detected the hint of teasing in his voice but she let it go as she always did because he was not only her chauffeur but he was her friend, much the way Gwen had been and she hoped Anna was, Anna was a bit like Carson in the respect that she knew the boundaries with the family and she had no real desire to cross them; but in a way, they were family to her...
"No," she said in a much smaller voice that said much more than that one word to him ever could. "No, I do not want you to go." She knew she had let her guard down and somehow the pair of them had crossed a line at that moment. With that singular word she had been more outspoken than she had ever been before in her life. Than she was ever meant to be...
Looking in the mirror at her his eyes were smilingly at her. All his hopes...
"I am a socialist and I oppose this war of old men and imperialism. I am going no where... especially not now I have a second, much better reason than the first to stay, my lady."
He watched with affectionate amusement as the colour rushed to her cheeks and though at first she did not appear to make a reply, he could have sworn as he drove on he could hear her kind voice say "Yes you do Branson, yes you do."
And if the dinner and the ball had been a little bit disappointing for Sybil, then the drive home was not.
"Did you have a good night my lady?" Asked Anna as she brushed out Lady Sybil's hair ready for bed. the youngest Crawley daughter nodded.
"It was one of the very best evenings of my life, Anna." She said with a mysterious smile before she laughed knowing it was dangerous to say any more but wanting to shout it from the roof tops.
Branson was staying. He'd be safe.
And all the injustice and the cruelty in the world faded for one moment because of it. And she did not care for her sister's woes because she had never known such joy as she felt at that moment.
Her Branson would remain out her danger... hers...
--from chapter 4 of âWarring Heartsâ by rocks-my-socks (aka hogwartsabbey)
60 Days of Bransons-Fanfic Moments
Day 31
