Mid-July 2012

"You don't think we should tell them?"

She rolled over and looked at him over the top of her glasses, laying her book to rest, open and pages down, on her stomach. "I don't want to make some grand announcement yet." Her eyes flickered down, not meeting his and she pulled the glasses off her face. "I don't want to tell anyone until we know for sure everything is alright. That night…" Two words were so charged with emotion; her fear, her pain, the sadness and then ultimate joy. It had ended happily, but the realization of just how delicate and fragile the beginnings of life could be had stuck with Sybil, well beyond the night she spent in hospital. He took her hand and her eyes once again found his, "Please Tom. I want to wait – I'm still not twelve weeks. I couldn't bear to make a big announcement and then a week down the line tell everyone it wasn't to be." She cleared her throat, he felt the sincerity in her words, and it gave away how much that scenario had been playing on her mind. "Mama knows – that is enough for now. Should we ever need someone at least there's her, but not anyone else. Not just yet."

They fell into a comfortable silence, he processed her words and she watched his face, she seemed contented when he nodded his agreement and went back to her book, pushing her glasses high up her nose and leaving the fingers of one hand dancing circles in his palm as she read. "Your grandmother's eyebrows went through the roof when we said we were planning something so soon. We've aroused her suspicions. If she doesn't have it figured out already, she will do soon."

She didn't even look up from her book when she gave her response. "Of course she knows, she'll have known ever since we told her you proposed." She smiled and turned to look at him, his face screwed up in confusion. "It doesn't mean we have to confirm that she is right…as usual." He laughed. Violet's ego did not need further fuel to grow.

The sun cast a pinkish light over the bedroom, streaming through the open window and curtains even at half past nine. Sybil was exhausted by the day, the nausea that had her in an iron grip through most of her waking hours seemed to leech all of the energy out of her. Today's hot, sticky hours in the car and the effort of the dinner, sitting there trying desperately not to let this be the occasion that gave her away, the usual bickering with Granny, had left her dozing in her lawn chair by eight.

Her mother had leapt in, coming to their rescue – suggesting that Sybil retire to bed now, announcing a little too loudly and with obvious empathy that she must still be fighting the flu. That had been the excuse given when the location of Tom's proposal accidentally emerged and was promptly leapt on by both Violet and Mary. They had both sat open mouthed at the table, frozen not quite sure what to do, when Cora, barely skipping a beat, began to weave a cover story. Sybil had been struck down by the flu, - 'it's always going round you know, worse in summer sometimes, it can leave you knocked for six' - and become so dehydrated she'd needed to be put on a drip - 'it happens so easily when you can't keep food down' - ruining Tom's pre-planned proposal -'it would have been so lovely, in the park the way I hear you had it arranged'. Cora had backed up the story a little too enthusiastically and though Tom was very grateful that she was keeping their secret he would remember not to burden her as the sole holder of information like this again. Cora, he decided, would have made a horrendous spy. Somehow it had worked; Cora's babbled story and their over done nodding seemed to satisfy Robert, Matthew and Edith and after a little more work, Mary but Violet had spent the rest of the dinner studying Sybil's every move. Both were thankful that by the time Sybil was fighting to keep her eyes open as they sat outside with drinks – just lemonade for Sybil I think, Carson, best not give her body anything else to try to deal with – Violet and her hawk eyes had been escorted to the car and was on her way home to her bed. She would be back tomorrow for lunch though, but at least there was time to better prepare themselves for the onslaught she was bound to bring with her.

Sybil stretched out in the bed beside him, rolling onto her side with her book and pointing her toes under the sheet, letting her joints crack as she shifted into a more comfortable position. It had been hot all day, uncomfortably so at some points, the air was heavy and muggy in the way that so often blighted the warm days of British mid-summer and the night had not brought any relief with it. The growing darkness made the heat more oppressive, more stifling, it seemed to close around them both and lay heavy on their chests. He had sacrificed the fan, which had stood at the end of the bed, blowing the little cool air it could generate in the soupiness, to Sybil. She could have that comfort at least, when there was so much else ailing her that couldn't be helped, and now its gentle humming filled the room cooling her face and making the baby hairs around her face dance.

