A first date

[adifferentlife]

Dating is something that Sybil finds a bit strange. It isn't that she's doing anything she wouldn't have were she home at Downtown - the theatre with a suitor wouldn't be something that raised a brow, though dinner somewhere public would be considered odd to say the least. What is the strangest is doing it herself, organising this all with someone who doesn't know her family. Organising it with someone so much like her and yet so different.

The play had been one they both should have known. After all it was Shakespeare, and Hamlet - whilst not romantic - was something that she has enjoyed in the past. Tonight's performance left her baffled, with more questions than anything. But other than a shared baffling, she keeps her thoughts to herself until they're seated at the restaurant. Only then does she look across the table with her eyes wide, shaking her head. "Were they all supposed to be derelicts?"

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[jaimemieux]

"And you shall only have to remind me five or six times more," Combeferre grinned. The waiter coughed pointedly. "Oh! Oui. Mm, the Bordeaux, peut-etre?" In a wry aside, he added, "I wonder where Bordeaux comes from here. Perhaps it appears out of the air."

Setting the menu aside, he arched an amused eyebrow. "Surprising, indeed. Though Shakespeare may have found that less strange than a ragpicker Hamlet, considering." He chuckled. "I suppose we must learn to set aside expectations."

[adifferentlife]

“The same place as everything else we have, I suppose. The naming does still seem strange, doesn’t it?” Sybil thinks that every time she sees a label that’s familiar to her, or hears a song that she knows. “The history books I find in the library are the oddest. How can they have books on a place they don’t believe exists?”

“We must,” she agrees, leaning toward him with a smile. It’s a lesson she’s had a reminder of recently with Thomas. A hard lesson, perhaps, but a valuable one. “If only it were always as easy as remembering to call one by their first name, or accepting strange interpretations of the classics?”

[jaimemieux]

"Indeed." Combeferre chuckled, and something in her words made him arch an eyebrow. "Is there something stranger yet that you have encountered recently?"

[adifferentlife]

"Confusion, I suppose. A friend from home with a situation was unexpected." She isn't sure how else to explain what happened with Thomas, only that she was unhappy with her own behavior. "He told me something which I judged him harshly for. UNfairly."

[jaimemieux]

"Oh dear." Combeferre winced sympathetically. "Though we all make misjudgments from time to time, yes? And how else are we to learn? Your friend must know that." He had a difficult time imagining that anyone who knew Sybil would think anything but the best of her. There wasn't an unkind bone in the young woman's body. "I had not realized you had a friend from home here. This person is adjusting to the modern world more swiftly, I presume?"

[adifferentlife]

"It isn't just that. I suppose it is that he told me something else, something of my future that was entirely unexpected. I don't know if it was because of what I said, or the truth, but either way it's something that is hard to be burdened with." She shakes her head, trying to shake it off. It's something made easier by the waiter arriving with their wine. "He is. Though I think your own adjustment is rather brilliant."

[jaimemieux]

On instinct, Combeferre reached out to cover Sybil’s hand with his own. “It does not seem fair, does it, that someone might share with us our fate. Even a Sybil might be unsettled by learning her own fortune.” He smiled softly, the pun meant fondly, and not to tease. Even the steadiest of hearts - and the woman sitting across from him surely qualified - would be left uncomfortably aflutter by news of the future. Whoever this friend was, it had surely been an unfair trick to share what information he had, especially out of spite.

When the wine came, Combeferre thanked the waiter, who filled their glasses and left the bottle. He tasted it, and was all but brought home. How, he still could not understand, but somehow the wine was French enough to bring to mind narrow Parisian streets, and darkened cafe back rooms, and friends he was not sure he would ever see again. He chuckled ruefully. “Is it? I fear you would think differently, were you to see the way I battle with my stove every morning."

[adifferentlife]

It's better than any play on her name that she's heard before. That, along with the reassuring touch of his hand make her smile. He's kind, and though she wonders what he'd think if he knew of her apparent elopement and her unkind words to Thomas on what was his private life, it's not something she wishes to delve into further. "It's not an easy thing to learn, and yet I wonder if anything will ever come of it. Will my knowing change things should I go back?"

