A/N: Thank you for all the wonderful reviews of the last chapter.
As the train began its slow crawl away from the Downton railway station platform Tom remained standing with his head leaning through the open window, his arm raised in a static wave, watching Sybil slowly fade away as the train picked up speed. It wasn't supposed to be like this. It was supposed to be one of his happiest days for he was returning home, home to his family, home to Ireland and she was supposed to be sitting here beside him not standing at the end of the station platform watching his train slowly disappear.
Since Lavinia … I … I can't come with you today. I can't leave until I know Mama will be all right."
"I swear Tom I haven't changed my mind about us. As soon as Mama is on the mend I'll leave for Ireland.
It had now been one year since that scene had played out at the Downton Railway Station and the spring of 1920 found them living lives that neither of them could have imagined that morning at the Downton Railway Station. During that year, in very different ways, their lives had been shattered yet each had picked up the pieces and began anew albeit without the other.
After several days of seemingly endless rain, Tom woke on Sunday morning to a surprisingly sunlit bedroom. He had been so tired that he had practically fallen into bed the night before without bothering to close the curtains or shut the window and was quickly lulled to sleep by the soothing patter of rain hitting the street and pavement below.
It took him a moment or two to realize the sunlit filled room meant it wasn't early morning. Turning to the bedside table he was astonished to see it was just after eight o'clock for he couldn't remember when he had last slept this late. He fell back against the down-filled pillow and as he stated at the ceiling he wondered if maybe, just maybe, Bronagh was right, he had been working too much.
He was passionate about his writing, taking every writing job that was offered in hopes of establishing himself as a journalist. All the while he was still overseeing the printing shop and doing any odd chores, whether at the printing shop, the stationery shop or the house, that required mechanical skills.
You bury yourself away in your office every evening. When's the last time you've taken Cian out to the park? Or when's the last time you've just done something for fun?
He stood up and walked over to window. The sun was shining brightly in a cloudless sky. The air was warm enough to announce that summer was approaching. It was a perfect day for being outdoors.
Since Carrick was using a taxi to take him to his Sunday lunch with old friends, Tom and Bronagh, with Cian nestled in her arms, hitched a ride with him to the park entrance on East 72nd St. As befitting one of the first warm and sunny Sundays of the year, there were crowds of people walking and even a few pedaling bikes and many others just sitting on the grass wherever they could find a spot. The crowds thinned as Tom and Bronagh wandered along one of the winding pedestrian paths lined with shrubs and trees whose colorful blooms were already fading and lilacs and azaleas that were just beginning to bud. Cian sitting in his wicker baby stroller began wriggling as he spied squirrels shimming up trees. It was, thought Tom, time to find a grassy spot to spread their blanket.
The afternoon passed in relaxing peacefulness. After indulging in a lunch of cold chicken, boiled eggs, a cream cheese and stuffed olives spread to slather on slices of freshly baked bread, and tiny apple tarts washed down with cider, Tom might have even nodded off. Cian, who had perfected crawling and had moved on to trying to stand up, found a prone Tom a perfect climbing apparatus while Bronagh looked on in delight at the antics of her son.
Eventually it was time to begin the long walk home but instead of walking back through the park, they made their way towards the pedestrian entrance on Fifth Avenue just past East 76th Street. Always eager to get Bronagh's insight he told her about the run-down housing he had visited as part of her research for his article on neglectful landlords taking advantage of poor immigrants in lower Manhattan.
"Yesterday I visited a health clinic that serves so many of them. It was awful Bronagh. Not the clinic but the patients … all the ones I saw were Irish Bronagh … so many of them sick from the unsanitary conditions of their housing. The head nurse Mrs. Cower said their poor diets, little or no fresh fruit and vegetables, contribute to make things even worse."
Tom stopped walking as they came out of the park and onto the pavement running along Fifth Avenue. "I wonder how many of them thought they would come here to live in such squalor."
The pavement, separated from the park by a low stone wall, was flanked with tall trees whose leafy green branches often formed a canopy over it. Across the broad avenue the street was lined with stone mansions and multi-story apartment buildings whose architectural style made Tom think of the grand buildings of Dublin.
"Even in the worst of my childhood it wasn't as bad as what I've seen these last few days."
"It's good you're exposing these things. Those landlords should be held accountable" Bronagh spoke forcefully. "They shouldn't be allowed to let their buildings in such poor conditions."
They walked on in silence for a few minutes before Bronagh stopped and reached out her hand to Tom's arm.
