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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[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?"

[adifferentlife]

The waiter gone, she turns her full attention back to Henri. "I imagined that you were. I admit, I went to a few political rallies, but it wasn't an activity my family approved of."

She smiles to encourage him, nodding in agreement. "It does. When there's something that you're passionate about it's hard to find yourself without that to fill your life. I suppose it's what we must try to find here. New things and a new balance. There must be political groups here?"

[jaimemieux]

“Of course. I mean to say - I am sure there are.” He ducked his head, the confession feeling foolish after what he had just admitted. Once he had fought for democracy, better access to medical care, free education. He could have been arrested just for talking about some things, for publishing, for meeting. Writing letters to the mayor about cleaning streets or better transportation seemed so small. Important in its own way, but small.

He shook his head a little. “I apologize. This must sound like a very strange thing to complain about. We all feel out of place in our own way, oui?"

[adifferentlife]

"I don't think it sounds strange at all," she insists. It doesn't, not really. So much is different here, to expect to just walk into a room and find the same things that one left behind... It's not possible. "You are right, it's something we all must come to terms with in our own way. And it's not foolish to want something like what you left behind, but it is for me to suggest you might find the same thing here."

[jaimemieux]

“And very wise of you to say,” Combeferre said, inclining his head. “You are right, of course. I should look into it.” Perhaps politics would never have the same sort of power here that it had at home, but he could still better the lives of others. And he could just imagine the way Enjolras would chide him, if he knew how idle Combeferre had been.

And yet, nothing would ever hold the power that his work in Paris had, or soothe his guilt at having been snatched away just as he was needed most, or fill the gap left by his friends.

That wasn’t what he wanted to think about tonight, though. Not in such lovely company, not in such a comforting presence. Sybil certainly made him feel as though he might, perhaps, find a path of some sort for himself here. “You have mentioned your family a number of times,” he said, switching topics entirely. “I would very much like to hear more about them."

[adifferentlife]

"I suppose they're much like any other family," Sybil say, knowing that they had always seemed rather like it to her. She's content to sip at her wine and talk of them rather than politics for a short while. "My Father is Earl of Downton, like his father before him. He married my mother, of course, Clara, and American. To be honest the estate was failing and my mother was an American Heiress. It wasn't love at first, but it turned into it."

[jaimemieux]

“Your mother is an American?” he said, a bit surprised by this detail. But then, nothing about Sybil was quite what one expected. It was one of the things he liked about her. “And do you have any siblings, or was it only you?"

[adifferentlife]

"She is, to my grandmama's continual horror," Sybil says, laughing as she remembers the Dowager Countess fondly. "Two sisters, Mary the eldest and Edith the middle one. I think Mary liked to pretend that Mama was English as well. But no son, sadly, so no heir."

[jaimemieux]

"And a daughter, I imagine, could not inherit a title," Combeferre said with a faint roll of his eyes. The absurdity of the aristocratic system knew no bounds. "But a full family, all the same. Your grandmother sounds like quite the character." He grinned softly.

[adifferentlife]

"No, she could not. Another silly and outmoded rule," she agrees with him on that. There was no good reason that she could see that Mary could not inherit such a thing. And the complications were such that she didn't want to go into them yet. "She was, very much. I sometimes would try not to sit too close to her at dinner lest I not be able to hide my smile."

[jaimemieux]

"It was always the same with my aunt," Combeferre said with a knowing grin. "She liked nothing better than to complain, and said whatever was on her mind, no matter how dreadful. As children, my eldest sister and I had a terrible time not laughing at the dinner table."

[adifferentlife]

"I'm afraid she didn't much like change, and ours was a time rife with it." Sybil turns her attention to Henri, thinking that turnabout is entirely fair play, especially in this situation. "And you then, was it just you and your sister or were there other siblings?"

[jaimemieux]

Combeferre shook his head. “There were four of us in total. Myself, two sisters, and the youngest, my brother.” It was always a bit strange, thinking of his family, even before he had found himself in Darrow. He had not seen any of them in years, and as time had progressed, he had shared less and less of his life in his letters. When so many of one’s activities were illegal and radical, telling some of the most seemingly simple stories had to be a careful process. “We were always close, though I fear I did not appreciate them properly until after I left home."

[adifferentlife]

"I found the same, though I was only ever truly away from them for a few months before I came here. Ehen I went to study nursing in York. Of course, when Mary marries that would have changed again." She wonders if they would even recognise her now. "Do you miss them now?"

[jaimemieux]

“I do,” Combeferre admitted with a pang of guilt. Smiling, he added quickly, “I think you would have liked Celestine. She is the younger of my two sisters, and always preferred books to people, I think. Mother tended to worry about her, but I think she is perfectly all right the way she is.” It was strange, knowing that his family would very likely never meet this woman to whom he had already devoted so much of of his thoughts. He had fallen into infatuation before, and in such circumstances, had usually imagined bringing the woman in question to his childhood home. Now, such a thing was impossible.

Soon, their food arrived. It was appropriately delicious, though if it had tasted like sawdust, Combeferre still would have declared the meal one of the better of his life. So at ease did he feel in Sybil’s company, so utterly himself. By the time the bill arrived, he was well and truly infatuated.

“Shall I walk you home?” he asked as he helped her into her coat.

[adifferentlife]

The dinner had been wonderful though she can scarcely remember what it is she ate. The company has been what made it, their conversation only making her interest in Henri grow. When he offers to walk her home she nods, pleased that he wishes to.

"I would like that very much. I admit that I don't quite want the evening to end yet."

[jaimemieux]

"The feeling is mutual," Combeferre said, blushing a bit. He, too, had barely noticed the food - even the wine - so swept up in Sybil's company had he been. As they stepped out of the restaurant, he offered her his arm. "It really is a lovely night, isn't it?"

[adifferentlife]

She takes his arm perhaps a bit more closely than she has before, their shoulders nearly rubbing even through their coats. The sky is clear and hints at the coolness to come without being cold. "It is lovely. Made better by the company."

[jaimemieux]

“Oh, I certainly think that has something to do with it,” Combeferre agreed, flashing her a playful grin. Though outwardly, he had settled into his new home fairly well, he had been decidedly lonely since arriving in Darrow, and somewhat resigned to loneliness. What chance was there that he would find himself home again, or that a friend would appear on these strange shores? Optimistic but ever rational, Combeferre had known better than to hope too much for either outcome.

But now, with Sybil, loneliness was unexpectedly forgotten.

He tipped his head up to the sky. “ ’tis strange - one knows rationally that the stars remain largely unchanged over the course of a few hundred years, and are largely the same across most of the known world. But whenever I look up, I am always surprised to find the sky so recognizable. Perhaps we are not so far from home as sometimes feel."

[adifferentlife]

"It makes me wonder just that sometimes. Are we a part of the same place as we came from? It makes it seem that much more familiar when things are lonely." Not that she feels that way now, in company such as this. "We could see the stars so well from Downton, but never as much in London. When I leave the hospital late they seem so bright. I could convince myself I was still in Yorkshire were in not for the building behind me."