A/N: Apologies for the delay – real life happened and did nothing for a biblical bout of writer's block. I was tempted to mark this monster complete with the last chapter (it seemed a nice stopping point), but I still have a few ideas that I'll attempt to see through (and in the muse wrangling process came up with a few more – argh). This vignette was originally designed as the obligatory postscript to "Out of the Dark," but other plot bunnies hopped in and destroyed my original outline (funny how that happens). I ultimately wound up with two chapters and a trio of plotlines, each of which could have stood on its own. Because of that, it may seem like stuff is "missing," and I'm not opposed to filling in the blanks as inspiration or questions arise (in fact, I've already got a fun one half-written).

I hope everyone is having a lovely holiday season!

WHEN IRISH EYES ARE SMILING, PART I
Yorkshire, 1926

Winter

Snow had blanketed the village overnight, the kind that took advantage of the mercury's subtle dip below freezing and came heavy and wet. Sybil had endured enough Yorkshire Januarys to know that in a few days it would all turn into a muddy slop. For now though it was a wonderland for her family, whose laughter seized her attention through the frost-framed windows of Tom's study and away from the paper at her fingertips.

There in the front garden and bundled to the ears, her husband and children pelted each other with fat snowballs. Tom packed a solid one for his daughter, who promptly hurled it back at his chest. With Kitty's help, Bobby aimed another at the brim of his cap. Tom let out a prodigious howl, thrusting one child and then the other into the snow before stuffing it into their collars.

Oh, they'll be soaked through, the mother in her groaned, and she briefly considered rapping on the window. But her children were true warriors and wouldn't let their Da fire the last volley. Bobby and Saoirse scrambled up, flinging snow from their sleeves as they grabbed his overcoat and lunged with all their weight. Tom sprawled face first into the wintry blanket below. He sputtered back up, his cheeks aflame like ripe strawberries, looking quite the handsome snowman in tweeds. When the children clambered on him once more, chittering for him to Do it again, Da, do it again!, he caught Sybil's eye through the window and winked. She blew him a kiss, and then pressed the fingers to her lips to ward off the burn in her throat. She'd sat down a half hour ago with the paperwork and she was no further along than when she started.

YORKSHIRE SCHOOL FOR THE BLIND
Instituted at York, 1833
In Memory of the late William Wilberforce

The object of this Institution is not so much to provide maintenance for the Blind, as to give them such instruction as may enable them to gain a livelihood for themselves, attention being at the same time paid to their moral and religious education...

The decision to send Bobby to the Yorkshire School was one she and Tom had committed to the previous Christmas. Both wanted their son to learn alongside sighted children eventually, but certifying the Downton school for blind classes – first locally and then with the Ministry of Education – would take time. And the private instructor they'd settled on, the amiable Mr. Woolstone, wouldn't be available until late summer. In the meantime, Sybil wouldn't risk reversing the remarkable progress Bobby'd made and so, after meeting with the school's officials and touring the institution with Bobby, they'd settled on him beginning the first Saturday in February.

But dear God, she could barely skim the application without welling up. It felt like signing execution orders for her heart.

RULES OF ADMISSION

No child shall be admitted without a recommendation from his or her parish, and without certificates of the following particulars: Loss of sight to such degree as to be able at most only to distinguish light from darkness, capacity for instruction, freedom from dangerous or communicable disease and from vicious habits.

No worries there, thought Sybil. She took a deep breath, finally put pen to paper.

Full name of applicant: Robert Daniel Branson
Age at last birthday and date of birth: 5 years, 5th July 1920
Parish: Downton
Present residence: Topcliffe Road, Downton
Occupation of father, if living: Father-estate agent, Mother-nurse
Date and cause of blindness: October 1925, optic neuritis as a result of cerebrospinal meningitis
Has the applicant received relief from the parish: No
Has he ever strolled about as a beggar, or played any instrument in the streets?