Being in her bedroom here still seemed strange to him, knowing she had grown up here become the woman he knew in this very room. It was so familiar to her, even in the middle of the night and it was so foreign to him. The imposing four-poster that suspended swathes of fabric over them as they slept, the mahogany wardrobe, the plasterwork that framed the ceiling were all original, as old as this wing of the house itself – older than he dared imagine, the fear of breaking some heirloom still haunted him after years of visiting. The dressing table that sat to one side of the window was littered with Sybil's paraphernalia, he couldn't help but imagine the maker of this table never imagined it would be covered with a layer of kirby grips, a pink plastic hairbrush and a mist of hairspray. The contrast seemed simultaneously obscene and beautiful – the stark meeting of two worlds, two eras. He hated it really for what it was, there was something deep down in him, left unconsciously by his Pa, his Daddo and uncles and older brothers, taught to remember the things these places represented in Irish history, the things the people who lived in them had done to their forefathers. The repression, the mistreatment and the discrimination that had sparked a war that truly divided their country. But at the same time he loved it for what it held of Sybil, the way the path of her growth was scratched along with her sisters' into the wooden doorframe that led to what was once servant's quarters; the photographs of her at various stages of childhood that littered the rooms, proudly displaying gaps in her teeth and pigtails and grazed knees; the postcards she had collected on her travels and blu-tacked onto the side of the wardrobe, a year written in her neat hand in the bottom left hand corner of each. There was enough of her here, enough was palpable that with her beside him he could settle, feel this was a place to be comfortable, overcome it's strangeness and it's contrast from his own upbringing.

A sudden awareness of Sybil's even breathing brought him out of his thoughts. Her book had slipped from her grasp onto the bed and her eyes were shut beneath her glasses, one hand was splayed over her stomach. He leant over her, trying desperately not to disturb her, put the book on the bedside table and slipped the glasses from her nose. She curled against him, her body reacting to his touch, her legs pushing against his in her slumber and feet working their way in between his calves. Even in this heat her toes were icy cold. He flicked the lamps off and felt sleep begin to take him over, his limbs grew heavy and his mind emptied. He watched as the final stages of the setting sun changed the light illuminating her face, as the deep gold turned deeper and eventually darker, until it was moonlight bouncing off her hair. His hand found hers and their fingers laced together.

The last few weeks had felt calmer somehow, more settled, in spite of the worry that seemed to have settled itself deep within both of them since the night in the hospital. The barrier that had seemed to grow between them in those last weeks in Dublin and the first in London had crumbled, a combination of shock and anxiousness and a realization that the person who could help was right there, the only one who could truly understand. He succumbed to sleep, glad of the bed and the calm and the open window but most of all her presence beside him, the cool metal of the ring on her left hand pressed against his palm, the contours of her body next to his. She sighed in her sleep and turned her face into him, her lips and nose tickling at the skin on his bare shoulder.

He dreamt of bringing a baby here this time next year, a baby with dark curls and rosy cheeks and big, watchful eyes. Her lashes brushed her cheeks, chubby legs and little pink toes emerging from the skirt of a summer dress, a pair of pink, ruffled knickers covering her nappy. She sat on a blanket on the lawn, mesmerizing them all and reveling in the attention, laughing as she was tickled and bounced by Sybil, cooing contentedly as she was settled on her grandmother's knee. It was the first time he had dreamt of the baby so vividly since the scare and that night was the first time he imagined it as a daughter. Imagined her as his daughter, their daughter.

Sorry for appearing to disappear off the face of the earth lately – life has gone a bit mad all at once, as it so often does, and I've had rather a lot to do! I also seem to have scrambled my brain to the point I can't finish a chapter – this is one of three updates for this story alone that I started. The other two will make it here eventually, I am sure, just as soon as I figure out how the hell to finish them! I found this a hard chapter to write for some reason, I hope it lives up to standards! Be kind enough to let me know your thoughts, I really hope you like it.

I'll aim to get another update up before Christmas, but if I don't I hope you all have a wonderful day whether you celebrate or not. Enjoy your family and friends and a day to relax in the company of your loved ones, or doing whatever it is you love to do.

LP. x (in my fairy-light filled house!)