The Bygone Days

by phantomwriter05

In the Blitz of 1941 - Two star-crossed couples are reunited 20 years after their tragic deaths. Now, amidst a world afire they must navigate change, remarriages, and dark secrets while a long lost father attempts to help a once heroic son - haunted by his failure during the Spanish Civil War. Yet, in the shadows, a traitor deep within the House of Grantham helps plot its downfall.

13. Sukiyaki - Part II

The woman walked out into the night upon the balcony of the French Chateau.

Her luminous feline eyes were deep with an ingrained sadness that seemed to be a part of her very soul. In her gloved hand was a slender glass of bubbly that still fizzled. She looked up into the night sky and let out a conflicted and desperate scoff. After a silent pause of memories and the conflict within them, she gazed down morosely at the golden liquid as if it was her curse and her savior. It was the call of Satan with the comfort of her mother's voice. Her chest heaved as she slowly, with shaking silk opera gloved hand, lifted it up to her plump pillow like lips. Tears were starting to fall down her cheeks as she gave one last glance of the stars in the distance.

"What do you think, lads?" She asked quietly. "One more down the hatch?" There was a half sob in her voice as she sputtered, placing the crystal glass to her forehead.

She could still hear them, the moans of the wounded men and the cries of the doctors for help. The smell of the alcohol was strong and overpowering, causing her knees to weaken and lose her steady footing. From it she could almost feel the way the tremors of the German artillery shook the field hospital as she handed gauze to the doctor while he operated on a poor lowly Private in the Lancaster Fusiliers. She could still hear him crying out for his mummy as they struggled to keep him alive. They were telling them that they had to evacuate the surgical room - the Huns were walking their artillery toward the forward field hospital. But the doctor chose to stay. With a wipe of his brow he had told her that she should go. But the young nurse stubbornly refused. She would stay by their patient, stay by the doctor's side … Jacob's side.

Then, just when they thought that they had stopped the bleeding - she heard it before she ever felt it. A whistle that got louder and louder till it was deafening, till she couldn't even hear herself think. There was chaos as an orderly and Sergeant O'Grady came bursting into the surgical room screaming at them. But before she could understand what they said, something powerful overwhelmed her - the force of it knocking her over. She didn't know if she was dead or alive in that moment. Later, they told her that she was not even unconscious. That when they found her, she was sitting with her legs drawn up, hugging her knees. There was blood on her cheek and temple … but it was not her own. Jacob was lying next to her, his hand clutching her thigh.

Yet, on display was something that he had strove to remain hidden for months. It was a simple silver band, nothing to stand out nor draw attention too. But its significance was invaluable to the one who wore it. For now, it was an engagement ring that he could risk. Perhaps someone might notice it, but not think anything of it. A perfect complement of hiding in plain sight - at least till the war was over. Of course, he could marry her right that second. They could find a chaplain, a priest, or wait till they got back to England on leave to tie the knot. But then they would have to separate. The British Army would never allow a husband and wife to work together at the triage station, not in these conditions … and they really were a partnership.

In her silk gloved hand was a blood encrusted silver ring. It was not Jacob's - he had been buried with his. Instead, she looked at the simple ring of her own that he had made at a small jeweler shop in Paris. It had been a matching set forged from his medal that he was awarded for his actions as a medic at the "Battle of Mons" in the first months of the war. He had told her that if it wasn't for his bravery that day, he would never have been allowed to have his pick of assignments. And if he hadn't chosen this assignment, he would never have met her. So, in all honesty, they owed quite a great deal to that little bit of tin. It had been the foundation of their love and now they'd wear it always.

The thought of him in the ground, rotting, the ring on his skeletal finger, made the alcohol scream out to her. It was the final thought, the overwhelming nightmare, that always pushed her over the edge. Every time she woke up with a pounding headache, her boots missing, and a MP sergeant screaming of how much a disgrace she was to the British Uniform, she told herself that it would be the last time. Her papa always said that no problem could be solved at the bottom of a bottle. But after everything - seeing this terrible war in all it's iniquitous horror - she realized that no one was trying to solve their problems when they drank. They were simply trying to escape them - endure them for another day, night … just a bloody hour more.

The combat nurse clutched her glass as she struggled and writhed with her past. That night at the field hospital, when the German shell killed her patients, all her friends, and her fiancé, it haunted her, chased her over three long years. And there was nothing that she wouldn't do to escape it. For just a taste of that sweet potent nectar of Hell. Now, here, at the end, when she tried so hard and come so far, it was that last memory – the bloody hand with the symbol of their everlasting love upon her thigh – that thwarted her. Tomorrow, at eleven-fifteen, it would all be over, and a new world would be ushered in.

But did she have the courage to meet it - to let go?

"Eve, don't!"

Suddenly, a tall man appeared from the duel glass doors of the Chateau. He was lean in his American Military uniform with tall boots and golden pilot wings upon his breast. He had black quaffed hair neatly parted to the side and fair face with a stately roman nose. On his cheek there remained a gashed scar from where the "Red Baron" had clipped him in a dogfight. In his expression and demeanor there was an enthusiasm and optimism that gave an almost bounce to his steps. It wasn't innocence or naivety in his American accented voice, but an earnest sincerity of conviction, a moral compass of right and wrong. There was always some ghost of a knightly gallantry, a code of conduct, that accompanied these brave and audacious combat aviators that were a rule onto themselves.

As he stepped onto the balcony, he was stalwart, and brought with him a presence that was undeniably forthright in masculine charisma. The moment he saw the alcohol in the beautiful nurse's hand, he rushed over in three full strides. He grasped her desperately by her shoulders and spun her with an exaggerated forcefulness. When they turned to face each other, they were the same height in reality. But the nurse clenched her shoulders and arched slightly backward ceding some of her considerable length. Tears were streaming down her face as the man held her roughly, frightenedly.

"It's too late, Cliff … can't you see? I can't do it, I can't!" She sobbed shaking her head.

"You can't give up!" He begged. "After everything you've done, after everything we've gone through!" He shook her. "Don't it mean anything, Eve?! Don't it mean nothing?!" He asked, giving her a shake. At his prodding she broke free from him angrily and paced away, covering her tear stained face.

"You've got me all wrong!" She clenched her fists and threw them down to her sides. "You think you can save me! That I'm worthy of it, of you! Well, I'm not, you see! You put me on a pedestal like I'm some goddess, angel, or a saint!" She shouted. "But you don't know the things I've seen! The things I've done, Cliff!" She turned to him. "Well, I'm not any of those things you think I am!" She shouted at him. "I'm no saint!" She cried in anguish.

"No …"

The American pilot proclaimed moving ardently toward her again. But this time she was not taken by surprise. For a long moment she protested in helpless and angry sobs as they struggled and wrestled about, till, finally, she allowed herself to be taken in his strong arms. With angry cries, she buried her face into his broad chest. With a silk gloved fist, the nurse pounded his shoulder as she let out three long years of suffering. As she wept into his uniform, the pilot looked off wistfully beyond the château's white balcony and rose bushes. His own eyes glistering with emotions as he gazed at the stars shining above the horizon.

"Maybe none of us are. All of us who fought in this lousy war." His voice got stronger with earnestness. "We've all done things we ain't proud of, that we couldn't imagine we were capable of. And perhaps we never will be able to forget'em." As he spoke, he slowly caressed her luxurious mane of raven tresses. Slowly, as he continued to talk, the nurse reappeared and shared the view of the man who held her, leaning her head against his chest. "But we gotta keep living, Eve …" He made to turn her head up so that he could look down at her tear strewn face. But her eyes were already locked upon him, captured, hanging off every word he said. "What else is there to do, but live?" He asked quietly.

"But how, Cliff?" She asked with a shake of her head. "How do we live on after everything?" as she questioned the purpose of life itself, she craned her head back up and began to nuzzle his cheek, wetting it with her conflicted grief.

The pilot rubbed against the slickened milky alabaster skin of her silk smooth cheek as the lovers both looked out onto the horizon.

"Together, Eve … we do it together." He said with conviction.

The nurse, sensing his eyes, captured by his words, was caught in his gaze. She softened as they held one another in the cold November night, mere hours before the end of the "Great War" – the most terrible in human history. And it was there, in those final hours that the British Nurse and American Flying Ace came together and found common purpose. Their struggle wouldn't be surviving the war … but living in the aftermath. And slowly, inch by inch, their faces grew closer as they realized how hard the road would be without the other in the coming days of world peace.

"You might not be any saint … but these lips are all I've prayed for."

A vast romantic orchestral score swept over a crowded dark cinema as the black and white reflection of the projected screen illuminated many faces. Green eyes, brown and blue – men and women. They wore uniforms, some military and others for domestic service. But not one of them looked anywhere else when two beautiful people - in clothing that their parents might have worn over twenty years ago - came together on the screen. The camera slowly began to pan out over the silhouettes of the couple that began to kiss to the powerful music while the final line of the movie was uttered as they disappeared into a field of stars.

Tears glistened in the phantasmal celluloid glow from many a patron that sat still in their seat, only just registering their reach for a handkerchief in their handbag or from their male date's breast pocket. They were touched, some deeply so, by what it was they just saw. Something about it struck a nerve, especially at the thoughts of the true horror that was going on in London and York at that very moment. They had all seen things in this losing war that had shaken them to their core. The streets in ruins, the homeless children sitting on the stoop of their house that wasn't there anymore. And the bodies, so many bodies, pulled out of the rubble, morning after morning. They were not soldier's bodies, but people, just like them. Wives and mothers, grandfathers and paternal uncles, and children … so many young children.

