Chapter 29

Weeks passed. The snowy evenings of December beckoned as November ended and winter began it's full onslaught. Lillie's cold abated but Tom's letters urged Sybil to stay at Downton for now; he made excuses about the weather, that their house might be too cold or a little damp for such a tiny baby barely over an illness, that the ferry crossing would be rough. They would be safer, warmer, dryer, healthier at Downton. Sybil saw through them, knew they were excuses, he was keeping quiet about something. It made her nervous.

The papers were full of stories, written from a staunchly British perspective, painting the Irish Catholics, the Republicans as the true villains, fighting those who tried their best to provide for them with reckless abandon. Sybil knew what it was really like and after a couple of weeks grew so frustrated with what she knew to be lies that she stopped reading the stories, a while later she tried to prevent her father from doing the same. She was in the dark as tensions over the Irish Sea grew, escalating from an underlying simmer to a ferocious boil. She relied only on Tom's letters, full of carefully chosen words – too rigid to be his natural writing, peppered with the occasional worrying phrase of desperation that made Sybil's heart jump into her throat.

The letters stopped suddenly and painfully and Sybil felt as if a limb had been ripped from her body. She needed his words, if she could not have him; she needed his words and his assurances. His messages of love, his anecdotes about Dublin and questions about Downton. She clutched at Lillie as she fed; marveled at how innocently unaware the infant in her arms was of her importance as Sybil's connection to Tom and at the state of the world around her.

She pressed her daughter's tiny palm into the pad of her thumb and stroked the soft skin on the back of her hand. She felt tears come to her eyes and the baby closed her fist, wrapping her fingers around Sybil's thumb. There was a soft knock at the door and it clicked open, Mary slid into the room her eyes full of concern, her face trying desperately to hide it.

"Sybil?" She approached the chair by the fireplace, studying the form of her youngest sister and niece wrapped up in a blanket, enveloped in the warmth of the fire. Lillie's greedy sucking was audible but so was Sybil's sniffing, an attempt to rid herself of the evidence of her distress. "I wondered where you had got to, I've barely seen you today." Sybil kept her eyes firmly on her daughter as Mary knelt by the chair, leaning her elbows on its arms and looking at the baby's face. "She's obviously recovered now, a hungry little thing – she's building up her strength. Wants to get well enough to get home to see her Papa." Mary regretted it the minute the words left her mouth.

Sybil broke down, sobs wracking her chest and making her entire body jolt. "Oh God, Mary." She looked up at her sister, tears already staining her cheeks. Mary drew Sybil into her, stroking her hair as she had done when she was a little girl – distraught over a broken toy or a grazed knee. "I just need to hear from him, I need to know what is going on. To know he is safe."

Tom felt a throbbing in his head and a cool wetness snake down his neck. He opened his eyes and squinted into the murky light at his unfamiliar surroundings. Wherever he was it was cold, the kind of cold damp that took hold in your bones first and numbed your fingers and toes to dead weights. He couldn't remember how he had ended up here. He just remembered shouting and his mother's screaming and rough hands on his wrists.

He was suddenly aware of the presence of another in the room, sat on a wooden bench on the wall opposite, studying him. The figure's right eye was swollen shut and one trouser leg was saturated with blood and torn roughly across the shin, revealing mangled skin beneath.

"Tommy? Can you hear me Tommy?" It was Joe. He leaned forward, stiffly and with a grimace as he bore weight on his injured leg. He watched as his brother's lips moved but the words were muffled, only heard in one ear. Tom put his hand up to his ear and felt the blood, then the pain came – sharp and overwhelming. He was disorientated by the near complete loss of one of his senses, but Joe pulled his face round to look him in the eye. "I'm so sorry Tommy," Joe broke down, tears filling his eyes, and placed a palm flat against the side of Tom's face, Tom read the words forming on his brother's lips. "I'm so sorry I got you mixed up in this."

Joe turned suddenly to the door, hearing something Tom couldn't and his expression was suddenly fearful. It changed to terror when the door opened. Suddenly Joe wasn't in front of him any more and in his daze Tom was barely aware of the arms wrenching him to his feet and leading him out of the cell.

Sybil took to rising for breakfast, wanting the company first thing in the morning. Someone else to amuse Lillie while she herself ate, a chance for some adult conversation and to gauge the news from her father's expression as her read the newspaper. It was the beginning of December, the morning at breakfast that her father announced she had a letter with an Irish postmark and Sybil's eyes lit up, Tom's silence over the past weeks had given her father fuel for the fire, his occasional comments – repeatedly inquiring about his whereabouts had begun to make her think he was doubting Tom's return. He'd dumped her and his baby daughter back in the care of the Granthams and ran off to relive his former life – as a young man free of responsibilities.

Her heart sunk when she saw the front of the envelope, it wasn't Tom's writing but the neat upright script in which Peggy Branson had written her guide to the practicalities of caring for a newborn. What possible reason was there for Peggy to write to her if Tom was there, back in Dublin as he should be, safe and sound? Suddenly doubt began to creep in; the gnawing thought - what if her father had been right?

Sybil rose from the table, leaving Lillie on Edith's lap, and ran through the house to her bedroom. She knew that the contents of this letter were not something she wanted the family to witness her reading.

Missing.

Missing was the word she focused on, that span around her head. 'Missing' and 'Tommy' and 'Joseph' along with 'arrested' and 'rebel'. The words brought a gasp to her throat and made her feel as if someone had kicked her in the stomach. She was sat on the edge of the bed, hands shaking like a leaf when Edith entered the room with Lillie on her hip.

"Oh God, no." Edith took one look at Sybil's pale face and knew. She knew that Sybil was already grieving him.

Had a burst of creativity this morning (when I definitely should have been getting other stuff done) and finally finished this chapter. It is (again) a bit rough round the edges but I wanted to get it done so I could focus on the work I actually have to do today! This is a storyline I've had planned for a while for this, so though it seems a bit removed from the fluffiness of the earlier chapters – it was always meant to happen! Hope you like it, leave me some feedback if you've the time! LP. x