Does that bloody matter? she wondered, scribbling an emphatic no. With a heavy sigh, she went on through the inquiries: Yes, her son had religious instruction. No, he'd never been to another institution for the blind or been employed. Yes, he can wash and dress himself. Yes, he is of good character for honesty and propriety of conduct.

She'd almost finished when a drop of frigid water splatted on the back of her neck. Whirling around, she found the culprit grinning down at her. "Tom!"

He'd shed his boots and overcoat, but his cap still dripped with melting snow. Another clump landed at her cleavage. "Sorry, love." He grinned again, flicked off his cap and dropped to a knee. "I can get that."

Sybil squeaked when his lips swept in to mop up the droplets. He nibbled up, his mouth landing on hers and brushing eagerly until they both paused, breathless, with contented hums. Thumbing the rosy patches on his cheeks, for a moment she was hypnotized by the twinkling blue of his eyes, each topped with a hay-colored brow. She kissed one and then the other.

"I'll not complain," he murmured. "But if you don't mind my saying, you look rather upset." His gaze followed hers to the paperwork, and he offered a forlorn smile. "Would you like me to finish it, love?"

"No, but I don't know how I'm going to let him go next week." Her heart fluttered painfully and she stifled a sob in her palm. "I'm sorry – I'm being a silly mother hen..."

Shaking his head, Tom pulled her into his lap and gave her a gentle squeeze. "You're being a mother," he whispered. "And you're not letting him go – you're just letting him spread his wings a bit."

She sniffed back the last of the tears and together they watched Kitty help the children assemble a snowman. Saoirse scooped up an armload of snow and threw it at the growing pile. Bobby was keen with his own task, running his mittened hands from one side to the other, patting out the lumps as best he could as his sister sprayed him with snow.

"He'd never be building that snowman," Tom told her, "if it wasn't for you. You gave him the confidence to adapt to new ways of doing old things. You've done all you can for him, love, for now at least. And it's not forever," he reminded her, pressing a soft kiss to her brow. "Come end of summer, he'll be back in the nest."

It wasn't that she doubted their decision, not in the slightest, but that maternal bond, nurtured from the moment she first learned of a child's existence in her womb, had forged an unmitigated resolve to see Bobby transitioned into his new world. And now she had to trust that task to someone else. Perhaps what she feared more than anything, though, was her own strength crumbling in the face of separation.

When that Saturday finally came, Sybil spent most of the morning fretting about the contents of his trunk. Did they pack enough pajamas? What about his bear? Did she mark all of his clothes with the knots and stitches that he needed to tell one item from the next? Bobby had been waiting in the parlor for more than half an hour when Tom pulled her aside, quietly reminding her they needed to go.

The school was housed at the King's Manor, a centuries old abbey situated on eastern bank of the River Ouse. At first, it seemed a rather depressing place to both Sybil and Tom, who were, by virtue of their respectable income, required to pay a fee for Bobby's attendance. It was a charity institution after all, and relied on patrons and a modest government stipend for its operation. Having been redesigned through the ages, the interiors possessed neither rhyme nor reason. The corridors meandered with nooks and crannies and multiple sets of stairs that would make even a sighted person lose their way. On their way to the residential hall, Tom mentioned as much to the headmistress and cheekily asked if she'd be kind enough to sketch a map for their return.

"We find it an advantage, especially for the new students," Mrs. Glennon laughed. She was a kindly old woman who'd been a nurse in the Boer War, and Sybil had taken an immediate liking to her. "It reinforces their skill with the cane and refines the memory. Usually, by the second month, they're wandering about quite on their own!"

The residential wing was sorted by age, which placed Bobby at the near end of the corridor in a room adjacent to a resident teacher. His small iron bed was one of three, and there were an equal number of cane-bottomed chairs and plain wooden desks. As Sybil stood at the threshold, clutching Bobby's hand, she thought on how depressing it all seemed: buttery walls, dark wainscoting, spartan furniture, and no rugs – nothing to tempt a child's sense of adventure. Then she remembered the children who slept here wouldn't be stimulated by such superfluous things, at least not in the visual sense, and required safety above all else. A place for everything, and everything in its place.

