Thanks as always for the reviews, they are very much appreciated!

A lot afoot in this chapter- enjoy!

Late March 1919

The next two weeks flew by in a whirlwind. Over the years, they had spent many (many) hours in the garage making casual conversation, catching up on the day, and just enjoying each other's company; but now, with their departure imminent, they found they had precious little time to make what turned out to be a staggering amount of arrangements. They was no more time to spare simply basking in all their new and ever-expanding, ever-surprising feelings (much to both their chagrins) as their meetings became rapid-fire planning sessions revolving around work, money, where to live, and what to tell their families.

It was during this time that Sybil started to realize that however difficult she had imagined their new life in Ireland would be, it was going to be much, much harder than that.

And difficulty, apparently, began at home.

"Have you heard back from your mother yet?" Sybil asked one late afternoon coming into the garage, where Tom was working underneath the carriage. "It's been two weeks."

He did not answer her immediately, but finished whatever adjustments he was making before he slid out, an unreadable expression on his face. "Actually, her reply came in the mail yesterday."

"Why didn't you tell me? What did she say?" Again, he demured, as he hunted for a cloth to wipe his hands. "It wasn't good, was it?" she deduced, her face falling.

"It was one sentence." He let out a little caustic laugh. "'Write when you're prepared to tell me the truth.'"

She had no idea what to make of that. "Goodness." She leaned back on her hands against the shelf, thinking, aware that he was studying her reaction. She had helped him write the original letter, carefully parsing the phrases, agreeing it was best to ease his mother into the news that he was engaged before revealing exactly who he was engaged to. Perhaps it wasn't entirely honest, but... She looked over at him. "Nothing you wrote was untrue."

"No," he concurred, "and she saw right through it." He tossed the oilcloth down. "That's my mother for you."

She assumed he was upset on her behalf, afraid she was offended or saddened or shocked by his mother's reception (or lack thereof). The truth was, she didn't care that much; after all, she had never met the woman. It was mostly inconvenient. And when she was anxiously facing the very real prospect of being cut off from her own beloved parents, she couldn't muster too much emotion over his. "You'll just have to tell her then," she shrugged.

"I know. I've been thinking about what to say."

"What have you come up with?"

"You won't like this, but..." He laughed. "That's as far as I got. But I'm open to suggestions."

"I don't mean to sound cold, but we don't need her permission or her approval, her forgiveness or her embrace. We are moving to Dublin and we are getting married, regardless of whether she gives us any of that or not." It was at this point that he looked away- first at the floor, then to the ceiling, then turning around and fussing with things on the table. This is not how he wanted it to go. She knew and she understood. But this is the way it is. She pushed on. "All we need to know is if I can live with her those first few weeks while we wait for the banns. It's a yes or no question. And we'll make plans based on her answer."

He didn't respond, starting instead to rearrange the tools that he would soon no longer be using, as if it required all of his focus and concentration. It's good to know I'm not the only one of us who sulks, she thought, biting back a smile. She tipped her head to the side. "It's alright if she says no, Tom. As you've said about my family, the first answer might not be the final one." She didn't believe that when he said it to her and she didn't really believe it now, though that didn't stop her from saying it with the same quixotic verve. "She'll get to know me once we're there and in the meantime, I can stay somewhere else. It's a big city- surely there must be a rooming house for women."

"You're not going to stay in a rooming house with a bunch of strangers. This is where I'm from."

Sybil didn't want to argue about a hypothetical; she wanted to stay focused on the task at hand, the letter. She decided to change tack. "May I write something?"

"From you?"

"Yes, just a short note. I can put it in with yours. I'll introduce myself and tell her, you know, that I'm clean and quiet and have nice table manners and know how to make a bed. The sort of thing she would want to know about a houseguest."

"A daughter-in-law," he corrected pointedly.

"Right!" She stepped over to him and laid a hand on his forearm, staying his activity; he turned, contrite, to face her. "I'll be sure to flatter her terribly by telling her how handsome and marvelous I think you are," she vowed, sweeping back his hair. "See? We have so much in common already!" That elicited a smile; her optimism was infectious. "But truly, I think a note from me would help," she said, turning serious. "Then I wouldn't be some strange Lady with an unimaginable life. I'd be a real person."

