Chapter Fifty
Medical Opinion
When it happened, it had occurred more or less in the very same place that the Number 31 tram had come to a stand but a few days ago, here on North Strand Road, just beyond the Newcomen Bridge spanning the Royal Canal, and for very much the same reason as before - a problem with the electricity supply. Suddenly, unexpectedly, without warning, the tram drew all but silently to a complete stop and at the same time all the lights went out leaving the lower saloon in which they were both seated in complete darkness.
After Mary and Edith had declined his well intentioned offer of a lift back to the Shelbourne Hotel in his staff car, Captain Stathum had made his brisk farewells and departed with his men over the O'Connell Bridge heading, Tom rightly assumed, for the Castle. Shortly afterwards, both Tom and Sybil had finally seen Mary and Edith off in a motor cab bound for the Shelbourne, the two of them sitting in the back smiling and waving their fond farewells, each clutching the individual posy of flowers which Tom had thoughtfully purchased for them both from a small shop he knew down on Henry Street.
It had been the case, said Tom, by way of explanation to them all for his long absence, that while he was making his purchases, a British army lorry had come to a stand further down Henry Street. A group of soldiers had jumped out and begun battering down the door of a house nearby, looking for, it transpired, and on the basis of a tip-off from an informant, others implicated in the attack on the police over on St. Stephen's Green earlier that same day. The intelligence had proved faulty, with no-one found at the address, with the soldiers angrily departing empty handed and to a blistering tirade of abuse from the woman of the house, demanding of them all loudly, in colourful and strident tones, just who the feck it was who was going to pay for making good the damage they had caused to her front door. That the soldiers had just laughed at her, with one of them openly relieving himself in front of her on the pavement immediately outside the shattered front door to her home, Tom thought it better that he keep those particular details to himself.
He had, he said, witnessed the entire proceedings from behind the front window of the flower shop and it was only when he attempted to leave, to return whence he had come, that for the second time that day, and with a sickening sense of déjà vu, he had found himself surrounded by the snarling faces of uniformed men, this time soldiers of the British Army. Fortunately for Tom, the officer in charge turned out to be Miles Stathum, who quickly recognised him from their encounter at the farm out on the Howth road, curtly ordering his men to desist, and offering to come with Tom back to Sackville Street and explain his enforced absence to Sybil and her two sisters.; an offer which given the amount of time which had elapsed since he had left them, Tom had readily accepted with alacrity. Or, so he had said; Stathum's presence with him outside the GPO seeming to confirm what Tom himself had related.
It was only afterwards, as Sybil and Tom had walked arm in arm slowly over past the now all but deserted Pillar to board the Number 31 tram bound for Clontarf, that Sybil had noticed the group of raggedly dressed women selling flowers clustered round its base. If Tom had indeed gone in search of flowers for both Mary and Edith, then why had he not availed himself of the sellers by the Pillar? Had Sybil herself not been as dog tired and bone weary as Tom undoubtedly was himself, then she might well have asked him for an explanation, but after all that had happened, Sybil let her question remain unasked of him and there, at least for the moment, the matter itself rested .
At this late hour there were few other passengers about; with the coming of nightfall there was also now a distinct chill in the air, so they sat inside on the enclosed, downstairs, lower deck. Not surprisingly, once on board and seated, despite the uncomfortable nature of the hard, slatted, wooden seats, finally succumbing to his hurts and overwhelming tiredness, Tom had at last fallen asleep with his head resting pillowed softly in Sybil's lap. She smiled indulgently down at him, tenderly stroked his bruised and cut face with her fingers, and with her hand then gently brushed back his mop of fair hair from where it had fallen forward over his forehead. Let him sleep, thought Sybil. After all, sleep was just what Tom needed most, what indeed they both needed, given all that had happened to them earlier that same day.
