The Rome Express
Chapter One
Arrival at Calais
"Da! Da! Is that it? Is that really our train?" twelve year old dark haired Danny Branson demanded excitedly. He tugged insistently at the sleeve of his father's grey jacket and pointed in the direction of a long passenger train of dark green coaches standing over on the quayside, its engine impatiently blowing off steam and sending up a column of dirty black smoke into the cloudless blue of the early afternoon sky.
"Is it Uncle Tom?" asked the slim blue eyed, fair haired boy standing next to Danny.
However, before Tom Branson could even begin to reply, the dark haired girl standing next to the two boys promptly voiced her own opinion on the matter now under consideration.
"No of course it isn't, silly! Don't you two know anything?" she said with a superior air of contemptuous disdain, at the same time holding tightly on to her straw hat to prevent it blowing off her head and into the sea, her light blue print dress billowing in the stiff breeze.
Apart from her father whom she adored, and her Uncle Matthew whom she respected, not because he was the sixth earl of Grantham, but because her father and Uncle Matthew were such good friends, aged all of eleven years young Saiorse Branson already had little time for the male of the species, and that healthy disdain extended to both of her brothers, Danny who was a year older than she, and Bobby six years younger, as well as to her two cousins Robert and Simon Crawley, aged eleven and nine respectively.
Saiorse Branson didn't have much time either for her youngest cousin, Rebecca Crawley, who like her cousin Bobby was also aged five years old, and was, unsurprisingly, only interested in dolls. Saiorse sincerely hoped that Rebecca would soon grow out of this particular, as she saw it frankly annoying, phase of her childhood, but Saiorse had her doubts. After all, when she was five years old, she had sat on her father's work bench in the garage at their house in Blackrock in Dublin, and one by one handed him his tools, while he was repairing the engine of the family's Flat Nose Morris Cowley. So, Saiorse didn't see why, at the same age, her cousin Rebecca couldn't jolly well do so too and help Uncle Matthew repair his Rolls Royce. Only of course, that seemed very unlikely, partly because Rolls Royces never ever seemed to break down and also because, as her father had tried patiently to explain to her on more than one occasion, if the one belonging to Uncle Matthew ever did have problems, then her uncle had someone called a chauffeur to undertake the necessary repairs for him.
In fact, come to think of it, not only Uncle Matthew, but all the Crawleys, even her cousins, had all kinds of people to do all sorts of things for them. There was someone called Barrow who was a... butler, who seemed to spend his entire life opening doors and serving food. Why that was necessary, Saiorse couldn't even begin to imagine. After all, couldn't Uncle Matthew and Aunt Mary open doors for themselves? Neither of them was... What was the word Ma had used to describe the soldier, the man without any legs, whom they had seen down by the Pillar in Dublin while they were waiting for the tram back out to Blackrock? Ma said he had must have lost his legs in something she called the Great War and had given him some money from out of her purse. Oh, yes, disabled. That was it.
Well, neither Uncle Matthew nor Aunt Mary was disabled and neither were their children. In fact, Saiorse knew that to be true, at least of Uncle Matthew, because, one afternoon, when they were all staying at Downton Abbey last Christmas, Saiorse had seen him open and close doors for himself not once, but several times, although only when Aunt Mary was out: she had gone into Ripon with Ma and Aunt Edith to do some shopping - and have a good gossip - or so said Da.
There'd been some kind of fuss about the trip too remembered Saiorse, because Austin the old chauffeur was ill and Aunt Mary had suggested in all seriousness that Da could drive them into Ripon. Ma had said Da had better things to do with his time, that he wasn't the bloody chauffeur any more, and in any case Aunt Edith knew how to drive, so there was an end to it: Aunt Edith would drive them or they wouldn't be going anywhere, which was how Aunt Edith came to drive Ma and Aunt Mary into Ripon and how Uncle Matthew learned how to open and close doors. In fact, he did it all that afternoon, but only until the Rolls returned from Ripon, when suddenly he seemed to forget what he had learned and Barrow began opening and closing doors for him once again as he had done before.