"Alright then." He reached for her hand. "Thank you."

"I do possess unusually strong powers of persuasion," she offered with a flirtatious glance upward.

"Don't I know it!" There was something alchemic about the swing of their hands, their laughter and the late afternoon sun; they caught themselves in a moment and she felt the familiar flutter of expectation as he leaned in to kiss her with only a brief look towards the door.

After they broke apart, she asked, "Now, what do you plan to tell her? This time around, I mean."

"I'll tell her that I wasn't trying to be cute by not saying it outright. We know this isn't going to go over well with either of our families, but we don't care. We love each other and this is what we want."

"Don't say you 'don't care,'" she frowned. "She's your mother- of course you care. Of course you would be elated if she accepted us. You're just prepared for the possibility that she won't."

He crossed his arms and posed, with amusement, "So should I plan to give you all my stories to edit, so you can catch all the stupid mistakes like you did just now?"

"Couldn't hurt," she replied with a grin.

Then there was the issue of money.

Not just cash- which Sybil had never carried, with the exception of the small amount she had taken with her to the training college in York- but income and class and expectations and prejudices. All the things she didn't think about because she didn't have to think about them until someone like Gwen or Dr. Clarkson or a certain ambitious chauffeur reminded what was what in the world.

She knew of hardship, but hardship was a place with very clearly delineated borders from her own world: touring the cottages where working people lived or on a carefully guided visit to view the improvements to the borstal, walking past delinquent peers with downcast eyes who had drawn very different lots in life from her. She had a good heart and an abundance of empathy. She felt injustice keenly. But she didn't quite understand the concept of class, how pervasive and poisonous and relentless it was, until the day she brought up finding a flat.

It was night and they were sitting by candlelight in the back of the garage... reading. Specifically, last week's newspapers from Dublin, which his brother had sent at his request. Sybil was browsing the classified section, stoking her imagination about her new city with listings for hospital jobs, row houses and flats on unfamiliar streets, advertisements for furniture and cookery, clothes (much smarter than the impractical attire of Downton), political plays, concerts and public events. It all sounded so very exciting.

"You'll be reporting on the neighborhoods north of the city?"

He was engrossed in an investigative piece about a local political outfit. "That's right."

"And that's where you grew up?"

"'Tis."

"Maybe we should find a flat there, then," she proposed. "Be close to the action."

He looked up at her as if she had grown a second head. "We're not moving there."

"Why?"

"Because we're not poor," he answered, voice strange. "No one lives in that neighborhood if they don't have to."

"But your mother lives there."

"Yes and so do most of my relations." He realized the time and started re-folding his paper. "Better get going love, it's late." He kissed her- they both liked how quotidian their affection could be now, it showed how far they had come- and rose, gathering up the scattered news pages. "My mother will never leave. Too stubborn and set in her ways. She was born there and she'll die there- that's what she says anyway."

"Is it dangerous?" she asked, getting up to follow him.

"Not the block where I'm from, no. It's not a slum. It's just poor." He retrieved her discarded sweater from the workbench. "Blow out the candle, will you, and I'll walk you back."

She did as he asked, but did not let the subject drop. "But if it's where your work will be and where your family is..." He turned, surprised she was still on about it. "You know I don't care about money."

"Don't say that, love. I know what you mean, but only rich people can say they don't care about money. Poor people care very much about it. They have to."

"I mean, we don't need to live somewhere fancy."

"That's good, because we can't afford fancy," he smiled. "But we can't live in my old neighborhood either. It'll be fine for a few weeks while we get settled, but it's not the place for us. Even if it were nice- which it isn't- I couldn't go back there, with my big new job, flashing money around like I'm His Lordship."

The caricature of Tom as some kind of robber baron- complete with a top hat and snout, money falling out of his pockets like in editorial cartoons- was so preposterous that she laughed out loud. "I think you're hardly the sort to flash money! Besides, as you said, we won't exactly be rich."

