Crossing the Sea

"Merilee, I'd like a word with you," Sybil said when she and Rory went back to the drawing room.

"Can't it wait, Mum?" Merilee said. From the looks she had gotten her brothers she knew she was in for a battle with her mother.

"No, I'd like to speak to you now, alone," she said.

Rory had gone over to his daughter and was talking to her quietly. Sybil saw Kathy put her arms around her father's neck for a contented hug before she went back to her game with Jay.

Sybil took Merilee to her bedroom and closed the door behind them.

"You owe Rory an apology," Sybil said before Merilee had a chance to speak.

"I just asked a simple question," Merilee sniffed.

"We both know it was more than that. You hurt him and you hurt Kathy. It was completely uncalled for."

"Your behavior with him is uncalled for," Merilee shot back. "Da has only been dead a year and a half and your making eyes with another man."

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner. I was avoiding telling you because I knew you would be upset. It's time for me to move on with my life Merilee. We aren't doing anything disrespectful to your father's memory. I care for Rory and I am pursuing a relationship with him. It doesn't change the fact that you owe him an apology."

"How could you? You're with Rory, of all people? Are you sleeping with him?"

"No, I am not sleeping with him. Why wouldn't I be interested in Rory? We have common interests and I've known him for years. He delivered you for goodness sake."

"He's younger than you."

"Only by three years. Stop evading the topic of your behavior. You were being deliberately cruel. You will go and apologize immediately."

"I will not."

"You most certainly will."

"If Da was here things would be different."

"If your father was here things most certainly would be different. I would still be married to the man I love and he would tell you the same thing I am. You owe Rory an apology. Your father would have been ashamed of your behavior."

Merilee looked like she had been slapped. She was embarrassed. Her father would have been ashamed of her.

"Fine, I'll apologize before he leaves."

"No. You will apologize tonight. You don't have to like my choices in my personal life, but you do need to respect them. I am interested in Rory and I will not tolerate any more interference."

"Alright you win. I will apologize tonight and I will be civil."

"That is all I ask."

"Mum," Merilee said as they headed back to the drawing room. "Janine had the baby last month. Are you ever going to learn to knit?"

"Don't remind me," Sybil said with a groan. "I'm a grandmother who can't knit. What kind of grandmother is that?"

"One that makes a pretty good mother," Merilee replied.

Early Boxing Day Riordan and his wife left for London. Merilee and her fiancée were off on another train a few minutes later. Jay and Kathy had become quite taken with each other over the holiday. She was fascinated by his explanations of how electrical things worked and he was only too happy to have a willing audience for his technical explanations. After seeing the others off the two of them had gone off to explore some of Jay's old summer haunts.

"They remind me of Tom and I when he first came to Downton," Sybil told Rory as they headed back to the house. "He was so quiet until he started talking about politics and then he never stopped."

"She's still a little girl," Rory said stiffening a bit.

"I didn't mean that. I just meant they get on so well. He never got along with Merilee like that."

"So you think we should make them officially brother and sister?" he asked.

"Are you asking for my opinion or something else?

"I'm asking if you'll marry me?"

Sybil was quiet and didn't answer right away.

"I have to admit the thought has crossed my mind, but I have a few concerns. I had a very happy marriage with Tom but we made some mistakes. I've been thinking about them these last few months and I don't want to repeat them. I want you to promise me you'll take at least a two week vacation every year and we'll go and visit family or go somewhere new."

"I work long hours Sybil, but I do take time off. You know what medicine is. If I didn't I would never stand up to it all. If you want to travel outside of Ireland or England then that is what we'll do when the war is over."

"There's something else," Sybil paused before she continued. "I'm quite well off. I want to use my money to make our life easier. Tom was too proud to accept my money. We could have travelled and done everything we dreamed about. Instead he worked and worked. By the time the children had grown up it was too late."

"How much are we talking about?"

Sybil named a sum that made Rory's face pale slightly.

"I had no idea," he said. "You've always lived such a no nonsense life despite the big house and family connections. I always though you were the poor relations with a well paying job."

"No, I've had the money since before Riordan was born."

Rory thought it over for a few minutes.

"Alright," he finally said. "If you want to go on a trip or something big comes up that you want to buy you can pay for it. I don't want a maid or a butler. My housekeeper is quite enough."

"I don't want extra servants either. A housekeeper suites me perfectly well."

"Are those your only conditions?" Rory asked her. He stopped walking and turned towards her.

"I have one more. It's more of a request really," Sybil said looking down. She didn't know how he was going to take it. "When I die, I want to buried next to Tom."

"That's a long ways off, Sybil," Rory said with a sigh.

"We both know there is no way to predict the future," Sybil replied. "We could have a few months or we could have another forty years. It's how I feel."

"I would like to see him moved back to Ireland to the same graveyard as his mother," he said. They started walking again. Rory had his hands in his pockets. Sybil was reminded of the many times she had seen Tom do the same thing when he was wrestling with a decision. After a few minutes he spoke.

"I'll agree to that on one condition. You will be buried between us, one on either side. If you wind up with a third husband he will have to take your feet," he said trying to make light of the situation.

"You're a good man, Rory Lester," Sybil said hugging his arm tight against her.

"I try to be," he said.

They had reached the house but continued on towards the estate to give themselves time to discuss things.

"What about you? You must have some concerns," Sybil said.

