Chapter Two
Early Morning Train to Dublin
It was, in fact, less than an hour since Tom and Sybil, along with their fellow passengers, had all finally disembarked from the RMS Munster, now looking somewhat forlorn, strangely silent, and almost bereft of life, riding gently at her moorings along side the train shed on the Carlisle Pier in Kingstown Harbour. Although in truth it seemed much longer.
The departure of the Dublin bound train had been unavoidably delayed, apparently to let a late running troop special pass ahead of the timetabled service. Thereafter, having purchased their tickets from the elderly booking clerk and having seen Sybil's leather bound corded cabin trunk safely stowed in the luggage compartment, both Tom and Sybil were anxious to be off. Tom had even managed to overcome his Socialist principles and give a handsome tip to the helpful, obliging, and thereafter, extremely grateful, young porter. And now, here they were, alone at last, except for each other, seated in a musty, stuffy, gas-lit, and none too clean, third class compartment situated towards the rear of the train.
Having stowed their two suitcases and other belongings in the sagging mesh luggage rack above their heads, initially, they had each taken a window seat facing one another. However, given the fact that there was no corridor, once the train was in motion, save for anyone who might get on at any one of the handful of stations between Kingstown and Dublin, they could be sure of being left undisturbed. That being the case, taking advantage of the situation, and the unexpected privacy it afforded to them, at least for the next hour or so, Tom quickly moved to sit himself down next to Sybil.
"Excuse me, milady", he said, leaning forward towards her conspiratorially and putting on a broad Irish brogue, "do you happen t' know if that seat", he enquired of her coyly with a sly wink, sham obsequiousness and a nod in the direction of the empty space next to Sybil, "if that seat is … er, taken?"
Rising to the occasion and responding in kind to Tom's playful silliness, one of his most engaging qualities, Sybil retorted in impeccable English, that she did "happen to know" and that regrettably, sadly for him, it was already occupied. She was, she informed him, awaiting the imminent arrival of her handsome … Here Sybil paused deliberately for dramatic effect, then continued … wealthy, aristocratic English fiancé, whose immediate appearance on the scene could only, she felt sure, have been delayed by him encountering bad weather in the Irish Sea. Otherwise, he would most certainly have been here already.
"Well, this being Ireland, milady, the weather out there", Tom indicated the grey windswept ocean with a broad sweep of his hand, "is a tad unpredictable. Storms … violent storms which can last for days, weeks, months … So, that being the case, milady, you'll have to make do with me, a handsome …" here Tom himself paused for equal dramatic effect "… poor, lowly Irishman instead". So saying, he moved deftly across the narrow compartment and flung himself down next to her.
"You presume too much, sir, on such a short acquaintance", said Sybil, giggling with feigned outrage, fluttering her eyelids at Tom, and fanning her face with an imaginary fan.
"That, oi do, milady", but you're all alone … and such a lovely young woman", said Tom, slipping once more again into his perfect imitation of a broad Irish drawl and stifling a laugh.
"Oh, well", said Sybil, casting aside her imaginary fan with complete disdain, "I suppose I must forgive you then. After all, when one is in Rome, one should do … Or should that be when one is in Dublin?"
"Oh, in Dublin, definitely", said Tom. "After all, it's only about ten miles or so distant". His grin, by now worthy of that of a Cheshire cat, broadened still further, as Tom sat down heavily on the empty seat next to Sybil. The springs of the musty smelling upholstery, already sagging when they climbed into the compartment, screamed in impotent protest.
"Well, you certainly took your time. Tell me … are you Irish … always so slow off the mark?" asked Sybil archly.
"Ah, t' be sure, milady, indeed, that we are, especially where our social betters are concerned" said Tom tugging an imaginary forelock. "Why, oi even once heard tell of one poor sod, a chauffeur oi think he were …" Here Tom lowered his voice, assuming once again the tone of a conspirator imparting some great secret. "He was oi believe … in the employ of some stuck-up English earl. Why, oi heard tell he waited for years and years he did, for the girl he loved". Sybil giggled, imagining what her parents - her father in particular - would have made of this impudent exchange, while Tom did his best to stifle a laugh and failed miserably in the process. His resultant guffaw would, thought Sybil, if not heard in Downton, have been audible half way across Kingstown.
"And, this poor "sod" as you call him" asked Sybil, wiping back tears of laughter, "did he … Sybil paused, then, regaining her composure, asked quietly; "did he ever … gain the heart of the girl he loved so well?"Sybil gently caressed Tom's cheek with the bare fingers of her un-gloved left hand. For his part, Tom found the touch of her soft fingers on the skin of his face electrifying.