He shook his head; she didn't get it. "Any amount of money is a lot to people who don't have any," he said quietly. Then, not wanting her to feel bad, he took her hand and offered gamely, "We'll find a nice neighborhood. Maybe near the university." He kept talking, but she couldn't stop thinking about his previous comment- "people who don't have any"- aware that there would be more to learn than street names.

Later that week, Tom dropped a piece of news that shocked Sybil: he had written back to the newspaper, but he had not formally accepted the reporter job.

"What?" she asked, certain she had misheard him. "Why in the world not?"

"It's 275 pounds per annum, which would be excellent, but there's a catch. It's not a salary," he explained. "Junior reporters are paid by the story, but that's just a rough estimate of what one might make in a year."

This information did not make it less confusing to Sybil. "So...?"

"Well, I would be a local reporter. So, what if the article about sewer improvements is cut from the late edition, would I put on another story? And if, as I suspect, national politics starts to eclipse local council meetings and debates about where to install a new telephone pole or municipal taxes, can I be reassigned? I need to know all of that before I can accept."

She couldn't quite believe what she was hearing. "The paper took a chance on you- and chance you've been desperate for- and you told them maybe?"

"I don't know what kind of chance it is and neither do you," he retorted. "That's what I'm trying to find out."

"It's an opportunity regardless!"

"It's a freelance position. They could a hire a hundred reporters a day, what does it matter if they only have to pay for what's published?"

She was stunned to hear him sounding so utterly defeatist, as Granny would say. "Well, I think it was a very poor decision!" she huffed.

"Sybil, I can't take a job with not enough work, and I can't work and not get paid," he fired back. "This is the real world, not the one where you put food on the table by ringing the dinner bell!"

Sybil had actually gotten the last word in that conversation- the first expletive she'd spoken since the hospital to be exact- but she was still stewing over it when her sisters came to fetch her, ironically, for dinner.

There was no mistaking her mood when they entered her room. "Must be trouble in paradise," Mary muttered under her breath to Edith. "Hello, darling."

Sybil shot them a look in the mirror, before angrily replacing her cologne bottle on the vanity. Her older sisters exchanged hopeful glances. Perhaps this business with Branson has finally come to an end?

"Something wrong?" Edith ventured.

"You wouldn't understand," Sybil answered shortly.

Mary caught Edith's eye again and nodded towards the door; Edith took the cue and made a quiet and unseen exit. Mary sat down on the end of the bed. "Try me."

Sybil turned around, mildly surprised to find it was now just the two of them. Mary watched Sybil as she continued to ready for dinner, silently putting on hand cream and picking out earrings. As the minutes passed, Sybil's fury seemed to abate, replaced by regret and unsurety. Mary intuited resignedly that Sybil had not broken with him.

This was confirmed when Sybil finally spoke. "Do you ever fight with Richard?"

Mary heard the slight catch in Sybil's earnest question, her fear of the answer, and Mary was reminded, as she had been that night at the inn, how young Sybil was. She could have said- No, never, fighting is proof it's not love and an omen of a ruinous marriage- but like that night, she could not exploit her sister's trust and deliver a crushing blow to her ill-fated romance. "I don't know that we fight, but we have disagreements," she admitted and, seeing Sybil was not fully convinced, added with a sigh, "It's perfectly normal. All couples do."

Sybil contemplated that for a bit, leading Mary to feel she had to ask, "Do you want to tell me about it?"

"Not really."

"We should get downstairs then." She got up and came behind Sybil, placing her hands on her shoulders. "You sound like you've had quite a day, you don't need a lecture from Papa on top of it."

"Mary? How do you end a fight- a disagreement?"

"You say that you're sorry."

"But I don't think I was in the wrong."

"One rarely does," Mary rued. "But you're sorry you fought, aren't you? So start there." Sybil rolled her eyes, dismayed. Am I really giving relationship advice for the chauffeur? Mary thought. Good God. "Those are your choices, I'm afraid. You can sit here and pout and wait for Branson to knock on your door- and hope Papa doesn't shoot him as he's coming up the stairs- or you can swallow your pride and start the conversation. It's up to you."

"I suppose you have a point," Sybil conceded, unable to suppress a smile.