When Nurse Evelyn Lovejoy was in the bottle, God Almighty, the people of England understood it. How many Jacobs and Lancaster Fusiliers had they seen in their daily lives since the High Summer of 1940? So many of the audience identified with the beautiful young British nurse. She might have sounded much too posh – regal – for a combat nurse back then. There sure as hell weren't no Earl's daughters in the forward field hospitals during the war. But that Eve - she knew what she was about. There was something about that character, the way she was portrayed, that spoke to so many in every audience that had gone to see the movie since it first premiered the other day.

"I'm No Saint" had been a remake of the same film from the early 1930's produced by the same studio - "Brady-American Pictures". The film had starred starlet Minna Davis - with her husband Monroe Stahr producing. It had been a hit in the United States. But found much red tape in Europe. By then the Nazis had taken control of the German government and they did not look kindly on any film that portrayed the Wehrmacht as the villains. Nor were they keen on promoting a film produced by a Jew, especially a Jew married to a gentile who was lead in the picture. In England, though "Brady-American" had paid a pretty penny for promotion of the film, it was also swatted. Despite a glitzy affair planned for the London Premiere, with the likes of Lady Mary Crawley, even the King and Queen of England, in attendance. The whole thing turned into a disaster.

The screening was hijacked by Richard Carlisle who showed reel footage of a duel between "The Comet" and "The Necromancer" in New Orleans that sent the whole press in a tizzy. But worse than the film's headlines being stolen was that the movie was quickly censored. Once more, prejudice in Europe reared its ugly head. There was some in the British Film Commission who were not overly thrilled to see a native Irish actress in the lead, believing that her 'situation' might cause unrest in Ireland. Therefore, they limited the movie's run in the Imperium. And thus, despite it being a smash-hit in America, in the two largest foreign movie markets – Germany and Britain – most people had not gotten to see the original movie.

But less than ten years later, with the death of Monroe Stahr and a new concerted push to help the Allies, Executive Producer and heiress to "Brady-American", Celia Brady, decided to dust off the Minna Davis classic. Taking center stage would be the over-night sensation Ms. Sybil Afton Branson. Coming off a star-making and genre defining performance as Elizabeth Bennet in the latest adaption of "Pride and Prejudice", the young British heiress had 'hit' at just at the right time.

Remembered fondly by the American Public as a beloved adopted member of the Royal House of Windsor – "The Little Princess" – there was already a built in fanbase among American women that were fascinated with British Heritage, especially the Royals. Pat Brady – who had once fought his former partner Monroe Stahr tooth and nail not to cast Ms. Branson when she was a teenager – embraced the young woman with open arms. Agreeing with "The Hollywood Reporter" that young British heiress had brought a certain 'authenticity' to roles that he hadn't seen since the late Minna Davis.

Ms. Branson was a shooting star that seemingly came out of nowhere. A girl of nineteen that arrived one Hollywood night in late 1938. Within twenty-four hours, without representation nor agent, she attended her first audition for Monroe Stahr's swan song masterpiece tribute to his wife – "American Dream: The Minna Davis Story". When the young woman walked in for the casting call, Celia Brady dropped her cup of coffee. She was perfect. More than perfect, she was almost a damned mirror put up against Minna. Pat Brady was said to almost have had a heart attack, thinking that he saw a ghost. At first the studio head had been as convinced as he had been when she was sixteen - and three years had not made him any softer on the sole heiress to "Branson & Talbot Motors".

But he turned white as a sheet when she did her best Minna Davis impression at the audition. Sybil had claimed to have been Minna's biggest fan for years. But to everyone else, it was more than that. It was as if the woman was sitting right in front of them, despite being dead for six long years. Brady caved to his daughter and Executive Producer - who became fast friends with the fellow debutant who also was the daughter of an Irish born father who went rags to riches in their daughters' lifetime. But still the studio head warned his little girl gruffly that he didn't want anything to do with … whatever that was.

Rumors swirled about Ms. Sybil Afton Branson. She had been an adopted member of the Royal House of Windsor. But after the "Grantham Civil War" in the last days of 1935, she went from being a Princess to a Lady Sleuth, partner of George "The Comet" Crawley as a Consulting Detective for the Commissioner of Scotland Yard, Sir Dennis Nayland Smith. After a year of publicity for the weird and amazing cases she helped solve, she ran away with her beloved "Comet" and became a co-founder of "The Titans" during the Spanish Civil War. She had helped the ragged band of multi-national pilots and local guerrillas fight both the Nationalists and Republicans to protect the innocent populace from the destructive conflict.

But what troubled Pat Brady and many Jewish employees at the "Brady-American" front offices were the rumor that she had turned coat on the Titans and became a Nazi devotee.

In mid-1937, with great subterfuge and duplicity on a shocking scale, the once heroine of Spain quietly led the feared Nazi "Condor Legion" to the Titan's secret lair where they surrounded it on all sides. There, she stood and watched as the Elite German 'volunteers' ambushed and massacred the young woman's former comrades and friends. The only one left alive of their fellowship after that night had been George "The Comet" Crawley – who had been away from their lair on a scouting mission at the time. When he returned, he was shocked and devastated to find a smoldering pile of bones where his friends and comrades' bodies were piled and burned – their aircraft destroyed on the ground where they lay. And worst was the belief that Sybbie had been captured by the Condors. And with desperation did George Crawley chase the Nazi unit across the war-torn Iberian Peninsula on a one-man Arthurian quest to rescue the girl he loved … only to find out in the end that it was all a trap for both him and their family. And when they left Spain at the end of 1937, George Crawley would be the 8th Earl of Grantham and Ms. Sybil Afton Branson would be a broken shell sitting in a place of honor at the Fuhrer's table.

By 1938 she had been married to the Condor Legion's Colonel, Frandral von Beck. Going so far as to accompany and fight with the Germanic-Italian expeditionary forces against the British and American backed "Titan Corps" – reformed by the new Earl of Grantham and the Marchioness of Hexham - during the proxy "Rhun Wars" in North Africa. Yet, after "The Comet" and his Titans had annihilated the Condors at the "Battle of Ra's-Al-Rhun" - their Colonel von Beck defeated, deformed, and in complete disgrace. It was suspicious timing to some that the once vaulted Aryan Ubermensch's 'Girl Friday' showed up out of nowhere in Los Angeles.

More than that, she arrived in Hollywood with no luggage or possessions. All she had was a satin halter gown covered by a Burberry overcoat that was rumored to have had priceless Nazi jewels sown into its lining. There were some on the Board of Directors and at the bank that thought that the Germans would not look kindly upon, perhaps, a traitor gracing their movie screens. And all through 1939 there was a growing fear from the Board that the further that Celia pushed the British beauty, the more likely the Nazis would kill distribution of any project the 'colorful' Ms. Branson was cast in.

But by the time that the "Minna Davis Story" was in front of cameras, the whole situation and focus had changed. Germany and the Soviets had invaded Poland. Britain and France had declared war. And all of Europe was mobilizing like it was twenty-five years ago. For Pat Brady all it took was a visit from a group of men from the Defense Department and a few more from the Army in a private meeting. When they left the board room, Brady announced that all his writers needed to head down to the bookstore and buy every goddamn thing with Austen, Warton, and Bronte on the spine they could find.

They were about to get "Fancy as Fuck".

In the beginning of the war, the American Public had absolutely no interest in repeating their intervention in the European troubles. During the 'Great War' the United States Army had only fought for less than a year and had alone bludgeoned the Imperial German forces into submission. But such a victory had come at a great cost. The losses were nearly lapping that of the "War of Secession" in only six months. Thus, even though there was outrage at the bombing of Warsaw and the atrocities committed by the Nazi and Red Armies, the Republic – at large – still wanted nothing to do with the conflicts in Europe, North Africa, and South Pacific.

However, the public consensus was not shared in the government institutions in the District of Columbia. There was some that believed America would be drawn into the conflict one way or the other as the Imperial Japanese continued to expand with violent aggression. Others, with more grander designs, believed that the opportunity was there to bring the United States into the forefront on the world stage as the British Imperium began to crumble and the French Republic's territories slowly decayed with dereliction of either manpower or care. Thus, with contrasting view of Beltway versus Main Street, the 'Great Push' began to win over the American Public through many means.

And Hollywood would take the forefront of this 'Hearts and Minds' campaign to convince the average American of their responsibility to the Western Nations and defend democracy abroad.

As adaptions of classic British Literature was being hammered out in screenwriter offices all throughout the studio lots of Hollywood, "Brady-American Pictures" got a leg up in the secret Government mandate. "American Dream: The Minna Davis Story" was released in the autumn of 1939 to massive success. The still lingering tragedy of Minna's strange and horrible death in 1933 and the nostalgia for the face that lightened the load of a worldwide economic depression had brought many to the theater to pay respect to their favorite Celtic maven of the silver screen.

But they stayed for the simply spellbinding Ms. Sybil Afton Branson.

It was as if they had gotten Minna to play herself. Everything was perfect - down to the mannerisms. There was also a strange authentic quality to Sybil's acting that no one had quite seen. As one critic in the "New York Post" put it – 'One is immersed in Ms. Branson's realistic understanding that she is an actress playing an actress, recreating all of Minna's earnestness while effortlessly constructing the dichotomy of who we knew on screen and who we had wished to know in life.' She had been simply a revelation, bringing something new that perhaps no one had seen in modern cinema.