"Mama," Bobby hissed. "You're squishing my hand!"

"Oh, darling, I'm sorry."

Bobby gave his hand a little shake and inched away from her in cautious exploration of his new accommodations. Tom took his place beside Sybil and laced their fingers together with a reassuring squeeze.

"Bobby, perhaps you could put your things away?" Mrs. Glennon prodded when a staffer arrived with his trunk. She took the cane resting in his hand, moved the tip along the floor toward his left. "Your trunk is three steps in this direction, and the chest is five steps forward from there. It's not far," she promised. The little boy dutifully caned his way toward the chest with a stack of shirts.

She smiled, explaining to his parents, "It's important to orient him as quickly as possible, so he'll be able to get round on his own."

Bobby seemed content enough after they'd settled him in his room and his curiosity kindled when they wandered through the day room. It seemed almost another world to Tom and Sybil – through the looking glass, as one might say – where sightless children wandered about unaided, confident and laughing over their games.

"What's everyone doing, Da?"

"They seem to be having quite a grand time of it," Tom replied. "Can you hear them playing skittles in the corner? And listen to those two little girls giggling over dominoes! And over there," he declared, "there's a trio of boys not much older than you laying out a train!"

Bobby nearly hopped in place. "What kind of train, Da?"

"Well, shall we go and see?"

Bobby listened attentively to the boys' conversation until one of them made, in his expert opinion, a disastrous recommendation on the order of the carriages. "The coal car shouldn't go there," he chirped. "It has to feed the engine!"

Sybil waited for the slightest sign of her son's discontent that afternoon, but with his natural affability and gentle spirit, he engaged easily with the other children. She lingered as long as she could until Tom pointed to the window, where an ashen sky threatened with snow. They said their goodbyes in the hall – Mrs. Glennon had gently stressed not to make a thing of it – and Sybil reached down into that well of English stoicism to steel herself for a hug and a kiss and a promise to visit him in a fortnight.

Bobby lifted a pair of little fingers. "That's two weeks," he told her with a proud twitch of the lips.

Sybil smiled back. Half Branson, half Crawley, he certainly wouldn't lack the sass or the fortitude for the next six months.

But would she?

During his first few days away, she began to doubt it and thought the separation more than she could bear. Tom was her pillar of strength, allowing her the space she needed to mourn a half-empty nest. It was a rare venture into self-pity that came to an abrupt halt late in the first week. That's when she found Tom sitting alone in Bobby's room.

Seated on the bed, he was staring out the window with his back to the door. She heard the tears in his quiet confession: "I feel like half my heart is in York."

They were such an inseparable duo, father and son, and how many nights had she stood at this very door listening to their laughter over Tom's animated stories or sharing the melody of some old Irish tune. She sank down beside him, pulled him to her as the chains of his sorrow broke free.

She could have reminded him of what he'd told her weeks before – Come end of summer, he'll be back in the nest – but there were no words to erase the impending time and distance. Still, they had each other, so she simply held him, whispered I know, my darling, I know as he shuddered through the sobs.

Only in hindsight could she truly appreciate how deftly they'd sustained one another over those initial weeks. They forged on with a resolve cobbled with touches and smiles, timely reassurances that they shared a common void. And the visits to Wilberforce, which quickly became a weekly affair, proved to be the balm they both needed. On the third Saturday in March, with the ground finally free of a late winter's snow, they were greeted by raucous laughter billowing from behind the old abbey.

A deafening Crack! was quickly followed by an eruption of cheers. Hand-in-hand, Tom and Sybil scampered through the maze of corridors toward the rear courtyard where a cricket match came into view. Both laughed at the sight of their rosy-cheeked little boy standing at the end of the makeshift pitch.

