"So who is this Helen Lovesly O'Hanrahan?" Tom asked as he handed Helen's note back to Sybil.

"Her grandparents live in the same apartment building as my grandmother and whenever we visited Grandmama Helen and I would play together. In fact I'd spend more time with her than my sisters." Sybil tilted her head back and smiled as she thought of those times. "It was a treat to have someone that enjoyed the same things as me. I think the most fun was when we'd go to Central Park where we had so much fun rambling around.

She looked at Tom. "Actually when I think of her I think of the two us, our long hair in braids, sitting on the edge of the fountain with our bare feet dangling in the water while eating ice cream cones."

"My how wild that sounds" Tom teasingly smirked.

Hands on her hips Sybil glowered at him. "Does that sound like something Granny would approve of?"

Tom chuckled. "No I can't quite see that."

"I think the last time I saw her we were eleven maybe twelve." Sybil sat down at the kitchen table.

"Well it will be nice for you to reconnect … to have a friend here." Tom picked up the note from Helen. "She's living in a nice area. It's not quite on par with Merrion or Fitzwilliam Squares but still a very nice area."

"Her grandfather had made quite a bit of money from" Sybil frowned as she tried to recall "railways or was it ships?" She shrugged "I can't really remember … although Papa might have talked about it but it wasn't something I would have had any interest in."

She looked at Tom. "I don't recall Helen's family having any connection to Ireland."

"Well it's interesting that the two of you both ended up in Dublin and you two still must have be alike" he grinned that grin that always made Sybil's heart beat just a bit faster "you're both married, or will be married, to Irishmen."

As the taxi cab skirted around St. Stephens Green, where she and Tom had enjoyed a leisurely Saturday afternoon wandering around the grand park, Sybil intently watched her surroundings as they motored through an area of mostly tall five story brick townhomes. While the homes were large and rather elegant she noted that trees were sparse and any splashes of color came mainly from the brightly painted front doors. By now Sybil was accustomed to most every home in Dublin having a colorful front door. But as the tax crossed over the Grand Canal it was as if they had entered a leafy green oasis. It was only a minute or two later that the taxi cab stopped in front of Helen's house with its bright yellow door.

The house was part of a block of prosperous looking three story brick townhouses set well back from the road. A low wrought iron fence separated the front garden from the pavement while hedges formed borders with the neighboring gardens. A stone walkway beside the right hedge led to a stairway and the entry door on the first floor. Set under an archway, the recessed front door was sheltered from the elements and gave one a small place to leave a wet umbrella or perhaps muddy boots.

There was no doubt that it was Helen herself who answered Sybil's rap on the decorative iron knocker. The long dark hair was now in a fashionable short bob but the warm brown eyes that always seem to convey a hint of mischievousness and the dimples that accented her smile were the same as the eleven year old Helen. Helen's broad smile and animated "Sybil!" immediately made Sybil feel at home and the years melted away as the long ago playmates warmly hugged each other.

The front door had opened into a large oblong black and white tiled foyer with deep gold silk wallpaper with a Japanese inspired print of red and white cherry blossoms flowing from bare branches covering the walls. The foyer ended with a dark mahogany stairway leading to the upper floor beside a narrow hallway, still in that black and tile flooring, leading to the back of the house. Sunlight flowed into the space from the arched windows above the door making the space light and airy and welcoming.

A bench covered in a plush red fabric that matched the red cherry blossoms of the wallpaper sat against the wall between two arched doorways while a huge mirror on the opposite wall was above a waist-high narrow table that held a couple of framed photographs, a decorative vase, and a red and yellow glass bowl for odds and ends that one might find in their pockets. Helen ushered Sybil pass the first doorway which a quick glance revealed a spacious rather formal drawing room darkened with deep green walls and dark wooden floors and through the second doorway into an inviting sunlit room with wide windows that looked out onto the back garden. A built-in white breakfront with glass fronted shelving on the upper half took up the entire far wall. With light yellow walls above white wainscoting, a cushioned floral sofa, two matching lounge chairs with an ottoman in front of them, and mahogany tables scattered about the room filling out the rest of the room, it was modern yet cozy and comfortable.