However, at the 1940 Academy Awards, "American Dream: The Minna Davis Story" won only two Oscars - including a posthumous "Best Original Screenplay" for Minna's brother, Declan Davis. Sybil Branson found herself only just beaten for "Best Actress" by fellow English Rose: Vivian Leigh. Pat Brady's temper was held in check by his mogul daughter as David O. Selznick and Louis B. Mayer took pot shots at him all night - beating their old rival with the one-two punch of "Gone with the Wind" and "The Wizard of OZ". "The Minna Davis Story" was blown right out of the Coconut Grove of the Ambassador Hotel. Yet, while two of the most revolutionary pictures ever to put in film had their grand moment in the sun, the next morning all anyone in the society pages could talk about was Ms. Sybil Branson. Sitting between Vivian Leigh and young Judy Garland in a silvery blue cape backed evening gown with diamond necklace and matching earrings, there was no denying that she was the daughter of London fashion queen and glamorous poster gal of English Heritage, Lady Mary Crawley. Though, she did not win that night …

By afternoon Sybil was all anyone could talk about in Hollywood.

On the heels of the push by the Beltway to build the narrative of congruity with England as a close cousin of America, and a rush of subtle English Heritage projects, Ms. Sybil Branson was perfectly placed to turn the tide. "Brady-American Pictures" rushed to sign the heiress to a massive six-picture deal when the Warner Brothers came sniffing around - hearing of Pat Brady's 'mistrust' of the adopted Princess. It was the largest contract ever signed for a female performer in the history of the flicker business. Suddenly, a young beauty with a mysterious – and perhaps dark - past, who arrived in Hollywood with nothing but an evening gown and overcoat to her name, was now one of the highest paid actors in the world. And she would prove to be worth every penny when she was given the lead role of Elizabeth Bennet in the first American adaption of "Pride and Prejudice".

By then all hell had broken loose across the Atlantic. In the summer of 1940, the German's surprise Blitzkrieg had broken the back of the British and French forces through the Ardennes Forest – the Panzers smashing through the Allied lines at Arras. The British Expeditionary Force and the remainder of the French Army was surrounded at Dunkirk. At that time all of the "Brady-American" staff, producers, screenwriters, directors, and contract players devoured the papers and listened to the radio round the clock all over the studio and soundstages. And it was in this tense time - while they were finishing postproduction on "Pride and Prejudice" - that Celia Brady came to Sybil as she was recording ADR for Mr. Darcy's first proposal scene. She lamented to her best friend that everyone in Hollywood was doing their best British Lit project like it was Finals Week in the English Department. But with the situation as it was, she wondered if they might try something else.

Ever since the final act of "The Minna Davis Story" - when Sybil had recreated the first meeting of Cliff and Evelyn from "I'm No Saint" - they had been getting fan mail clamoring for a remake with Sybil Branson as the lead. It was then that it dawned on Celia Brady, in all the 'excitement', that they may have a rare opportunity here. Perhaps, what was needed was a grittier and more realistic take of the story with Sybil's brand of acting and a "Hell's Angels" realism. It might be just the thing to push people a little closer to a beefed-up concern to support the British war effort. The young and melancholy actress - who looked so terribly eaten by sudden worry, grief … and terrible guilt – told her friend and producer that she was up for anything she thought might help.

At the 1941 Academy Awards it was Pat Brady who had the last laugh when "Pride and Prejudice" swept the night. Not only winning "Best Picture" and "Best Adapted Screenplay", but Sybil was named both "Best Actress" and "Performer of the Year". Once more, her choice of gown and jewelry – a golden forum fitting dress and crystal jewels - stood out and amazed the press as absolutely exceptional when she was photographed on a bench with a visibly haughty and jealous Ginger Rogers.

At the podium, the twenty-year old starlet – dressed like a princess from an Art Deco fairy tale - dedicated her award to the brave defenders of Britain ... stopping just short of saying one man's name in particular of whom she loved greatly. The sincerity of her address and the proclamation of love for an unknown pilot had touched many hearts. Afterward there was wild speculation from her fans and the media of whom this mysterious war hero might be. And, indeed, the added secret romance angle strove to only add a deeper air of mystery and romanticism to this British born starlet's mystic in the public eye. Yet, still, even with the last two Academy Award winning actresses being English, and the number one box office earning actress a British Heiress, Hollywood had still failed to change the American Publics' mind about the war.

By the time that the greatly anticipated remake of "I'm No Saint" got in front of cameras, it had come just in time to see the war go completely south for the British Empire.

The Japanese Imperial Military had launched a surprise shock offensive on British and French Colonies in the South Pacific, overrunning and occupying all of the Imperium's Far-Eastern territory. Within months they had captured tens of thousands of miles and soldiers of the Royal Army while pushing to the very borders of British India. In that darkest hour, the elite special "Titan Corps" unit had been called up from their headquarters at the City of Acre in Mandatory Palestine. Already had a detachment of its Air Corps – led by Captain George "The Comet" Crawley – fought in the disastrous French Campaign. Striking from secret and hidden airfields behind the tireless Nazi Blitz, their daring night raids on German fuel supply lines halted Rommel's Panzers long enough for "Operation Dynamo" to go into effect. Now, with the full Specialized Unit mobilized, they were tasked with defending the Channel Islands to stop the Germans from having a staging point for the invasion of England.

Weeks of bloody and savage fighting raged as the elite Air Corps and Frontier Ranger Commandos of the Titans contested inch for inch, step for step, against the swarming of an entire division of Schutzstaffel shock troopers and, eventually, the full weight of the Luftwaffe. In this came a clash of cultures and philosophies of warfare between the best of the British Imperium's Forces and the pride of the Third Reich. However, though giving fierce resistance – extracting heavy losses on the Nazi crack and elite SS units – the Titans were eventually overrun by the sheer numbers and were driven back.

Throughout the campaign they were given very little support by the disorganized and reeling Royal Army and abandoned entirely by the Admiralty after evacuating the island children. In the end, it was only by the advocacy of a desperate Lady Hexham that Rear Admiral Anthony Foyle commandeered a destroyer - against the express orders of Lord Mountbatten. Under constant air assault from the Luftwaffe, Lord Gillingham rescued the aircraft support crews and what was left of the decimated Frontier Rangers from the last stand on the Island of Guernsey. Covered by George and his remaining pilots on a desperate night raid, the Titan ground forces, and many refugees, boarded Lord Gillingham's destroyer and withdrew two hundred and fifty miles across the channel to the Cornish shores.

And it is said that though Lady Edith was close to Lord Gillingham, it had been Lady Mary herself who had come in secret to plead – and it was lucky for the Titan Corps that Tony Gillingham could never deny Lady Mary Crawley anything.

But when they arrived in Cornwall – landing on Hendrawna Beach – there was very little time to rest, refit, and reorganize. For almost immediately the Luftwaffe had begun pre-operations for what Adolf Hitler called "Operation Sealion" – the invasion of the British Isle. Chaos erupted over the skies of England for four months as RAF and Titan Pilots flew four to five sorties a day to repel the might of the German War Machine from destroying their airfields, airdromes, and radar stations. In what they now call "The Battle of Britain" the brave pilots fought savagely to maintain air superiority to ward off German Invasion from Normandy and the recently fallen Channel Islands.

When "I'm No Saint" premiered in the Spring of 1941 it had been to great fanfare in America. It, like its box-office draw, had found its moment to hit hard at precisely the right time. All over the Republic, movie theater newsreels, national radio broadcasts, and newspapers reported non-stop on the struggle of the besieged Island Kingdom during "The Blitz" – horrifying a nation with the images and stories of the fire bombings of London, night after night. The one-two punch of the news reels footage of Britain's cities afire coupled with the movie had begun forming a narrative in the subconscious of the American public.

More-over, "I'm No Saint" had become an extremely popular human-interest story - more famous for its actress than the actual movie. The line fed to the Hollywood press and photoplay magazines had been that the picture was absolutely personal to Sybil Branson. It had been her favorite movie of all time as a young girl. Not only because she loved Minna's performance, but because Sybil's mother – her real mother – had been a war nurse. And when she watched it, she imagined herself closer to a 'mummy' she never got to meet, who died giving birth to her.

Out of all the movies that Sybil Afton Branson would ever make, she proclaimed this one as the closest to her heart.

As the music swelled in the dark cinema, that same mummy surrendered a single tear when her daughter once more got the happy ending that she always dreamed she would have. At that moment there was nothing in the world that Lady Sybil Crawley wished more than to reach out and touch her. She wanted to run her fingers through her curtains of glossy silk curls, to kiss the smooth cheek of alabaster skin, and feel the warmth of her arms about the exceptionally tall beauty. She remembered how small she was, how perfect, her eyes closed, her cuing voice so soothing to the ear even from the moment of her birth. If Sybil had known it would be the last time that she would ever hold her, ever see her unspoiled and unblemished by this war-torn world, she would never have let her go. She would punch, claw, kick, and bite, Mamma and Mary, who had so quickly rushed in to take the baby and tuck Sybil back in bed to rest for the final time.

