Change of the Guard

"I'm thirteen and I want to learn to drive too."

"You're not old enough. I'll teach you to drive when you turn fifteen the same as your brothers."

"You learned to drive when you were thirteen."

"I did and I was working as a driver on weekends when I was fourteen. I was too young and you're still not old enough."

Tom Branson had had this argument with his daughter at least three times in the last two months. Her obsession with livestock had now been replaced with one for all things mechanical. So far raising their children had not been overly difficult. Other than a few scrapes that had gotten the boys a good talking to and a suspension of their privileges from time to time, things had been rather straightforward. Merilee on the other hand was entirely too much like him with a dose of her mother's stubbornness thrown in.

"If you won't let me drive, at least let me go to the airfield with the Girl Guides. All of the other girls will be earning their Air Mechanic badge," she wasn't about to give up.

"I told you I want to speak to your Girl Guide leader first before I give permission. If I'm satisfied you may go. I don't want you gadding about in an airplane," he replied calmly.

"Why shouldn't I learn to fly an airplane?" Merilee demanded. "Mum says ladies can do anything they put their mind to."

"There is no reason why not, when you're old enough," Tom replied.

Merilee smiled sweetly at her father and kissed him on the cheek. "You are right of course Da." Tom knew when she was trying to turn on the charm to win him over. It was one of his own ruses he used to get around Sybil.

It was the fall of 1936 and Tom was starting to feel the march of time. Riordan had entered Oxford that fall and Jay was just starting his last year of grammar school. The political climate was tense. Mass unemployment in the northern parts of the country had led to a massive protest march of the unemployed workers to London that summer. The king was involved with an American divorcee with strong ties to the ruling Nazis in Germany and it looked like whatever happened with that situation it would shake public confidence further.

Rory had come for a visit that spring and brought his seven-year-old daughter with him. Tom's mother had remained in Ireland. Her eyesight was beginning to fail and she had not felt up to the trip.

"Don't worry about your Ma," Rory told him. "She has a home with me until the end."

"How are things for her otherwise?" Tom asked. "You know she won't let on if she needs money. I've offered often enough."

"She gets a bit of rent from the house in Dublin and we have lots to eat so no worries there. I can't believe the change in the downstairs and you with servants."

"Employees," Tom corrected him quickly. "Without them we'd never afford this place."

"What news from Evelyn and Alana? Has he produced an heir yet?"

"Don't remind me," Tom groaned. "We took the ferry over to see them in Paris last summer. They have all girls. He's the Viscount now. He's appointed Riordan as his heir. It seems when there is a lack of a legitimate male heir, an heir through illegitimate channels can be appointed as long as the father acknowledged the existence of the child. Since our common father supported my Ma and me for all those years. Riordan is it."

"Riordan's got a good head on him. I wouldn't let it worry you too much," Rory told him.

"Twenty years ago if anyone had told you, you would be accepting of a peer and the title and all the rest would you have believed them?" Tom said with a slight laugh.

"I'd have probably punched their lights out," Rory said laughing as well. "As soon as my sister and her husband from Limerick found out my adoptive family had a peer in it, they made themselves scarce. I hear from them once a year at Christmas. It is what it is."

"Poor Evelyn. I still can't believe how you set him up at your wedding."

"It worked didn't it," Rory shrugged. "He met Alana and the rest is history."

"And what about you? Have you used any of your matchmaking techniques on yourself?"

"No. I don't have time and I'll wait until Kathy is older."

"You'll be an old man by then."

"Not that old. Find me one just like Sybil and I'll consider it," Rory replied.

"Can't. She broke the mold."

Sybil had indeed broken the mold with her views on women's rights. It was very uncommon for married women to work and even more so when they had children. By choosing a profession where there were always staffing shortages and specializing in surgical nursing where the shortages were felt the hardest, she was able to get the hospital to hire her on and overcome their resistance to her marital status. With her experience she was now the head surgical matron at the hospital where she worked.

In December the nation was reeling from the shock of Edward VIII's abdication. Sybil's father had been suffering from declining health since the stock market crash in '29. With the abdication the last vestiges of the aristocracy were truly smashed. Robert Crawley suffered a massive coronary a week after the abdication and died. He was sixty-nine years old. His funeral was held at the Downton church. The family, most of the village and numerous old friends and acquaintances were in attendance. Matthew was in shock as he was now Lord Grantham.

"I never thought this day would come," Matthew said once the family had gathered after the guests had left.

"It will come someday for your son as well," Sybil reminded him gently. Mary and Matthew now had two young children, a three-year-old girl and a two-year-old boy.

"Will you take a seat in the House of Lords?" Sir Anthony questioned.

"No, I'll leave the politics up to Tom," Matthew replied. "I'm still satisfied to be a country solicitor."

"Another few years and I'll look for a post teaching journalism and politics," Tom replied. "I'm starting to get tired of the constant wrangling for position."

"I thought you enjoyed the excitement?" Matthew said.

"I do or at least I did," Tom replied with a sigh. "It's difficult to watch the suffering and unemployment when you know there is almost nothing that can be done."

"You're not sitting in your chair, doing nothing," Sir Anthony commented. "Take heart. This mess can't last forever."

Before they left Downton Sybil made her mother promise to come to London for the holidays. Lady Cora was taking the loss of her husband quietly and with dignity as she had handled things all of her life, but Sybil suspected she was grieving heavily in private.

Tom and Sybil returned home with a crate of chickens and a sack of feed from Yorkshire. Food shortages were so severe Tom had built a small chicken run in their back garden last fall with plans to stock it on their next trip to Yorkshire. If it weren't for their regular trips to visit family in the country and the availability of country produce they could bring back, they would have had even more difficulty getting enough together for a meal.

"When is this all going to end?" Sybil said to Tom as they deposited the hens into the pen at the side of the garage.

"I fear when the world has torn itself apart yet again," Tom replied.

"You don't think…war?" Sybil said suddenly looking downcast.

"It's hard to say," Tom replied before they went back into the house. "The Prime Minister wants to avoid it at any cost. There may be a point when that cost becomes too high."

"The boys," Sybil said squeezing Tom's hand.

"It hasn't happened yet. For now they're in school. We'll cross each bridge when we come to it."

"I love you," Sybil said.

"It was twenty years ago last month when I asked you to marry me."

"I remember every word."

"Are you still terribly flattered?"

"Very," she said before they entered the house.