"When you don't want to make up is when you should start to worry." Mary declined to mention that was her experience in disagreeing with Richard.

"Thank you, Mary." Her little sister embraced her; Sybil didn't need to wait for the morning for everything to look better, a few minutes was all it took, only an unburdened heart could lift so quickly.

"Sometimes I feel sorry for you," Sybil remarked as they left the room, "not having an older sister to confide in and answer all your questions!"

Mary thought about that as Sybil lied during dessert about having a headache and headed off for the garage or the chauffeur's cottage or wherever they held their clandestine rendez-vous. She thought about it when Sybil came in to say goodnight- long after she and Edith had turned in, Mary was sure to note- humming and full of grateful praise for her expert advice until Mary could bear it no more. "Your health seems miraculously restored," she observed sarcastically. "Do you ever worry Mama and Papa will discover your little ruse?"

Sybil just laughed, remembering the night all three daughters and both cars had disappeared completely unnoticed. "They're not the most observant people, are they?"

"No," Mary smiled in agreement. You don't even know how true that is. She patted the spot on the bed next to her. "Should I make room?" It had been awhile since she and Sybil had held one of their witching hour bonding sessions.

Her sister answered with a yawn. "No, I'm terribly tired."

Mary raised an eyebrow. "I dare not ask why, I assume."

"Mary!" But Sybil was in too good spirits to do more than feign being affronted. "We're not doing anything. Of course, we kiss- we're engaged- but that's all. Mostly." She slipped that last bit in with a wicked grin and Mary felt a sudden pang of sadness. It would be fun to be married with Sybil. The company of her sister and her husband- not him, but the MP or philanthropist or whomever she would have married- could brighten up life even at dreadful Haxby. But she would never get to meet the man her sister would have chosen; as much as she wanted to deny it, she had known since Sybil's promise of loyalty at the inn that marrying the chauffeur was a fait accompli. And Sybil would be ostracized from their social world, but not before she had left it all behind on a boat, without a care, for a world of her own. Am I to lose all of my confidantes? Mary wondered.

"Goodnight," Sybil said. She gave her a kiss and whispered, "I'm very glad I have you."

Me too, Mary thought with an inward sigh. Me too.

Dublin

Late March 1919

Mrs. Branson sat again at the kitchen table with an empty teacup, an idle pen, and a shred of red-tinged newspaper wrapped around her index finger. She had given herself a paper cut worrying the edge of the letter that had arrived this evening.

I was right.

The story was predictable and no less incensing: her son and the Lord's daughter had started talking one day- in gross subversion of the house rules- and struck up a friendship and after she became a war nurse he realized that, despite her station, she possessed all the qualities he could ever want in a wife and so he asked her to marry him and she said yes and they're in love and that's what matters.

What was he to say, really?

Oh, but Mam, she's different.

She had cackled at that. Cackled, because it reminded her of an article she had read a few years back about a serial murderer in the Monto. After the police finally caught the man, the reporters went round his street and talked to his old teachers and cousins and neighbors. Do you know what they said? He wasn't like the rest of them. He was different.

She thought conformity was not a bad thing. It certainly makes for an easier life than abberation.

She pondered that as she re-read the short enclosed card from the remarkable, incredible abberation. She had said all the right things- the things an eager-to-please fiancee should say to get in good graces with her future mother in law. She had a name now- Sybil, as she had signed her note- although that was a lie, it was Lady Sybil. Of course, her son couldn't choose a Patricia or Mary or Annie- names she had at least heard around here. She couldn't imagine the stares she would get if she went out to the stoop right now and started shouting for Sybil down the street.

She had spent the last two hours agonizing about her reply. She was not a person who self-censored- certainly not to her own children- but she knew whatever she wrote would be read by her. So she limited herself to two paragraphs, the gist of which was: you're incredibly foolish and naive, you're making a terrible mistake, you'll come to regret it...

"But this is still your home. And while it is certainly not the living conditions your bride is accustomed to, she can stay here if you wish."

"That's all we needed," Sybil announced triumphantly. Tom, however, was unconvinced.

If he only knew how his future in-laws would take the news.