The sight of her little girl all grown up, so glamorous and gorgeous, gave her a pang of hurt that reverberated throughout her heart. The mother of the most popular actress in Hollywood could not bear to look at her daughter. For each second that she studied her elven fair face, she was overcome with such powerful emotions that she wanted to bolt out of her seat of the crowded late showing of the cinema and race out into the street. When she had passed out of the Circles of the World and into the heavenly plain, Sybil saw her little girl in context of the foreknowledge of her fate, her doom, and the assurance that they would see one another again. In the afterlife, time was measureless and fluid - a thousand years in a blink and a second passing as slow as a thousand lifetimes. But now, the longer that she reintegrated to the mortal plain, the more she began to lose her memories and sensations of that place, seeing the world only in the darkest tints and colors of contrast to the ethereal realms of light and contentment. And with this loss of divinity's encompassing, Lady Sybil found herself bereft of her patience and fortitude in the separation from her daughter.

With all her heart she wanted to grab the first boat to Hollywood. There seemed to be a pervasive timer in her mind whose ticking drove her mad. Sybil had to see her baby, her little girl, her Sybbie, right now, at this instant. Mary, Edith, and Tom told her not to talk nonsense. The Nazi U-Boats roamed the Atlantic - they sank thirty-to-forty ships a month. And even if she got past the 'Wolf Packs' nets and to New York, how would she get to California? With what money? Grandmamma had been murdered in New Orleans twelve long years ago and the Levinson fortune had gone before her when the Stock Market crashed on Wall Street. Did Sybil even know how to traverse the American road system beyond getting to Newport from New York by train? And surely even that had changed since she had last been there in 1913.

But they would never understand, she could not make them, that she knew her way around America. She had been by George's side his entire trek from Fifth Avenue to New Orleans in 1932. And she had rode with him on his long and dangerous journey from New Orleans to Los Angeles in 1933. She knew how to get to the "Brady-American" Lot in Hollywood from Union Station. With every step George took - hunting the Necromancer on the streets of Los Angeles - Sybil had been with him. She remembered the maps he poured over, the back alleys through Chinatown he took, and darting atop its slanted and shingled rooftops. Her heart had been in her throat when he tracked that evil monster down to Minna Davis and Monroe Stahr's mansion.

She would never forget the look of horror and anguish on the starlet's face as she lay naked on an altar. Ancient symbols of prehistory were carved brutally upon her taut belly - blood from her wrist drained into copper bowls. When her boy crashed through the skyline with his Sikh blade drawn - the runes of Westernesse glowing with a pale light - the Necromancer was drinking from the bowl. The sight of the way the actress's blood drippled down the black sorcerer's chin, like thick milk, ever lived in her mind. They had fought back and forth in a vicious and savage duel – fencing up and down the grand steps to the Hollywood mansion. Eventually, in struggle of locked blades, together they had knocked over of a candelabra onto velvet drapes. The fire it produced had spread faster than expected.

George had tried to rescue Minna. But by then, her eyes – pupil and whites – had gone black. The naked beauty had grabbed the teenage swordsman by the throat and tried to choke him to death. But still, even as she tried to murder the youth, she was begging him to kill her. And when they were surrounded by flames and the upstairs beams were starting to give, George Crawley took his pale Dunedain knife and plunged it deep in Minna Davis's heart – killing both her and the evil wraith forced inside her. Blood was smeared upon the young man's sorrowed countenance as her hand reached out to cup his cheek. Sybil was already pulling him away, her arm about his chest to yank him free from the actress's grasp as she whispered, 'thank you' as she died where she fell.

When Sybil got her boy out, the shadowed silhouette of the youth fell to his knees in the foreground of the opulent mansion consumed by a fire storm that was not of this earth. And it is said that even till this day the lot and ruins of the mansion remains untouched, ashen and barren as if the fire had been fresh. It was unknown what ritual of ancient black magic was being performed when George Crawley interrupted its spell crafting. But so grave an evil was it that the land remains permanently scarred. And for over a century afterward they say that fell creatures and dark spirits are ever drawn to that place. At the time the papers would report it as an overdose – fore though "Brady-American" tried to hide it, it was known privately that Minna Davis battled a crippling heroin addiction. Thus, when the 'electrical fire' started, Minna had been too high on narcotics to escape. It was the most Hollywood explanation for the sudden rash of gruesome occult murders that spread like wildfire throughout Los Angeles in that year.

Near a decade since, Sybil had known that George's penultimate duel with Professor James Moriarty was one in particular – above many - that would ever haunt him. Since then, whenever Sybbie insisted on seeing a Minna Davis movie, George had always told her to take Marigold, Tom, or their granny … anyone but him. Fore, when he saw the starlet's face, George could not unsee the black upon black eyes, her languished Irish accent begging him to kill her, to expel the evil that was raping her very soul. His arm still carried the reminiscences of the tremored impact of his Westernesse dagger striking deep into the naked woman's heart.

But most of all, ever before Celia and Pat Brady saw it - even before Monroe Stahr - George Crawley saw the near perfect resemblance between Minna and Sybbie. His nightmares were plagued with the confusion of if he had killed Minna in mercy or the girl he loved in hate. Then, when he still could, he would bury his sweated brow into Sybbie's bosom as she slept beside him in bed at Crawley House. Sometimes he would walk all the way to Downton Abbey in the dead of the night just to make sure she was safe in her bedroom. Yet, whether abed beside him or in her own room at Downton, the girl would always take him in her arms closely. Stroking his hair, kissing his knitted brow tenderly, the girl would always ask what it was that disturbed him so greatly that he came to her in the night with a need for her love ... and forgiveness

Of such a duel and its tragic end, George never told a soul – especially not Sybbie. And often Sybil wondered what might have happened if he had told her little girl. What if he had told Minna Davis's biggest fan - a girl who worshipped her, whose movies provided escape from the traumas of her life - that the young man she loved most in the world had been the one that killed her. Would Sybbie be the actress she was now? Would she have come home instead of going to Hollywood? No – no - Sybil knew her daughter would not have come home, not then, and not now. She could never look them in the eye, all of those who love her, not after what she did in Spain …

After what happened to Papa and Mamma.

But even with Lady Sybil's secret and untold knowledge of moving across country and endless shortcuts through many a town, city, and wilderland path all throughout America. Even if she found a way - as she claimed over and over again to every obstacle her loved ones put before her - to embark on this holy quest to seek her little girl. It had been Lucy that had stopped Sybil in her tracks during the family discussion in the Library. The current Mrs. Branson asked the one question that her predecessor had not thought of, not in all these languishing months. And it was simply this: what was it she would say to Sybbie when she knocked on the door of her seaside mansion in Malibu? It was the one sobering question asked that had caught Lady Sybil unaware.

What would she say to Sybbie if she was standing right in front of her?

If she told her that she was her mummy, that she loved her more than anything. Would it matter? Did such things matter to a now twenty-one-year-old woman who had been raped and abused her whole life? Would she accept Sybil with open arms, rush out and find refuge in her desperate embrace? Or would it all be some sick joke to her? Now, after all these years, when they had taken her innocence, her dignity, and her womanhood from her – before it was even her own. Now! Now was when she chose to appear?! This angelic and saintly mummy whose memory she could never live up too! Would Sybil being here, returning, make a difference? Would it change anything that happened to her girl? Perhaps, the damaged and broken beauty would kill her again, on the spot. How dare she show up now, in the only time in her life when she did not need her!

The very grief of her long absence, the enlightened serenity of ethereal peace in all the years she did not worry for her, for her daughter - Sybil decried it bitterly in her heart. For now, she was here, in the world again, and no one had such a piece of spirit and mind. The certainty of a homecoming, of reunion in the afterlife, did not translate to mortal thinking. They only knew strife and pain in the immediate and recent past, scars that defined them. What good was Sybil's divine knowledge? How did knowing how everything turns out help her daughter in all the years of darkness and suffering she endured after her mummy's death? How could she tell her that she was thinking of her, looking out for her, all those years, when she had not?

While everything was happening to her, her mummy was in the rugged and snow-blanketed Smokey Mountains of Eastern Tennessee, the barren steppe of the Llano Estacado in West Texas, and the mysterious and supernatural streets of New Orleans. She had been in the arid wilderness of Lower Galilee in ancient Judea, the unforgiving dunes of the Sahara in North Africa, and the dark and dangerous back alleys of the iniquitous Alexandria by night. It was always one more adventure, one more duel, and one more battle in some far-off frontier. The starlet's mummy's thoughts of all her little girl's struggles in twenty years was built on a prescience that eventually everything will work out. And if not, she would be there to take her hand in the garden of the Lord when her time had come.

Now, all that gave Lady Sybil Crawley comfort was a dark cinema, the quiet whirring of a projector ticker in the background, as she looked up at glorious black and white moving pictures of her little girl. She closed her eyes and heard the lines of Elizabeth Bennet that she knew by heart – speaking to Mrs. Bennet and Jane – and envisioning that it was Sybbie talking to her. She'd hear that beautiful and musical regal accent of ages long past, girlish little giggles, and imagine it was all for her mummy. They're walking hand in hand on the beaches of Southern California, the tide rushing over their bare feet, and the sun low over the horizon. They wouldn't reminisce or speak of everything that Sybil missed. Instead, they wouldn't say anything at all. It would be just be them, basking in each other's company, finding comfort in the feeling of mother and daughter's hands intertwined together. It would be the knowledge that nothing now nor ever again would harm her little girl, that pain and fear was gone now that Mummy was here.