Bobby was crouched in a batter's pose comically similar to Lord Grantham. An instructor stood behind him, guiding his hands. "Now, listen for the sound of the ball as it bounces," he said, and together they lifted the bat, sending the ball high over the head of one of the other boys.

Tom whooped and darted forward, taking the place of another instructor, who clapped and called for Bobby to run in his direction. The little boy suddenly found himself swept up in a great hug and smothered by his father's kisses.

"Did you see me hit the ball, Da?" he crowed. "Do you think Grandpapa will let me play for the house team?"

"You'll play for the village or not at all!" was Tom's reply. "We need a good batsman after last year's thumping!"

A trill of laughter came over Sybil's shoulder. "Could you have imagined this five months ago?" asked Mrs. Glennon. The headmistress smiled as the lively little boy strenuously argued his case for being on the house team.

"No," Sybil admitted. "Then again, five months ago, I was simply grateful to have him alive and in my arms."

The older woman nodded in understanding. "He's quite the ambitious one, your son. There's not much he's unwilling to try."

"He gets the ambition from his father," she smiled, "and the devil-may-care attitude from me."

"A potent combination that will serve him well, I should think."

At the far end of the pitch, Bobby proudly introduced his Da to his friends. Tom took each proffered hand in turn, an animated greeting burring out with his brogue: I'm delighted young man; A hearty hello to you as well, young miss; and O'Connell you say? I see the Irish are well represented!

"Be honest with me, Mrs. Glennon," Sybil said, reluctant to even consider a change in plans. "He's doing so well here...I hate to think my own desire of having him back home would stop his progress. In your professional opinion, are we doing the right thing?"

With the formalities out of the way, Bobby had resumed his position in the game and offered the bat to a taller boy. The lad was knock-kneed and tallow-skinned, his clothes obviously cropped down for him, and he gave Bobby a grateful pat on the head.

"That's Harvey Corbett," Mrs. Glennon quietly offered. "He lost his sight two years ago in the mines. Coal dust in a collapse."

"But he's just a child!"

"He wasn't supposed to be in there, of course, but he was helping his father who is half-crippled himself." She then pointed toward the far corner of the courtyard to a little girl whose ebony hair was plaited with a sunny yellow ribbon. "And that's Susie Chambers. She was born blind and has never known a hint of color, but her mother, who is a seamstress, insists her daughter have a full palette of dresses in her wardrobe. And that little fellow," she said, gesturing towards a towheaded boy near Bobby's age. The lad sat alone at the end of the pitch, cross-legged with a twitch of the head that expressed mingled curiosity and reserve. "That's Henry Eaves. He came to us last year. He's the ward of his aunt who runs a boarding house here in York, and lost his sight most viciously." Her face furrowed. "His father beat him within an inch of his life."

Patiently waiting his turn, Bobby sat next to little Henry Eaves. Tom knelt behind them, unable to resist ruffling his son's hair and pinching his cheek. Her heart broke for little Henry, who likely never knew a moment of such fatherly affection.

"You see, Mrs. Branson, each of these children has a story, and it is my profound wish that each of them had the option of remaining with their families. Many of their parents don't have your determination, or quite bluntly, the resources to see to their child's special needs. But, that is why Wilberforce was founded – to provide the foundation for success in a sighed world for those that otherwise wouldn't have the means to do so, financially or otherwise." From somewhere in the distance a bell beckoned lunch and all the children began funneling inside. "Your son is one of the lucky ones," she said as Tom hoisted Bobby into a snug embrace. "Between the two of you, and with the tutelage of Mr. Woolstone, your son will be just fine once he leaves. And we're hardly done with him yet, you know. He's ours until August!"

The Branson boys had wandered up then and Sybil had almost forgotten to announce herself for Bobby's benefit. He greeted her cheery "Hello, my darling!" with an ear-splitting grin and eager arms. But Tom was unwilling to let go just yet and, wedged securely between his parents, the little boy giggled contentedly as his Mama and Da each kissed a cheek.