Unbidden, she found her thoughts returning to Dr. McCalley, the doctor from nearby Merrion Square, who had attended Tom at the Shelbourne, who had, after a thorough examination of him, confirmed that Tom had sustained no lasting injuries from the beating he had received at the hands of the Dublin Police; told them both that what Tom needed now most was rest and that both the pain and tightness which Tom had felt in his chest had nothing to do with his heart condition. Given that on the doctor's arrival, Tom had told him that it felt as if "the blasted thing" - referring to his own heart - "was about to leap out of my chest", with the advantage of her own training as a nurse, Sybil wasn't at all convinced, decided that she would ask Dr. Hays, one of the doctors she knew tolerably well at the Coombe about Tom's condition; whether what had happened today could have affected him more than Dr. McCalley had seemed to think was the case, and, if necessary also ask of him a second opinion, but that for now, perforce, would have to wait.
So, she had bitten her lip, had forborne to make her own opinions known, and instead simply thanked the doctor and took immediate charge of the bottle of tablets which he had given her to help ease Tom's pain. She did not fail to notice either, that when the doctor asked Tom how it was he had come by his injuries, when Tom had explained he had been involved in a minor scuffle with the police, the doctor's manner changed abruptly, became decidedly unsympathetic, betrayed by in his dour expression where his political sympathies truly lay: although he said nothing, made it abundantly clear that, in his opinion, anyone involved in a "minor scuffle" with the police deserved all they got. The doctor's antagonism was proof positive, if any was needed thought Sybil grimly, of the overt, vicious prejudice which Tom had told her he had encountered off and on throughout his entire life.
Thereafter, Sybil watched with rising anger, as the doctor's grey, lugubrious eyes roved insolently around the elegant room, taking in the luxurious furnishings, his eyes returning more than once to the seemingly incongruous sight of the decidedly battered young man, obviously working class, wearing an ill fitting suit - equally obviously not his own - and lying prostrate on the settee.
Clearly in the doctor's mind at least, something did not add up: not only the bizarre presence here, in such opulent surroundings, of the young man lying before him but also the anxious, dark haired young woman herself standing close by him, dressed in the uniform of a nurse. She had imparted to him that she worked at the Coombe. That didn't add up either; at least not to Dr. McCalley; someone of her background and breeding working at the Coombe and as a nurse? He couldn't believe it. That she was English and came from a very wealthy family was all too obvious - borne out both by her upper class accent and by their present surroundings. After all, as anyone here in Dublin knew only too well, to stay at the Shelbourne required money, and it was equally obvious too that the young man didn't have any - that the young woman had asked that the bill for his professional services be forwarded for settlement to "my sister, Lady Mary Crawley, here at the Shelbourne Hotel".
Indeed, now Dr. McCalley came to think about it, when he had arrived here at the hotel late this afternoon, given the class of the person one normally encountered at the Shelbourne, he had respectfully enquired politely at the reception desk in the wrecked front lobby as to the identity of his prospective patient, only to be told that he was not a guest of the hotel, that his identity was unknown, but that he was in some way connected to the earl of Grantham whose two elder daughters were occupying the suite in which "Mr. Branson" was now temporarily residing, and to whom, it was understood, he had rendered some kind of sterling service. "My sister, Lady Mary Crawley ..." he mused. Then that must mean that the young woman herself was ... If for no other reason than to satisfy his own innate curiousity, he would ensure that he looked up the relevant entry in his copy of Burke's Peerage on his return home to Merrion Square.
Casting an oblique, sidelong glance at the undeniably attractive, dark haired, young nurse Dr. McCalley's lip curled and his expression now assumed that akin to someone sucking a lemon. He could just well imagine the kind of service the good looking Mr. Branson might well have rendered to one, two, or perhaps all three, of the daughters of the earl of Grantham. After all, he himself had, on occasion, come across such aristocratic women before, who, when the mood took them, as from time to time and in certain circumstances it undeniably did, regrettable though such lapses might be, sought certain favours and solace from handsome working class men, admittedly usually servants in their own employ, footmen, valets, even on occasion chauffeurs, and who were, in such circumstances, in his view, kept men. As for the women involved, he would not dignify them by referring to them as ladies. They were in Dr. Mccalley's decided opinion, but for the accident of their birth, no better than the prostitutes who openly hawked their services for money up on Amiens Street in the Monto.
Two years ago he had had to attend the unfortunate outcome of one such a liaison when the younger daughter of one of his aristocratic patients here in Dublin had found herself in a delicate condition. The identity of the unfortunate child's father was never divulged to him, although from something which was said, Dr. McCalley suspected it to be a member of the garrison stationed at the Royal Barracks close by. The young woman's outraged father had insisted that the matter be "dealt with quietly" and that the infant be placed in the care of Sisters of Charity who ran St. Vincent's Hospital on St. Stephen's Green.