"That he did" said Tom, softly. He paused. "That I did". His voice became husky, almost inaudible. In the wan half light of the gas-lit compartment, he turned his face towards her, his blue eyes bright and shimmering. "God, Sybil, love, I adore you".
"Then … then show me", said Sybil, her eyes two dark limpid pools, her voice raised barely above the level of a whisper.
At her heart felt entreaty, Tom almost lost his head. Slipping his strong arms about her, he pulled Sybil close to him in a tight embrace. Instinctively Sybil's hands reached up, clasping the back of Tom's head, pulling him down towards her, running her fingers through his thick blond hair, as he in turn kissed her hair, her forehead, and her cheeks. Then finding and capturing her lips with his own, he gently parted them with the probing tip of his tongue, crushed her lips to his mouth, and kissed her with a passion which even astonished Tom himself. Sybil responded in kind to Tom's urgent need of her, with an equally pressing response of her own, which not only also surprised her, but which matched that of Tom's in both its fervour and intensity.
After what seemed an eternity, but which in reality could have been more than a few minutes, and just as they pulled apart, Tom with his collar awry, Sybil hatless, both of them breathless and flushed, their eyes sparkling, from somewhere up ahead, there came a piercing shriek from an engine's whistle. This in turn was followed by a deafening roar of escaping steam, as the engine's wheels slipped and spun helplessly on the damp rails of the harbour branch.
A moment or two later, with the engine finally having gained a grip on the greasy rails and sending up a towering column of thick black smoke in the process, there came a sudden violent jolt and the heavy train began to move slowly out from beneath the echoing cavernous roof of the harbour station at Kingstown, bound for Westland Row in the centre of Dublin. But, as the train began to pull away from the station and gather speed, it started to rain, and to rain heavily, the raindrops spraying against the grimy windows of the third class compartment with all the regularity and intensity of machine gun fire.
Whatever the weather without, inside, within their spartan compartment, the two of them were dry and warm; Tom and Sybil snuggled happily against each other, all but lost to the world, while the gas jets above their heads and on the opposite wall fizzed and spluttered. Gazing out of the carriage window, Sybil pouted and pulled a face at the awful weather. Tom grinned. "Well, what d'you expect my love? After all, this … this is Ireland!"
The train puffed on resolutely through the steadily worsening weather, pausing briefly at Seapoint, where a few passengers got off, but none got on; or, if they did, they did not make it as far down the rain swept platform as the compartment occupied by Tom and Sybil. Then came Blackrock, very good for sea bathing, said Tom who, when Sybil confessed to never having done such a thing promptly promised that when they were married, he'd bring her out from Dublin to Blackrock and show her what she had been missing. There were a couple or so more stops he said – Booterstown, Sydney Parade, and then Lansdowne Road, before the train reached the terminus at Westland Row on Cumberland Street, in the heart of Dublin.
Had it been a clear day, Tom assured Sybil that there would have been magnificent vistas to be had out to the east, across the wide expanse of the Irish Sea, now veiled from sight by the falling grey curtain of incessant rain; and also westwards, to the distant Wicklow Mountains, also hidden from view, and from where, Tom informed her, the infant River Liffey began its long seventy mile descent to the sea at Dublin. "Rode lightly down the Liffey, under Loopline Bridge", quoted Tom softly, hugging Sybil to him, while outside the rain grew even heavier.
"That's lovely. Where does it come from?" she asked of him quietly.
"I shouldn't really tell you".
Sybil looked questioningly at her fiancé.
"Why ever not?"
Tom blushed; really blushed, from the tip of his chin to the roots of his hair. In fact, it was the first time Sybil had seen him ever do so. And, somewhat surprisingly for a man who was so confident, so out-going and sometimes so maddeningly sure of himself, when he blushed, Tom somehow assumed the engaging vulnerability of a small boy.
"Well, my love, it's … it's from a novel, an Irish novel, called "Ulysses", written by a chap called Joyce … James Joyce" said Tom. "It tells of life in Dublin over one single day in June 1904. It's being serialised at the present time … in an American literary magazine - the Little Review. Mind you, I doubt your mother will have heard of it. And, if she has, I know for certain neither she nor your father would approve of me telling you about it. Your father certainly wouldn't have it on the shelves of his library at Downton. You see, Joyce's novel isn't considered respectable … some would even say it's obscene".
"That's just plain silly", said Sybil. "How can a novel, which deals with life in a modern city, be considered obscene?"
"Well, when we get to Dublin, when you've got the time, if you like, I'll read it to you, or else let you read some of it yourself and then you can make up your own mind" said Tom. "And that reminds me, I should have a look at that last piece I was writing for Sinn Féin about the way forward, as I see it, for land reform. Mind you, that wouldn't please your father either. And like "Ulysses" I don't suppose he'd give my article house room! Anyway, it's in my briefcase. Do you mind?"
