#peter pelham

[mirrorofliterature]

what fic are you reading 👀👀👀👀 give us thomas rarepair recs!!

this is not the ask I expected when I saw I had an anon message but let's go!

my favourite thomas pairing is, undoubtedly, thomas barrow/edward courtenay, particularly the canon divergence flavour: I even wrote 10 chapters or so of one myself back in the day [it's not complete], and I always highly recommend darthnickels and HowCleverOfYou's courtbarrow works (which includes some really interesting modern aus!). there's also this delightful series and another work that I adore [I might be a bit biased, as it was written for me in a gift exchange three years ago]. obviously mind the warnings/tags whatnot on all of them.

at the moment, I was going through the bertie/edith tag because I watched the third Downton Abbey movie a few days ago and caught bertie feels. which led me going through the very numerous 17 works of peter pelham/thomas barrow.

currently I'm reading this (explicitly rated) peter pelham/thomas barrow fic wherein peter doesn't die, comes to bertie and edith's wedding, hires thomas as his personal assistant instead of him becoming downton's butler, and it's all quite messy, really! it alternates between peter and thomas' perspective each chapter and is quite well written.

[bitletsanddrabbles]

Island Sandbox: Miniature Barking Whales

Another thing for @alex51324 and the Island! I now have TWO things that need editing and transferring to Ao3! Go me!

Blame for this one goes to @o-rchidae and the picture of seals in the Hebrides...

-

It had stopped raining. What’s more, it looked like it might not start up again for an hour or so. Taking advantage of the good weather, Thomas decided to take a bit of a stroll and stretch his legs. Lighting a cigarette, he thought a moment, then headed out toward the Point. There wasn’t really anything out there, except for Lord Hexham’s cottage, and he didn’t think he’d walk the entire way, but there was a bluff (at least he thought that was the proper name) falling away to the sea that provided a rather nice view. It seemed the safest way to relax without risking someone coming up and asking him questions or trying to press gang him into a community event. The worst that could happen was that he ran across someone else taking a stroll.

He wandered down the path at a leisurely pace, listening to the shore birds and absently pondering the business of the town. Hugh and James planned on getting married that weekend. He wondered if the weather would hold. Of course, they’d be married in the church, but even that was more pleasant if the weather was nice. If nothing else, the building was a bit drafty. The same could not be said of the Main House - that was just crowded. Even with his own room he was getting a bit antsy to move out. A cottage would be beyond his means, and he’d yet to settle on anyone to step out with himself (there were options, of course, but every time he tried weighing them he wound up second guessing himself), but perhaps the others wouldn’t mind if he moved into the flat above the Beacon. There would be advantages, having someone on hand all hours, surely, although he didn’t really fancy the idea of someone waking him up at midnight because they’d thought of a last minute addition to this week’s issue. He’d have to be adamant about the shop’s ‘Closed’ sign.

“Thomas! Oi, Thomas!” Gordon’s voice jarred him out of his thoughts, calling him back to reality. The younger man was standing a way’s off, waving him over excitedly. Once it was clear he’d been seen, he added, “I think there’s a group of whales down on the rocks!”

Thomas frowned at that and started walking over. Gordon was standing on the edge of the bluff, not close enough to risk a tumble down the steep rocks, but plenty close to see the shoreline. Once he was within ear shot, Thomas pointed out, “I don’t think whales lay on rocks, Gordon. Whale’s are fish.” He rethought that. Hadn’t he read some sort of argument about that when he was younger? The scientists saying they weren’t actually fish, but most people not listening? “Or, well, they’re like fish at any rate.” He certainly couldn’t see the difference.

Gordon frowned at him, then looked down the rocky face of the bluff. “What’re those then?”

Cautiously, Thomas walked up next to him and looked down. This close to the water there was a good, stiff breeze, even with the clear sky, and while he didn’t think a good gust would send them over, it wasn’t worth the risk. It took him a moment to see what the younger man was looking at, but then something caught his eye. “Oh, no, those are seals.”

Gordon tilted his head and frowned. “Wot’s the difference?”