As for the young woman herself, she had been sent abroad, to recuperate discretely with relatives living in some distant, godforsaken, far flung outpost of the British Empire, a hill station somewhere in India he thought, and any whiff of scandal thus neatly snuffed out, much as had been the life of her unwanted child. Later, Dr. McCalley learned that soon after being placed in the care of the orphanage the unwanted child had died, but that of course was not a matter to be noised abroad.
In fact, Dr. McCalley was singularly indifferent to the fate of the child, and equally singularly unaware that his own, and what he assumed to be, private opinion of the present situation - as he mistakenly imagined it to be - showed all too clearly in the expressive features of his face; that as a result of which, in an instant, the young nurse's own expression had changed from that of solicitous concern for the young man lying prone on the settee to one of aristocratic, contemptuous disdain for no other person than Dr. McCalley himself.
Thereafter, she had escorted him quietly to the door of the suite, had thanked him, rather perfunctorily he had thought, for his professional services, adding quietly that she knew just how much worth she placed on his medical judgement. At that, in spite of himself, he had smiled at her, heard himself saying that he hoped Mr. Branson made a speedy recovery, and then left without further ado. Nevertheless, as he walked back along the corridor to the hotel's main staircase, he made a mental note to himself to make discrete enquiry of a fellow medical practitioner who, in the circumstances, fortuitously happened to sit on the board of the Coombe hospital, as to just what exactly was known of both the identity and the antecedents of the young nurse who had so undeniably piqued his curiousity.
It was only after he was descending the grand staircase of the hotel that Dr. McCalley realised her words of seeming praise, might well have meant exactly the opposite of how he had interpreted them. Well so be it. A few more guineas added to the bill for his "professional services" would not go amiss, would more than make restitution for the young woman's insolence, because the more he thought about it, the more he thought, no knew, that her passing remark had not been intended as a compliment, but a discrete and stinging rebuke, delivered with all the clinical skill of a surgeon probing for a lump. So, he had no qualms, none whatsoever, about adding to the charges for his services. After all, he had no doubt that no less a person than the earl of Grantham himself would in fact be paying for his attendance here, late this afternoon, in the elegant surroundings of a second floor suite, at the bomb damaged Shelbourne Hotel.
The tram had still not moved.
Tom shifted in his slumbers. Although she could not see it, she could sense a smile playing about the corners of his mouth.
"I love you Sybil". The words came to her softly from out of the darkness.
"I love you too, my darling" said Sybil, her eyes shimmering.
Although she could not see his face, she looked dotingly down upon him, smiled, and ruffled his thick thatch of hair. Undoubtedly, he needed a haircut; had said so himself, that he would have one before their wedding. Unheeded by Tom, his mop of hair had fallen forward over his forehead yet again; were it possible something which made him even more endearing, always made him look younger thought Sybil, look much as he must have done when he was a young boy. It was then, in the darkened saloon of their tramcar, as Sybil made to brush back his hair from off his forehead yet again, that the reflected glare from the lights of a tram, rattling past in the opposite direction heading towards the Pillar, back whence they had just come, fell directly on Tom, illuminating his bruised and cut face, causing him to wake, to open his eyes. He looked up at her.
Blue gazed up into blue gray.
Blue gray gazed down into blue.
Just as they had done all those years ago ... in the stable yard at Skerries House.
"You look a mess".
"Don't I just" said Tom and gave her an endearing, lop sided grin.
And, sitting there on board the stationary tram, as Sybil smiled down at Tom, smoothed back his hair, and gently touched his battered face, she felt the faintest stirring of a memory long suppressed.
Evidently, it had been dark back then too. She was kneeling in a large, empty space, looking down at someone. Where she was, who it was she was looking at, she did not know, but sensed, no knew, that somehow she should. A sudden ray of light cast by a horn lantern - how on earth did she know that - had briefly illuminated a young boy's face, bruised and bleeding, but then, just at that very moment, there was a sudden jerk, the tram lurched forward, and the vision dissolved instantly into vapour.