"A few. For one thing I don't want to live in the big house in London. Listowel and County Kerry are my home. I don't want to leave it."

"Tom was the city boy. I'm from Yorkshire. I went where it made him happy to be, but I like the country. Listowel is beautiful. I could easily call it home. Anything else?"

"If we do travel over the next few years, we take Kathy with us. I want her treated as part of the family."

"I already think of her as part of the family. I don't know if she'll accept me as a second mother, but I can try."

He got down on one knee in the snow and took her hand.

"Then you'll accept me?" Rory asked.

"I will," she said a smile. He stood up and pulled her into an embrace.

"You won't regret this," he said as he swung her around.

"You will if you don't stop swinging me in circles," Sybil said laughing. "I'm getting dizzy."

He set her on her feet and kissed her.

"Who should we tell first?" he asked with a wide grin.

"Kathy and Jay. My mother wasn't at my last wedding. I'd like her to be at this one."

"Very well. Our train isn't till six. We have until then to tell the whole world. I wish we didn't have to go so soon, but I really do have to get back."

"I'll get things taken care of here and come over after the New Year. Does that suite you?" Sybil asked.

"Quite well," he said before he kissed her deeply.

That evening when the house was quiet and Sybil had gone to her bedroom she sat for a long time at the vanity and stared at her wedding ring on her finger that had rested there for over twenty-four years. At long last she slid it off and put it in her jewelry box. It was time to move on with her life and look towards the future instead of the past.

In mid January Sybil's bags were packed and she was ready to leave. She had gone to see her daughter and had a long talk with her. Merilee hadn't taken the news of Sybil's engagement well, but she had finally come to understand that her mother needed to move forward.

"It doesn't mean I love your father any less," Sybil told her. "I'll love him till the day I die, but I love Rory as well. He makes me happy."

"I don't want to loose you Mom," Merilee said tearfully.

"You aren't loosing me. I'll be just over the sea. You can visit anytime you want. You and John are talking of going to America when the war is over. It will be further to visit but we'll still do it."

Before she left Downton Sybil stopped by Tom's grave. She stayed until she had to leave to catch her train.

"I'm going to Ireland now, my love. I'm starting a new adventure. I'll bring you to join me when I can."

Six months after Sybil and Rory were married, Sybil was surprised one morning to find herself feeling sick.

"I haven't felt like this since I was…oh no," she groaned before she dashed to the washroom and lost her breakfast.

She had been working as a nurse at the local hospital where three local doctors had their offices. There were a few more doctors now in the area than there had been twenty years ago, the odd car dotted the streets and there were a few more houses than the first time Sybil had visited Listowel, but the town and the surrounding area remained much as it had always been.

"You're suspicions are confirmed, Mrs. Lester," Dr. Nolan told her the next day. "You are in fact pregnant."

"But how did this happen doctor?" Sybil said in shock.

"I would assume in the usual way."

"I meant I haven't had my monthly cycle in at least eight months. I thought I was done with all that."

"You've had a great many changes in your life. It isn't uncommon for a woman of forty-five to experience an erratic cycle as you start into mid-life. In many cases women experience a period of heightened fertility. Things may very well go back to normal after you deliver."

"Oh my," Sybil replied. "I'm not as old as I thought I was."

That evening when Rory got off the train from Tralee where he worked three days a week as Chief Surgeon at the General Hospital, Sybil was standing at the platform to meet him.

"I'm surprised to see you down here today," he said as he gave her a quick kiss. "What's the occasion?"

"I wanted to ask you what you thought of Collin for a name for a baby," Sybil replied.

"It's a fine name. Who's having a baby?"

"We are."

"But we're too old," Rory blurted out in shock then immediately blushed crimson when he thought about what they had done to conceive a child in the first place.

"Apparently not," Sybil said laughing at his shocked expression. "You had best close your mouth before you catch a bug."

Rory closed his mouth and began to smile.

"The next time you write to Riordan tell him I best be having a word with the postman."

"Rory are you ever going to let him live that down?" Sybil said with a laugh.

"Never," Rory said laughing.

In 1984 Collin Lester stood by his father Rory's grave while the casket was lowered into the ground beside his mother's. His mother, Sybil had died four years earlier and been laid to rest beside her first husband in the small cemetery in Listowel, Ireland. He had been just a young boy, when her first husband's body had been returned to Ireland but he had always remembered the grief his parents and older brothers had shared as his body was laid to rest for the final time in the simple ceremony.

His older brother Jay had returned for a visit a few months later and again soon after. When his sister Kathy turned eighteen they were wed. There had been some disagreements in the family about the union until it had been pointed out by both of them that they technically had no blood relationship. Collin had just been a little boy but he clearly remembered his mother forgetting his brother's name and calling him Tom.

Today his eldest brother Riordan was there, his hair now almost completely white with his wife, children and some of their grandchildren. Merilee and her husband had come from America, her dark hair was now streaked with white. Jay and Kathy were there as well with their children who all so strongly resembled their now passed on relatives.

He would miss his father. He had always had a ready smile, a soft heart and yarn to spin no matter how grey the day had seemed. Collin squeezed his wife's hand and glanced at his mother's final resting place.

The epitaph on her tombstone read:

Lady Sybil Crawley Branson Lester

1897 - 1980

Wife of Tom 23 years

Wife of Rory 37 years

She Was Loved

The End