Barrow's Boy - A Downton Abbey Fanfiction

Forsaken

"For some days, I haunted the spot where those scenes had taken place; sometimes wishing to see you, sometimes resolved to quit the world and its miseries forever... I am alone, and miserable."

     To the unknowing eye, the old church appeared the same as always. Suffocated by ivy and surrounded by greenery that people would easily dub as more beautiful, its glory days were long behind it. Now, the church rotted away, evidence that prayer could not maintain nor faith repair what was already gone. 

    Wooden boards creaked dangerously under Thomas's weight as he stepped up the stairs, holding onto a railing that broke away halfway to the top. The sudden opening seemed to scream at him to jump, just to see what happened. Would he land in the dark hole in the ground? Would its mouth swallow him, removing him from the sunlit world of the church and bringing him into the secrets underneath?

     The hole was new, as was the destroyed railing. Or perhaps they were old now and simply different than when Thomas had last been here. No matter. He hadn't come to admire a church. He couldn't quite say why he had come at all. 

    Reaching the top, Thomas looked around the threshold, then closed his eyes, picturing it as it once was. Laughter, joy, friendship, love. All that had once filled the void of nothingness was now gone. 

     A few steps over to the stained glass window, now broken - likely by the deserted cricket ball that sat unceremoniously on the ground - and Thomas found the only evidence of this place's past—the engravings on the wall, aged, like he now was, but present. 

     E.K. T.B. J.J. C.S. and, added after the others, C.B.

     Thomas traced a finger over each one except for the initials that matched his own. Who was even left now? 

     E.K.; Elizabeth Knighton. He'd lost her far too long ago. And C.B., Thomas' Christopher, gone even before her.

     He'd lost contact with the other two at some point. Likely around the time that he had fled to London. Still, he'd heard certain things through Phyllis. One of the Jurden sons had been lost in the war. He wouldn't be surprised if it were the one who had marked this wall. Which left Cecily; married to a man far older than herself, only to die before him while giving him an heir.

     Was he it? Was Thomas somehow the last of them to stand?

     They had kept this church alive when no one else would. It was no wonder that it had fallen into such a state now. 

     It made no sense, really. How could the world be good when it had chosen the worst of their group to be the last one standing? No, the world wasn't good. It was cruel.

     There was no point in Thomas being the last. It wasn't like the world wanted him here. Not when nobody living on it wanted him. He had no one. None of his interviews had ended successfully, and Downton was getting closer and closer to pushing him out entirely.

     Perhaps it wasn't a matter of wanting him here. Maybe it was his punishment. The lack of replies to his silent pleas was deserved. Yes, he deserved this, after all. 

     Sometimes he longed for the simpler days. His youth. And not the days of him being a footman, hiding his anger in sneers, nor the London days of working Hartford's. No, Thomas yearned for the days when he could cry without it being seen as disgraceful. Where he didn't know what the word homosexual meant, and his selfishness was hidden behind the needs of childhood. When he could be dependent on someone, anyone, and not fear that he appeared weak. Because, behind it all, that's all he was. Weak, selfish, disgraceful.