And why couldn't her uncle and aunt serve themselves their own food, just like Da and Ma and they all did back at home in Dublin? The Crawleys even had someone, the appropriately named Mrs. Fry, to cook all their meals, and although Saiorse had to admit that her Ma wasn't much of a cook, in fact on more than one occasion Da had referred to her cooked meals as "burnt offerings", Da was a dab hand when it came to cooking.
In any case, even if Ma wasn't much good at cooking, she was a very good nurse. She was matron of her ward down at the Coombe and Aunt Mary didn't even have a job, unless being a countess was a job. But if so, Saiorse wasn't quite sure what that entailed. In any case, Aunt Mary always seemed to have a very great deal of time on her hands, so surely she could learn how to cook, couldn't she? And with so much spare time, couldn't she put Rebecca to bed herself, rather than have a nanny do it for her? Ma had always put Saiorse to bed herself when she was little except when she was working late, when Da did so. And, if they could do that for her, then why couldn't Aunt Mary or Uncle Matthew do the very same for Rebecca? Saiorse sighed. At ten years old, the world seemed to be such a very complicated place.
Standing by the ship's rail of the Southern Railway's S.S. Canterbury, the black hulled, single buff stack steamer, which had brought both the Bransons and the Crawleys all the way from Dover to Calais across the choppy waters of the English Channel, breathing a heartfelt sigh of relief - he had never been a good sailor - Tom Branson, deputy editor of the Irish Independent, looked out across the calmer waters of the harbour at Calais, and towards the elegant central clock tower and the red tiled roofs of the cream coloured stone buildings of the Gare Maritime rising up behind the train now standing on the quayside. But, as he made to answer both his son's question and that of his nephew, once again, and in a comparatively short space of time, he was prevented from doing so, now by the softly spoken voice of a tall, fair haired man with piercing blue eyes, who had come to stand behind the group of children.
"In fact, you're both right" said the man. Holding onto the hand of his equally fair haired younger son Simon, Matthew Crawley sixth earl of Grantham was ever a peace maker, appropriately enough, since earlier in the year, he had addressed a plenary session of the League of Nations in Geneva in Switzerland.
As deputy editor of the Indy, through one of his numerous and varied contacts, Tom had learned that his brother-in-law Matthew, someone for whom he had always had both the greatest liking and respect, was presently being considered for an ambassadorial position by the British government, in the Balkans, or so it was said, that powder keg of rival nationalities, forever, or so it seemed, a hotbed of international intrigues rivalries, and tensions; though if that was indeed the case, then true to form, Matthew had discretely kept to his own counsel on the matter. Not that Tom would be at all surprised, thought his brother-in-law eminently suited to such a role.
Unassuming, unfailingly courteous, modest, intelligent, and extremely well informed, the previous Christmas at Downton Abbey, after dinner, and over a something as prosaic as a game of billiards, Matthew Crawley, sixth earl of Grantham had made his own position very clear to Tom Branson, his dearly loved Irish republican brother-in-law: there must never be another European war. The last, said Matthew, had blighted, some indeed would say wiped out, an entire generation, so if he was called upon to play his part, however small, in ensuring that such a catastrophe never ever occurred again, then so be it.
And, after all, as Matthew had so laconically observed, both he and Tom both now had a very vested interest in ensuring that such an appalling event never happened: each of them had a pair of young sons asleep upstairs. Another war, opinioned Matthew, would not just be fought across the Channel over in Belgium and France; with modern man's cursed capacity for developing weapons capable of inflicting untold horror and suffering, this time, even if the Irish Free State kept, as seemed likely, to a position of neutrality, such a conflict should it ever come to pass, would come dropping its lethal calling cards of mass destruction much closer to home, threaten everything they both held dear with complete obliteration.