"This is lovely" Sybil said as she sat down in one of the lounge chairs.

"I decorated this myself" Helen beamed as she looked around the room before sitting in the other lounge chair. She patted the cushioned arm of the chair "I wanted someplace comfortable to sit, where you didn't feel you had to constantly sit as if a book was posed on the top of your head."

Her remark caused Sybil to laugh. "You're describing every seat in the house I grew up in."

Just then an older woman wearing a white apron over her dress walked into the room carrying a tray with napkins, two small plates and several small bowls filled with various spreads, a small plate of sliced bread and another of crackers. "Just set in on the ottoman Fiona" Helen directed. "Maybe bring up the rest in about twenty minutes."

Helen turned towards Sybil. "I thought it would be more comfortable eating here than at the dining room table and we have so much to talk about I just thought this would be-"

"A wonderful idea" Sybil clapped her hands.

Helen brushed her forehead. "I was so excited when my grandmother wrote that you had moved here then I was a bit afraid you might have changed … it's been so long since we saw each other."

Sybil laughed "Much to my family's displeasure I'm still like the girl you knew."

The conversation flowed while the two devoured a crab and shrimp soufflé and a fruit and cheese tray. Helen's life these past ten or so years had been more convoluted than Sybil's and Sybil felt rather in awe of Helen's story: after graduating from school and then attending a short secretarial course Helen spend six months at a finishing school in the Swiss alps (my mother's idea and although the school was rather dismal and too many of the other girls were so snobby, the location on a lake surrounded by mountains was utterly breathtaking); a planned grand tour of Europe with her mother and grandmother halted by her grandmother's sudden illness and subsequent stay at a Swiss sanatorium (another breathtaking location with lovely gardens) where to pass the time Helen acted as a secretary for a wealthy English industrialist also staying there (that saved me from complete boredom and it was nice being able to use my shorthand and typing skills which I had learned in New York); then an offer of a job as personal assistant by the aforementioned Englishman at his Birmingham company which she happily accepted much to her family's dismay (I just wasn't ready to go back to New York and spend my days in idleness); followed by refusing her family's plea to return home as the Great War raged on (after all wasn't it safer staying in Birmingham than traveling across the Atlantic swarming German U-boats although I guess it was really meeting Liam that kept me in Birmingham); when Liam was offered a teaching assistant position at Trinity College they got married and came to Dublin.

While Helen was impressed with Sybil becoming a nurse (I shouldn't be surprised you had that compassionate nature) and proclaiming Sybil falling in love with the family chauffeur and moving with him to Dublin the most romantic thing she had ever heard.

It was the most enjoyable luncheon and Sybil left elated. She was so excited to share Helen's proposition with Tom that instead of returning to the Branson home Sybil went to directly to the paper's shabby offices.

"She wants us to move into her house?" a clearly uneasy Tom asked.

"Well she and her husband won't be there Tom." Sybil was having trouble understanding Tom's response to Helen's offer of Sybil and Tom staying in the house while Helen and Liam temporarily moved to Boston while he attained an advanced degree at a university there.

"As I said Tom they don't want to sell the house, which Liam inherited from his Great Aunt, and they don't want it to set empty for all that time but they're not comfortable renting it out to strangers filled with the family silver, furniture and whatnots."

But it was as if Tom wasn't listening to her. "I thought you'd be excited."

"I'm just trying to understand this Sybil. They're uncomfortable renting the house to strangers but they're okay with letting us, me who they've never met and you who Helen hasn't seen in years, stay there for free?"

Sighing deeply Sybil shook her head as she turned her face away from him. "I imagine they think I'm hardly likely to abscond with the family silver." Then turning back to face him she reached out with her hand to touch his arm. "Tom look at the opportunity here. We can save money and it will give us more time to find a place of our own and in the meantime maybe I'll find a job and-"

"Is this a ploy from your family?"

"My family?" Sybil was becoming exasperated and rather annoyed at him. "Tom other than my Grandmama I doubt anyone in my family even remembers Helen. Beside what would my family have to gain from this? Don't you think my father secretly harbors the thought that I'll find life here so unbearable I'll come running back to Downton so he'd hardly engineer this?"