Tears fell down her cheeks at the end of every movie, thinking, imagining, that it was true. The happy end, the life of joy and contentment that was implied in every credit roll. Minna Davis winning her first Oscar. Elizabeth Bennet leaving in a wedding carriage with the stalwart Mr. Darcy to reign in love over Pemberley. And Evelyn Lovejoy going to America with the man who saved her when no one else cared - to never know strife and sorrow again. It was everything that her mummy dreamed for her. That for just one blessed moment, from the very first time that she held her in her arms, all her wants for that perfect baby girl had been achieved. But then, the music died, the lights came back on, and she found herself staring at a blank screen, alone. Then, all of her soul cried, screamed, for them to bring it back, to bring her back! Let her have just one last glance of the most beautiful and worthy of women in the world. Let her live in that happily ever after with her little girl for just one more moment! Come back, please … come back, come back, come back! Bring her back to me! My baby, my beauty, my bahababy!

"That's all, Luv …"

"…"

"There's no more tonight."

Somewhere a woman was tearing up a cinema, screaming at the projector booth – but that somewhere remained deep inside a beautiful auburn-haired great lady who simply stared blankly at the screen. Eventually, she blinked and turned to an old man in blue overalls, tweed flat cap, and a white Henley shirt. The empty cinema echoed with his shuffling feet and the scratching of the broom fibers as he swept up the row just in front of her. She seemed startled for a moment, shaking out of her melancholy trance. She watched him for a long moment, her mind slowly placing away the fantasy of Malibu and Sybbie in the cherished chest of her heart that nothing and no one could touch.

"Was it a good flicker?"

"I'm sorry?"

"The picture, was it any good?"

"The best I've ever seen."

"Well, if you've gotten your money's worth, it ain't nothing."

She stood, collecting the handbag she borrowed from Mary. But before she left, she turned, catching the old janitor's eye.

"Don't you watch them?"

"Wa's that, Luv?"

"The movies, don't you ever watch them?"

"Me? Nah … not at all."

"Why?" She tilted her head.

"It's only make believe …" He shrugged. "Why do I need to watch people pretend when real life is out there, you know?" He winked at the great lady that couldn't help but smirk sadly.

"It is isn't it?"

"Every moment of it. And, uh, if you don't tell anyone …" He leaned in as if he was going to give out a secret. Placing Mary's handbag in both her hands in front of her, Lady Sybil leaned in with a queering smirk.

"Yes?" She whispered.

"It's free of charge."

Something sad suddenly overcame her lovely countenance which fell. "Not always …" She said in a husky whisper.

"Well … you got me there, Luv." He chortled as he continued to sweep. "Ya'got me there." He shook his head in commiseration.

Sybil turned to leave, walking several echoing steps in her high heels but suddenly stopped and then turned back to the man with nothing but sincerity in her sorrowed eyes.

"Thank you." She said with a frowned nod.

"Wha'for?"

"This …"

"Lite conversation?"

"Sometimes that's all it takes."

"Well, ain't that no'the blooming truth, eh?"

"Good night."

"N'igh, Luv."

He gave another chortle that was slightly puzzled with a shake of his head at the odd but heartening exchange. His charm gave her wilting smile a bit more strength as she turned to leave once more. She had known men like him, or had sat by and watched, listened, to George talk with them all his life. Since her death it had become Lady Sybil's most ardent belief that the truth of life and its mysteries could hardly be found in a royal ballroom nor afternoon tea at Harewood. It came, instead, from those who had lived a great deal of it and seen its many facets, unguarded and without pamper. When she was young, Sybil had craved that unburdened truth, the meaning of the life beyond the hallowed faerie halls of Downton Abbey. But then, such wisdom was often held out on her, fore though she had a deep compassion and empathy, in truth, she had little in the way of understanding of others' dignity.

Always as an Earl's daughter, the baby of her family, she had cherished and strove to be kind to all people. But she quickly found that even in her empathy, charity, had she shown a rather predictable lack of respect to people below her societal status. Not every man and woman needed charity, needed to be talked down too. Her over-compassion was seen as vulgar as her own sisters' habitual lack of it. Only after death, in companionship with George, did she learn that kindness had to be wed to respect and charity had to honor dignity. A man with air in his lungs and strong hands was not a lost puppy nor a dullard creature. And once one learns that, to get out of the way of one's own egotistical self-righteousness in the drive to shower virtue on one's self, that was when the path to wisdom was open. And from the servant, the road worker, and even the old janitor that sweeps up at night, they carried with them grave and enlightened understanding of life that even the most allotted Cambridge Scholar could not grasp.

In mockery and distain did many in the upper-classes see George Crawley sitting next to a workmen or farmhand in the subway or train - his arms crossed, slouched in his seat, and his long legs stretched out and hooked together at the boot ankles. They would decry such a sight as the perfect encapsulation of everything wrong with the 8th Earl of Grantham. A young man chatting unguardedly, casually sharing a laugh, with a work stained or mended figure sitting next to him. But in these quiet moments, alone in an empty cinema, Sybil spurned but once more the folly of such small thinking of her class and birth. Fore who knows what one might say of great value, poor or rich, young or old, if you first do not see them as your fellow man before you judge or pity their clothing, occupation, or race. Some of Sybil's favorite people in the world – most of whom did not even know she existed – were those who would shock Mamma and Papa, and certainly Granny. Sybil, now once more embodied, had lost her nerve in approaching people - never having George's charisma and openness to approach anyone from a simple Welsh miner to the Duke of Connaught with equal candor of fellowship or adversarial notions. But such interactions that found her, gave the world a brighter shade when everything else looked so very dark …

And were about to get darker.

The men's toilets were empty but for one man in a leftenant's naval uniform. His gilded buttons where undone and his undershirt was open across the chest showing a tuft of nutbrown chest hair that was dampened by sweat. The Baron of Neaugh had near bloodshot eyes that looked strikingly serious into the mirror across from him at the sinks. The water continued to splutter endlessly down the rusted and mildew stained trough in a rushing funnel as he pumped his foot like an anxious rabbit on the valve. He breathed heavily, filling his cupped hands and splashing his sweat drenched face with room temperature water. He had expected it to be cold … an hour ago when he started this manic episode. The toiletries in a rural cinema in East Riding were rudimentary at best and remained nothing like the London accommodations he was used to. But to the leftenant, he didn't seem to notice at all. He kept splashing water from a rusted spout upon his suddenly sallow countenance over and over again, expecting something different as his mind continued to loop over and over again.

In Mid-Summer's Eve of 1935, it had been his 18th birthday. And nothing had gone to plan as it should for the Northern Irish Lord. The Cinema was closed, the Pub was being fumigated, and the lads had gone up north to stay a day or two at Downton Abbey. He may have gone himself, but he did not receive an invite from Lady Mary. Also, he was not keen to meet up again with her private army - "The Tyger Watch" - that had recently taken up shop in Grantham County.

He had read in the papers that her late-husband's will had been a forgery by the late Dowager Countess, and that Lady Mary Crawley was not the heir of the Grantham Estate. She had gone to the House of Lords with a petition. First, she claimed that her son, George Crawley, was dead. But her sister, Lady Hexham – the teenager's guardian – claimed it to be false. Lady Mary had no proof of such an extraordinary lie. Everyone heard that George Crawley died in a fire in Hollywood in December of 1933, and then that he had been killed in Mexico by "The Necromancer" in 1934. But there remained no proof one way or the other. And since Lady Mary was no longer, legally, the boy's mother nor next of kin, it was not her right to declare him dead.

Next, Lady Mary repetitioned the House of Lords by declaring that George "The Comet" Crawley was not her son at all. She then produced documentation for a bank withdrawal in 1921 that revealed that she wrote a check for two-thousand pounds to an Edna Braithwaite to purchase her out of wedlock child. Lady Mary claimed that George Crawley had died in infancy six months after he was born. Fearing for the ancient titles of Lord of Downton and Earl of Grantham, she quickly purchased her Lady Mother's former maid's bastard. To her credit, it might have worked. Yet, in the eleventh hour, Doctor Richard Eyns – nephew of Lady Merton – presented proof of record that Lady Mary's statement was a fabrication. In his hand was a chart work up of a routine check-up for an infant George Crawley from the Turro Clinic in Cornwall on the very supposed day that he died at the Downton Cottage Hospital. Of this, the Lords told Lady Mary Crawley to get out of their sight and pray they don't have her in irons for perjury.

Not a week later, as Lady Edith was exploring legal options that Lord Grantham was – admittedly – dabbling in himself, there came several attacks on Crawley family members. Most notable had been a car bombing outside the London Met during Marigold Drewe's debut as Prima Ballerina to kick off the Season. It had caused the death of Lucy and Tom Branson's unborn child and the near death of Lord Grantham himself. In this, several outside investors in the Grantham Estate hired the feared and merciless "Tyger Watch" to police and guard the County Grantham from what they claimed was 'Rebel Inclinations'.

The Tygers were a private army of hardened and brutal mercenary soldiers that guarded the most dangerous frontiers of the Imperial Colonies. They were – by all accounts - a repugnant mismatch for the quiet and rolling countryside of Northern Yorkshire. But nevertheless, their presence provided assurance through might and military power that Lady Mary Crawley would remain the rightful queen of the Grantham Estate – beyond question or reproach by any. But most believed that they were hired out of fear – a fear of the return of George Crawley and the terrible revenge he would bring with him. And it is so here, concerning the "Tyger Watch", that when the "Titan Corps" was reformed in 1938 and as it stood in 1941, it remains an example of what the "Tyger Watch" should've been from the start. A humanitarian and peacekeeping force that guarded the people of the Imperial Colonies. Thus, was it fitting that the utter destruction of Lady Mary's corrupt and authoritarian private army was at the hands of George Crawley and Lady Edith – founder and patron of the Titans - in the "Rising of '35".