"No, not at all", said Sybil.
Tom stood up, retrieved a battered second hand black leather briefcase from out of the luggage rack above their heads, and settled himself comfortably back down on the seat next to Sybil. He had scarcely opened his briefcase, extracted a sheaf of papers from within, and was just beginning the slow process of sorting them out, laying some on the empty seat beside him, arranged in neat ordered piles, when there came the ear splitting screech of brakes being hurriedly applied, the piercing drawn out scream of a whistle, and the train came to a sudden and unexpected stop. Everything in their compartment, bags, suitcases, along with Tom's painstakingly ordered papers, went flying; while Tom and Sybil found themselves catapulted forward off from their seat, ending up in an undignified heap on the dirty floor of the grubby third class compartment.
"Jaysus, what the … Sybil, are you all right?" Tom helped Sybil slowly to her feet, gently grasping her shoulders, all the while glancing over her slight form, his sole concern at that precise moment in time being for her health and wellbeing.
"Yes, Tom, yes, I'm fine", said Sybil, brushing down her coat and skirt.
"You're not hurt?"
"No, silly, only my dignity", laughed Sybil.
However, despite her blithe assurances, Tom continued with his attentive ministrations arising out of his obvious concern for, in equal measure, both her continued comfort and happiness.
"You don't feel dizzy, love? No aches, no pains?" He searched her face intently to see if Sybil was in any kind of discomfort. Satisfied, Tom helped her sit down again.
"Tom I'm fine, love. Really. I am. Your concern for me, my darling, is genuinely touching … does you credit. It truly does. But what on earth …What on earth's happened?"
"I don't know, but I damn' well intend to find out" said Tom struggling with the leather strap of the drop light. He hastily lowered the compartment window down into the tumblehome of the door and put his head out of the window, to find other passengers were doing much the same. Through the driving rain, and above the roar of steam escaping from the engine, raised voices could be heard coming from somewhere at the head of the train.
"I'm going to look", said Tom, reaching outside and grasping hold of the brass handle of the door to their compartment. "After all, it's the job of a journalist to see and report".
"Be careful, love", said Sybil anxiously. Tom grinned.
"You know me" he said.
"Yes" said Sybil ruefully. "I do; and that's why I'm so concerned".
"There's no need to be. Really, love, there isn't", said Tom. He grinned back at her through the open door of the carriage, as he deftly clambered out from the compartment, swung himself onto the running board and jumped down onto the ballast, setting off through the driving rain, striding purposefully towards the front of the train.
In his absence, Sybil set about setting right the chaos in their compartment, retrieving their bags and suitcase, heaving them, not without some difficulty, back into the luggage rack. She spared a brief thought for her sister Mary who, she felt sure, if she could see her youngest sister now, would have an absolute fit. Mary, Sybil felt certain, had never once in her entire privileged, spoilt life ever deigned to carry a suitcase or any other piece of luggage. Sybil could hear her now: "carry my own luggage? Don't be ridiculous, darling. That's why we employ a chauffeur".
Their luggage safely stowed again, Sybil set about gathering Tom's scattered papers from off the carriage floor and thereafter tried to set them into some semblance of order. After all, they couldn't stay where they were, and if the end result wasn't to his liking, then Tom could, she reflected, sort them out again, once he had returned to their compartment. And, it was while she was so engaged, that she came across the photograph.
To begin with, Sybil assumed it must be to do with some article upon which Tom was presently working - either for the newspaper in Dublin where he was now employed, or else for some other journal or periodical sympathetic to the cause of Irish independence.
The photograph was obviously of some age, sepia in tone, creased and slightly faded. It showed the ivy clad façade of a large four storey country house, not as large as Downton to be sure, but grand enough. A broad flight of steps swept upwards towards a four-pillared portico, above which was set an elegant Venetian window. Sybil only knew the term because there was a similar window on one of the elevations of Downton and, as a child, had heard her father refer to it as such. It had stuck in her mind because she always associated anything Venetian with canals and gondolas – and Downton possessed neither.
But it was the group of people standing on the steps in front of the portico which most attracted Sybil's gaze. A couple, seemingly in their middle years, and gathered on the uppermost step, and immediately below them, and presumably their children, stood three boys and a girl. Two of the boys and the girl appeared to be adolescents, the third boy somewhat younger, and from their clothes, and those of the couple who Sybil took to be their parents, it seemed that the photograph must have been taken about 1900, perhaps a little later.
But it was the youngest boy who arrested Sybil's attention the most. She felt her heart skip a beat, for the youngest of the four children standing proudly on the steps of the grand house was undoubtedly … Tom.