Chapter Seven
A/N: Thank you to Bookbomb and Duchess for reviewing. I really appreciate it. This is the last chapter, unfortunately, and is set about nine years after the last chapter. Please enjoy!
As the sun began to set in the sky, Sybil Branson watched as her daughter ran about the garden of their home in Dublin. The young girl was the light of her life, a glow surrounding her that would not fade as the night came. But even so, after all the child had given her, the woman could not help but remember all she had lost in the time before she had been born into her world.
It had been almost nine years since she had fallen down the staircase at their home, when she had tried to protect Tom from a gang of thugs and paid the price for it. It had been almost nine years since she had lost the first child she had carried, a boy that they had later named Patrick, and still she mourned him every single day.
She had been in utter mourning for three years after her son had been born utterly still and dead, hardly able to even leave their home, and even there, not being able to linger on the staircase for more than a few moments, as that was where the tragedy had occurred in the first place. She had been utterly devastated, only able to speak of her son to the one she knew that understood her position, that person being her mother, who had lost her own son before he was born, and was the only one who could truly offer comfort to the suffering mother.
However, she had been utterly shocked when, after Tom had returned home from a long trip and they had spent the night together for the first time in a long while, she had begun to feel rather ill in the mornings, just as she had done while carrying Patrick. She had thought nothing of it at first, thinking that she had simply picked up a virus that her husband had brought back with him, but then she had begun to feel other symptoms not comparable to an illness, and so had finally agreed with herself to visit the doctor's. There, it was confirmed that, despite all her efforts to prevent such an occurrence, she was pregnant.
It could most certainly be said that Sybil was shocked by this, though stunned would be a more accurate description of the emotions that swept over her in a wave. She had been taking many precautions, even going as far as abstinence at one point, to prevent herself from becoming pregnant, but it had not worked, and she was once again carrying a child.
The woman still did not really know why she was so opposed to having another child, and could only assume that it was her natural reaction, as a mother who had lost their baby, to want to refrain from going through such agony again. However, as she looked at the face of her daughter, nearly six years old and the most beautiful child in all of the world, the youngest Crawley sister could not believe how foolish she had been.
The birth of her little girl could not have been more different to that of the child's elder brother. The labour was without complication, and the child born at the end of it was perfectly healthy. Through the whole time of it, Sybil had been fearful, fearful that she would lose her second child as she had lost the first, but the moment the bundle of blankets was placed in her arms, all of the terrors she had experienced faded away, leaving only the joy that her daughter had brought.
"Maire!" she exclaimed suddenly, catching the girl's attention. She had been attempting to scale the apple tree that Tom and Sybil had planted just after their marriage, while in pursuit of a small white butterfly. The young girl had always been fascinated, both with climbing and with flying. She had always adored the idea of being able to weightlessly float up into the sky, without a care in the world to hold her back. As she had only reached the tender age of six, her mother was content to allow her to believe in flying for as long as she wished to do so.
"I'm sorry, Mama. I know I'm not allowed to climb the tree." the young girl sighed sheepishly, turning her head to rest on one shoulder. She looked so adorable that Sybil had to fight to keep the firm expression on her face. "I was only trying to catch the butterfly."
"I know, Maire." the woman told her daughter, unable to keep the affectionate note from her voice, no matter how she tried. "But it's a very dangerous thing to do. If you fall, you could hurt yourself badly."
"But I won't fall, Mama, I promise. I've never fallen from that tree." the little girl sounded so assured of herself, and so much like her father, that Sybil could not help but smile wider.
"There is always the chance for a first time, darling." she reminded the child, well aware that she was losing the argument she fought. "And I do not want that first time to come, which it will not do, if you don't climb the tree. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Mama." the child answered, sounding more than a little guilty. No longer able to stand the fact that she had upset her daughter over something as small as her chasing a butterfly, Sybil sat down in the swinging seat that Tom had built, on one of her birthdays many years ago, pulling her daughter down into her lap.
They sat in that way until the sun set in the sky, the youngest Crawley sister telling stories all the while, as her mother had used to do. However, unlike the Countess of Grantham, the young Dublin woman did not tell tales of princesses, of dragons and of knights in shining armour. Instead, she told a tale that she held close to her heart.
Instead, she told the tale of the bluebelle of Dublin town.
A/N: And so it ends. I'm so sad to end this story, but I felt that it was the right time to stop it. However, I will be doing a new, separate story, called Back to the Beginning, which I'll post very soon. It follows the children of Mary, Matthew, Sybil and Tom. For the final time, please review! I love you guys.