Sybil reached up and ran her hand down the side of his face. "Tom the bans are being read this Sunday. We're getting married in three weeks and we have no place to live. Do you want to start our married life living at your mother's?"

With Sybil and Ciara busy doing the washing and cleaning after dinner as had become their nightly routine, Tom slipped out the kitchen door and into the tiny back garden. Although it was still an hour or so until sunset the sun had dipped low enough behind the taller buildings far off to the right that it was the light streaming through the kitchen window that lit up the garden. Someone, Tom guessed it must have been Sean, had tilled most of the right side of the garden for Ma's vegetable patch and already there were green sprouts shooting up from the soil. As long as he could remember his Ma would plant runner beans, radishes, peas, and tomatoes but with four rambunctious boys tramping around the yard it was miraculous that any plants survived to produce anything edible.

Tom walked across the brick and gravel path that led to the old shed that had been his father's workshop. As a boy Tom had spent many hours in here with his Da mending old furniture or transforming the wood of broken chairs or unwanted furniture to make small boxes or toys or whatever suited Pa's fancy that Da would earn extra money selling. Opening the door Tom expected to see unruly stacks of broken furniture and rusting bits and bobs all covered in a thick layer of dust and cobwebs hanging from every corner but instead it was neat and clean and orderly. There was still the large worktable, a smattering of tools neatly hanging on pegs, and a large toolbox on the floor under the table but the only furniture was a perfectly usable caned back chair sitting next to a neatly made up cot.

"Sean often sleeps out here on that cot." Until she spoke Tom wasn't aware that his Ma had followed him out here. "Says that way he doesn't wake us when he comes home late."

"Sean" Tom softly repeated his brother's name and he looked around the shed. "I wasn't expecting this."

His mother sat down on the caned chair. It hadn't escaped her notice that while Sybil had talked glowingly and excitedly about her friend's generous offer Tom didn't seem to share her enthusiasm. "So why aren't you excited

at this Helen's offer of her house?"

Leaning against the workbench, instead of replying Tom ran his hand across his forehead and then through his hair.

"Tom"

Exhaling deeply as he continued to run his hand through his hair Tom remained silent.

"The house sounds lovely."

Tom shook his head as he pictured his lordship in his room at the Grantham Arms. How will you look after her? How can you hope to provide for her. "It's just …" he took a deep breath. "She said she didn't want the life she had at Downton but …" he closed his eyes.

"And you think taking this house is somehow against that?"

"It's a reminder that I can't properly provide for her."

"I see so it's your pride that's wounded." Now it was Nora Branson's turn to sigh. "Since she's been here that girl hasn't made one complaint about sharing a bedroom with your sister, about heating water for her bath, about … We spent the afternoon baking soda bread and making that colcannon you had for dinner and now she's in that kitchen with her arms up to her elbows in dishwater."

"When she said she didn't want that life she had at Downton do you think she meant she wanted to live in a hovel? For that matter do you wanna live in a hovel?" She didn't wait for an answer but continued on. "Did she mean she expected you to provide for her? Wasn't it that she meant she didn't want that bone idle life, that she wanted to work, she wanted to make her own decisions."

She stood up and walked towards the door. Standing in the doorway she turned around and looked at him. "Don't be a fool son. Don't let pride get the best of you."

He stood in the doorway of the shed staring at the kitchen window. Through the open window he could hear Sybil and his sister talking although he couldn't quite make out what they were saying. As he approached the door he heard her laugh, that deep throaty laugh she had, that laugh that always brought a smile to his face.

Stepping into the kitchen he looked at her standing there, an apron draped around her waist, some wisps of hair that had escaped from the pins holding her hair back in a low bun framing her face, and a few soapy bubbles on her forehead and he smiled.

"Sybil send a note tomorrow to Helen asking when we can come look at the house."

As his words sunk in a slow smile crept across her face until she was beaming. "Oh Tom" she said as she ran the few steps across the room. Reaching him her arms wound around his waist and she stepped up to kiss him, not on the cheek or forehead but on his lips. In return his arms wrapped around her and he ran his hands up and down her back as he passionately returned her kiss.

"Ahem … ahem" Mrs. Branson cleared her throat. "I think you can save that for after the wedding."