Spring

Even before her son left for York, Sybil had set the wheels in motion for the Downton school's certification. By the end of February, she'd won a surprisingly successful appeal before the local educational authority, thanks in large part to its most outspoken member, Mrs. Isobel Crawley. And by mid-March, she'd even convinced Miss Bunting to grudgingly accept that a second teacher wouldn't unsettle the grand scheme of things. With the personal politicking out of the way, the certification was only a matter of tedious paperwork with the Ministry of Education. Given the near-constant instruction of her son over the preceding months, Sybil suddenly found herself battling a set of rather restless hands.

Years before, she'd briefly entertained the thought of medical school, but she'd been around doctors in both war and peace, certainly long enough to notice one constant: their limited interaction with patients. Doctors didn't have the luxury of time, after all, to monitor the hourly demeanor of those in their care or comfort anxious family members. In Sybil's opinion, nurses were the vanguard for a patient's well-being, no less important than the doctors. She loved being a nurse, was empowered by it; still, she felt an increasing disquiet that she could do more.

The answer came out of the blue, more specifically with the simultaneous rupture of Mrs. Tucker's waters and the appendix of little Billy Lamb. Dr. Clarkson dispatched Sybil to the Tucker farm until the district midwife could arrive. It was woman's fifth child, and the mother quipped it might shoot out like a "greased pig" given the impatience of her previous four. Indeed it had, and by the time the midwife lumbered through the door, the infant girl had been greedily suckling at her mother's breast for more than half an hour. Then, before Sybil left, the farmer's wife blushed for details on how to make this one the last. Beyond the obvious, she was sure to add.

The district midwife, a rotund methuselah named Mrs. Croft, had been serving the area since God was a child she didn't appreciate "a nosy lot of old men" requiring her to register under the Midwives Act of 1902. She also didn't take too kindly to Dr. Clarkson, who after more than thirty years she still considered a meddlesome upstart. The two kept to their separate realms, unless circumstances demanded a temporary truce, which it seemed to do more frequently now that the district's population began to bloom. So when she arrived at the Tucker cottage and found one of his nurses dispensing indelicate information she nearly came unhinged.

"Cervical caps, indeed!" she fumed in his office the next day. "It's an abomination of decency, that is!" Glowering through narrowed slits, she aimed a knobby finger at his nose. "I've had enough of you and your modern ways, Doctor Clarkson." The door slammed so hard in her wake that it blew his hat off a nearby hook.

Sybil felt a mite guilty, not about her advice to Mrs. Tucker of course, but that it put her old mentor in rather a bad spot. She invited him to a conciliatory tea, but soon found herself at the receiving end of decades of professional frustration. Not just with "Old Crofty" – Oh dear, this must be serious, thought Sybil as she hastened to pour him another cup – but with being pulled too many places at once to offer the mothers of the district more than delivery services.

"We've a real need for pre- and ante-natal care! Something Mrs. Croft," he sneered, "could do if she'd pluck her head out of the middle ages."

"What you need, Dr. Clarkson," Sybil suddenly found herself saying, "is another midwife."

The old doctor seemed momentarily stunned before his eyes lit with untrammeled revelation. He spent the next half hour spluttering through the possibilities, Sybil trying her damndest to keep up and then panicking about how to unleash such a momentous decision on her husband. But as Dr. Clarkson rattled on about clinics and well-baby classes, something his urban colleagues were progressively embracing, she had to quell her own excitement. Outside of her love for Tom and their children, she'd never felt such an overpowering wave of purpose.

So after a few days of telephone inquiries and one clandestine train ride to York to speak with Dr. Louise Fraser at the maternity hospital there, she'd enough details on the requirements to present her case to Tom. She waited until they were readying for bed one evening, when they'd finally gotten a quiet moment to themselves. He was pasted to the newsprint, muttering about a newly released government report on the mining industry. Sybil could hear the gears in his brain clacking out a solution to the labor disputes, and then he garbled a few words punctuated with an emphatic hmph!