Still, the Baron did not want to go through another "Tyger Checkpoint" near the Town of Downton. There, the scarred and utterly hardened men with buzz cuts underneath black berets, their matching jackboots and uniforms of grey and black, harassed travelers and denizens alike. Even the young gentlemen from Eton and Harrow in their fine motor cars had to provide some sort of bribe to the so called 'War Pigs', lest they 'confiscate' something of value. The last time that he had sat at Lady Mary's table, the Baron had ended up losing a rather valuable pendent that fastened his tie to one such mercenary while on the road to Downton Abbey. Thus, it had come into his mind – and pocketbook – that the opulence and status of Lady Mary's table, even under siege by a defiant local populace, was not worth the trouble. Neither harassment by private soldiers, nor the possibility of a firebomb lobbed from a window while driving through the whimsical town of Downton, were ingredients for a particularly happy birthday.

After a sleep-in and light luncheon, he was bidden to drive to his aunt and uncle's country house to attend tea. There, he had surrendered to ridicule and shame of his birthday company. Fore the house by then was filled with the rather dull assembly of some exclusive band of old society matrons. His grandmother was having a 'Lady's Retreat' that had been made rather popular by the Countess of Grantham of late since leaving Royal Service. And it would be his luck that he would be going to an all-female house party on his birthday … and none of them were under the age of a hundred.

His grandmother – "The Double Duchess" – was of interest to him as a boy. In her day she was quite the minx, moving from table to table, up family trees, courting and coxing proposals wherever she went. She might have married the Prince of Wales if he hadn't been already engaged to Mary of Teck – and not so bloody boring. But now, she seemed inflicted with a rather dereliction of both common sense and self-awareness. It seemed that nobody told the Double Duchess that she was an old woman. That she was not anywhere near getting close to seducing the new and young Lord Sinderby away from the gorgeous Lady Rose Aldridge. That no one actually believed it when they told her that she was more beautiful than Lady Mary Crawley. And that – at her age – getting more men than the Countess of Grantham was not something to be proud of.

The Baron would've gladly sat and listened of ailments, complaints of daughters-in-law, and how nothing was like the old days. Instead, he was trapped in conversations of which every woman in his aunt's drawing room spoke of jazz and modern novels … but only getting the details half right. Each woman, old or in her late-middle age, was trying to convince the others that she was on the cutting edge of fashion, art, and cinema. However, the problem remained that none of them were. So, with each mispronunciation, half-fact, or outright and fundamental misunderstanding of whatever it was they were claiming to know, their late-Victorian contemporaries all seemed to nod and agree – compounding to the nonsense with their own imaginings or hazy context clues of a modern subject of youth culture.

The only thing of interest that seemed to keep him from outright falling asleep was the rather strange practice that was happening in the background of the retreat. Every quarter hour, one of his grandmother's guests would come down the staircase of the former Dower House turned Earl's residence after the war. They were breathing heavily, dabbing their brow, but grinning madly. They would enter the drawing room, waving a personal fan on their flush face, and then place a hand on his grandmother's shoulder. Then, The Double Duchess would search the room a moment and point out one of her house party guests and proclaim it their turn.

Having shared a communal bathroom at Eton, the Baron was perhaps familiar with what this practice was. And for a real moment had he looked out to his Aunt and Uncle's gardens - searching for a rather obscure bush or fern to relieve himself later. Fore he could not imagine what the toilet must smell like with every dowager in the county making a run toward it. But eventually, he began to realize something amiss. Watching in strange bemusement, he found their continuity to be seemingly singular. A quarter of an hour like clockwork. They came down the stairs fanning themselves, flush and reddened as if coming from some physical and taxing exertion. Then, his curiosity was peaked when the Double Duchess asked her closest friend 'how was she?' To which the Dowager Countess replied 'Like silk, and such a sweet taste …' she replied as if describing a fine wine. The rest of the guests nodded and muttered agreement, chortling when she gave a chef's kiss with elated exaggeration.

But then, his grandmother told him it was his turn.

The Baron did not know what she meant. But the Double Duchess only huffed and asked if he knew why she even asked him over. To which he was not sure himself. He had figured that they had asked him, because, he was the only one that his female relatives knew under eighty and could, possibly, give them credit as being adjacent to the 'Bright Young Things' that they so vehemently claimed membership. Yet, he was more surprised by the woman claiming that he was asked here because it was his birthday, his eighteenth birthday, and she wanted to give him a special gift. At this admission he was not particularly comfortable with all the private and smug grins of the entire house party about him.

Walking over, the Double Duchess put her arm about him. It was then that she regaled the Baron with the tale of how he was perhaps not her favorite grandchild – there were step-cousins that she found more value in – but he was her most adored one. Because of the circumstances of his father's unfortunate birth, which she would not get into in front of guests – as if they didn't know – she was most proud of the Baron's accomplishments, because, she never really expected anything out of him. It did her heart good to see him succeed, do as well as the other lads, despite the inferior genes of her crossbreeding. Therefore, as her 'most adored' grandchild, she felt that it was her job to gift him something memorable, something unique that very few would have the privilege.

This unique present was upstairs in the master's bedroom.

He could still see her sitting there at his aunt's vanity. She wore not a stitch of clothing. There was a touch of sweat sprinkled upon her brow and alabaster pale shoulders that glistened in the sunlight through the open bedroom window like diamond droplets. She was touching up her make-up, telling him that she would be ready in a moment and to make himself comfortable. Her beautiful luxurious voice was so innocent and regal – truly a fairy princess. She put a brush through her damp raven curls twice, before she turned back to smile softly. But she was taken aback when she saw that it was him, a young man. She was speechless at first. But then, he saw a soft gratitude and relief.

He guessed he should not have been surprised by the sight of a ravishing young beauty nude but for stockings and a choker of black silk ribbon about her pale supple throat. Nor the idea that the all-female retreat had not been pillaging the plumbing but had been taking turns at their young and sleek companion. They had all outlived their short marriages to philandering and impoverished Landed Gentry and their duties to sons that never returned from the Somme. Years of purposeless and meaningless lives, marrying off daughters and dividing fortunes for greedy sons-in-law, had soured them. Thirty years of hollow and expensive love affairs with European renaissance men that start so passionate and burn out so quickly when thrill and money is spent to the limit. Bitter and cynical then had been their opinion of the masculine sex afterward, and filled with envy and anger, did they turn their 'affections' toward the companionship of young women.

Such couplings and pursuits were deemed 'acceptable' behavior for distinguished women of their class and prestige in high society in their later years. Their actions in private were often less looked down upon while in the company of titled matrons. And so easily groomed were the young daughters and nieces, convinced that it was all so terribly 'natural' for their first sexual encounters to be with an 'experienced' older woman before giving herself to a husband. For such women who did their bit to aristocracy and society by birthing boys and seeing them to Harrow, such sexual proclivities were seen as 'standard', a form of retirement. Why waist more time on the empty excitement and potential ruin of a romance with a virile younger man whose only interest was in her fortune? Why a hit or miss dalliance with a man of equal age to one's self when satisfaction in sex was dwindling with their lover's testosterone? To some, young debutants seemed much easier to keep, having seniority in etiquette and dominance in sexual encounters over the young girls. Two things they would not have in a male relationship of any age gap.

What surprised the Baron was that their bought and paid for 'weekend entertainment' was so incredibly beautiful. He knew her at a glance, her hair, her eyes, and her voice. They were legendary - the center of gossip at Eton. When discussion turned to dates and courtships, and the lack thereof. There was always the popular saying that they were saving themselves for … well, the girl in front of him. He was struck dumb, speechless, for her to be standing in front of him – naked. Everything about her was perfect – proportioned and sleek. Her skin was soft and cool like silk and buttery smooth to the touch. He didn't know how she got here, by what means that his grandmother - of all people - purchased or coerced such a prize to be the 'centerpiece' of her house party. But even if she hired out the hottest big band and orchestra in London it would not be half a coup as getting the most beautiful girl in the Imperium to be a 'treat' for her guests.

Perhaps, they were not raised to think of such things as wrong or horrifying - people like them. He had known a few lads in his day that were noted sportsmen at Eton that were favored to go far. And there were always rumors, stories, going around about seeing them with their trousers around their ankles in the headmaster's office. A special dinner from some of the board of trusty members for the star rugby players in which some of them were invited over for a 'nightcap' by the older male patrons. No one ever thought twice about it, it was all … normal. It was the way things were done for people like them. It happened to everyone that showed any sort of promise in their class and society. Both boys and girls were groomed for their positions. No one was safe.

His own grandmother – "The Double Duchess" – practically held a screening for family and friends of a sex-reel of her buggering Lady Mary Crawley in a hotel room in the Ritz. For years, every time Lady Mary came up, she would brag about the time she fucked the most powerful and beautiful woman in the Imperium up her arse while the Queen of England sipped sherry and watched. He found it sad, and, at the same time, rather comical the way she showed it to everyone. It didn't matter that it made her look like an old tortoise, that it was the most unflattering he had ever seen his grandmother look, and that she was engaged in a deviant act with a woman her daughters age. She still showed it to everyone … and, worse, they actually sat and watched it.