For his part, although thankfully because of his weak heart, Tom had not been called upon to fight during the Great War, he had always had an innate hatred of both bloodshed and fighting; had seen for himself too much of both in the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War which had followed hard upon its heels, both of which had come close to destroying the country he cared so passionately about, and which, for the time being at least, had split asunder the island of Ireland into the Free State in the south and Northern Ireland, still and for the foreseeable future, part of the United Kingdom, in the north. However even if, as Matthew so astutely observed, the Irish Free State did pursue a policy of neutrality vis-à-vis another European war, the present artificial division of his own country gave Tom equal cause for concern. He knew it could not last; was storing up a legacy of bitterness and hatred on both sides and he feared very much what the future would bring.
Soft footfalls sounded behind them. Tom and Matthew both turned instinctively and smiled broadly on seeing their two beautiful wives approaching them along the polished planking of the ship's promenade deck.
"Where's Becky?" asked Matthew, noticing immediately that his young daughter was not with either her mother or her aunt. He saw Mary wince; knew straightaway what it was that had upset his wife. Although he himself didn't mind, Mary hated the use of the diminutives of her children's names. For her, Robert was always Robert, not as might be expected so as to avoid confusion with his cousin or out of respect for his late grandfather either, but simply because Robert was his given name, just as Simon was always Simon and Rebecca...
"I left Rebecca sleeping down below in the cabin with nanny" explained Mary. "Are you feeling any better, Tom?" asked his sister-in-law solicitously.
"Much; thanks Mary. That pill Sybil gave me helped a great deal. I didn't feel half as bad as I thought I would. Mind you, I'll still be very glad to set foot on land again, even if it is French soil!"
"I'm glad it worked love" said Sybil. She slipped an arm around her husband's waist, gazed out across the waters of the harbour. "This reminds me so much of when we first arrived in Kingstown all those years ago".
"You mean Dún Laoghaire".With a chuckle,Tom corrected her.
"No" laughed Sybil. "I mean Kingstown. That's what it was called when I first saw it, whatever it may be called now!"
"And in answer to your questions boys, that's the train that will take us as far as Paris" said Matthew.
"See!" said Saiorse. "I knew it wasn't the train to Rome".
Matthew smiled fondly at his niece. In many ways she was so like darling Sybil, her mother; she spoke her mind and didn't care what anyone else said or thought to the contrary.
"But the two coaches at the end of the train - the dark blue ones - that's where we'll be sleeping tonight and they'll go all the way with us to Rome".
Robert stuck out his tongue at Saiorse.
"See! You weren't right either!"
"Was!"
"Wasn't!"
"Robert! That is no way to behave" admonished his mother. "As the future earl of Grantham, you should know how to conduct yourself in public! Just think what your dear grandpapa would have said, if he was still alive, what your grandmamma would say, if either of them saw you doing what you've just done!"
"I'm sorry mama" said Robert seemingly abject and contrite. He looked down at his sandaled feet, at the heaving deck, indeed anywhere, rather than meet his mother's imperious gaze.
Sybil and Tom shot each other an amused glance. Dearest Mary, she was always such a stickler for both good manners and protocol. As Sybil once acutely observed, if darling Mary had been on the Titanic, she would have given up her seat in a lifeboat rather than sit next to someone from steerage.
By now the S.S. Canterbury was drawing smartly alongside the quay, at which point someone down on the quayside began to wave frantically up at them all and in doing so caught Robert's mother's and the other adults' attention, whereupon Robert promptly stuck out his tongue at Saiorse once again. He really didn't like his cousin, Little Miss Smarty Pants, that much, if at all, although his brother Simon seemed to rub along with Saiorse very well. But then, in Robert's considered opinion, his younger brother was a bit soft in the head.
"It can't be!" exclaimed Sybil with a laugh.
"It damned well is!" observed Mary.
"You're bloody right! It is!" Tom grinned.
"Well, so it is" observed Matthew rather more diplomatically.
And with realisation now at last having dawned upon all four of them, each began to wave enthusiastically back, although it must be admitted Matthew rather less exuberantly than the other three, at the smartly dressed woman standing on the quayside below.