"What was that, darling?"

"I said, on their feckin' heads so be it."

"That's what I thought," she snickered, rubbing cream on her hands. "And just whose head are we talking about this time?"

"The government's, of course, if it accepts the recommendation of Lord Samuel's commission. It's not all bad," he reluctantly conceded, "I give them credit for proposing the nationalization of mineral rights and closing the most inefficient mines. But, if the government doesn't renew the subsidy for wages that saved its backside from a general strike last year, they've lost their feckin' minds!" He snapped open the paper. "Here it is... continued subsidy would constitute in many cases a dole to the inefficient, to the disadvantage of the efficient."

"Without the subsidy, the owners will reduce wages again."

"The report recommends up to thirteen percent."

"The miners certainly won't accept that, and shouldn't, for that matter."

"No," he said, setting the paper aside. "And the employers are clamoring for a longer work day, in addition to the lower wages. The government avoided a strike last year, but I expect they won't be so lucky this time round." Folding his arms behind his head, he relaxed into his favorite – well, second favorite – nightly ritual: watching her shed her dressing gown and switch off the lights.

"Papa should be rather pleased then, that you convinced him to sell his interest."

Lord Grantham's half-interest in an old mine purchased by his father – one of many questionable business decisions made by the previous earl – had occasioned several rigorous political debates with his Irish son-in-law. Tom finally appealed to his pocket, arguing it was too volatile an investment, and devised a list of estate improvements – cottages, barns and the like – that would be a better use of the money.

Settling into the mattress, he hummed contentedly as Sybil crawled in beside him. She molded her arms around him in their customary repose, felt his body shudder with a great yawn. No use dithering, she thought, just out with it.

"Darling?"

"Hmm?"

"I'd like to train as a midwife."

When his eyes popped open, she barraged him with the details the Croft-Clarkson affair, and then explained her inquiries with Dr. Fraser. "It's the closest program by far," she rattled on as he lay blinking and silent, "and since I'm already a trained nurse, that cuts my course from six months to four. It's rather an intensive program that requires constant study and exams, and I have to supervise a minimum of thirty births, which is quite a lot in four months, but Dr. Fraser prefers even more, along with postpartum observations and..."

He silenced her with a sound kiss, his expression softening to an indulgent smile. "What do I need to do?"

"So, you approve?"

He laughed. "Do you really need me to?"

"No," she laughed and kissed him back. "But I do want your support."

"You know you have it."

"Even if I have to relocate to York for four months? First Bobby and now..."

"And now you'll be close to our son," he replied matter-of-factly, "and that's a great comfort to me."

"But what about Saoirse?"

"It's only four months," he sighed after a moment. "We'll make it work." She picked at a frayed thread on the sheet between them. "Please don't doubt yourself, love. You've done this before," he reminded her.

"But I wasn't a wife then, or a mother..." She felt a nagging sting in her eyes, sighed into his chest when he pulled her to him.

"Nor did you have me, at least not as a husband," he chuckled, kissing her brow. "I know you don't set your mind easily on things, Sybil, and if midwifery means that much to you, I'll do whatever it takes to see you through it."

Tom was as good as his word, as if she'd have reason to doubt it. Two weeks later, once they'd budgeted out the fees and scheduled visitations, Sybil arrived at the York Maternity Hospital to begin her four-month program. Recently, the hospital had been relocated to the abandoned Acomb Hall estate south of the city, and both Sybil and Tom laughed when they discovered she'd be quartered in the former chauffeur's cottage. As she watched him drive away, both of them sporting a pleasant soreness from the previous night's farewell, she mused on the oddity of history.

It will be hard letting you go, she remembered telling him before, my last link with home. But now he was her home. She'd bet on him, and dammit, she'd won.