He remembered Lady Mary looking into the camera with a cold expression, squinting her eyes in grimace as she gritted her teeth. The whole Imperium went through her once, her hand in every scheme and coup in High Society and the King's Government. But she still honored the fitness of things, she still played by the rules of which anyone born with a title or to a noble house agreed upon since the Stuarts were dethroned. A Duchess of a past generation, with considerable reputation, would still be writhing and thrusting with abandon atop the most powerful woman in England as she lay prone on a bed of silk, biting the sheet. And it had nothing to do with sexual preference nor attraction – though when it came to Lady Mary Crawley, it might be an exception.

It was about power.

It made them all feel, men and women, powerful to prey upon the young. They felt old, their influence slipping – especially the late Victorians who watched the Edwardian generation perish on Flanders Fields. They feared death, holding onto the last slivers of life after sixty years of building a culture around English morality and the judgement of heaven and hell. But for one shining moment of carnal deviancy, they were still in charge. Someday the youth would replace them. But they'd have to earn it - know their place first. It was all a circular motion, a terrible self-propelling prophecy of the worst of human instinct. The Baron was sure that Lady Mary would have another Earl's daughter or up-and-coming High Society hostess naked and prone in the "Princess Suite" of the Ritz in thirty years. Even the Princess of Wales, before her coronation to Queen, would have been bent over somewhere while an elder aunt or duchess buggered her as he was sure some old royal minister had the King before her.

It occurred to him that the lower classes never did such things, were horrified by it – passing laws that punished such things harshly. But then, the excuse by the aristocracy had always been that the common people were simpletons, a lesser breed, that never tasted institutional power before and had the lack of experience wielding it generationally. It was why his grandmother was so open and enthusiastic about fucking Lady Mary up the arse, showing everyone like she was a commoner grandmother with pictures of her grandchildren. It was her last hurrah, a statement. If she fucked the most powerful woman in the Imperium – she was more powerful.

And that was all that mattered in the end to any of them.

But it came at a price, a very human price that he didn't realize nor thought of till then. And that cost for everyone else, the Rugby players and Lady Mary's of the world, haunted him, shocked him, when he was confronted with the reality of that kind of egomaniacal, vampiric, abuse. For he watched Lady Mary Crawley's beloved little silk lap kitten retrieve a kit from a drawer in his aunt's vanity. When it was opened, the small tin kit revealed a vile that was attached to a hypodermic needle. He frowned as the beauty measured out liquid in a small bottle and withdrew it into the vile through the needle. He quickly reacted before he knew he was doing it. They struggled for a moment as he pounced upon the naked girl as she was about to inject the vile into her arm. They fell onto the bed, wrestling about. She screamed for him to get off her, that she needed it. And that was when he saw her arm.

The inside of the girl's elbow looked like a pincushion. There were dozens of red puncture marks, many were fresh still. And it occurred to him, with a sudden guilt, that she wasn't just injecting herself with the narcotic periodically. She was shooting up every time one of his grandmother's friends came up to fondle and devour her 'delicious young body' during their turn. It was the only thing that was keeping her sane, dissociated enough to endure once more being ordered to lay prone so another old woman could play out a recreation of his grandmother's sex reel with the girl's own mother. To not feel their lips sucking upon her own, jamming their tongue in her mouth. To not relive her molestation every time some old dowager ran a tongue over her belly and then pushed her back onto silk sheets - wanting to taste her 'sweet nectar' that everyone was raving about downstairs. The methadone was all that was keeping the most beautiful girl in the Imperium from killing herself right there and then.

But it was also what was going to kill her by evening if she didn't stop overdosing.

He quickly shoved her needle and vile back into the box and clasped it shut. She let out a terrible howl, attacking and clawing at him, fighting with every bit of strength she had in her addled stupor to retrieve her 'special medicine'. It was the only thing that would protect her when no one else could. Her granny, Donk, nor her beloved daddy, could make the shame, the pain, of how many times she had been sodomized, her navel licked, and boney fingers forced inside her roughly, that afternoon. They could not save her from being forced to dress in gown and jewels and sit across those terrible women at dinner tonight - pretend with smile and cultured conversation that they all hadn't taken turns fucking her that afternoon. There was only one thing in the world that would help her survive what the Double Duchess had planned special for her when they went through to the drawing room. Only the medicine that her Mamma uses - special medicine from Hollywood - could make it go away … make it all go away.

So afear was the Baron of the sudden and desperate onslaught that he chucked the box out the window. 'NO!' she had cried in despair and raced after it, leaning out of the sill and looking down at the rose gardens below. For a moment, he thought she might jump after it. But then he realized, as she knew already … the fall would not kill her. Instead, she fell to the floor and wept uncontrollably, covering her face. Never in his whole life - to that point - had he felt sorrier for anything. Slowly, docilely, he slid to his knees and knelt beside her as she cried with painful sobs. He apologized with glistening teary eyes of emotions that suddenly overcame him in sight of this broken and tormented gothic creature of such haunting beauty.

At first, she flinched away when he placed a cautious hand on her bare shoulder. After an afternoon of lustful touches of dehumanizing depravity, any skin on skin contact was like a scolding iron to the teenage queen. But when he tried again, compassion and genuine in his intentions, she acquiesced to the olive branch. It was then, in a flash of a second - a change from vampiric and overly-familiar feminine entitlement to masculine care – that the girl fled into his arms. She wanted him to hold her, to not let go. And he obliged quickly, taking her close to his chest as she wept anew. And in his arms, for just a rare moment, if she closed her eyes, she could imagine it was the boy she loved holding her close – he who was exiled far away long ago, whose name she was forbidden from ever saying aloud.

After a long time, he helped her cover herself with a silk robe. Then, they sat together upon untidy and stained silk sheets. He took her hand delicately as they rang for food and drink to calm her nerves. It was then, as they ate, without prompting, that she began to regale him with her story and how it was that she came to be here. In the heady rush of the drugged stupor, perhaps she spoke of it, because, it was not the Baron of Neagh she saw. But was, instead, hallucinating someone else entirely.

Her family didn't know that she was there.

The Double Duchess had been an interested party in Lord Charles Blake's scheme for 'investment' in a new multi-national corporation – some say a SPECTRE front. As an enticement for considerable funding in the Nazi Government's lobbyist in the House of Lord's 'new project' – the Duchess wanted something opulent, grand, and exotic as a center piece for her 'Women's Retreat'. In the old days, the Countess of Grantham hired singers and bands for her house parties at Downton Abbey. And as the Double Duchess was fond of believing herself being 'ten-times the woman Cora Crawley was', she insisted on something 'exclusive'. In the end it was Charles Blake that believed that a weekend with the prize beauty of the Royal Court at her guests' 'disposal' was something that the House of Grantham could never claim – at least he hoped. And while it might not be the most popular jazz band in London nor a world-famous opera singer, she would still have 'the hottest ticket in town' for four days. The Duchess undersold it, but Lord Blake knew that she would've tripled the price to have his old friends' beautiful daughter in her bed. When asked, Lady Mary's fiancé – Lord Blake's business partner – 'didn't see why not' about renting out his future stepdaughter for a weekend. The girl should've said no when he asked her.

But she loved him.

The Baron watched with deep sympathy as the girl wept of the shame of revealing that she was in love with her own mamma's fiancé – a real movie star from Hollywood. She didn't want to be here. But her mamma's fiancé told her that she was acting like a baby. That the star actor was in love with an exceptional and rare woman that her mamma introduced him too. But if she wanted to go back to playing the little girl – "The Little Princess" – that was fine with him. From now on he would buy her dollies for a collection just like her foster sister Marigold – fourteen years old, Prima Ballerina of the Royal Ballet Company, and still she collected and played with dollies. Scorned and ashamed – perhaps even mortified by Marigold's private and 'immature' hobby - the girl quickly agreed to prove that she was a woman, that he could love her and not be ashamed. And so, the young beauty was here, for she must be a woman … or he wouldn't love her.

Yet, this was not the first time she had done this. The teenage girl was a prize tier for investors of Charles Blake and Roger Sinclair's business scheme. And it was said that the "Tyger Watch" was bought and paid for exclusively from the money collected from so many of the rich and powerful that happily paid such exorbitant prices for just one night with the young beauty. Thus, was it true that the County Grantham suffered many a month under a brutal authoritarian occupation that was paid for by the selling of their most beloved star's womanhood and virtue.

Men and women, birthday and stag parties, and retreats of all sort. They all paid for her company. At a stag party she jumped out of a cake to the applause and laughter of the crowded restaurant. Yet, once removed from the cake, she was lain atop the table where young men from Oxford and Cambridge gathered about and cheered on the 'Man of the Hour' as he took her. She went to a little girl's eighth birthday party, talked and played with her and her friends for hours - smiling and encouraging a gaggle of cute and hopeful little Ladies who all claimed of wanting to be just like her someday – their very own fairy tale princess. But during present opening time, she was discretely led into a back room where she orally pleasured the birthday girl's titled grandfather - a group of fathers and uncles leading her upstairs to have their turn with their little girls' idol during cake. At tea on a women's retreat she would slowly strip to her satin lingerie in front of a party of middle-age women to a polite applause. After given a moment to touch and fondle her by each guest, she laid back on a sofa and began to touch herself and masturbate while tea and cakes were served.