"I'm glad to see you so enthusiastic Tom. Even though you didn't voice it I know the work you were doing when we first came here wasn't what you wanted but now with your writing you … you seem as if you've found your calling."
She looked down into the stroller and her sleeping son. Gently stroking the top of his head she said "Every mother wants the best for her child."
"Do you think there's something we can do … for those children at that health clinic? Maybe supply some fruit every week?
Sybil stood at the rail of the hurricane deck of the steamship looking out at the vast expanse of the ocean that surrounded the ship. Despite the pins that tightly secured her new wide-brimmed straw hat to her hair, her hand rested on the top of her head to ensure the hat did not go flying off her head and out into the dark green water. The cool breeze that fluttered her skirt was a welcome relief after the hot thick air of Savannah that had made her want to constantly wipe her forehead.
The last land she had seen was yesterday afternoon as the ship had made its way down the Savannah River and out into the Atlantic Ocean. She had sat in one of the deck chairs fascinated by the passing scenery of both the flat barrier islands covered with tall live oaks draped in gray Spanish moss just beyond the strips of dark sand at the water's edge and the tidal marshes with their foot high slender grasses that waved in the ocean breezes. She marveled at how this coastline was so different from the dramatic seaside cliffs of England and Ireland. As the ship steamed out into the ocean the water had changed from the murky brown of that marshy coast to the dark green that now surrounded the ship.
Savannah had been the first place in America outside of New York and Newport that Sybil had visited (and she only had vague recollections of Newport since those visits had been in her childhood). The ever curious Sybil was delighted when Charles had asked if she'd like to accompany him there to appraise the family estate his old university roommate, William Dywer, had recently inherited. After university William had embarked on a law career in Boston and had no desire to return to city that had been the home of the Dwyer family since the late 1700s.
Sybil found the contrasts between New York City and Savannah staggering. With little more than one percent of the population of New York, Savannah had none of the skyscrapers of New York indeed the tallest building was a mere fifteen floors. New York was a city of hustle and bustle while the people of Savannah moved at a much slower pace. While Sybil thought the people of New York looked towards the future, those in Savannah seemed much more enamored with their past. When Sybil thought of war she thought of the Great War but in Savannah talk of war had meant the War Between the States which although her knowledge of America's history was rather scant she thought the south had lost.
It was a beautiful city of cobblestone streets lined with fine mansions surrounding the numerous garden-like squares the city was famous for. The squares, crossed with a patchwork of walkways separated by patches of grass filled with trees and plants like azaleas currently ablaze in an array of pinks, reds, and purples, and those tall live oaks with their eerie looking moss hanging in long clusters, provided a shady respite.
The Dwyer house, a four story Greek Revival mansion (yes she had become familiar with the various architectural styles) built in early 1800 was one of the grandest in Savannah. Although of course it dwarfed in comparison to Downton Abbey it was none the less an impressive house with its symmetrical curving stairs leading up to the two story portico supported by eight square columns and the wide front entry door flanked by glass on each side and topped with a two foot high glass transom window. From inside the front entrance one could look down the wide hall that ran the length of the house and see through the glass doors to the back garden.
They had stayed in the house with William and his wife who had made the trip down to Savannah the week before Sybil and Charles arrived. Sybil's bedroom opened onto the veranda that ran the width of the second floor. Cooled by ceiling fans, the veranda had been a perfect place to sit in one of the white wicker rocking chairs and look out over the back garden. Enclosed by on the right side and back by brick walls and the on the left side by the two story brick building containing the old kitchen and former slave quarters, the garden contained both herbs and ornamental plants of which Sybil had become most fond of the saw palmetto and its clusters of leaves that looked like fans.
She and Charles had worked for more than a week cataloging the treasures acquired by the Dwyer family over a century. Some furniture and household goods and been brought from England when the family first came to Georgia in 1785 and settled on a rice plantation an hour south of the city. The family's wealth greatly expanded after they relocated to Savannah and moved into trading and shipping. Now some of those possessions collected over the years were in the cargo hold of this steamship destined for an auction house in New York. The bulkier items of furniture and paintings would soon follow on another ship.
Compared to the great ocean liners crossing the north Atlantic, The Ocean Steamship Company's The City of Montgomery that plied up and down the Atlantic coast from New York to Bostonpaled in size yet it had been luxuriously decorated and furnished for its 130 first class passengers who made the two night journey. While many of her fellow passengers spent the afternoon resting in their staterooms, Sybil found her stateroom too confining and she much preferred sitting out on deck where she could smell the fresh salty air and feel the ocean breezes which became cooler the further north the ship traveled.