Sybil had run the gauntlet of medical instruction before and was hardly intimidated by the challenge. The text books were a bit of a bore this time round, mainly because she was familiar with much of the material, but the practical experience of working with mothers both young and old was fulfillment beyond her imagination. She related to their fears, their frustrations, and the indignity of some of the least glamorous aspects of carrying new life.

"In addition to taking care of yourself," Sybil would tell the first-timers, "you'll need a stout sense of humor. Pregnancy is not for the faint-hearted."

One of her first deliveries was a woman no more than twenty, whose husband was equally green at the prospect of parenthood. He shuffled from one foot to the other and twisted his cap into a knot as Sybil explained what to expect for the rest of her labor.

"An enema?" the woman hissed, peeking over Sybil's shoulder to her beet-faced husband. "But why?"

"They say it's to make the delivery easier," she replied with a twitch of her brow. "As well as to prevent contamination."

"Did you do it with yours?"

Sybil laid the vile looking instruments aside, remembered her own revulsion when old Nurse Corley clanked them out. Thankfully, Tom had been shooed downstairs for a stiff drink and never knew a thing of it. He was the lucky one. "I did with my first," she replied honestly. "But not with my second. I knew it wouldn't make any difference. Shit happens whether you want it to or not."

The young woman almost wet herself in a flurry of giggles. "Do I have to then?"

"Not if you absolutely refuse," Sybil winked. "But do let the doctor know I tried to convince you…it's in the books, you know."

Just as with nursing, midwifery was mingled joy and sorrow. As a nurse, she'd witnessed stillbirths and sickly infants who'd not live to see their first Christmas, but now her role carried a greater responsibility. The mothers looked to her comfort and answers, if there were any to be had, something that extended to the husbands as well. Such as the one who's young wife arrived highly toxemic, too late for Dr. Fraser to attempt an emergency caesarian. The young mother delivered and later succumbed to postpartum seizures.

"Was there nothing to be done?" he sobbed, holding his infant daughter whose survival was a miracle in itself.

Pre-natal clinics might have given her a chance, thought Sybil, but sometimes comfort, and truth for that matter, came in half-answers. "No one really knows the cause or the cure," she told him. "And it strikes worse in some mothers than in others."

The training kept her focused, with little time for her sanity to unravel with what-ifs and maybes. It also precluded her mind from wandering back to Downton and the forced separation from her husband and daughter. Early on, Tom and Saoirse's regular visits – always on Sundays, if not more provided one of her patients didn't require attention – were enough to sustain her. Still, the visits were typically – and rightly so – focused around their children: she making up time with Saoirse, and Tom the same with Bobby.

They'd suffered prolonged abstinence in the past, most notably before and after the birth of their children. At least then they had the comfort of proximity, nights spent snuggled in each other's arms, and the touches and caresses sufficed as their babies monopolized another little piece of their hearts. But this was entirely different, and Sybil began to wonder if she'd go mad or combust or both. She'd lie awake in her quarters, a room shared with two hopelessly young trainees, and try to focus on her studies. The girls would hover over a book – not the one they were supposed to be reading, but another they'd nicked from the hospital library – giggling about some young man who'd beguiled their attentions, and contemplate about it, each trying to out-shock the other with their virgin sass.

Oh my dears, thought Sybil, you have no idea.

Six weeks into her course, she called Tom with the news that Dr. Fraser was, somewhat reluctantly, allowing her a weekend at home. "I aced my first exam," she bubbled over the phone, and then teased "It was almost unfair though, since I have more first-hand knowledge of anatomy and the physiology of conception than anyone else. Pick me up Friday at three sharp."

Tom made record time to York that day. After a visit with Bobby, who was too riveted with a game of skittles to offer more than a perfunctory hug, they sped north towards Downton. But the warmth of Tom's body next to hers blended with the lilting timbre of his voice as he murmured suggestive remarks about the upcoming evening, unleashed such a violent wave of lust that she had to fight a spot of vertigo. She ordered him to turn east toward Little Ouseburn and the nearby ruins of Kirby Hall.