Roger Sinclair – third highest box office earner in Hollywood – mooned over that more than anything. He loved nothing more than walking into a room of the most rich and powerful people of an empire and having what they wanted at his beckon call. It gave him the most exquisite pleasure to cut the young and sweet heiress in a room of depraved sharks and letting them have a quick and intoxicating tease of her delectable scent - bloody the water. But, in the end, there was nothing better in the world, then watching them devour her slowly. He sometimes lay awake at night next to a drug addled and defeated Lady Mary Crawley – broken and despaired of the world - and fantasize of the new ways her young and impressionable princess could be defiled. The second highest paid actor in Hollywood had gotten the two most prized gems in the King of England's crown – both mother and daughter - to love him, fear him, and become addicted to methadone – a drug of which only he could supply. Now, both Lady Mary and her little girl belonged to him. It made the poor kid from the slums of the East-End turned Hollywood star feel like a god, to sit on high in a lord's chair at Downton Abbey and reap offerings of the most valuable and sacred commodities for just a night with his prize of all prizes.

And all he asked for in return was to save him a seat so he could watch.

Yet, so concerning the fate of Roger Sinclair, does it not come into this tale – nor any other. Fore it is not known what doom awaited nor befell him. For in December of 1935, at the Battle of White Fields, he was cornered at the edge of the Haunted Forest by George "The Comet" Crawley when his rebel army broke the "Tyger Corps" lines at the Sunken Road. Of his fate that is recorded is merely the sound of a tormented and distant scream heard by Lady Mary Crawley. Squeezing her eyes shut, she purposefully turned her back on her fiancé while he was dragged by his hair into the snowy backwoods by her son – hearing the Hollywood actor's screams for her help dwindle into the cold misty sheen of that deadly battlefield.

Any evidence of Roger Sinclair that remains after that afternoon can be found in the study of the exiled heirs of the fallen House of Grantham's cottage craftsman house in Austin, Texas. There, in a chest of artifacts and trophies from over a century of battles, duels, and adventures, there remains a rough spun pouch. Inside, there are a collection of scalps. Amongst the most notable - Professor James Moriarty, Colonel Frandral von Beck, and Alexander Grayson - can there also be found Roger Sinclair's hair and skin flap as it was on December 21, 1935. Where the rest of his remains lay … it is of no importance to those his cruelty victimized, the one who disposed of him, and, indeed, the one who tells this tale.

The Baron watched her standing by the open window, her robe open, her marble pale body perfect in the golden light of summer. And he was transfixed, spellbound, and so suddenly and utterly devoted to the despairing gothic creature whose sad eyes and sorrowed countenance only added to her beauty. She was so compelling, so sweet and vulnerable. Yet, he freely gave her his heart in that moment rather than take advantage. It was as if he was under some spell that had taken control of him, his heart connected by a golden string that she held in her hand as she stood by the sill – so perfect in every way a man could imagine. Without thinking, without hesitation, he stood up and boldly proclaimed that he loved her, that he would protect her from his grandmother, her friends, Lord Blake, and anyone else who wished to harm her. There was a long pause between them as she turned to him in shock of so many promises spoken so gallantly. He thought that she would laugh him off, or angrily deny him and such fancy words spoken from an Eton schoolboy. But, instead, he saw something hopeful – perhaps even naïve – in her eyes. 'You would, wouldn't you?' she had whispered.

He strode forward and took her hands in his, kneeling before her as a knight. He said it again, on his honor, on his very life. It was all she ever wanted to hear, what she needed to hear in that moment. For the first time that day someone had knelt in front of her as she stood and did not move to kiss and lick between her legs, to cup her bum hard as they pleasured her. It was to vows of love and devotion, to faithfulness and loyalty. Someone was going to protect her now, for an hour, for a night – someone would love her. And when they finally kissed, he felt the desperation, the need, for someone, anyone, to take her in their arms and protect her from the world – even for a moment.

It was the one and only time that the Baron of Neagh ever made love to anyone.

"GUAHA, AUGH, NO – NO! It was love, it was love, IT WAS LOVE!"

His collar bone was suddenly afire and the beautiful fairy princess as she was and who she became on the black and white movie screen tonight was his torment. Every time he thought of it - the feeling of being inside her silken walls, the warmth of her tight embrace, the soft cries of pleasure as she looked into his eyes, begging him to protect her – a torrent of suffering overcame him. The mark, the curse, would not allow him to think of it, think of her, in any other way than a punishment.

It nearly drove him mad. The one good thing in his life, the only good thing that ever happened to him – his first and only night with the most beautiful girl in the world – and he was not allowed to feel anything but excruciation. How cruel, how evil, it was to torment him so. It was a mistake, a mistake to come here, to this place, to see that movie – any movie – with her in it. Fore when he beheld her beauty, he wanted with all of his being to remember her soft whimpers, her wide expressive feline eyes as she was ready to burst, his thumb lightly playing with her ample pink nippl …

"Guaha!"

Spittle came flying out of the Leftenant's mouth, hanging from his lip while he clutched his collarbone – feeling the mark throbbing with heat under his naval uniform. He was haunted by dark and cowled shadowed eyes that overwhelmed him, meeting his will in battle as he strove to think of his sad goddess. But he could not break through, not overcome by any force of mental fortitude the steel wall that locked out and blocked any joy or satisfaction of that one perfect afternoon. All he felt was pain and all he saw were the eyes, thunder and lightning of a primal force, of the one who seared his flesh and bone with the curse that now plagued him ever more.

"Oi!" A voice called out.

From over his shoulder he saw the reflection of one of the ticket takers from the glass box in front of the cinema.

"Yeah …?" He grunted, quickly hiding his collar bone.

"We're closing up, Admiral Halsey" The elderly man had a snide sarcastic tone to his voice, clearly unhappy that there was a couple of stragglers when he wanted to go home.

"Out in a minute, Grandad …" He shot back with a dismissive tone in his best posh accent of cut glass.

"Oh, by all means … take as much time as you like, Your Lordship." He gruffly muttered loudly in bitter sarcasm, smacking the door against the linoleum wall as he hobbled away on a leg that hadn't gotten any better since Gallipoli.

When the ticket taker was gone, the man looked back into the mirror. The distraction, the return to the present, caused him to finally look upon himself soberly. He had red shot eyes, his blonde hair was frayed into a fringe, and his face was absolutely soaked with sweat and water. There remained a pervasive and visible haunted look to his sharp featured countenance. It angered him greatly. To look in the mirror and not see a man grown, a naval officer, veteran of the hunt for the "Gaff Spee". He had stood upon a deck, sweating through his shirt in the sweltering South American climate and from the heat of the Exeter's main guns. He was a man of action, earned a medal for his valor in the sinking of the German Pocket Battleship. Yet, when he looked into the mirror all he saw was that meek and indecisive teenage kid who things happened to rather than for. He could no longer live in the past, regret what happened.

Tonight, things would change.

When the chipped white door to the men's toilets opened a young and vibrant hero of the Admiralty paced out with cool confidence. He looked immaculately put together, not a button out of place nor out of line with this belt. There was an honest and genuine smile that found a young woman in black dress with red rose and green stem pattern weaving atop the tight silk material. Her auburn hair was curled and pinned to a hat worn on the side, a lacy veil - matching her hand gloves – netted above her fine brow. She sat prim and properly on the bench with a posture unrivaled – a stateliness and regality from a forgotten era lost to the modern age. Her smile was as soft and damaged as it had been at the restaurant.

"I was wondering where you had gone off to." Her purring husky voice of pure luxury tickled him comfortably in its playful flirtation.

"Forgive me for missing the end. I had to make a call." He removed his officer's cap as he got within proprietary's range.

"To nature or to another date?" She asked mischievously.

"To my Executive Officer. To tell him that I might be late reporting back." He scoffed a laugh as he offered her his arm.

"My …" She said in a hushed tone. "Aren't we the optimist?" She quirked an expressive eyebrow and took it.

He helped her to her feet with a grin of respectable teeth … for an Englishman. "Always be prepared, that's my moto." His hand lingered in hers.

"Is that what the Navy teaches you?" She asked quietly.

"Ah, ughah, life." He sighed … suddenly touching his collar bone.

"So, what now?" He noticed her eyes catch the action with poignancy.

He removed his hand. "Well …" He cleared his throat. "That's entirely up to you." He replied.

"Not entirely."

With a motion of her head, he turned to find a gaggle of mostly older cinema employees in disheveled uniforms and weary postures. They had their hands on their hips or their arms crossed. And among the craggy and sour countenances there was not a smile amongst them. They all glowered at the last two costumers of the night who somehow still hadn't left the cinema, despite the last showing of "I'm No Saint" letting out a quarter of an hour ago. To the line-up of unhappy employees and their lack of amusement, the great lady gave a sudden and somewhat inappropriate snort of which she quickly covered with a hand.

"I'm sorry …" She held her other out in physical apology.

"Yes, we're sorry."

"We'll, uh … we'll …"

"Go."

"Yes, go … sorry."

"Yes, sorry."

The feeling of their weary eyes upon them in ill-content somehow made the officer and nurse snicker and snort as they jogged out of the cinema - holding hands.

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Entr'acte Music

"Ballad of the Teenage Queen" – Johnny Cash

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Editorial Notes

The characters of Minna Davis, Monroe Stahr, Celia Brady, and Pat Brady, as well as the fictional Movie Studio of "Brady-American Pictures" comes from the Scott Fitzgerald novel "The Last Tycoon". However, the Amazon Prime Television Adaption from 2017 is exclusively where the tie into the Downton Universe comes from.

If you look up Minna Davis from the 2017 Amazon Series, you will know what Sybbie is supposed to look like throughout the story series.

Also, the tension between George Crawley and Monroe Stahr that Sybbie (and the reader) doesn't understand in Chapter 4 of "The Folks Who Live on the Hill" has now been answered.