Not that she cares to, and it's a serious turn of the conversation. Sybil sips at the wine, appreciating the depth of flavour that reminds her too of home. "When I first made tea here I tore open the tea bags," she admits, leaning in and lowering her voice. It's like a secret they share, the things they've not managed here. "Then I tried to strain it out. It was awful, I thought for weeks I wouldn't find a decent cup again."

[jaimemieux]

Combeferre grinned in understanding. “It’s the small things, isn’t it? The automobiles and tall buildings, they are quite a shock at first, but as long as no one expects me to drive a car or engineer a skyscraper, I do not need to worry about them overmuch. But making breakfast - now that poses a thousand little challenges."

[adifferentlife]

"Can openers, for one. There's an electric one in my rooms and it's so strange. I nearly melted the kettle as well, putting it on the stove instead of plugging it in," she admits with a light laugh. "Though I admit, I am very grateful for the lack of corsets. They were silly things."

[jaimemieux]

“I never really understood corsets myself,” Combeferre agreed, then chuckled and ducked his head. “Not from the same sort of personal experience, of course, but- ah, more generally.” He sipped his wine and chanced to look at her. “We can only complain so much, though. Progress cares little for what we think and marches on regardless, for good or for ill."

[adifferentlife]

"I believe that we wouldn't be talking of womens' underthings if we weren't in this place, either." Her words are light, almost teasing, only the slight hint of pink in her cheeks betraying her nervousness at what is still (for her) a salacious topic for mixed company. "It is true, and for the mot part I find things quite useful. Air conditioning I admit is a delight in the heat of summer."

[jaimemieux]

“It isn’t a usual topic of conversation for me, either,” Combeferre said with another small laugh, glad she wasn’t too horrified. Though used to treating women with reserved politeness - certainly none of the boldness that Courfeyrac or Bahorel might - he was keenly aware that Sybil was of a different caliber than the usual company he kept. “I am really quite enamored with electric lights myself. My eyes do, too, I suspect.” He absently fiddled with his spectacles.

[adifferentlife]

Sybil laughs, reaching out to touch his hand this time. Bold, but this is a different world, as they've been discussing, and she likes him. "I like them too. Though I probably spend too many nights up reading far too late."

[jaimemieux]

Combeferre grinned. "Oh, I had already cultivated that bad habit back home. I have wasted too many candles on late-night reading, I fear. Drove my mother mad as a boy."

[adifferentlife]

"I used to get a servant to sneak me more oil for the lamps. I likely shouldn't have, she could have gotten in trouble because of it, but I never cared at the time." Sybil admits the last bashfully, knowing that it was bad of her. "But when we had the electric lights put into the house it seemed like such a modern thing, like we were coming into the future."

[jaimemieux]

The mention of servants reminded Combeferre of the gulf that stood between them, or would have back in their own worlds. As a child, his family had been decidedly comfortable, and there had been boys who helped his father with the shop, and girls who lent his mother a hand around the house, but none of them would have been called servants, exactly. And once Combeferre had gotten to Paris, he had spent a significant portion of his time fighting those with enough wealth to hire people who lit lamps, and cooked food, and swept floors, and bowed and scraped. He did not hold Sybil’s title against her in the least, which actually surprised him a little, but the reminder unsettled him.

He was too polite - and enjoying Sybil’s company too much - to remark upon the matter. “It must have been strange to turn on the lights for the first time,” he said with a grin instead. “What was your home like, growing up?"

[adifferentlife]

It's not a life she has in common with anyone here, it would seem. Even Thomas came from the other side of things though he was from Downton. But it's not anything in her life she can, or would change. It was what she had grown up with, though she agreed in many ways that too many found themselves with so little when others had so much. Working as a nurse and having a real purpose had been the thing that had truly opened her eye to that.

"We'd seen them in London, of course. But to have them in the house was so odd. I think Grandmama very nearly had a heart attack when she was told we were installing them." It makes Sybil smile to remember even now. "She was convinced they would burn the house down."