“Well, seals can come up on land, for one,” Thomas pointed out. Then he had to stop and think, because honestly, he didn’t really know a lot about the subject. You might as well have asked him the difference between cats and dogs - he knew, of course, but explaining was difficult. “And seals are a lot smaller. Whales are huge, like the size of a small boat.”

“Wot, like the supply boat?” Gordon stared at him, disbelieving.

“At least. I think some of the larger ones might be bigger than that. But they aren’t as big as one of the really big ships, the ones that go across the ocean.” Thomas was fairly certain he’d gotten that right. He knew that whaling ships, for instance, were larger than the whales they caught, but they were also much larger than the supply boat. He definitely got the feeling that actual whales were in between. “And I don’t know that whales make any noise. Seals sort of bark.”

Gordon looked back down at the greyish shapes beneath them. “Like dogs?”

“Sort of like, yes.”

“What do they do?”

Thomas shrugged, dropping the fag end of his cigarette. “Not much, I don’t think. They swim and eat fish and lay about on rocks, like that.” He gestured at the base of the cliff. “And people make hats and coats out of their fur.” He frowned again, thinking. “I think people eat them, in some places.”

“They don’t look like they’d taste very good,” Gordon frowned, wrinkling his nose. “I mean, they look awful fat.”

“So do pigs. Doesn’t stop you from eating bacon.”

“No, but if they taste like bacon, wouldn’t everyone eat them?”

“I suppose,” Thomas had to concede the point.

About that time, one of the seals barked. The sound echoed up the bluff and made Gordon jump. “That’s wot they sound like?”

“It is.”

“’S like a swimming dog,” the younger man proclaimed, echoing Thomas’s earlier assessment on the sound. “It really is.”

Thomas shrugged. “I told you.”

“I know you did, I just…” Gordon rocked back on his heels a bit and cast a puzzled look down toward the water. “It’s sort of different, hearing it like that.”

A crunching noise behind them drew Thomas’s attention and he turned to find Lord Hexham walking up behind them. The aristocrat smiled in greeting. “Good afternoon. Sorry if I’m interrupting, but I couldn’t help being curious. Is there something interesting down there?”

“Just a group of seals,” Thomas replied. “Gordon hadn’t seen them before.”

“Oh, charming!” With a broad smile, Lord Hexham moved up on Thomas’s free side and peered down. Reaching into the satchel he normally carried with him, he came up with a notebook and a graphite pencil. Balancing the notebook on his arm, he started doing a very loose sketch of the scene below. “I’ve always had a fondness for seals. It was one of the few things I missed in Tangiers.”

“Don’t they have seals in Morocco then?” It was the first Thomas had heard of it, but there again he didn’t really take an interest.

“They had seals, but they were different.” The aristocrat paused, peering down at the lounging wildlife, then going back to his sketch. “They didn’t have the spots, and they just aren’t the same without them, don’t you know?”

“I suppose they wouldn’t be.” That was another thing Thomas had never spared a thought for.

“Did they have whales?” Gordon asked, with the usual lack of deference he showed everyone.

Fortunately, Lord Hexham wasn’t much of one to stand on ceremony. If having a street urchin treat him as an equal had ever bothered him (and Thomas figured it had to have, at least in the beginning), he’d done a good job of not showing it. Now he simply replied, “Oh yes. Whales, dolphins, they were common sights if you went out on the water.”

“Wot’s a dolphin?” Gordon asked, frowning down at the seals as if they could somehow tell him the difference better than the man on the shore.

After a moment’s deliberation and sketching, Lord Hexham said, “They’re like whales only smaller. They also have a sort of beaky looking snout, and they jump a lot more.”

That got Gordon’s attention. “Whales jump? ‘Ow?”

“I’m not entirely certain,” the aristocrat admitted. “That is, they don’t have legs and there’s nothing for them to push off against. But it’s sort of like salmon at a weir, don’t you know?” He looked at Gordon, then rethought that. “Or, no, I suppose you wouldn’t know.” He thought another minute, then tried again, “They sort of throw themselves out of the water in an arching motion. Whales only do it occasionally. Normally you just see their backs as they come up, blow water out of their blow holes, and go back down. Dolphins get quite active.”