It was a late Spring day, a bit overcast and only marginally warm, but she'd thought enough to stuff a blanket in her suitcase at the last minute. They didn't need it, at least not the first time. He'd just managed to switch off the motor before she wrenched him down onto the seat for a frenzied half-undressing that lost him two shirt buttons and another on his trousers.

"I need you, oh God I need you," she choked out, drawing him in.

It was hardly satisfying, except for the small matter of immediate relief, and Sybil almost wept as the orgasm surged through her limbs. Tom felt a bit of a roman candle himself and collapsed in a gasping heap. He tried to move, but they'd wedged themselves quite stoutly between the seat and the steering column. Both shook with hysterics as they wiggled free.

The blanket came in handy later beneath a nearby willow tree, where they took their time, enjoying the subtleties of skin, noses, fingers, and the savory salinity of roving tongues. And after, she settled in his lap with the blanket snugged about their shoulders, and answered his endless questions about her studies.

"But these books, though!" she tsked, reaching for her bag. She waved a hand over the introductory chapter of one. "Somehow the author manages to detail conception without explaining how the sperm got there in the first place. I suppose they want you to believe it took the 9:10 out of King's Cross. And this one," she said, opening another, "Its utter rot. Listen – The mechanism of conception presupposes a normal coitus, in which semen containing vital spermatozoa is deposited into the vagina. Orgasm is essential and takes a full half-hour, and sometimes even a full hour for the female to achieve it after the entrance of the male member." She snapped the book shut and flung it aside. "Male member? I ask you, is it stopping at a bloody club for drinks?"

He nipped the back of her neck. "If it takes an hour, it must be."

"Honestly, it's a disservice if midwives aren't expected to have a complete, not to mention accurate, understanding of it all. And how are they supposed to provide advice on, among other things, contraception if they are asked?"

Tom collected the first textbook with renewed interest and pointed to a comically sketched image in the opening chapter. "Surely they don't look like that!"

"Tadpoles? Hmm, yes, well what did you expect? Bullets?"

He turned the book sideways, gave a dubious glance.

"I know. One would think they'd be more intimidating, given man's obsession with them for thousands of years."

Further skimming took him through the delicacies of labor, which he'd experienced with her of course, but he faced the birth of his own little darlings with guarded eyes, insisting at the time that Sybil should have his undivided attention. He squinted at another image labeled Crowing of the Head and then slammed the book shut once he'd reached a well-illustrated section on suturing torn perineums.

"Good God! Any man that bloviates about women being the weaker sex would do well to read that." Setting the book aside, he grinned. "I have a question...purely scientific, you understand."

She snaked her arms round his neck, smiling. "And what's that?"

"If we were to look at me..." He gestured innocuously towards his lap. "...under the microscope..."

"Darling, I'm delighted to say we don't need a microscope for that."

"Do you think they'd be wearing shamrocks?"

Sybil howled with laughter as she nudged him back into the grass. "Well, my darling, there's only one way to find out!"

A/N 2: Much of the Wilberforce admission form is taken verbatim from an actual application dated 1895 and I found a video clip (dating to about 1920) of the Wilberforce schoolchildren playing cricket. Neat old film worth looking at: yorkshirefilmarchive dot com/film/york-circa-1920 (footage is about 6:35 in). Midwifery was regulated in England in 1902, and the requirements noted here were in place by the 1920s. Sybil, being a nurse already, would have only needed the abbreviated four-month course (as opposed to six for the previously untrained students), plus the applicable exams and certifications. Dr. Louise Fraser was an instrumental advocate at the York Maternity Hospital for pre- and ante-natal clinics during the early twentieth century. Finally, the text from which Sybil reads was adapted from some period medical books, the variety of which is both amusing and frightening.

Up next: Tom is left to cope until Sybil and Bobby return.