"It wasn't what you might think. I mean, it isn't what most people think. Not all balls and parties and hunting. We worked, we had charities and causes though they all thought mine were dour and boring." She's defending herself and she's not sure why. Sybil shakes her head, wincing at herself. "I'm sorry. I know it wasn't a life most lived but it was what I knew. I loved my home, my family. We could have done more. So much more. I don't know why I'm defending myself, I'm sorry."

[jaimemieux]

“Sybil.” Combeferre stopped her apology with a soft word and a gentle shake of his head. He sighed. “I will not deny that it troubles me, knowing some families have such wealth while others starve. It troubles me equally that some men can receive expensive educations at La Sorbornne, and fill their pokey flats with strange medical textbooks, while other survive on three francs a day and must teach themselves to read by candlelight.” He winced a little; Feuilly would detest being held up as the example of the Parisian working poor in such a way. “But you do not need to defend your family, or your childhood, or the accident of your birth. I asked about your home because I wanted to know.” He smiled, and turned his hand over to take her, squeezing it gently.

[adifferentlife]

These things bother her too, and that is what she really wanted him to know, she realises. It's a hard thing to say, and harder to still to realise the many flaws in her way of life that should have been so obvious to her earlier. Sybil turns her hand in his, squeezing it back. "Thank you. I think it's harder some days, to not feel as if I should defend it. And I know many who had as much as we had or more and who weren't happy. But I have a loving family, which is more valuable than any of that."

[jaimemieux]

“And that is the luckiest thing of all, isn’t it?” Combeferre let his hand linger in hers for a moment before sitting back. “There are-“ he began, then hesitated. Would he insult her if he spoke his mind on the nature of wealth? Combeferre had not shied from the subject of politics with her, but neither had he been very explicit. “There are plenty of people as privileged as you who do not realized the advantages they have been given. I could say the same for most of the people I have known in my life as well. Poverty and suffering are terribly easy to ignore when one is ensconced in comfort and safety. But I have always believed that what mattered is what you do with those circumstances - how you use all that wealth and love to better others’ lives, and perhaps even ensure that such privilege is not always limited to a few."

[adifferentlife]

Sybil in fact appreciates his candor. It's something she's become more used to in this place, especially due to Kaine's friendship. But she's learned how honesty can be so much simpler than the vagaries and dances of conversation she grew up with.

"Perhaps, though here it is all rather moot, isn't it?" She shrugs a shoulder, glancing back at the menu in front of them. It's not an inexpensive restaurant, and the dishes all look appealing. And yet their conversation makes her feel at least like she should try and explain some more. "Life is too short to not enjoy what we have, but we have a duty, all of us, to improve the world that we live in. Even here. That doesn't mean not having a nice dinner and a bottle of wine, but it does mean working in other ways."

Which, she realises, is something she's been lacking here, devoting so much of her time to study and the hospital.

[jaimemieux]

Combeferre nodded eagerly. “Yes, that is it precisely. I fear you have articulated my thoughts better than I could, though perhaps I should not be surprised by your powers of intuition.” He grinned a bit. “It is strange, isn’t it? So many barriers that one might have thought to bring down in our own times are gone. Others still remain, obviously - no world is perfect - but it is difficult to know where to begin."

[adifferentlife]

"It is. I suppose now I am more wrapped up in my own life, with more to do than I had at Downton. Study and work take up a more time than I imagined, but I wouldn't change it." Sybil enjoys both, she enjoys the sense of helping people. "I suppose by even working at being a nurse I am helping others."

[jaimemieux]

“Most certainly it is,” Combeferre agreed quickly. “The noblest of professions.” The waiter returned before he could say more, and they paused in their conversation to give their orders.

The intermission also gave Combeferre a moment to consider his next words. “I was quite political in Paris,” he said when the server had left again. “As you might have guessed.” His smile has a sheepish tinge to it; talking overtly of his extralegal activities was still something he found strange. And with a young lady he was taking to dinner? That was all the more strange. But Sybil was different, utterly unlike any woman he had met. Perhaps she would understand. “There was so much to change, and I was willing to go to great lengths to do so. I still would, were I there. So it feels strange not to have something like that in my life. Does that make any sense at all?"