Thomas watched Gordon try and digest that bit of information. Then a thought occurred to him. “Is there a book in one of the libraries about sea life? There might be pictures.” Gordon’s reading skills weren’t up to snuff, although they’d gotten their hands on a couple of primers. He was more than able to look at pictures, though. And if the book explained why whales weren’t fish, then someone else could explain that to him.

Lord Hexham paused in his sketching, obviously trying to remember if he’d seen such a thing. “I’d be surprised if there weren’t. I don’t remember exactly what we’ve had sent over, but I know there were several requests for scientific volumes. Mr. Braceridge was especially keen to have books on nature available, although a lot of that was trees and birds. Still, it seems there should be something about sea life.” With a sheepish grin he added, “The closest I remember seeing, though, was a collection of folk lore. There was at least one story about selkies.”

“Wot’s a selkie?” Gordon half-demanded, his jaw starting to jut out. Apparently he’d had about as much new terminology as he could take in a day.

Figuring that even on an island like this there was only so much impudence a Marquess should be expected to stand (and allowing that Lord Hexham was rather nice, for a toff), Thomas explained that one. “They’re a sort of fairy. The stories say that they swim around all day looking like seals, but at night they take off their seal skins and turn into pretty ladies who dance around naked on shore. If you could make off with their skin, they had to marry you, but if they ever found their skin they’d leave forever.” Thomas had frequently wondered why there were never any male selkies, but he figured that had to do with who was telling the stories.

Gordon looked unimpressed. “Why would they dance around naked?”

Thomas shrugged. “Probably because the seal skins were their only clothes, and it’d hard to dance when you’re a seal? Anyway, it’s not real. It’s just a story, probably to explain why sailors came back from sea to find their wives run off.”

“I always thought it was a warning against coercing someone into marrying you,” Lord Hexham countered mildly. “After all, fisher’s wives are generally given a choice. Selkies never are.”

“I suppose you have a point.”

Gordon looked down at the seals. “So those aren’t selkies then?”

Thomas rolled his eyes. “No, they aren’t. And if they are, they’re safe dancing. No interest in making naked women marry you on this island.”

To his surprise, Lord Hexham added in, “And even if there were male selkies, I don’t see it working out. After all, the doctors would make you both go through counseling before the wedding.”

[o-rchidae]

Here's a question. How do you imagine Peter Pelham?

Like Bertie but blonder and somehow even dorkier

Like Bertie but more attractive and confident

Not like Bertie at all, tell me more in the tags

Voting ended onMay 23, 2023

[tuesdayintheservantshall]

furthermore Peter Pelham should do some drawings comparing Thomas to a cat

like. a sketch of Thomas opening one eye judgementally when disturbed next to a sketch of a cat doing the same thing. followed by a sketch of Thomas basking in a sunbeam, and likewise a feline twin. i think that would be good.

[infinity2020corner]

When he reaches the kitchen doorway the scent seems to curl around him - his shoulders soften in their set, and his eyebrows raise, pleasantly surprised at the sight of the cake on the table, cooling. Richard is reminded of when a cat sees something shiny, its pupils dilating and hackles dropping. 

*****

Thomas lowered himself gingerly into the chair, letting the subject drop. He sat on the edge, stiff and upright, like a nervous cat. Thomas often reminded him of a cat: aloof yet fascinated, terribly serious but a bit silly. Peter wanted very much to pet him.

Yeees please keep feeding my cat!Thomas obsession 😻

[downtonabbeyrewatch2020]

“I was devoted to cousin Peter”

“Most people didn’t get the point of him. He was...so delicate.But he was as kind to me as any man has ever been.”

🥺🥺🥺

[twyllodrus]

"marquis’s son unused to wine"

tl;dr i’ve mistakenly concocted a conspiracy where evelyn waugh purposely wrote in tragic stories for non-straight characters who happened to be a part of the aristocracy in order to punish alfred douglas for being a scoundrel (where wilde was concerned) and a shoddy poet, in general oh and also, there are some downton abbey spoilers for seasons 5 & 6, beware

d'you ever feel the incessant need to vicariously live through some of the waugh’s characters? particularly, the marquis of marchmain’s youngest son who’s ‘unused to wine’ while on your marry way to cirrhosis?? or maybe the disgraced offspring of some lord, who gets double-crossed by a beau, after your group of friends gets tight on some champagne, disrupts a motor race & thrashes his car, and so now you’re forced to flee the country ?? it’s worth mentioning that – while i find there’s something visceral to the stories of sebastian flyte & miles malpractice – this is in no way me woobifing the man. honestly? kinda sorta fuсk? evelyn waugh ?? yea

but still there’s something almost universal about the sons of aristocracy being queer and getting the shorter end of the stick. well, for obvious reasons, especially, if we’re talking the first half of the previous century :/ yet, inadvertently, quite often, it has something to do with/is related to the title of the marquis specifically??