She had taken her magazines with the intention of spending the afternoon sitting in one of the comfy deck chairs shaded from the sun by the awning that ran the length of the deck and reading. She had made no more journeys to East 62nd St but since Roland Quirk had given her the magazine with Tom's article, Sybil bought each new issue in hopes of seeing more of Tom's writings. Although she began buying them in hopes of reading more from Tom, she found that she liked many of the magazine's articles and looked forward to each new issue.
Like many of the men onboard the ship, after lunch Charles had adjourned to the smoking room but soon found the conversations tedious and the poker games too costly. He decided a walk on the deck would be refreshing and much more interesting. After several rounds around the promenade deck he decided to head for his stateroom on upper deck. Rounding the corner he was surprised to see Sybil sitting in a lounge chair about halfway down the deck.
As she sat reading, he paused several yards from her and stared at her. He had worked with her for over six months now but still found her an enigma. She was hard working, diligent and eager to learn, all the traits he thought an assistant should have. She was pleasant and could easily charm even his most difficult clients. In conversations with her she was vocal in her political beliefs, most of which certainly surprised him causing him to wonder how the daughter of an English Earl had come to be so liberal in her politics.
But there was very little he actually knew about her for she rarely talked about herself or her background. He knew she had been a volunteer nurse during the Great War and it had been a condition of her taking the job with him that she could continue volunteering at a health clinic in lower Manhattan. Although she talked about her grandmother she never mentioned her family or why she had come to New York. Despite her easy laugh and engaging smiles, he often detected a bit of sadness about her and wondered if that had anything to do with her family. Then there was the curious situation of the very valuable objets d'art she had brought with her from England and the even more curious situation of her inquiring about hiring a private detective.
With his mind drifting to those issues it took him a minute or two to realize she had noticed him and was waving him over. There was a small table beside her and on the other side of it was another deck chair which he promptly sat down in as he said "The ocean breeze certainly makes it a bit nicer out here than Savannah was."
"I can't imagine what it must be like there in the summer" Sybil replied. Savannah in springtime was already hotter than Yorkshire in summer.
"But you did enjoy the trip?"
"I did" she nodded her head as she answered definitively in her husky voice. "I've never really been outside of New York City. The city was rather lovely and the house was quite different" she turned and looked at him "I mean so different from what I've seen in New York."
"And in England?"
She turned away from him and looked out to sea.
"I mean" Charles began trying not to sound like he was prying. "You appreciate the beauty of furniture or pieces of china or silver but you never seem in awe of such items. I know you're Lady Sybil so I get the feeling that you've been surrounded by such fine things all your life."
She didn't respond instead continuing to stare straight ahead and Charles feared he had stepped out of bounds.
"I'm sorry I don't mean to pry" he said as he made to stand up.
"I am used to such things" she said quietly although she still didn't look at him instead remaining focus on the ocean. "But they're just things. I grew up on an estate in Yorkshire in a home with 60 bedrooms and nannies and governesses and servants and-" she took a deep breath "and surrounded by furniture, and oil paintings, and porcelain this and crystal that that have been in my family for centuries.
He had surmised she came from wealth but was astonished at the thought of a home with 60 bedrooms. He sat back into his chair and waited for her to continue but she was quiet for so long he feared she wouldn't continue.
"The Great War changed me. For the first time in my life I finally felt useful, I had a purpose, I had a reason to get up in the morning." She turned and looked at him "My family … my family wanted to go back to how it was before the war" she shook her head "but I … I couldn't … I …"
Once again she stopped talking and looked away from him.
"So what Sybil … what do you want?"
This time her answer came quickly and forcefully. "I want my independence. I want to decide what I do with my life."
"So you came to New York to start a new life?"
But she surprised him with her answer. "I came to New York because the man I wanted to marry was here-" And so with the floodgate finally opened, Sybil calmly told him about Tom and Ireland and the Spanish Flu. She told him of her family's betrayal. She told him of hiring his friend Roland Quirk to find Tom. She told him of Tom and his new family.
Claire Branson after wrestling with how to handle the long delayed letter from Sybil finally made her decision. It wasn't something that could be done by post; instead she would come to New York. Whether or not she would give the letter to Tom would depend on what she found in there.