in short, the conspiracy goes: the son of the marquis of queensberry, – that is alfred 'bosie’ douglas, oscar wilde’s lover – was to blame. in part and while, after having done some research, i don’t believe waugh drew on the inspiration from him, not even partially – still there’s just smth to the idea of punishing the man by writing stories where someone of aristocratic blood is the one who’s being betrayed by his love; and maybe throw in the fact that he’s the one who is left forever pining, withering away & drowning in alcohol?

although, as i’ve said earlier, i don’t believe that was waugh’s mindset or motivation – according to waugh’s biography, he wasn't particularly fond of bosie on purely literaly grounds: 

while “Waugh was "very sorry indeed to hear of Lord Alfred Douglas's distressed condition", and was glad to do anything he could to further the lord's "public recognition", after Douglas had died, “Waugh declined to join a committee to produce "an appreciation of the late Lord Alfred Douglas from a purely literary aspect" [...] "Waugh supposed that the commitee wanted to declare Lord Alfred the "greatest sonneteer since Shakespeare." He "could not agree with the judgement".” (Evelyn Waugh. A literary biography, 1924-1966 by John Howard Wilson, p. 102)

welp. take from it what you will 

in truth, the conspiracy mostly stems from me misremembering the adaptation of vile bodies (written & directed by stephen fry) and assuming that, in the film, miles maitland was made into not just a son of a lady, but specifically of a marchioness ?? why, you might ask? i mean, it could’ve been a neat lil’ call back to brideahead revisited, just like with plover's eggs being off-handedly referenced in the bright young things (2003) – so why not the marquis part as well ?? ¯\_( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)_/¯

but still, my primary reasoning, for the change, used to be this: fry changing miles into being from the family one title away from the royalty – was done out of spite. fry’s spite towards alfred douglas, mm yes.  you see, there’s this one quote by him floating around: 

“I think he genuinely loved Bosie, and Bosie genuinely loved him. Even though Bosie was mad, petulant, impulsive, I don’t think he set out schemingly to manipulate Oscar. I think he manipulated Oscar in the way that a child manipulates a parent.”

and so, my single braincell perceived this information & ran with it by creating a link where there was none to begin with!!

plus, now that i think about it, it’s unlikely that fry would’ve revamped miles’ character on the grounds of something like this but, since that is not the case, and miles is no son of any marquis, on screen or otherwise – this theory completely falls apart.

unless, you count the fact that, after all, there is some slim connection between the characters of sebastian flyte & miles malpractice and bosie – waugh, in part, based their characters on someone named stephen tennant ('the brightest of the bright young people’), whose mother, in turn, happened to be a cousin of the son of the 9th marquis of queensberry... the guy’s mother was alfred douglas’ cousin, i’m–

the dots are connecteth…… reality ?? hacked…..

there’s also another instance of this, sort of? (and not to commit sacrilege on the main by mentioning downton abbey and stephen fry in the same post, but) circa season 5 we’re introduced to bertie pelham (edith’s future husband), who eventually becomes the marquis of hexham due to his cousin suddenly dying, off-screen, and passing the title onto bertie. 'tis worth mentioning that the said cousin, peter, the former marquis of hexham, was heavily implied to not have been 'a ladies’ man’ (julian fellowes answer for your crimes) at any rate, there's still something to the notion of being from an aristocratic family, yet not being expected to carry certain responsibilities by the virtue of being the younger sibling? – thus allowing for some freedoms, but not quite ridding oneself from the high probability of a public scandal

[thomasbarrowlesbian]

WROW remember when peter was mentioned in Moorland Holiday and Thomas looked like he died a little !